This lecture was delivered at the annual History for Peace conference on the 'Idea of Belonging' held in Calcutta, 2024.

Yesterday, when I was coming to Tolly Club, Imran was driving me. My first question to him, as we often ask without thinking about it, was, ‘Where do you belong to?’ Imran told me he belongs to Chhapra.

Chhapra is familiar to me because I was raised in Siwan, which is close to Chhapra. Imran shared that his father had settled in Chhapra but said, ‘We don’t actually belong to Chhapra.’ This came up when discussions on the NRC started. Imran had asked his father about their roots and whether they had papers. His father told him they belonged to a village near Bihar Sharif, near Patna. Later, when Imran visited Bihar, he saw a signboard with the name of their ancestral village, which struck him.

I asked him, ‘Have you visited your ancestral village?’ He replied, ‘No,’ and said he had no papers. This reminded me of a man recently freed by the Supreme Court from being labeled a foreigner, who however died carrying that tag because of the NRC process. Although ultimately declared an Indian, he died as a doubtful citizen. That memory arose from this conversation with Imran.

Our Supreme Court initiated this NRC process in Assam to determine who the ‘real’ Assamese are and now this idea is spreading. Other states in the Northeast, like Meghalaya and Manipur, are also demanding the NRC. So, we'll keep grappling with who ‘belongs’ to India and who the state declares actually belongs.

You mentioned Germany and how, after a dark period, it has ‘come back to its senses.’ But recent stories show Germany now mandates that anyone wanting to belong must first declare allegiance to Israel and delegitimise Palestine. This mandate aligns with accusations of genocide obsessions: Germany committed genocide itself and now allegedly supports Israel’s actions against Palestinians. So, we shouldn’t have this illusion that nations ultimately restore their senses.

Romila ji said in her opening presentation that belonging is graded, temporary and tentative. Nations and people must keep revisiting what it means to belong. What does it mean, actually, to belong? Does it simply fit into a given context? Or does the surrounding have an obligation to respond to us as we are, without demanding we prove ourselves to belong?

I think that’s the core question: is belonging truly innocent? And who belongs? And under what conditions is it accepted that we belong?

Take the current theatre for these questions: Palestine, or, as one poet said, “Philistine” because “they couldn’t pronounce ‘P’.” Here, two notions of belonging clash: one side claims authenticity through a 3,000-year-old history, giving them authority to expel, attack, and commit violence. Meanwhile, Palestinians are delegitimized as lacking such history.

When one claim of belonging attacks another, what does one do? The world has taken Israel’s side—Germany, the UK and the US and our country, India, where raising a Palestinian flag could land you in jail. We carry hypocrisy in India: we say we are on the side of justice but act differently.

The question is, do we really need to belong? Or can we simply be? And if we say, ‘I belong to this place,’ are we also saying, ‘I want you to want me here’? Loving others may be an attractive idea, but it’s not easily realised.

I return to a conversation with my journalist friend Hartosh Singh Bal, who told me, ‘You Hindus tell us Sikhs and Muslims that our existence in India depends on Hindu goodwill.’ He asked, ‘How long must we wait for Hindus to be truly Hindu?’ Why can’t they let us simply be? This notion of needing to belong or be loved loses meaning if people can’t accept you as you are.

Muslims and Sikhs in India question if their belonging depends on Hindu acceptance. So, is belonging necessary? Why can’t I simply exist without needing to belong? And if I do want to belong, is it to make a home here? The idea of belonging and the idea of home are deeply connected.

Look at Manipur: we asked friends from the Meitei and Kuki communities if they would return to their homes, and they said, ‘No way.’ How long does it take to feel a sense of belonging? And when is it lost? Does it mean property rights, as with the Meiteis wanting access to buy land in the hills or with Indians wanting to buy land in Kashmir post-Article 370?

Belonging, as it turns out, relates to property, not people. And this becomes painfully clear in moments of violence. This fundamental question of belonging—whether we can answer it or if it even has an answer, is complex.

Returning to Palestine, the poet Mahmoud Darwish comes to mind. Most of his life was spent in exile. While thinking on this topic, I read Darwish and his friend, Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. Darwish admired Amichai’s work but felt that his own destroyed identity was the foundation of Amichai’s poetry. Amichai didn’t want to kill Darwish; instead, they competed over who loved the land more and who wrote it better.

In conclusion, I leave you with Darwish’s question about belonging and his poem If I Were Another, translated by Fady Joudah:

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another I would have belonged to the road,

neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar

and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts

the traveler to test gravity. I am only

my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem

would be of water, diaphanous, white,

abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,

and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:

My identity is this expanse!

If I were another on the road, I would have said

to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!

Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier—

that’s what my new song would say. Whenever

the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two

on this road: I ... and another!