<p> London, Aug 14 (PTI): The Indian High Commission in London commemorated Partition Horrors Remembrance Day on Monday with a special photographic exhibition and musical and poetic tributes to the sacrifices and resilience shown by people during India’s Partition in August 1947.</p><p> The solemn gathering of community leaders and Indian diaspora members recounted some of the painful memories of the past and observed a minute’s silence to commemorate the day of remembrance, a day before the 77th Independence Day celebrations.</p><p> “Our joy and our celebration in independence were always a somewhat mixed one because that independence came at a very heavy human price,” said Indian High Commissioner Vikram Doraiswami in his address to the gathering.</p><p> “It came at the price of what people of that generation could not expect, and indeed could not believe, that it would be possible that independence would happen with a division of our own homes, and that villages, towns in both the east and the west of India would celebrate freedom as refugees; as people displaced for no fault of their own except for the fact that they had miraculously become citizens on the wrong side of the border. That is a very unique and tragic story of one of the largest displacements in human history,” he said.</p><p> The High Commissioner said the mission’s Remembrance Day was conceived as a memorial exercise to reflect upon the poignant history of this mass displacement and learn some lessons with “one moment of pause” before we celebrate India’s independence.</p><p> A violin recital of ‘Vande Mataram’ and poetry renditions by British Indian filmmaker Lalit Mohan Joshi from the works of pre-Partition author Dr Gautam Sachdev was followed by some uplifting ghazal recitals by Dr Hilal Fareed of the Royal College of Surgeons.</p><p> The gathering included diaspora members now in their 90s, who were teenagers at the time of Partition, including Shakuntala Kaushal and Brij Mohan Gupta.</p><p> The memorial event, held in the Gandhi Hall of India House, concluded with the Indian National Anthem before moving to the Nehru Hall for a tour of the photographic exhibition tracing the history of the Partition. PTI AK GRS GRS GRS</p><p><i>(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)</i></p>
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