"No One There": Pak Woman Living In India For 35 Years Told To Go Back
Sarada Bai, a Pakistani national, who has been living in India for over since 35 years, has been asked by the Odisha police to leave India immediately. The authorities confirmed that the visa of Sarada Bai has been cancelled and she has been instructed to return to Pakistan without delay. The police have warned that if she fails to comply with the expulsion order, legal action will be taken against her.
The police move is part of a series of measures taken to counter Pakistan after the Pahalgam massacre.
Sarad Bai was married to a Hindu family in Bolangir and tied the knot with Mahesh Kukreja several years ago. Her son and daughter are Indians.
Despite having all key documents including voter ID, she was never granted Indian citizenship.
She has now requested that the government not separate her from her family.
With folded hands, she has appealed to be allowed to continue living in India, the country she has called home for over three decades.
"I was first in Koraput then came to Bolangir. I have no one in Pakistan... Even my passport is to old. I ask the government and you all with folded hands, please allow me to live here. I have two grown children, grand children... I wish to live here as an Indian," she said.
Her petition to the government has touched many hearts.
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Through the works of scholars and political leaders across Asia and the interactions between them, it explores their visions of Asian solidarity and universalism, and the evolution of Asian thought, politics, and art. They not only challenged European colonial precepts, but also conceptualised alternatives to dominant European narratives and debates. In the book, we encounter Okakura Tenshin, José Rizal, Jamaluddin al-Afghani, and Benoy Kumar Sarkar, among other luminaries of the 20th century and earlier. These names might not be as familiar to non-scholars as some of the more notable ones who figure in Bose's account, such as Rabindranath Tagore and Chiang Kai-shek. Yet, they are no less fascinating. Rizal was a Filipino writer and nationalist, whom the Spanish colonial government executed in 1896. He became a unifying symbol of Asian resistance against Western imperialist domination. Okakura, a Japanese art critic and champion of Asian unity, travelled to India and had close links with Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore. Al-Afghani, born in Iran, was a 'proponent of Islamic fraternity rather than Asian solidarity', though Bose emphasises that there was significant overlap between the two. Al-Afghani travelled across West and South Asia, and in the latter, stressed Hindu-Muslim unity against the British. Sarkar, an 'energetic, globe-trotting Indian intellectual', visited China and Japan, met intellectuals and politicians there, and extensively documented his journeys and geopolitical insights. The book succinctly captures attempts to forge an Asian identity and consciousness, visions of Asian solidarity, and the schisms caused by intra-Asian wars and conflicts. It provides a refreshing account of Asian histories in relation to each other, often without the Western lens that most works on the continent adopt. 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