Our family never migrated from India during the 1947 Partition. However, I heard from my parents that there was a reasonable population of Siraiki speakers who migrated to India in 1947. This sounded like a folk legend until through academic research, I also discovered that a majority of this population was settled in Delhi, Lucknow, Rajpura, Patiala, Ganganagar and Kutch in India. The credit of my interaction with the Siraiki community in India, in fact, goes to Ms Swarn Batra and her husband Barrister Jagdish Batra. My first interaction with them was sometimes in the 1990s when they visited Pakistan and were introduced to our family through common friends and great supporters of Siraiki culture and language, Late Justice Abdul Jabbar Khan and well acknowledged Siraiki author and intellectual, Dr Mahar Abdul Haq. We invited Mr and Ms Batra home for dinner. I was impressed by the fluency with which they spoke Siraiki. This connection clearly blurred the religious and political borders. Ms Batra’s warm gifts and souvenirs for my mother nurtured beautiful memories and a lifelong friendship.
Ms Swarn Batra was born in Muzaffargarh in undivided India on 7th April 1945. Her parents migrated to India in 1947 when her father joined civil services in Haryana. In 1970, she married Barrister Jagdish Batra, whose landed family had also migrated from Gazanfargarh (District Muzaffargarh) to Haryana where they were allotted agricultural land. She qualified in MSc Zoology and worked as a school Principal but dedicated most of her life to her loving family. Until her health permitted, she had traveled extensively with her husband. Surprisingly, we have remained in contact, despite my active travels across the world. We have sometimes also managed to meet in the UK or connected again when she visited her daughters settled in Canada.
Most significantly, Ms Swarn Batra and her family represents my connection with the Siraiki community in India. I had a chance to meet the entire family, including, Mr and Ms Jagdish Batra and her five intelligent daughters (Bharti, Chitra, Taruna, Menali and Nidhi) when we first visited Delhi in the form a delegation attending Siraiki Conference organized by the Batra family. Our first interaction was with them at the first Sahitya Sangam Conference organized by him in 1992. This conference was inaugurated by the then External Affairs Minister, Mr. R.L. Bhatia at India International Center, New Delhi. My parents led a delegate of 17Siraiki participants from Pakistan. Later, in 1994, they led a delegate of seventy Siraikis from Pakistan for another conference hosted by Mrs. Swarn Batra and her family.
In 1997, the Batras had organized another conference in Delhi to commemorate 50 years of Independence of both the countries by bringing together people from both sides of the border. Two Siraiki journals (‘Siriaki International’ and ‘Siraiki Duniya’) from Delhi were released the same year by my father, Barrister Taj Mohammad Langah and M.P and VP BJP Shri KL Sharma. The Batra family had made special efforts to bring Siraikis from across the border together to revive their cultural, linguistic and historical ties. Mrs. Batra added to the warm hospitality of the organizing team. As a dedicated mother, wife and host, she was overwhelmed to receive us.
This is also when I realized that she had in fact learnt Siraiki language after getting married to Mr. Batra. She spoke the language so fluently that we never thought this was a skill acquired later in life. The way she supported her husbands, intellectual, spiritual and literary pursuits was remarkable. She has also helped him preserve a large collection of Siraiki books by both, Pakistani and Indian writers in the form of a small library on the first floor of their house. This library also included Mr. Batra’s own literary contributions in Siriaki language. Most importantly, she loved to talk about her passion for this language, culture and literature and we had numerous conversations related to this subject.
My second chance to meet Mrs. Batra was in 1999 when I visited India for academic purposes. I was initially planning to conduct doctoral research on Partition and was visiting India from the UK to collect research materials and interview writers. On this occasion, two acknowledged writers who were informally interviewed by me were Mr. Khsuhwant Singh (through my university friend Sanam Singh who was related to him and lived next to his house at Sujan Singh Park) and Mr. Alok Bhalla over the phone (through Mr. Batra). This was a memorable visit because this was my first chance of staying with Mrs. Batra’s family. Unfortunately, due to weather and pollution in Delhi, I was terribly sick during this visit. Mrs. Batra kindly cured me using home remedies such as ginger and honey tea. My brief stay with her family at their lovely home in Saket was the most memorable visit; I not only managed to collect research materials and meet people but Mrs. Batra took care of me just like a mother and ensured my safe return to Pakistan once I recovered. The entire credit of hospitality and a successful academic visit goes to her.
Mr. Batra came to stay with us in the UK in 2008 to meet my father and our newborn son in Leeds. We recollected good memories with Mrs. Batra. We had missed the weddings of her daughters due to visa restrictions but were always pleased to receive an invitation from India for each wedding. After my parents’ demise, I maintained my connection when I visited India for academic conferences ensuring that I would pay a visit to the Batra family. Due to health issues, Mrs. Batra was becoming immobile. Nevertheless, since the past three decades, her warmth and hospitality remained the same as on the first day of our meeting. She also ensured that I was introduced to her lovely daughters and their families at their family home in Saket or for meals outside.
Mrs. Swarn Batra left us bereaved on 12 June 2020. It was important for me to recollect the time I spent with her and her family. We had maintained a bond all these years, which needs to be preserved as a memory from someone across the border. As an academic, activist and philanthropist, I find it important to acknowledge that my memories of interaction with Siraiki community in India remain incomplete without recalling Mrs. Batra’s passionate and loving personality that added to the warmth of her family and the excitement of my visits to India. Despite the political borders, we have maintained a collegial bonding through our maa boli or mother tongue, Siraiki. This bond reflects the power of language as a cultural heritage and an integral part of our identities. It also reflects that borders do not erase the peaceful cultural linkages that we have evidently maintained through our maa boli and literature. We hope we can maintain these ties for generations to come.
The writer is an academic, translator and activist voicing the rights of Siriaki people