Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on this land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
'Time,' they had briefed him in London, 'is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.'
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.
'Partition' by WH Auden
THE LINES THAT DREW A,PART(ition)
Confessions & hallucinations of the alter ego
of Sir Cyril Radcliff - Cyril Aijaz Singh
My real job was ensuring Winnie (Winston Churchil) at least a century of unrest by the newly created neighbors of India and Pakistan. Winnie and her majesties’ concerns about the North West Frontier would become a playground for intervention, arms trade and Britain’s strategic interests being kept in mind. Keeping the coffers of the empire in ascension and a watchful eye on the commie Russians, a century old past time.
Timid Aijaz, my Kashmiri cook; often spoke about the breeze that skirts the Chinar trees in Kashmir. Upon my return to England I found my self, fantasizing about these mythical landscapes that had completely escaped my consciousness while in India. I realize now I had drawn an invisible line through Kashmir’s soul by not drawing any line defining its territory as being a part of India or Pakistan. We gave it the so-called freedom to choose. Only we could see it as a line of light for our cause and playing up the Hindu Muslim antagonism, providing permanence for our neo liberal exercise in nation building, our motives invisible and clothed in the garb of concern and protection
My Sikh driver Kartal Singh, who the viceroy personally assigned to my services for the short five weeks I had in India to draw the line, informed me of the Ganga Jamuna tehzeeb (etiquette) – this beautiful congruence of cultures where the Hindoos and the Musalman danced together in shrines displaying their passion for their Malik.
I was assigned to draw the line through the centuries of that fluidity. It was like introducing a knife in an infant’s cot; which had already been set into motion by Lord Wavel, predeseccor to Dicky (Mountbatten) in 1945. I was just mimicking his movements so as to divert attention from Winnie’s partition to look like Hindu and Muslim partition.
My first time east of Paris. With the task of doing what we the British did best. Drawing the divide, artfully creating the marks and markets for centuries to ply our politics. Subduing any unity that the third world; which helped us make, the beautiful civilized riches of what you now know as the first world.
Their God’s were definitely against me, as Singh suggested, perhaps the Malik (used by the Hindoos, Musalman and Sikhs casually referring to God) was angry at my given task. I had a terrible case of dysentery while in putrid and hot Delhi.
When the shits got worse. I would hallucinate about; drawing a line of light for the empire in decline. At times I had visions on the pot, drawing a line in red chilly or was it blood, across the desert landscapes of Gujarat and Rajasthan. When the delusions got stronger I would be forced by the visions of indigo bushes and cloth in flames floating the line across the rivulets and flat lands of the Bengal. At times I would see flaming cups of tea lining the landscape across East Pakistan, now called Bangladesh.
To top it off the maps I had were outdated, the census was short in coming to any sense. Drawing the line in the dark, made me morph into a schizophrenic amalgam of Aijaz and Singh. I was the doomed Cyril Aijaz Singh – when I left I had the feeling the line was a dagger through my own identity. Another convenient British psychological trick, in turning the trauma to ones own self.
The dire consequences of those weeks on my stomach. Were in turn the consequences, of 14 million people. So much for putting the nazar (evil eye) on me; one of her majesties knights A permanent check mate by our Queen on all their kings and their kingdoms in tandem.
Artist Statement
This series inspired by a poem, ‘Partition’ by W.H Auden; is a comic tragic sci-fi meditation on the horrors of partition, propelled by Lord Mountbatten’s sudden decision of Partition to take place a year ahead of schedule. The images spread across Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bengal, Assam, Tripura Mizoram and Meghalaya. Images will be performative and of 4 kinds - lines of light in dark landscape some of which have been photographed, lines of red chilli and blood across landscape, lines of indigo cloth across rivers and indigo bush on fire across landscape, flaming cups of tea in a line across landscape. Shot digitally, in some cases digital manipulations to extend lines across the landscape. Drone video and photographs will also be created. Some of the drone video will be animated to extend the line of red chilly and blood, as well as to extend the indigo and indigo bush fire lines, and to enflame the line of tea cups. The aim is to create a book and/or exhibition with the rambling fictional confessions of Cyril Aijaz Singh the alter ego of Sir Cyril Radcliff.
In "A New Presentation of Non-Philosophy", François Laruelle states:
"I see non-philosophers in several different ways. I see them, inevitably, as subjects of the university, as is required by worldly life, but above all as related to three fundamental human types. They are related to the analyst and the political militant, obviously, since non-philosophy is close to psychoanalysis and Marxism — it transforms the subject by transforming instances of philosophy.
He further goes on to state, “non-philosophy is also related to Gnosticism and science-fiction