Rob Alexander gently takes his father’s wallet out of a box that his family has held onto for the past 40 years.
It was found on his father’s body when it was retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean along with some of the wreckage of Air India Flight 182 months after it was bombed in 1985.
“He had such a good reputation … and he was one of the guys that people would go to to get advice and to get help, and even a bit of direction,” Alexander said about his dad, Anchanatt Alexander, a well-known doctor in Hamilton.
On June 23, 1985, Air India Flight 182 took off from Toronto en route to Mumbai via Montreal, London, England, and New Delhi.
However, the flight disappeared from radar about 45 minutes before it was due to reach London. A bomb in a suitcase in the hold exploded, and the plane broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland.
Anchanatt Alexander was one of the 329 people who died, most of whom were Canadian citizens.
“It was really shocking that it happened to my family,” said Rob Alexander.
Investigations and a public inquiry exposed major Canadian intelligence and security failures.
To this day, it’s considered one of the worst attacks in Canadian history, but Alexander says it’s not recognized as such.
“It’s a piece of Canadian history that shouldn’t have happened first of all,” said Alexander. “It needs to be part of the Canadian fibre.”
It’s a sentiment felt by a number of family members that CBC News spoke with. But one researcher is trying to change that.
In a small room and among a few boxes, there’s now a place for artifacts like Alexander’s wallet to have a permanent home at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Chandrima Chakraborty, a professor in the department of English and cultural studies who has no personal connection to the tragedy, decided to create a digital and physical archive dedicated to preserving the memories of those who died. She also sees it as a means of educating those who don’t know about the disaster.
“The boxes have a history, a history of memories, [a] history of erased stories. Histories of erased grief, but ongoing grief as well. And it also has a history in terms of my own work.”
Chakraborty works with a small team of students hired to digitize the personal artifacts donated by family members.
The items include family photos and personal belongings, along with the badges of the pilot and co-pilots.
“It’s a gift, but it’s a difficult gift because it’s a burden to carry. It comes with a lot of obligation because it is a gathering of memories and histories that families have preserved this long. And then they’re willing to trust me with those boxes of materials,” said Chakraborty.
It’s taken 40 years for a project like this to be created and is the only one to exist in Canada, says Chakraborty.
She was inspired while discovering that not many of her students knew about Air India Flight 182.
“The archive might offer some kind of a memory justice for these families … by bringing into public memory this suppressed history, right?”
According to a 2023 Angus Reid poll, nine in 10 Canadians said that they have little or no knowledge of the Air India bombing and most under 35 years of age had never heard of it. (The poll was conducted between June 19 and 21, 2023, with 1,548 Canadian adults and would have a margin of error of +/- two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)
Chakraborty started the archive in 2022 and was able to get it up and running with funding from McMaster, along with private donations. The website officially launched in May.
“It should not be just the job of families to keep saying their stories again and again. Many of them are fatigued,” said Chakraborty.
For right now, it’s just a digital archive, but if space and funding are provided, there will be a physical place for these artifacts as well.
Chakraborty said she received funding from different sources to get the project up and running, but if more funding doesn’t come through, she will run out by the beginning of next year.
“It’s an obligation to make sure that those records are preserved for perpetuity beyond my and you know, other lifetimes. So as long as McMaster as an institution holds, I hope it will be there.”
Alexander says the archive will help families, especially having one centralized place that people can turn to.
“We’ve donated some articles and some pictures, but other families have donated a lot more. It will help keep that narrative together,” he said.
“The fact that Dr. Chakraborty has taken it upon herself to really steward the Air India families and take care of the memories of all the lost loved ones is unbelievable to me.”
She lost her dad 40 years ago in the Air India bombing
Susheel Gupta, who lost his mother, Ramwati Gupta, on the flight when he was 12 years old, says his memories of her are fading, but he holds onto those he still has.
“I remember she loved to cook. I remember her singing while she would cook. I remember the way she dressed, the way she did her hair or her hand creams, you know, certain smells,” said Gupta, of Ottawa.
“She worked hard, she played hard, she was a wonderful mom. I wish I just had more time to spend with her.”
Gupta said that in the same way Canada honours those who fought in various wars, were peacekeepers or made great accomplishments, people like his mother and fellow victims of Flight 182 need to be commemorated.
“Canadians never paid attention and it’s not remembered at all for those who do…. It’s hurtful. It is painful. I’m going to say we still have an opportunity to correct from that and that’s what the families are trying to do now,” said Gupta.
“They deserve to be honoured and respected and remembered.”
Two suitcases: Anatomy of the Air India bombing | FULL DOCUMENTARY
