Last night when the clock struck 12, India turned 70. The birth of India or the rebirth after a century of colonial rule, is an ecstatic occasion that also has a darker edge in the partition of Pakistan, carved out of the former British Raj in a brutal bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims that killed hundreds of thousands and uprooted millions (Pakistan Independence Day was celebrated yesterday).
"My mother left her hometown just days before the partition," said Navin Rawanchaikul. "A Muslim neighbour helped her because they knew that Hindus would be targeted. They hid her and took her to the train station. She was five and she told me she remembered being put on the roof of a train." The train went to Lahore and then to a town near New Delhi, where his mother spent a few years before relocating to Thailand.
Navin, a Thai artist of Punjabi descent, belongs to a generation of Thai-Indians whose parents moved east to Siam around World War II. Internationally known for his conceptual art practices, Navin has worked on the issues of Thai-Indian identities based on his family history for many years in exhibitions such as "Diaspora", "Places Of Rebirth", "Once Upon A Time In Little India", and more. In his latest project, he has embarked on an extensive research of the communities of the Indian diaspora in Thailand, which took him from Chiang Rai to Songkhla and Khon Kaen and everywhere in between.
Store owners in Phuket and Phrae.
His plan is to create an archive of stories and images of Thai-Indians, a countrywide record about when, where and how they -- or their ancestors -- arrived on these shores. Calling his project, "Khaek Pai Krai Ma" -- a phrase meaning "The Coming And Going Of Guests", playing with the word khaek, which refers to Indians or Arabs -- Navin initially plans an exhibition to mark India's Independence Day, but lack of time and funding means he will continue his research and data collection for some time.
Navin's family story, meanwhile, is an example of how Thailand, India and Pakistan are intertwined by history and fate, which are sometimes the same thing.
His paternal grandfather moved to Siam a long time ago, coming through what was then British-ruled Burma. Navin's father was born in this country. "Arriving in the north of Siam, they settled in Chiang Mai," he said. His father later opened (and still looks after) a fabric shop called "OK" in the city's bustling Waroros Market. It was also a site of Navin's installation art A Tale Of Two Homes, Tales Of Navin in 2015.
Navin with a Thai-Indian family in Khon Kaen.
From his research, Navin observed an anthropological tendency: Indians are resilient and adaptable, so when they moved to Thailand, they tried their best to appear friendly and show their willingness to become part of a new society. "Look at the Chinese shops -- the Chinese often name their shops in Chinese language, something hard to pronounce for Thais but that shows their original identity," Navin says. "But for Indians, when they first came here they used simple and meaningful words to name their shops, 'jai dee' [kind], 'metta' [mercy], 'jai wan' [sweet heart] or "OK", like my family's shop. Maybe because they thought Thai people find their appearance scary, they soften that with pleasant-sounding names."
On his mother's side, the family history is more dramatic. A few years before the partition, Navin said, a lot of Indians in Punjab started to emigrate, fearing looming uncertainties. His maternal grandfather left their hometown of Gujranwala months before the partition, travelling by ship to Pak Nam Pho in Nakhon Sawan province. "They knew something might happen and for those who could, they moved out, usually by sea or if they had the means, by air from Karachi."
The painful split of predominantly-Muslim from Pakistan from India on Aug 14, 1947, sparked a horror of religious violence and murderous rage committed by both sides, splintering land and families. Navin's mother managed to leave the area just before partition and remained near New Delhi for a few years before moving to Thailand, where her father, Navin's grandfather, had been waiting.
Store owners in Phuket and Phrae.
"When I was a child, I had no idea about any of this," says Navin, who now divides his time between Chiang Mai and Japan with his Japanese wife. "When I wanted to go back to the town where my mother came from, I learned it was part of Pakistan."
In mid-2000s Navin became interested in the issue of identities and how Thailand, India and Pakistan were connected through the history of people moving between them. His installation and video art called Hong Rub Khaek ("The Living Room", again playing with the word khaek) is based on the experiences of Thai-Indian women, like his mother, who had to flee to Thailand.
"My mother didn't want to talk about what happened," says Navin. "First, because she became Thai and she wanted to start a new life here. Second, the memory of that time was painful. Likewise the other women who fled before the partition, it was an episode they didn't want to remember."
Navin's latest project, Khaek Pai Krai Ma, has taken him in months-long journey to meet Thai-Indians in every region of the country -- those who came in through the North during the reign of King Rama VI, those who came during the partition or later, those who arrived by ship in Ranong and moved to settle elsewhere, those who run a mobile phone shop in Khon Kaen and a fabric store in Phuket, and so on.
In Pak Nam Pho in Nakhon Sawan province, where his maternal grandfather arrived in 1946 before moving to Chiang Mai, the artist made cold calls at different stores run by Thai-Indians and learned that the town, which was once a bustling hub of river trade, was where a lot of Indians landed in Siam. One family has run a fabric store for 80 years. In Chiang Rai, he found a descendant of a group of 103 Indians, who arrived at the same time before partition and was granted shelter and later citizenship by the state.
The exhibition Hong Rub Khaek (The Living Room) recounts the experience of Thai-Indian women who came to Thailand during the partition of India.
Navin hopes to compile all the stories into a book, create an archive and hold an exhibition -- all of that when the elements fall into places.
Like the Chinese, the Indian diaspora in Thailand is now in its third and fourth generation. The issues of identities, Thainess, Indianness,and the meaning of home and culture, according to Navin, are in flux again, and that's one of the reasons behind his long and still-unfinished Khaek Pai Krai Ma project.
"From when they first arrived here, the Indians made an effort to become part of Thai society -- how they name their shops, as I explained, for instance," he says. "In the home however, a Thai-Indian family is still traditional and observes a strong Indian culture. But right now, we begin to see young Thai-Indians becoming more Westernised and the Thai-Indian culture is going through another phase."
