Excavation Eruption
[Delhi]

Premjish Achari

“Suffocation overwhelms me in these closed roomsWhen I throw open the windows, miasma engulfs me.” -Kamleshwar, Partitions

I write this review at a time when images of ISIS members vandalizing historic artefacts at the Mosul Museum are frequently appearing in my Facebook feed. There is a widespread rage against this ruthless cruelty against history and those surviving few objects which bore testament to that history. Our country, too, is witnessing a dangerous political aggression to rewrite history in a hegemonic and homogenous manner using distorted methodologies. What unites ISIS and the right wing Hindu fundamentalists of this country is this contempt for history and memory. Why do they fear history and memories? Perhaps, they realize that against this aggression and violence history would remain the most potent weapon. It would keep inspiring generations to hope for a just and equal future.

It would force us to resist the killing fields of injustice, the scheming of religious zealots, to oppose the presence of hatred and inequality. As Salman Rushdie has pointed out very eloquently, against adversity, remembrance was our only weapon. The survivor’s testimonies, be it from the Holocaust, South Asian Partition, Godhra Riots, from Kashmir and Sri Lankan massacres, have time and again proved to unleash greater political repercussions against the oppressor. Collective memories have given nightmares to many tyrants. Hence, the constant attack against it. Creative works are still born in turbulent times against Adorno’s much misinterpreted “no poetry after Auschwitz” as a witness, political statement and a chronicle of the times. Whereas Zizek has observed that only through these abstractions one could chronicle the turbulence of the present.