Daily Times

The title of this article is also the title of a book I plan to write. Henceforth, I claim original authorship of this title.

It remains to be seen whether the book will be a fact-based chronological narrative of recent events that transpired in my life or anentertaining fictional novel and whether it will have a happy ending with justice done to me or an indictment of powers-that-be. The story that I will tell in the book has yet to end.

Unlike most of my other books including the most recent The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, the subject of the forthcoming book will not be pain and suffering of hapless peoplekilled, maimed and traumatised by violent men.

The book will be based on my personal experience of being deceived, misled and humiliated.

Whether or not mental torment is comparable to physical torture is a philosophical question open to multiple paths of inquiry but it is clear to be that while the latter is the doing of ruthless men, the former is largely undertaken by powerful entities.

What does a scholar own if not his contribution to knowledge? And when he is cheated out of this contribution, the resulting mental pain and torture cannot be put in words.

But allow me to make an attempt.

My story started one fine day on April 26, 2017, when I received an email from a young Pakistani scholar,Anam Zakaria, saying a production team with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) were seeking help for a programme on the partition of British India. I responded with enthusiasm. A young lady, Emily Harris, wrote back on the same day informing that the BBC had commissioned London-based Voltage TV Productionsfor the programme, Seven Days in Summer – Countdown to Partition, and that theteam wanted to tell the story of partition’s effect on ordinary people.

This was an opportunity I had been waiting for because while my book on the same subject had received several awards in Pakistan and raving reviews both in Pakistan and India, the UK-based academiahad acted as if they sought to prevent my research from being presented at their universities.

Only once had I found an opportunity and that too for 20 minutes only in a three-hour-long programme at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on March 25, 2017 – four years after my book was published by Oxford University Press. I had to pay my own airfare and hotel bill but for me it was more important to present my perspective on Partition challenging views held by most in the UK-based academia. These views mostly end up generating confusion as to who should be blamed for bloodshed that took place in 1947. On the contrary, my work argues theoretically and demonstrates empirically how and why bloodshed unfolded and who was responsible for it. Thus, when I was approached for the BBC documentary, I felt that it was going to be my great opportunity to reach out to the British people with my findings.

For months, the film crew stayed in touch with me, praising my knowledge and expressing their indebtedness to me. During this time emails were exchanged and conversations took place on telephone and Skype.

I even had tapes recorded in 2004-2005 sent to them from Lahore where Dr Ali Raza of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is working on transferring thosetapes on discs.

Back then, I should have realised that the relationship between the colonised and the coloniser can never be an honest and an equal one. I will explore the theme in depth in forthcoming my book. But suffice it to say here that for those financing the programme on British India’s partition I was merely a native used for extraction of information.

As my discussions proceeded with the production team, I repeatedly emphasised that I expected to be invited to personally take part in the programme. Each time I was assured that they totally agreed and will inform their supervisers. I was never told that others were invited to take part in the programme, though on one occasion, I was told that their consultant Yasmin Khan was a greater admirer of my work. So I looked forward to her and my participation. For me, it was important that I was given proper acknowledgement and opportunity to take part in the programme. From April tillmid-July, they kept telling me that a decision on extending invitations to commentatorshad yet to be taken.

Finally, I received a call from TansiInayattowards the end of July. She pleaded with me that they have been unable to convince their supervisors to let me take part in the programme. Meanwhile, she kept me in the dark about others who had beenchosen to take part in the programme.

She said that the team felt that as a token of their gratitude I should accept £500as honorarium.And that the rules require that I sign a contract accepting £500. I did register my very strong disappointment and emphasised that in that case my contribution should stand out very clearly in the titles and my book should be properly displayed in the titles. She said she will convey my preconditions for accepting the honorarium to her bosses and was very hopeful it would be done because how could my contribution be acknowledged otherwise.

A week before the programme was to be shown I wrote to Inayat to find out what was happening, only to learn from the automatic message on the email that she was no longer working for the film and that I should refer to another person.

On the morning of August 15, 2017 – the day the programme was to be shown – programme producer Paul Berczeller wrote to me, telling that he insisted that I be thanked in the titles (suggesting that had he not insisted the supervisors simply wanted to exclude any mention of my contribution). He also wrote that my work was foundational to his film but he could not convince his supervisors to let me take part in the programme.

Meanwhile, I had informed my friends worldwide to watch the film. At home, my family and friends had gathered to see my contribution being acknowledged.

As the film began at 9 pm on BBC 2, my heart sank from the onset as I saw commentators, one after another, making observations which anybody with any education and interest in Indian Partition can make without adding anything substantial to knowledge. At the end, the titles moved so fast that most of us did not notice that my name did figure among some other sources,but merely for oral stories. My son managed to catch a glimpse and then we had to freeze the video on that picture where my name figures. I was shattered. My book title was not mentioned and there was no word on my special contribution.

I have the complete transcript of emails exchanged between me and the programme crew, including the programme producer Paul Berczeller. That night I could not sleep so wrote to Mr Berczeller,expressing my sense of being exploited in the most callous manner. He did not reply but let his supervisor Jon Alwen tell me that the decision not to invite me was his. He told me that budgetary considerations did not permit my participation.

This was a bogus explanation. £500 offered to me in honorarium would have been enough to fly me out from Stockholm to London. Clearly, Mr Alwen wanted others to do the commentary while I was the workhorse used for research. The script of the documentary focuses on the Punjab and this was indisputably because of my advice,otherwise the team intended to cover the whole Subcontinent.

I had advised them that if they wanted to bring out the people’s experience they must focus on the Punjab which bore the brunt of violence and suffered ethnic cleansing.

In a petition titled, ‘A Brush with the BBC’s Other Side’ hosted by www.change.org, I have further presented important details. My plea is that a tribunal be set up to examine my case against BBC and its affiliate, Voltage TV Productions, London. I am convinced that all those in the production crew who communicated with me were not responsible for the decision to not invite me. But those who were should be identified.

My contribution must be properly acknowledged. I am returning £500 which is no payment for my services and contribution. I did not help for the sake of money and in any case the money paid to me is no measure of the work I did. My reputation in the world has suffered because I wrote to everyone I knew to watch the documentary. I even found for them a link where they could watch it from outside the UK. The humiliation I have suffered is without match in my career. This is unacceptable.

The writer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University. He is also an Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore

Published in Daily Times, September 1^st 2017.