Below the Radar Transcript

Episode 216: A Partition Story — with Bill Sundhu

Speakers: Alyha Bardi, Am Johal, Bill Sundhu

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Alyha Bardi  0:03 
Hello listeners! I’m Alyha with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Bill Sundhu, a Human Rights & Criminal Justice lawyer who served 10 years as a BC Provincial Court judge. Bill tells the story of a remarkable family journey, and how a trip to Pakistan brought generations of his family back together. We hope you enjoy the episode!

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Am Johal  0:44 
Hello, welcome to Below the Radar. Delighted that you could join us again this week. Really delighted to have a special guest with us, Bill Sundhu. Welcome. Welcome, Bill.

Bill Sundhu  0:56 
Thank you. Good to be with you.

Am Johal  0:58 
Yeah. Wondering if we can start with you introducing yourself a little bit.

Bill Sundhu  1:04 
I'm Bill Sundhu. Born in New Westminster, raised in Williams Lake. I'm a lawyer, I served 10 years in the judiciary of the Provincial Court of British Columbia. And I currently practice criminal law and human rights, including international human rights law. And I speak Punjabi, but can't read and write it. And I can speak of functional French when necessary.

Am Johal  1:31 
Bill, you recently went to Pakistan. And we'll talk a little bit later in the interview about your reasons for going and all of that, because it's quite a remarkable family story that led you there. I, of course, I grew up in Williams Lake in the same town that you were raised in, and we have a connection with our families, because my parents were renting at your parent's place. And I think that's where I was born, in fact. I was born in the hospital, but in my years before my memories begin, was there as well. So wondering if you could talk just a little bit about the story of your mother, which is absolutely fascinating. It's been, you know, written about in The Globe and Mail and you've done some interviews with CBC Radio, but wondering if you can sort of share that part of growing up and your own family story.

Bill Sundhu  2:28 
Yeah, so it's been a long journey, a very personal and powerful journey of discovery. But for most years of my life, living in Williams Lake, being raised there. I have a younger sister, one sibling, she's six years younger than me. Basically, you know, you're living your life and, but what I knew is that my father immigrated to Canada in 1950. And shortly thereafter, my mom joined him. My father's a Sikh, my mother, as we now know, was born into a Muslim family, but for all of her, basically her life and as we knew it, she identified as a Sikh, and she practice Sikhism, quite devoted in many respects, I think that... and I can elaborate on that later if need be. My parents were what they call quota Indians. At that time, Canada only allowed 150 persons per year from each of India, Pakistan, and then what was known as Ceylon as fellow members of the British Empire, but it was very much still a very sort of racist and colonial kind of immigration policy. They settled in the Fraser Valley, working with my aunt, my father's sister, helping her for about seven years without any recompense. But when I was about to be born, and I was born in 1958, my father began searching for work, and he traveled up through various small towns until he ended up in Williams Lake. He basically camped out doors along the railroad tracks for three days and got a job in what used to be called Jip's small mobile lumber operations. So he was the first South Asian to permanently settle in the central Cariboo in the Williams Lake area. So we were raised there. Neither of my parents were formally educated. In retrospect, they were quite happy years because my father was working in the mill. He was productive. He thought he was building a life for his family. And when I was 10 years old, as we often hear, all too common, my father had an accident. Outside our home, he slipped down some icy stairs, fractured his skull, blood clot, very late diagnosis in the hospital, really no advocacy on the part of my family. We just were bewildered. I was 10 years old. My sister was four. And my father suffered a very serious brain injury. He was incapacitated, probably had the functioning of a four or five year old, if that. We took care of them at home for 10 years without any disability plan. My mum was the first South Asian woman there, Punjabi, basically, Punjabi community, to work outside the home because she had to take up work then. She worked in a hotel laundry, then as a dishwasher, and then as a cook, to support our family. When she worked the night shift, she would prepare the food, I'd come home from school, warm up the food feed, my dad, help my sister to bed, my dad to bed. I was a good student. I had a remarkable school principal, a woman named Hazel Huckvale. She took a deep interest in me, and really was instrumental in the successes of many of the Punjabi children in that town that have gone on to do very well, like even on the street that you refer to. I think there's eight or nine homes out of maybe 15— all success stories, all Punjabi children. 

Bill Sundhu  5:41
Anyways, as the years went on, one began to wonder, I certainly, as a child, you don't really think about this. But how come I hear about my father's side of the family? Now at this stage growing up, basically, from my knowledge, my grandparents from both sides were deceased. So I had no grandparents. And, you know, I heard about my father's village, his family life, his family, his siblings and so forth. But I never really heard about my mom. And that's, now in hindsight, quite understandable, because, you know, survivors of trauma—and I'll come to the story later why—often bury their trauma in silence. There have been books written about silence, and she never talked about it. But as I went into adult years, well into adult years, you begin to wonder. And I think what was instrumental was in 1988, I had been practicing law for two and a half years in Williams Lake, I had my own law practice. And I shut it down and went backpacking for a year through Asia and Europe, three months in India. Now, at that time, there were still a lot of difficulties in Punjab, but I visited for about 10 days. This was during Operation Black Thunder, but I ended up going to my ancestral village. We no longer have any home. My father has no surviving siblings, but I stayed in adjoining village and a fellow said to me, he spoke about my mum, and he said, you know, I remember your mum, you know, and in the course of the conversation, he said, he mentioned her village's name. A village named Chakkar, he said. I said, Oh, really? He said, Would you like to go there? I said, no, I mean, I didn't want to spend too long in Punjab, because it was quite a lot of civil strife, government, military occupation, so I left. But at the end of that year, when I came home, my sister and I sat my mom down and said, you have to tell us what happened. She started crying, she said, you know, I don't want to share it with you, I don't want you to bear the burdens that I've had to and, and I don't want you to feel that pain, I want you to look forward, that's always been my objective to, to look forward and educate my children so that you have a better life than I've had. But she did say some things. We put some pieces together, but it wasn't complete. Now, the other thing in hindsight, is that my mum, when the 1947 partition happened, she was in her teen years. So in part, she buried it in trauma, in part, maybe she didn't want to reveal things, because they were too painful or awkward. Or she may not even have remembered some things well with the passage of time. Because by 1988, now we can do the math, it's already 41 years after the partition, then years pass, every now and then it'd come up in a family conversation. But nothing much was said. I should go back and say that about age 14, I remember coming home from school one day, and I saw my mom crying. And I asked her why're you crying. And she didn't say much. She just said they killed my brother, they came to our house and they killed my brother. And she said there were horrible things done to people, the way they were murdered, and this kind of thing. So that kind of planted a seed in my mind, you know, where's this going? What, what really happened in my mom's life, but she wouldn't reveal it. And we didn't really ask much until well into our adult years. But of course, I started to do research and read about the partition. 

Bill Sundhu  9:13
Part of that is the journey of being, as you might understand, being born in Canada, and really learning about Indian civilization, the subcontinent, the history, the culture, and so forth. And that included learning about the partition and delving deeper into what happened there and reading. So that informed my knowledge, and then in 2012, my wife, and now of course, I have, by then a daughter and a son, and we went to India, and we went with my wife's uncle, we just got in a vehicle and went to my mom's ancestral village. And in the Punjabi villages, a lot of old men often sit around the central square or a tree, and they talk and so we started to ask questions. By that time, we knew my maternal grandfather's name and my maternal grandmother's name. But we didn't want to reveal much because we don't know if people are going to reveal the truth or what's the situation but in the course of it, you know, one person connected us to another to another. And somebody mentioned my maternal grandfather's name. And we said we'd like to know more, and they said, there's a fellow here, you should go see him. He was very frail, probably didn't live long after that. They carried him out and he talked to us and he started to cry. He said he was with the constabulary that he arrived too late. And what he thought was that my grandfather and surviving members of the family had been murdered right there as they tried to escape on a bridge. Now I've gone a bit ahead, but basically, the story of the partition is that it's the largest migration in human history. 14 to 15 million people fleeing their homes, basically just carrying whatever they can. There was mass violence. The partition was divided along, instigated by religious differences and politics. Pakistan was to be a country for Muslims, India, a more secular state, but Hindus and Sikhs had to flee what's today Pakistan from Punjab, Punjab was partitioned in half. People that had lived together for millennia, shared culture, shared history, family stories, family connections, and Muslims had to then move migrate to Pakistan, 1 to 2 million estimated dead. But we didn't really gather much of a picture in 2012, came home, talked to my mom again, she told us a little bit but still too many pieces missing. But as often happens, sometimes the third generation can get through to a grandparent and our daughter spoke to her grandmother and said, you know, Grandma, you need to tell your story. You're getting old now. You're getting frail. You're gonna pass, you need to tell your story. Now my mother was reluctant. Again, same old thing. Why do I need to tell my story? I'm afraid to tell it. I don't want to share my pain with you. What will people say because some people still want to fight the old battles based on religion and so forth. But our daughter was able to persuade her grandma to do the interview. And so in August of 2018, my mother was interviewed in Vancouver by Dr. Varinder Dabri, my family had traveled down there, my sister and her husband John lived there. My mother was interviewed, she gave her interview in Punjabi. I was interviewed, my sister and my daughter and my brother in law, John. And that interview was then put on YouTube. Now when my mother discovered that she was quite upset because she thought, oh, people are now going to want to say things to me, you know, about my background, my religion, so forth. I always identified as a Sikh, I practice Sikhism, you know, she was a god respecting person, felt that she had been blessed with life to have children, have a good life in this country. And so that she, you know, the gods had answered her prayer, but that was put on YouTube. And sometime later, our daughter said to us, you know, Dad, that video has gone viral, hundreds of 1000s people are watching it, obviously, substantially in India and Pakistan and the Indian diaspora, but not exclusively. And overwhelmingly, the comments are very powerful, very supportive. But there's a small percentage that still want to fight the old battles. My mum was worried about that. But about one year later, in 2019, I started to get voice messages at my law office. And also some emails. And obviously, people had searched me on the web because I have a law office and website. And even on social media, and a handful of the posts on YouTube, particularly were that: we are members of your family, there's a surviving member of your family. Now, first of all, I couldn't understand a lot of these voice messages. Weren't that many. There weren't that many. But whatever they were, because they were in Urdu. Some of the, the emails were in poorly written English. But also you just don't know what to expect. Is somebody playing mischief? Are they touts? Are they looking for immigration? Are they looking for money? So we just kind of held back. 

Bill Sundhu  14:16
But one day, I got a telephone call from a fellow in Toronto. And he said, you know, Mr. Sundhu, you don't know me, but I'm from Pakistan. I'm from a place called Chichawatni in the Punjab province. And I know this family, and they say that there's a surviving younger sister of your mom. And I said to him, well, how do I know this is true? I've got some messages. People could be dishonest. They could be searching for some some advantage. He said, That's a valid concern. So what do we do? I said, Well, how about, I don't want to speak to them directly. How about they send you a photograph of this woman and you send it to me? Well, he sent me the photograph. And immediately, I looked at it and said, that's my mother's sister. There's such a strong resemblance, incredible, shared it with my family, they felt the same. So then we began to connect with this family. And so everything happens in the month of August. August of 2018; My mother's interview. August of 2019, we connect with this family. And then we arranged to travel down to Vancouver, and we did a video hookup with my mom and her sister. It was very emotional. And this younger sister then of course, from her side was able to subsequently fill other pieces of the puzzle for us. But what she said to my mom was, she said, she said you are also my sister, my older sister, I revere you. You are also like my mother. And she said, our mother survived. And she said, I was a very young girl, I was only three when the partition happened. But my mother used to hold me on her lap, and she would weep. Tell me the story, and the tears would fall on to me. And I've heard the full story. And she said, my mother used to say that after having three sons, I finally had a daughter, you, you were the eldest daughter. And my mother said, the rose of her life, she lost the rose of her life and the flower petals scattered. So they then for the next year, continued to speak by telephone. And they put a lot of pieces together, shared a lot, my massi, which is what we say in Punjabi from the maternal side, my mother's sister, is a widow. She's poor, she has four daughters, which in that culture, a very patriarchal culture. I understand what the implications of that are for her. And basically what we came to learn is— and from what my mother told in her interview, as well, so in their village, their home was attacked. Some members were killed right in the village, including the eldest son, the family literally had to flee. Even with their money bag on the wall, they fled without anything. And in the fleeing my mum was separated from her family. There were six children, three sons, three daughters, eldest son was killed in the village, son number three died on route from hunger or poisoning because wells were poisoned or illness. My mum survived, but they never knew that. Daughter number... the fifth child, who was five years old at the time, also died on route in the migration. And the three year old survived. So child number two, brother of my mum, my mum, as we now know, and the youngest, a three year old, so three out of six survived. So there was just my maternal grandmother, and the son and the daughter, and they struggled through poverty to make a new life, no assets really in Pakistan. It's been a real struggle. 

So basically, my mom and her sister spoke for a year. That then got covered by a newspaper in India and Pakistan. And then my subsequently my massi, my aunt was also interviewed. And her interview has been seen, I think, on YouTube 1.5 million times. My mom's interview is on YouTube website called Exploring the History of Punjab. And my aunt's interview is on what's called Desi Infotainer. So then, however, and I mentioned the thing about the sequence of August, so August 2018, is my mom's interview. August 2019, we get these phone calls and make this connection and we verified it, the things fit, no question that this is legitimate connection. And then in August of 2020, my mom passed away. And ironically, she passed away on August 15 2020, India's Independence Day. My mom never returned to India after having departed there. She had no family, obviously no happy memories, and she felt that there was nothing there for her. I mean, I understand that over the years, she would always talk about things, you know, share stories with people, what's going on in music, culture, politics, dress, all of this, people's villages, marriages, and she was very socially engaged that way, but she obviously had no desire to ever go back there. She passed away. But I continued to and my family continued to speak with my aunt and her family. And I have also assisted her financially to help her. Of her four daughters, one is widowed, two are in very bad marriages, have fled their marriages. And the one is very stable, her husband and her is who we stayed with when we visited Pakistan, my massi came there. But basically, for us it came down to do we let it go, or what do we do? And not only was it the right thing to do, but also I didn't want to live and neither did my family with any regrets. I mean, even prior to my mom's death, there was a lot of postings on social media and on YouTube people saying—whoever watched the video—you know, these two sisters need to meet, they need to embrace and Sundhu what's your problem, you need to get them together. Your mom should come to Pakistan. Well, my mom said I'm not going to Pakistan, my health is frail, I don't know anything about the country. But we felt okay, we could bring my aunt over. So I started to prepare documents to submit to the Canadian High Commission for a visa but then the pandemic came, and everything shut down. Then my mom passed away in August of 2020. So anyways, we made the decision that we were going to go see my aunt, and as it expanded, there were seven of us, not easy to arrange. And... but we made those arrangements and we departed in late November 2022. We were there for the month of December. We spent eight days at the house of my, now my cousin, so my aunt's daughter and her son in law in Chichawatni which is in sort of southern Punjab province of Pakistan. Eight days with them, and we did a variety of things. Of course we laughed, we wept, we shared love, we shared stories. We visited my aunt's village, all her surrounding neighbors came out wearing their finest clothing. They brought fruits, flowers and gifts. And we also visited the grave site of my maternal grandmother, paid our respects to honor her. And that was a very emotional experience. 

Bill Sundhu  21:39
People knew the story. Lot of people did, they were very gracious and kind, it resonated with them. I would think it's fair to say that there isn't, well, for the most part, Punjabis all over in India, in East Punjab, in West Punjab in Pakistan, in the diaspora, Punjabis know the story of partition, many, many, many millions were affected. And it continues to impact Punjabis, and the politics to this day. So people were very kind and gracious. And thereafter, we embarked on a tour of Punjab province in Pakistan, which is perhaps not understood in the West, but very, very rich in historical and ancient sites. So it was an incredible experience. I never felt any affiliation with Pakistan. So life is full of surprises. But after 75 years, we travel there, connected with this family. And for me, it's part of completing the circle of our life, of our family story. The old saying goes, you know, to know your roots, the deeper the roots, the stronger the tree, and there was always a longing, I think there was a gap there, to want to know, what is the family story, what is my mother's story. And her story is not so unique, because so many were affected. Many, many have lived in silence, the violence, the cruelty was at a mass level, very depraved. Women were particularly subjected to violence. And so it's about keeping it alive. And that generation is passing away. And I do know that there's a real longing for many, many survivors, to return to their ancestral places, even though it'd be in the other country to have their ashes spread, to be buried, but the border is very hardened. There's enmity between India and Pakistan, three wars, neither country can win the war, there're nuclear powers, they expend a tremendous amount of energy, economic resources on their militaries instead of the needs of their people. But for me, as a Canadian, born in Canada, will likely die in Canada. When I looked at it from afar, I see Punjab in Pakistan and Punjab in India as two children of the same mother. And for me, I discerned very little difference in the culture. You know, Punjabis have their own history, their literature, their poetry, their saints, their history, they dress the same, they have the same cuisine, they have the same personalities. The only thing that divides them into this border, and maybe religion, but you know, there's Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. And there's a very large Muslim population in India, including in Punjab. So it's really sad that this emnity exists. But I just felt that people are people. I've been treated the same in India's Punjab and in Pakistan's Punjab, but as I say, it was an interesting and very emotional, powerful journey that we're still trying to process. Emotionally. It's a... I mean, I've traveled a lot as have you. But this was different. It wasn't just travel, it was a journey of discovery. And putting the pieces together of my family's story and sharing that with my children, so they know their story, our son couldn't go because he couldn't get time off work. But of the seven that went, it was myself, my wife, my daughter, my sister, my brother in law John, and then another couple that my mother had introduced and got married, they lived in Williams Lake, and they now live in the Lower Mainland, and they were very, very close to my mom. And they said, we also want to go. So there were seven of us that traveled. A remarkable journey.

Am Johal  25:24 
It's such a remarkable story, you know, over 75 years in the making. And in one sense, this is a story inside of India and Pakistan from the era of partition, but it's also a very much a BC story as well, with so much of a diaspora here in the sense that, you know, even my own parent's families come from Pakistan, going over to India, my father was four years old when the partition was happening. My mother was born after partition, but the family had come over from there. And that, of course, those disruptions, loss of land, economy that led to the type of diaspora that we have here in BC, those stories oftentimes were held back. And it's a remarkable story. And I remember running into your mother a few times at the Sandman Inn and other places where she often walked to work, but I was a little bit younger. So I didn't know her as well. I know that she was also a big fan of the BC Lions and professional wrestling, and all these things. I'm wondering if you could sort of, you know, this, this story that lived inside of her, she, you know, had this life in Canada raising you and your sister and coming to terms with all of the complexity of life, but she very much embraced this place of being there. Wondering if you could speak a little bit more about your mother.

Bill Sundhu  26:51 
Yeah, you know, people ask my sister and I, who's your hero, and we say our mother because my mother was a remarkable woman. I mean, obviously that generation suffered a lot of trauma, and internalized it. But my mum was very gregarious, very outgoing woman. You know, we used to joke mom, you must have a bit of Irish in you, because you'd like to tell stories you like to laugh, even have a little bit of Blarney in you. But she loved ice hockey, she loved the BC Lions, she went to Kamloops Blazer's games when she lived here for about an eight year period helping us with our kids, picking them up from school. And she could be heard swearing at wrestling villains on TV. And every time, you know, I'd visit with her and she'd basically tell me what was going on in politics and so forth, in her own direct way because she watched the news, right? And she'd tell me oh these lawyers, what's wrong with the law. And of course, I'm a lawyer and a judge trying to explain to her. You know, the system is different than maybe you understand mom. And she was, I say maybe forced upon her by circumstance, but because of my father's disability, but I say that she was a feminist without knowing the meaning of the word. She was very fierce, she was determined that, you know, she was independent, that she'd support her children, nobody's going to tell her how to raise her kids. So for example, when time came from my sister to graduate from high school, there were some persons in the Punjabi community who would say, are you sure you want to send your daughter to university, you know, they go— to the implication being, as you might understand, so they go to university and they, they become liberal minded, and they develop all these bad habits. But my mom always said, no, I never had an education. I want my children to have an education, my son and my daughter are equal, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to support them. And, you know, most of the Punjabi community, which at one time was quite large in Williams Lake, used to refer to as auntie, an honorific and my mum really— and she was a very hardworking person, like, she'd get out in the garden, she could shovel snow when it was 30, 40 below. She was tough, she could hammer nails. She just embraced life. 

She had a lot of friends, obviously. You know, she had no family. And we really had no direct or very little direct family in Williams Lake, but she had created a community of friends in the Punjabi community, in the wider community as well. So I think she was a remarkable person. It took a lot, as I say, I mean, in a very advanced years of her life well into her 80s. For us to really pry the story out of her and tell her story. It took a lot of courage. But I'm glad she told her story. The world knows it. It's gone viral. It completed the circle for us. And, you know, she used to say fate brought me to Canada for a better life. She was very grateful. After she did the interview, she said, you know, some people are gonna say, oh, you know, your mom was a Muslim, you're not Sikhs, we just said to her, it doesn't matter. Mom, the truth is the truth. People can say whatever they want, we are who we are. We stand strong. You told your story. You know, basically, you practice Sikhism, you claim to be a Sikh, you embrace it, and that's your way and that's your business, nobody else's. But you know, some people still want to argue things about caste. That's recently been a story and certainly in Washington State and British Columbia in Canada that there's a lot of caste discrimination. We have that in the, in the South Asian community. Sikhs are not supposed to believe in caste, but it is practiced social discrimination. But you know, for us growing up here, we consider ourselves fairly secular. And like I said, people are people. And so I embrace the full history of my family story. I'm proud of it. It is what it is. And it's important to tell the story because you know, the old cliche if you don't learn the lessons of history, people are doomed to repeat it. There are concerns. I mean, we see this in the world with mass violence, but we also see in India now, the rise of authoritarianism, the persecution of minorities, particularly Muslims, but other minorities, Sikhs, Christians, so forth.

Am Johal  30:58 
Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned running into Pakistani Punjabi is thie sharing of the language and culture. I've, I've had a Pakistani Punjabi cab driver in New Orleans. And when I spoke to him in Punjabi, he refused to let me pay. I've run into Pakistani peacekeepers in Kosovo, who also treated me so well. And so there is, you know, hopefully, an opportunity for others to to visit there. These arbitrary kinds of what borders can, can do. And it's great to see here in town that there's a Punjabi language literature prize that tries to look beyond those, those borders as well. Wondering, in terms of your, your, you know, you're going along in life, and then all of a sudden, the story comes upon you and, and clearly, it was so meaningful for your mother to be able to converse with her sister virtually, and you to be able to meet her in person. But I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to you know, how did it, how did it change you? Because it's sort of, you know, this is a 75 years story in the making, and so much of it involves a kind of an absence of not knowing, and then when this story comes upon you, changes you, you know?

Bill Sundhu  32:17
Yeah, I think there was always a longing to find out the truth, right? Even to find my grandmother, right, to pay your respect. I mean, it really is about completing the story of who we are and our roots. And, and also about honoring my, my mom, my aunt, and my grandmother. You know, there was a lot of trauma, a lot of suffering. a lot— Certainly in the Pakistan side, you know, they really had it hard. They really were poor, dirt poor, even now, my massi is quite poor. And I'm doing what I can to help her and her daughters and one of her daughters lives with her because she had to flee her home. And she has three young children. So I'm determined to help educate those kids. How it changed me is it just, it's I know now, you know, and I pass this on to my daughter and my son. My sister knows, we just feel a little bit more at peace that we've done this for my mom as well. You know, people, there was a sort of some segment on YouTube and, and generally that, oh, well, these are Westerners. They, they're, they're more individualistic. They don't care. They won't come to Pakistan. But we did. But I didn't do it to prove them wrong. I did it for ourselves. And it's the most enriching, most powerful emotional experience I've had in my life. You know, there's a piece that I that I omitted to mention, like my mom says in her interview that when they fled their home, she was separated from her family. And there were always these, certain centres had refugee camps and she was on her way to a refugee camp and it was attacked, and when it was attacked, she ran and my father grabbed her arm and said, run. Now, what we understand is that, you know, my father brought brought her to his village, to his home. But eventually the elders said, you can't you can't keep this young girl at your home. It's not right. So what are you going to do? Now, in my research subsequently in my readings, you know, aside from mass violence, of course, whenever these conflicts happen, there's tremendous abuse of women, and even women who ended up married on the other side, the two governments, India and Pakistan under the I would say, emphasis on patriarchy, forcibly would repatriate women. Even women that had been married and had children, like I remember, first time I went to India 1981, in my father's village, I met a fellow who knew my father. And I met his two sons, and they said, you know, we were young boys. We had just been born and we our mum was forcibly taken by the police in the military and returned to Pakistan. We never heard of her again, we don't know what happened to her. That happened a lot. Also, so there was this concept of preserving your honor. Women then, but if they were repatriated, were not marriageable, some were sold into prostitution, and some were victims of honor killing. So I don't question what happened. Basically, I just simply say, my father gave my mom a good life. And but, for even the partition, I wouldn't exist, neither would my sister, and neither would my children. And we wouldn't have this great life and tremendous opportunity that we've had in Canada. And there's no question whatever my mom's hardships, the trauma she bore, having a disabled husband at home, uneducated woman, a Punjabi woman, the discrimination she put up with in this society, the manual labor work that she had. Her life was far, far, far superior to that, that she would have had in Pakistan, or in India, compared to her sister, or her mother. And my understanding is her mother passed away, likely around 1973 or 74 in there. So you know, you can't change history, and you can't question. It just is, but I, for me, it's even hard. And I'm a lawyer. I'm good with words. But this is hard for me to encapsulate in words, it's just, you know, there's an element of pain. There's the element of joy. I, you know, I read, for example, poetry, I read the poetry of Amrita Pritam. And she has this famous poem to Waris Shah about the daughters of Punjab. And so I feel a deeper connection to my Punjabi roots. But I'm a citizen of the world, right? I'm a Canadian, there's so much more. We have many identities, not just one. People sometimes try to pigeonhole us as a Punjabi or whatever. But I believe I have many identities. And that's the beauty of being able to be born here and raised here. 

Bill Sundhu  36:52
But we struggle with that sometimes, too. You know, like, first time I ever went to India 1981. I went to my family, my father's ancestral village, I took my shoes off and waded into the rice field bare feet and kind of almost called my forebears and nobody answered. Right. And I, I realized that I didn't belong there that, that it was not a part of me anymore, that what part of me was British Columbia, it was Canada. Even, you know, Williams Lake, I mean, I'm sure you can identify this. It's hard to describe to somebody when the snow falls, you know, the beauty of that and walking to school in the snow. And when spring comes or walking in the woods, in the smell of fir trees, these are part of my childhood memories, right? Despite, you know, Williams Lake is not a perfect place, no place is. In many ways, it's a notoriously redneck town. But it gave my family a good foundation. I got a good education, we were able to build a life starting there. So I'm really grateful for that. You know, even there are times when I still get emotional and shed a tear about this whole experience. But I'm just grateful that this remarkable, almost miracle happened that my mom agreed to tell her story. We weren't happy when Dr. Dabri it on YouTube. But he was right. He did a tremendous thing, turned out to be a hero because somebody saw it in India apparently as we gather phoned somebody else. And you know, you can always pigeonhole people in Punjabi with just a few questions. Usually it's around the village, what's the name of the village and so somebody then phoned somebody in Pakistan said you're from that village, they phoned somebody else and then phoned my my aunt's family and her son in law and her daughter, and they then watch the video and then invited my aunt, and the rest is history. Then they started to do the search. They even hired somebody to do a social media search for me to try to contact me. And here we are. So after 72 years, my mom did the... So in 2018, she did the interview in 2019, after 72 years, this connection was made. And then three years later, 75 years after partition, in late 2022, we traveled to Pakistan. I was interviewed there, it's on Desi Infotainer. They asked that I do it in Punjabi, which is not my first language. There's some limitations for me, but I did it. I think about 300,000 people appear to have watched it or certainly clicked on. And then my daughter and my sister did an interview, their interviews are also on Desi Infotainer and they're in English, about our experience. It's about sharing it. And then you see that there're other people are undergoing the same journey trying to discover, going to their ancestral places. I mean, I've seen documentaries, where people will say, you know, if you go to that place, can you at least see if my old home is standing and maybe bring a brick back? Right? Even something tangible? Like I have nothing physical, not even a photograph of either of my grandparents. But when I went to my massi's village, I said to her, massi, do you have anything of my grandmother? And she said, no, there's nothing left. But there is one thing a brass sort of pot to pour tea or water from that she gave me when I got married. And I said, well, that's good enough for me. Do you? Can I have it? And she said, I'd be happy to give it to you. So I now have one physical tangible momento, some connection to my maternal grandmother.

Am Johal  40:28 
Bill, thank you. It's been so wonderful to hear that story again, from your own words. It's such a powerful, moving story. And I'm wondering if there's anything you'd like to add?

Bill Sundhu  40:41 
No, just thank you for you know, being interested in this. I'm hoping that these, these stories will be documented and preserved for history because that generation is passing on. There's a whole history there that certainly in the subcontinent, and in the Diaspora people are aware of, but the rest of the world really doesn't know. You know, we hear about what's happened in Europe, we hear about the Holocaust, we hear about the Yugoslav conflict, we even hear about Rwanda from time to time. I mean, but these are things that need to be known because they're human stories. And we know how fragile societies are, as I said that people that lived together for millennia, were divided by religion, you know, there's a saying, I'm on the list of counsel of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. And there's a saying we have there that the very people who say they'll protect you are the ones that then say, here's the shovel and dig your own grave. And my mother, in here interview said, there in her own village, there were people who were saving them, Muslims, but there were also people who were attacking them. And these stories are there, the complexity of it, and it happens on both sides, Muslim saved Hindus and Sikhs, other Muslims murdered Hindus and Sikhs, and Hindus and Sikhs murdered Muslims and others were saving them. There are tremendous stories of courage, but the reality is, you know, entire region, Punjab was fractured, ripped apart, and that suffering was tremendous. And to this day, that border is hardened in two countries, two states are at emnity and risk of war. And, but the victims need to be known. Their stories need to be known. And for me, it's just about being complete, putting all the pieces of the puzzle, drawing the circle of my life so that I know whatever future holds for me, however, long I may be on this earth, I know who I am. I know my family story. And I also I think, have the advantage of looking from afar. I'm not Pakistani, I'm not Indian, I'm Canadian, right? That's who we are. That's our nationality. But that story, that connection, as it is for all persons of their historical roots, wherever it may be, we have those connections. We cherish the richness of the Indian civilization, the subcontinent, Punjabi, you know, our poets, our philosophers, our saints, it's... very few places in the world as rich in its philosophy and religious and spiritualism in the arts, and music and literature. And so, as much as I tried to, I thought, 1981 It wasn't a part of me keeps pulling me back from time to time and the emotional tugs are there. 

But I'm just happy that I was able to share it with my children. I'm happy to share the story. There are still people who will post things online and want to fight those battles and their prejudices, but I just simply say, we have to stand for human rights. We have to stand for human dignity. And when I was in Pakistan to me, they're just people. They're human. Just like us, common humanity have the same hopes, dreams fears, and I discerned very little difference in Punjabis there and Punjabis in India or Diaspora. They are Punjabis, and I hope that the younger generation can move it in a more positive direction to share their culture or even bring some degree of unity and more connections. And often it starts with the arts, but there's always the business angle. If there's trading then it builds links. I was told— I raised that issue and somebody said, oh, yeah, but we smuggle stuff across the border anyways, back and forth, no matter how much the military tries that, but if they could build those links, that would be marvelous, because I've often felt, as you said, when I've traveled around the world, I met Pakistanis, they're just friendly. I mean, we have this Punjabi language and culture. There's more similarities there than I would have with somebody from Kerala or Tamil Nadu, or Bengal, wonderful people in those states in India as well. But what I'm saying is, we have more in common with Pakistan's Punjab, those 10s of millions of people, as an Indian with origins in India's Punjab than we do elsewhere. It's sad that there's that hardened border, but we try and we try to build links to try to build bridges for a better future for people there and elsewhere and to tell the story, so they're not repeated because there are, there are terrible signs, certainly in India about what could be coming.

Am Johal  44:57 
Bill, thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar.

Alyha Bardi  42:03 
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast created by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Thanks for listening to our episode with Bill Sundhu! Head to the show notes below to learn more about resources mentioned in the show. You can follow us on social media at sfu_voce to keep up to date on new podcast releases. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll catch you next time on Below the Radar.