Under the Guidance of MAY 2012

AGONIZING PARTITION:
A STUDY ON THE SELECT
INDO-ENGLISH PARTITION NOVELS
A Thesis submitted to the Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH
By
V. FRANCIS
(Ref. No. 007810/Ph.D.2/English/P.T./July 2007)
Under the Guidance of
Rev. Dr. A. SEBASTIAN, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.,
PG & RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
St. JOSEPH’S COLLEGE (Autonomous)
Re-Accredited with ‘A’ Grade( III Phase) by NAAC
College with Potential for Excellence by UGC
TIRUCHIRAPPALLI - 620 002, INDIA
MAY 2012
Rev. Dr. A. Sebastian SJ, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.,
Associate Professor & Principal
St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous)
Tiruchirappalli - 620 002
India.
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the thesis entitled AGONIZING PARTITION:
A STUDY ON THE SELECT INDO-ENGLISH PARTITION NOVELS
submitted by Mr. V. FRANCIS is a bonafide record of research work done by
him under my guidance in the PG & Research Department of English,
St. Joseph's College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli and the thesis has not
previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma,
associateship, fellowship or any other similar titles. The thesis represents the
independent work on the part of the candidate.
Rev. Dr. A. Sebastian SJ
Research Adviser
Tiruchirappalli - 2
24th May 2012
V. FRANCIS,
Assistant Professor of English,
PG & Research Department of English
St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous)
Tiruchirappalli - 620002
India.
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the work entitled AGONIZING PARTITION:
A STUDY ON THE SELECT INDO-ENGLISH PARTITION NOVELS
has been carried out by me under the guidance of Rev. Dr. A. Sebastian SJ,
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Associate Professor & Principal, St. Joseph’s College
(Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli and the work has not been submitted either in
whole or in part of any other degree or diploma at any other University or
Institute.
V. FRANCIS
Tiruchirappalli - 2
May 2012
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I express my sincere and profound gratitude to Rev. Dr. S. John
Britto, SJ, Rector, Rev. Dr. A. Albert Muthumalai, SJ, Secretary and
Rev. Dr. B. John Bosco, SJ, Deputy-Principal for their moral support and
encouragement given to me to do this research work in this institution.
I am overwhelmed with a deep sense of gratitude to my respectful and
eminent research adviser Rev. Dr. A. Sebastian, SJ, Associate Professor &
Principal, St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli, for having
enabled me to carry out this research work under his valuable guidance. It is
with his constant encouragement and meticulous supervision that I have been
able to accomplish this fruitful task.
I am indebted to Dr. S. Papu Benjamin Elango, M.A., M.Phil.,
B.L., Ph.D., Associate Professor & Head, PG & Research Department of
English and to my respected colleagues for their valuable suggestions and
encouragement.
I record my sincere gratitude to Rev. Sr. M. Fatima, General Councillor,
St. Aloysius Gonzagu Congregation, Pondicherry, Prof. A. Jesurajan, Assistant
Professor & Head, Department of English, Arul Anandar College (Autonomous),
Karumathur and Dr. D. Dhanalakshmi, Associate Professor of English,
Periyar E.V.R. College (Autonomous) for their scholarly advice and suggestions.
I extend my gratitude to my parents, family members, friends and
all those who were instrumental in shaping me to bring out this thesis.
V. Francis
CONTENTS
Chapter No.
Title
Page No.
Acknowledgement
I
Introduction
II
The Irreparable Human Loss
44
III
Brutal Religious Persecutions
74
IV
The Huge Material Loss
102
V
Psychological Trauma
123
VI
Conclusion
155
Works Cited
169
Appendix (List of Papers Published)
1
CHAPTER - I
INTRODUCTION
1
CHAPTER – I
INTRODUCTION
India is a land of towering traditions, diverse cultures, innumerable
faiths, rich practices and affluent resources. There was an ancient civilization
called Indus Civilization in India and Pakistan (2500 B.C. – 1900 B.C.). This
civilization chronicles the glorious past of India in art, architecture,
governance, belief system and technology. Indians had trade links and
economic activities in every part of the world. This proves the exotic and finest
products produced in India. India is a land of religions; wherein sprouted
Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. People spoke varied tongues and
excelled in every field of knowledge. India is full of indigenous arts and crafts.
The thousands of temples those adorn every nook and cranny of India is the
vivid example for its glorious era of art, craft and sculpture. The pillar cut
edicts, the rock cut edicts and the cave paintings of India are awesome. The
fertile fields of India produced innumerable varieties of crops and spices. The
varieties of Indian music, dance and literature are beyond comparison. Despite
these diversities, there is a greater unity among the Indians. In short, it is an
enchanting incredible India.
These matchless glories attracted all the eyes. A number of invaders
wanted to possess India. The Aryans were the first invaders of India. They
came originally from the highlands of central Asia. Slowly they penetrated into
2
the basins of Jammu, Ganges and Deccan. Alexander invaded India in 326 B.C.
He was followed by the Persian invasion in the sixth century.
India’s west coast was acquainted with Arabs and other West Asians as
part of the commercial expansion of the early medieval period. In the eighth
century, another sort of Arab presence appeared in the form of Muslim army
that conquered Sind. Mahmud of Ghazni invaded India and destroyed the Shiva
idols at the temple of Somnath and carried a vast treasure of gold in 1025 A.D.
Then the Slave soldiers invaded India and ruled from Delhi.
Among the endless invaders, the advent of the Europeans was a death
trap to the great heritage that was built and preserved for many generations.
The very basis of Europe’s vigorous contacts with India from the late fifteenth
century onwards was its prime interest to reach India and the Indes for trade.
Ranabir Chakravarti in his work Trade in India observes the reasons for the
Europeans’ interest for India: “Europe perceived India and the East as an area
yielding exotic, exciting and mysterious products which were seen as luxuries
in the European markets. India was seen as a land of riches, and trade with such
a land offered prospects both real and imaginary, of fabulous gains” (3).
The Portuguese had the lure of business in India, which paved the way
for establishing the Estado da India Portuguesa. This was followed by the
arrival of the Dutch, the French and the English. Among these Europeans, the
English were able to establish their supremacy by creating the English East
India Company.
3
The Mughal emperor Jahangir gave permission to the English East India
Company to establish its factories and warehouses in India. The Company set
up its first factory in Surat. Soon it began to expand its trade activities by
establishing factories in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The riches of India
tempted the company to build its empire in India. The feeble Mughal power
actually facilitated the territorial expansion of the company. It raised its own
army to establish its power. The Battle of Plassey (1757) marked the beginning
of political supremacy of the English East India Company in India. They took
over a long period of time – nearly one hundred years to build a strong empire
in India.
Bengal goods came to comprise nearly 60 per cent of English imports
from Asia. But the Bengal nawabs did not encourage the free trade of the
Company in their territories. There rose a dispute between the company and the
then nawab, Siraj-ud-daula. This culminated in a battle in June1757, in which
Siraj was defeated by Robert Clive. The company’s next victory was at the
Battle of Buxar (1764), in which the Company routed the Mughal emperor
Shuja. In 1772, the Company established its indirect rule in Bengal. In the
south there were a few wars between the French and the English East India
Company. In these wars, the French lost their positions in India one after
another.
Many of the Indian states in the eighteenth century were perpetually
involved in mutual conflicts. Politically each one tried to establish its
4
supremacy over the others and the English were looked upon as a new force in
this power game. The states entered into diplomatic alliances with the
Company. These opportunities helped the Company to widen its imperial
power and carry on its commercial activities freely. In 1798, Lord Wellesley
was appointed as governor general of India. Bandyopadhyay in his work From
Plassey to Partion: A History of Modern India writes the intention of Lord
Wellesley: “…with a dream of conquest and a lust for personal glory” (51). But
his wars caused serious financial crisis. So, he was called back.
The Company had four rounds of war with Haidar Ali and his son Tipu
Sultan over Mysore and Malabar. In 1799, Lord Wellesley vanquished Tipu
Sultan and annexed his territories with the British. In 1801, the Company
annexed half of Awadh and in1856 the entire Awadh. In 1845, the first AngloSikh war began. The British routed the formidable Sikh army and annexed
Lahore. Through the Burma war, the Company was able to add the Northeastern India under its vast empire building. Coorg was annexed in 1834 by
Lord Bentinck. The Company decided to raise its own army in India which has
to be regimented and commanded by European officers. After a long process of
annexation, the British began the process of Anglicization and the regulative
administration under Cornwallis and Wellesley.
Apart from the empire building, the British began their other processes
like evangelization and providing liberal education to the Indians. Thomas
Macaulay wanted to refine the Indians rather than to conquer them. Earlier the
5
Company had the outright control over its trade and administration in India.
Later, even the British government had a share of the Company’s affairs in
India. The Company constantly paid an enormous sum to the British
government. The Regulating Act of 1773 officially recognized parliamentary
right to control over Indian affairs. The Charter Act of 1831 announced the
undoubted sovereignty of the Crown of the United Kingdom. Thus, the
Company which came to India for trade possessed entire India under its
restriction.
The British rule that existed in India till 1947 had both blessings and
curses. Since the British’s exclusive aim was Indian assets they used many foul
methods to reach the end. The miseries they inflicted upon the Indians were
essentially different and more rigorous than the sufferings that they underwent
earlier. Before the British came to India there were civil wars, invasions,
revolutions, conquests and famines but they did not go deeper than the surface
of India. The ingress of the British broke down the entire framework of Indian
society. India lost all its old glory and was left in a state of anarchy and
melancholy.
The British concentrated on the departments of finance and they
completely neglected the departments of public works and agriculture. The
oppression and neglect of agriculture is a great blow to India by the British
intruders. The hand-loom and the spinning wheel, producing their regular
myriads of spinners and weavers, were the pivots of the Indian society. From
6
immemorial times, Europe received the admirable textures of Indian labour. It
was the British who broke up the Indian hand-loom and destroyed the spinning
wheel. British steam engine and science uprooted the fine indigenous industry
that was practised by the Indians from time immemorial.
The Indian village administration was one of the best in the world. It
united agriculture and manufacturing industry. The village administration had
its own line of officials who carried their duties in a perfect tune. Every village
had a headman (potail), an accountant (kurnum), a boundary man, a Brahmin, a
teacher and an astrologer. Under this system, the Indians lived a harmonious
life from time immemorial. The interference of British free trade, British taxcollectors and British soldiers destroyed this fine village administrative system
and the economic boon of India. Indians lost their ancient form of civilization
and their family unities because of the British rule in India.
British imperialism will only be remembered as a dark period in the
world history. It destroyed societies that had lived peacefully and successfully
for thousands of years. It created false boundaries between people who had
been united. It stole and plundered the wealth that drove ancient civilizations.
And above all when it was finally defeated, it left behind a legacy of
deprivation, conflict and seeds of future wars. The British imperialism
disturbed the state of equilibrium among different ethnic groups by redefining
their territories, thereby laying the seeds for future civil wars.
7
The British killed a number of innocent Indians in order to build their
empire in India. One among them was the Jallianwalabagh massacre, where
hundreds of peacefully protesting Indians were killed. Thousands of Indians
were jailed during their freedom struggle. The locals were treated as subhumans by the British. They killed the indigenous industry. The British did not
realize that India had a far longer history of civilization than the war-like
Britain. The colonization overrode a way of life which had sustained and
prospered for centuries. The British very often used the tactic of divide and rule
which created an enmity between the Muslims and the Hindus. In India, the
Hindu-Muslim conflict originated because of the British strategy to deteriorate
the freedom struggle. Again, in Sri Lanka the gory ethnic war that went on for
years was the consequence of British cheap tactics of taking Indian Tamils to
work in the tea estates of Sri Lanka. But those exported Tamils were not treated
just and were not given equal rights. Many Indians feel that the blunders and
the grave wounds caused by the British will take many years to get healed.
But there are a few others, especially the people of the present
generation who view that the British rule in India was a blessing in disguise. It
is an instinctive human desire to dominate others. If the British had not done it,
then others would have – and arguably done a nastiest job. Besides their
lootings, they have left behind certain good things like the construction of
infrastructure, colossal buildings and introducing the postal system and railways. On the contrary the Christian Indians say that the British united a
8
desperate country, enhanced its economy and made their language popular in
India.
Bill Davidson, a British Sergeant who was against the British
imperialism made the following comment on the British rule in India in
Chaman Nahal’s Azadi: “Local cultures had been destroyed everywhere. More
so in India which had a long history and tradition” (117). In the opinion of
some of the historians, the British rule in India should not be deliberated by
today’s standards. The past regime is past and it is not fair to cry for what is
gone. Thus they conclude that the British rule in India was constructive for
both the rulers and the ruled.
It is important to look at the surfacing of nationalism and the freedom
struggle that our fore fathers waged against the British. Sucheta Mahajan in his
work Independence and Partition – The Erosion of Colonial Power in India
remarks, “A number of books and biographies, which broadly fall within the
nationalist historiographical stream, do recognize nationalism as the central
cause of the British withdrawal from India” (28). After establishing a dominant
government, the British began to meddle in the socio-religious aspects of the
Indian society. Their political administration went hand in hand with
evangelization and social services. The evangelists believed that the Indian
religions were full of superstitions, idolatry and tyranny of the priests. Through
introducing English education, they began to intervene in the religions of India.
9
In the early nineteenth century a number of foreign missionaries came to
India. They began to translate the Bible into the vernaculars and established
schools and hospitals. The British thought that a sense of duty to the natives
will give them security. Macaulay’s minutes which came in 1835 asserted the
introduction of English education in India. The main rationale of English
education in India was to train the Indians for subordinate public services. With
this introduction the tradition of indigenous classical learning began to fade
away.
A great aversion rose among the Indians against the British rule in the
middle of nineteenth century. The Indians began to experience a lot of bitter
grievances from the hands of the British. There was a Great Rising against the
British Rule in 1857. It is generally believed that the Great Rising of 1857
began on twenty-ninth March from Barrakpur in Bengal where a Brahmin
sepoy of the East India Company known as Mangal Pande refused to use the
grease cartridges and invoked his other comrades to take arms against the
English in order to shield their religion. When Sergeant Major Hudson ordered
the soldiers to arrest him none of the soldiers stepped forward. Thereafter, the
Sergeant Major Hudson tried to arrest him, but Mangal Pande shot him dead.
He also shot another English officer who came to arrest him. Later, Mangal
Pande was arrested and was hanged on April 8, 1857.
The Mutiny that was begun by Mangal Pande echoed among the Indian
sepoys of various other regiments. One among them was the revolt by the
10
Meerut sepoys. The Meerut sepoys killed a number of English officers and
civilians and marched to Delhi. The revolt outbroke in the adjoining districts of
Delhi. Later, the rebel army occupied Delhi. There were revolts in Firozepur,
Muzzafarnagar, Kanpur, Jhansi, Gwalior and so on. Though the British were
petrified by the incidents in Meerut, Delhi and its surroundings, they gathered
the English armies from Bombay and Madras and they even won over some of
the native rulers to their aid. There was a terrible fight between the mutineers
and the British army. Finally, on September 24, 1857, Delhi was recaptured by
the British. Though the mutiny was completely suppressed, it signaled the
awakening of Indians. R. K. Sharma in his work History of Indian National
Movement quotes the remark made by Lord Croame: “I want the young
generation of the English people to read the history of the Mutiny of 1857,
derive lessons out of it and imbibe those lessons in their hearts. In it we found
so many lessons and warnings” (33).
The Great Rising of 1857 was followed by a social and cultural
awakening in India. Swami Vivekananda, who was the disciple of
Ramakrishna, popularized the religious teachings of his guru. He condemned
the caste system and the current Hindu emphasis on rituals, ceremonies and
superstitions and urged Indians to absorb the spirit of liberty, equality and
freethinking. In 1896, Vivekananda founded The Ramakrishna Mission to carry
out humanitarian relief and social work.
11
The educated elite Indians began to question many of the fundamental
assumptions upon which the traditional Indian society was rested. A number of
educational societies were founded in India. Social thinkers like Raja
Rammohun Roy waged a war against the evil practices that were followed in
India. He fought against caste taboos, child marriage, female infanticide and
sati. Iswarchandra Vidyasagar raised his voice to promote widow remarriage.
Rammohun, who is often called the father of modern India, wanted to revive
Hinduism in the light of reason. In the nineteenth century a number of social
and religious reform societies were formed. They include; Brahmo Samaj,
Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Manav Dharma Sabha, Prarthana Samaj and Arya
Samaj. The members of these Sabhas and Samajs made a new awakening and
brought renaissance in India. The Aligarh movement made valuable
contribution towards educational, social, religious and economic progress of
Muslims in India.
The younger generations of leaders in the Congress were disgruntled
with the meek and passive demands of political change. So they became
extremists. While some of them boycotted British goods and institutions, the
others went further by using political terrorism of murder and dacoity through
the use of pistols and hand grenades in the hope of getting speedy redress for
their grievances. A current of young patriotism swept the entire country against
the passive method of agitation followed by the moderates. Lokmanya Tilak,
Nauroji, R. C. Dutt and Ranade wrote volumes on the British exploitation of
12
India. Lord Curzon divided Bengal into two provinces in 1905 – the Western
Hindu majority province and the Eastern Muslim majority province. The
partition was seen by the Indians as a clever move in the game of divide and
rule. This created a great confrontation in Bengal.
Between 1906 and 1911, there was a great uprising of revolutionary
leaders, who were stimulated by the history of the western countries and hoped
to get arms supplies from Anglophobe countries. In 1942, the Indian National
Army was formed and in 1943, Subhas Chandra Bose took over the direct
command of Indian National Army. In 1944, the Indian National Army left
Rangoon along with the Japanese troops. They captured certain parts of Eastern
India, but the sudden withdrawal of the Japanese army put the entire operation
of the INA into ruin. Lala Lajpat Rai (the Lion of Punjab) with his fiery
speeches roused patriotic spirit among Indians.
Allan Octavian Hume, the progenitor of the Indian National Congress,
had deep knowledge of the natives. The Indian National Congress was
basically founded with two prominent agenda. The first was to amalgamate
India and the other was to liberate India from alien rule. The Indian National
Congress had three phases. The first phase was between 1885 and 1905. The
leaders of the first phase belonged to the educated middle class and they were
drawn from the cities. The second phase of the Indian National Congress was
seen between 1905 and 1916. This phase comprised a number of new and
younger members and their goal was to attain Swaraj. The third phase was
13
between 1919 and 1947. It was also called the Gandhian era. Purna Swaraj or
complete independence was the goal of the congress during this period.
Mahatma Gandhi contributed a lot to the attainment of independence. Gandhi
used Satyagraha, Non-Cooperation Movement and Civil Disobedience as his
tools to free India from the British clutches. A good number of selfless leaders
emerged to free India. The protests and demands of the Indians were
aggravated to a peak. The British could no more control the vast Indian subcontinent; and finally they decided to leave India.
There are a number of reasons for the British decision to leave India.
The growing potency of the Indian national movement posed a peril to the
British Raj in India. Slogans like; Quit India, Do or Die, Now or Never and
Dilli Chalo sounded terrific in the ears of the British. The loyalty of the Indian
forces helped a lot for the victory of the Allied powers and in turn, the British
were bound to give freedom to India. The diminishing British Army during the
war was yet another reason. A large number of persons advocated the cause of
India’s freedom abroad. They include, Louis Fischer, Pearl S. Buck, Lin
Yutang, Norman Thomas and J. J. Singh.
The year 1906 made a new chapter in the history of Indian politics with
the formation of the Indian Muslim League. The League encouraged the
Muslims to remain away from the national movement and not to ally with the
Congress. They emphasized separate representation for the Muslims and a
special dispensation for the Muslims in the government services. On the whole,
14
the League was a creation of British patronage of Muslims and treachery to the
solidarity of Indian nationalism. In 1913, Mohammed Ali Jinnah stepped into
the League. It was not until the Allahabad Session of 1930 that the Muslim
League knew the probability of the creation of Pakistan. In History of Indian
National Movement, R. K. Sharma notes that it was Sir Mohammed Iqbal who
first foresaw the need for a separate nation for the Muslims. Sir Mohammed
Iqbal said, “…a North West Indian Muslim state was desirable for the final
destiny of the Indian Muslims.” (301).
The growth of Muslim separatism was due to certain realities faced by
the Muslims in many minority provinces. They lagged behind in terms of
education and employment. They wanted to defend their deteriorating position.
The uneven economic development, imperial interest and limitations of
electoral politics widened the gulf between the Muslims and the Hindus. They
had the panic that as soon as the British leave India, they will become the
subjects of Hindus for ever in India. They hoped bright opportunities and
economic affluence in the new nation called Pakistan. They did not want to live
as minorities in a Hindu dominated India.
The Lahore session of the Muslim League was held in March 1940 and
the session was presided over by Jinnah. R. K. Sharma in his work History of
Indian National Movement quotes the presidential address given by Jinnah:
“The British Government, for the happiness of the Indians, should allow the
major nations separate homelands by dividing India into two autonomous
15
national states,” (301). In this distribution, he saw the vision of friendliness
between the Muslims and the Hindus. He thought that a single nation of India
would, therefore, mean tyranny of the majority Hindus over the minority
Muslims.
There were talks between Gandhi and Jinnah in 1944. Jinnah wanted to
have the existing provincial boundaries enact with Muslims alone deciding the
future in their majority provinces. While, Gandhi rejected the Two Nation
theory, he agreed to grant some limited form of self determination to the
Muslims in their majority provinces. But the talks failed since Jinnah refused to
have anything short of full sovereignty at the outset.
The Cabinet Mission had the possibilities of Pakistan but it overtly
declared against Pakistan. Jinnah was not satisfied with the proposal. Sucheta
Mahajan marks the appeal made by Jinnah to the British Prime Minister Attlee
in Independence and Partition – The Erosion of Colonial Power in India,
“…avoid compelling the Muslims to shed their blood” and give them
“honourable existence” (224). The Congress leaders did not think that Jinnah
could accomplish his ideal by any means. Mahajan also records the views of
the Congress leaders: “We will hear no more of that mischievous cry of
Pakistan” Even Nehru mockingly announced in 1946: “I would like to see a
revolution in India called by Mr. Jinnah. It is one thing to call for a revolution
and another to carry out a revolution” (222).
16
Jinnah formalized his plan of Direct Action. The Delhi Session of the
Muslim League held in April 1946, defined Pakistan as two independent states,
in the north-west and the east of India. Sucheta Mahajan’s Independence and
Partition – The Erosion of Colonial Power in India gives the inaugural speech
of Jinnah in the Delhi Session of the Muslim League:
If, unfortunately, the British are stampeded by the threat of
blood-shed, which is more a bluff than a reality, this time Muslim
India is not going to remain passive or neutral. It is going to play
its part and face all dangers. Nehru is greatly mistaken that there
might be trouble, as he says, but not very much. He is still living
in the atmosphere of ‘Anand Bhawan’. (224)
The first communal gun shot took place in Calcutta on August 16, 1946.
It was instigated by the Muslims and the Hindu communal groups retaliated to
it. The death toll in this communal collide was above five thousand. The
Congress leaders were traumatized by this dreadful turn of events. Whereas
Ghulam Ali Khan, Minister for Law and Order in Sind, declared that anyone
opposed to Pakistan “…shall be destroyed and exterminated.” (Mahajan 228).
Meanwhile, the Interim Government, comprising Congress representatives
alone, was sworn in on September 2, 1946.
The League started preparing for Direct Action calling it as jihad.
Mahajan’s Independence and Partition – The Erosion of Colonial Power in
India remarks how Wavell survived Jinnah’s intransigence:
17
I put in a great deal of hard work and had some acrimonious
discussion at times trying to get the best possible deal for the
League; and it was very largely Jinnah’s own fault that we did
not succeed in getting an Interim Government on what would
have been very good terms for the League. So I feel a little sore
myself at the line Jinnah and the League have since taken. (230-231)
Another communal riot broke out in Noakhali in East Bengal on October
10, 1946. It swiftly spread over to the entire district and its surroundings.
Murders, forced conversions, looting and raping became common phenomena.
Hindus, who were only eighteen per cent in Noakhali district, became the
victims. The trouble in East Bengal painfully revealed to the Congress leaders
that the stark reality of their position in the Interim Government was one of
responsibility, without the power to exercise it. Gandhi felt that his ahimsa
worked with the British but not with his countrymen. Both the Congress and
British tried to strike the correct balance with Jinnah, but Jinnah always had his
own way of going. Mahajan in his Independence and Partition – The Erosion
of Colonial Power in India gives, how Nehru observed the attitude of Jinnah:
“During the past few years it has been our repeated experience that Mr. Jinnah
does not commit himself to anything and does not like coming to a settlement.
He accepts what he gets and goes on asking for more” (253).
Yet another big violence broke out in Chapra, Bihar on October 24,
1946. There were about five thousand killings and most of the fatalities were
18
Muslims. The leaders of the League and the Congress hurried to Bihar to
console and to safeguard the victims. The three brutal incidents those shook the
unity and solidarity of India sent waves of panic and insecurity to the entire
nation. The minority communities of all the provinces sought the help of the
centre for their defence and protection. Under the rule of the League, the
Bengal Hindus had a sense of insecurity; and a bang of terror ran into their
veins. Sucheta Mahajan, quotes the letter written by Lady Abala to Rajendara
Prasad in his work Independence and Partition – The Erosion of Colonial
Power in India to highlight the insecurity faced by the Hindus in Bengal: “It
breaks our heart to think of dividing our beloved Bengal, but there seems to be
no other alternative. This is certain that we cannot live under the League
Government” (279).
The entire North India witnessed communal polarization at a mass level.
In this context the Muslims raised a disciplined paramilitary volunteer
organization known as Muslim National Guard. Simultaneously, the Hindus
built their own nationalist organization called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS). The communal fire that broke out in Calcutta soon engulfed the whole
of the Indian sub-continent. Riots began in Bombay during September, in Bihar
during October, in Uttar Pradesh during November and in Punjab during
December. There were about three thousand five hundred killings in Punjab
and properties worth 150 million rupees were damaged. Nearly four thousand
shops and houses of the Muslims were destroyed in just one week’s time.
19
Interminable efforts were taken to put an end to all the communal
violence that was wide spreading in India. Bandyopadhyay quotes the final fate
of the Indian sub-continent in his From Plassey to Partion: a History of
Modern India, “By March/April 1947, many of the Congress leaders had more
or less reconciled themselves to the idea of conceding Pakistan and accepting
freedom with Pakistan” (545). Even Attlee confessed, “It would be quite
impossible… for a few hundred British to govern against the active opposition
of the whole India” (545). And he became determined to transfer the power by
June 1948. Mountbatten reached New Delhi on March 22, 1947 to expedite the
course of action. On his arrival he realized the impossibility of united India and
foresaw the inevitability of partition. On third June Mountbatten announced his
new plan and proposed to advance the date of transfer of power from June 1948
to August 15, 1947. D. R. More in his work The Novels on the Indian Partition
quotes the Bill passed by the Attlee Government on eighteenth July: “As from
the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent
Dominions shall be set up in India to be known respectively as India and
Pakistan” (13).
Lord Mountbatten then appointed two Boundary Commissions – one for
Bengal and another for Punjab. In both the Punjab and Bengal, the Boundary
Commission consisted of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges with Sir
Cyril Radcliffe as a common chairman. The Punjab Boundary Commission had
Mr. Justice Din Mohammad, Mr. Justice Muhammad Munir, Mr. Justice Mehar
20
Chand Mahajan and Mr. Justice Teja Singh as its members. The Bengal
Boundary Commission consisted of Mr. Justice B. K. Mukherjee, Mr. Justice
C. C. Biswas, Mr. Justice Abu Saleh Muhammad Akram and Mr. Justice S. A.
Rahman as members. Sir Cyril Redcliffe was given six weeks time to carry out
this task.
On August 14, 1947 a new nation called Pakistan was carved out from
the Indian sub-continent. In a brief ceremony in Karachi, Mountbatten handed
over the power to Jinnah, who became the first governor general of the
Dominion of Pakistan. On the following day India was confirmed free and
Nehru was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of free India. Gandhi decided
not to participate in any celebration; instead he was in Calcutta where fresh
violence had broken out. He went from place to place soothing and consoling
the victims. R. K. Narayan in his Waiting for the Mahatma reveals the
condition of Gandhi in the following way: “His place was where people were
suffering and not where they were celebrating” (19).
The speed in which the power was transferred was sternly criticized by
many historians. When Pakistan was ultimately created, it contained 60 million
Muslims, leaving behind another 35 million in non-Muslim India. Many
viewed that the transfer was too hasty; but a few others viewed that the transfer
was much delayed. The seventy-two day timetable (from June 3, 1947 to
August 15, 1947) to transfer the power and to divide a big nation was done like
a game of joke. During these days, the British were busy packing their luggage
21
to return to their country leaving the Indians torn. If asked, who was
responsible for the division of the country, we will end-up only in a blame
game. Syed Ali Mujtaba in his The Demand for Partition of India writes,
“Muslim League wanted it, Congress consented to it and the British executed
it” (1).
Often one thinks of August 15, 1947 as a day of glory and jubilation.
But the other side of the day is dark and woe-filled. Freedom did not come to
India as Gandhi, Nehru and other great leaders dreamed off. Freedom left the
country bleeding. Of course, the partition of the Indian sub-continent not only
took away the life of Mahatma but also millions of others. A heavy knife ran
across mother India’s body. Jinnah, the proponent of the two-nation theory and
architect of Pakistan, himself then regretted that the creation of Pakistan was
the biggest mistake that he ever committed in his life. People who had been
living as brothers turned into foes all of a sudden. N. Radhakrishnan brings out
the brutal picture of partition by quoting Leonard Mosley’s work Last Days of
British Raj:
In the nine months between August 1946 and the spring of the
following year, between fourteen and sixteen million Hindus,
Sikhs and Muslims were forced to leave their homes and flee to
safety from blood-crazed mobs. In that same period over
6,00,000 of them were killed. But no, not just killed. If they were
children, they were picked up by their feet and their heads
22
smashed against the walls. If they were female children, they
were raped and then their breasts were chopped off. And if they
were pregnant, they were disemboweled (42).
The Indian sub-continent began to experience chaos and communal
frenzy from August 16, 1946, when the Muslim League launched its Direct
Action. When partition was announced, the two major communities began to
express their buried hatred towards each other. India’s independence and its
partition were the two sides of the same coin. Independence was the success of
the national movement and the sacrifices of the great leaders; whereas partition
was the evil created by some power hungry selfish men.
What followed the partition was one of the worst scenarios in human
history of the civilized world. About one million people were killed and about
seventy-five thousand women were raped. In From Plassey to Partion: a
History of Modern India Bandyopadhyay remarks:
Trains full of dead bodies travelled across the border in both
directions; more than ten million people were displaced and
began to taste bitter freedom amidst the squalor of the refugee
camps. The most well known victim of this frenzy was Gandhi
himself, assassinated on 30th January 1948 by a militant Hindu
nationalist (460).
In West Punjab the Muslim army, police and civil officials committed
the worst savagery in human history to wipe out the minorities. The riots in
23
West Punjab had their natural repercussion in East Punjab. The ambiance in the
Delhi province became tense at the beginning of September, 1947 with the
influx of mammoth number of refugees from West Punjab. The woes of the
refugees took the form of retaliation. Delhi witnessed arson, stabbing and large
scale killing between fourth and eleventh September. East Punjab experienced
the worst. After Partition registers the official reports received by East Punjab
government: “Females were separated from their males at Jhelum. Males were
all herded together and cut down with axes and saws, as orders were issued not
to waste a round on Kaffirs. The womenfolk were then allotted so many to each
group of Pathans” (46).
In Gujarat, region the number of abducted girls was estimated to be
4,000. These abducted women were sold in the open market. When the rest of
India was merrily celebrating their freedom, the land of the five rivers was
undergoing the sufferings of migration. For many, it was a day of long awaited
freedom, great victory and grand celebrations; but for those who lived on the
frontiers of Pakistan and India; and India and Bangladesh (formerly East
Pakistan), freedom was a nightmare, flee from peace to agony, a heart-breaking
experience and a loss of life, religion, dignity, love, friendship and wealth.
Amazingly for those who lived on the frontiers, freedom was in the form
of communal fiend. There were misery filled exoduses on both sides – India
and Pakistan. The frontier was completely in panic struck atmosphere. The woe
filled people were forced to migrate from one nation to the other. There were
24
all forms of migration and evacuation between August 1947 and January 1948.
Huge foot convoys under military escort were found common on both the
sides. It was estimated that about 673 refugee trains ran across carrying over
27, 99,368 refugees inside India and across the border. Over 4, 27,000 nonMuslims and over 2, 17,000 Muslim refugees were moved in motor
transportation. Even people were evacuated by means of air. D. R. More in his
The Novels on the Indian Partition observes, “Historical foolhardiness and
political madness shook the very foundation of peace and brotherhood and a
reign of terror and irrationality prevailed in the entire atmosphere” (19).
Almost overnight the Muslims, the Sikhs and the Hindus who lived
affably for centuries turned into sworn enemies. With devilish guts they
indulged in all the brutal atrocities of killing, looting, burning and raping. The
aggressive nature of the partition created an atmosphere of reciprocated
hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan. The distrust and hostility
created by partition over sixty years back still continues between India and
Pakistan.
According to the 1951 census, 72, 26,000 Muslims went to Pakistan
from India while 72, 49,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan
soon after partition. Looking at the scenario, in Bengal about 4, 25,000 Hindus
migrated from the then East Pakistan (later became Bangladesh in 1971). The
Hindus, Muslims and the Sikhs could not understand why they had to leave
their birth places. No one wanted to leave their birth places; the places of their
25
ancestors and the places where they had their properties, friends and pedigree.
They were forced to flee from their ancestral homes. Out of the ten million
people in Pakistan, four million Hindus and Sikhs left from Pakistan on the
announcement of partition, leaving the infant nation with six million Muslims.
By the end of 1947, about 4, 50,000 Hindus had migrated from the then East
Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to West Bengal, Assam and Tripura.
Pramod Kapoor in his preface to Train to Pakistan records, “Almost ten
million crossed a sketchy line drawn by a crumbling empire. Only half of them
reached an alien land they were forced to call home” (xiii). This was the first
bitter fruit of independence for those wretched millions. Khushwant Singh
recalls one of Amrita Pritam’s poems addressed to Waris Shah about the
condition of the bleeding Punjab in the preface to Train to Paskistan:
Oh, comforter of the sorrowing
Rise and see your Punjab
The fields are strewn with corpses
And blood flows in the Chenab. (xxiii)
They had no idea of where they were going and what was in store at the
new unknown destination. The trains which reached Pakistan packed with
passengers had the scribbled message on the sides of carriage A present from
India. The Muslims expressed their retort by sending back trainloads full of
butchered Hindus and Sikhs with the message A present from Pakistan. All
those who lived on the frontier region had the heaviest loss in their lives – lost
26
their dear ones; emotionally wounded; lost their properties and belongings; and
became jobless. They had everything before partition but partition left nothing
with them. Khushwant Singh in his preface in Train to Pakistan says, “It was a
botched up surgical operation. India’s arms were chopped off without any
anaesthetic, and streams of blood swamped the land of the five rivers known as
the Punjab” (xiv).
It was quite natural that a great national event – either positive or
negative would haunt the minds of the people for a long time. And it might find
its expression in diverse forms of art; like painting, music, songs, stories,
novels, films, and the like. Hundreds of thousands of works have come out on
certain well known events like the French Revolution, the American Civil War,
the Russian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Third Reich in Germany,
the Cold War and the two World Wars. A few well known classics on this line
are; Animal Farm, A Tale of Two Cities, War and Peace and The Naked and
the Dead. Similarly the partition of India was a landmark event in the history of
modern world. The harrowing event and its deep wounds still live in the minds
of those who suffered the partition.
The loss was not of India’s own – both the nations were the victims and
all the three major communities experienced this holocaust. This unfathomable
event was echoed in all forms of literature and films. The historians have
primarily dealt with partition in terms of facts and figures and have been unable
27
to capture its impact on the lives of ordinary people; whereas the shocking
memories of partition have found vibrant voice through literature.
The incredible anguish and suffering caused by partition has become a
favourite topic for the Muslim, the Hindu and the Sikh writers. Even the
partition event has found a place in the text books of Pakistan and India.
Krishna Kumar in his article “Partition in School Textbooks: A Comparative
Look at India and Pakistan” quotes the lines that are found in a Pakistani
history text book: “After the establishment of Pakistan, the entire subcontinent
was engulfed in the communal riots. The riots were widespread in Punjab,
Delhi, Bengal and Bihar in which 15 lack people were murdered, 50 thousand
women were abducted and more than one crore people had to migrate” (17).
The depiction of partition in Indian text books does not occupy a centre stage;
whereas it is more glaring in Pakistani text books. The obvious difference
between the text books of India and Pakistan are that for the Indian text book
writers, partition marks a tragedy, while for the Pakistani writers partition
means freedom and birth of a new nation.
The partition of the sub-continent has led to enormous creation of
literary and non-literary works. The particular branch known as Indo-English
partition fiction has grown to stand as separate branch of study during the postindependence period. Even after sixty years of the partition we are able to see
a film or a piece of literature on partition. Though most of these novels deal
with the partition of Pakistan (formerly West Pakistan); there are a few novels
28
like Shadow Lines written by Amitav Gosh and Red Hibiscus by Padmini
Sengupta which deal about the partition of Bangladesh (formerly East
Pakistan). The reason for this difference is the intensity of trouble in terms of
the number of people killed in the holocaust and the amount of property that
was damaged during the riots of partition, was admittedly less than that of
Punjab. Debjani Sengupta’s Mapmaking: Partition Stories from Two Bengals
was published in 2011. It is a collection of twelve stories written by the Bengali
writers (West Bengal and Bangladesh). These twelve stories speak of the
traumas faced by the Bengalese during the time of partition. It contains the
stories of Akhtarruzzaman Elias, Selina Hosain, Syed Waliullah and Hasan
Azizul Haq of Bangladesh, a few stories from West Bengal writers and one
each story from Tripura and Meghalaya.
Besides the enormous historical literature, there is also an extensive
body of artistic work on partition. They mingle history with imagination to
portray the horror and pain of partition. These artistic works include novels,
short stories, poetry, films, plays, paintings, and so on. And works related to
partition continue to pour both from India and Pakistan. While some of these
works depict the colossal massacre that took place during the great refugee
migration, the others contemplate on the aftermath of partition.
A good number of novels have been written on the theme of partition.
These novels are written in English, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and
Marathi. Many of these regional novels written on the theme of partition are
29
translated into English and in many other Indian languages. N. S. Gundur in his
work Partition and Indian English Fiction, published in 2008 has recorded that
there are about twenty-five novels written on the theme of partition calamity.
But every now and then a new work keeps on coming on the theme of IndoEnglish partition and added to this new genre of literature.
The Indian writers who witnessed this dreadful fury of partition could
not keep their pens closed. They came out with their creative potentialities to
bring back the forgotten human attributes. The holocaust created by the
partition urged many novelists of north India to record the horrifying events
that shook the nation. For some novelists the partition and the acidic
experiences that followed became the major theme of their writing, but for a
few others it was only a minor issue.
Writers like Chaman Nahal, Khushwant Singh, Attia Hosain,
Balchandra Rajan, Manohar Malgonkar and Raj Gill have treated the theme of
partition in detail. Whereas R. K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Gurucharan Das,
Shashi Tharoor and
a few others could make only a partial and passing
reference to partition in their novels. There are a number of reasons for this
indifference; one among them is the bang created by partition on the writers
like Chaman
Nahal, Khushwant Singh, Manohar Malgonkar and Shiv K
Kumar. Chaman Nahal, Khushwant Singh and Shiv K Kumar were part of the
millions who migrated from Pakistan to India. But R. K. Narayan and other
30
South Indian novelists did not have much experience of the painful partition
and its impact in their lives.
Some of the notable novels on the partition theme are Train to Pakistan
by Khushwant Singh, The Dark Dancer by Balchandra Rajan, Sunlight on a
Broken Column by Attia Hosain, A Bend in the Ganges by Manohar
Malgonkar, The Rape by Raj Gill, Azadi by Chaman Nahal, When Freedom
Came by Sharf Mukaddam, Looking Through Glass by Mukul Kesavan, What
the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin and A River with Three Banks
by Shiv K Kumar. Where as the novels like Waiting for the Mahatma by R. K.
Narayan, Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai, Midnight’s Children by Salman
Rushdie, A Fine Family by Gurucharan Das, The World is my Village by K. A.
Abbas, Ties – Thick and Thin by N. N. Saxena, Cyclones by Manoj Das and
The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor have depicted the partition fury in
an oblique manner.
Apart from the Indian English partition novels, there are also a good
number of Indian regional novels on the historic partition event. Qurratulian
Hyder’s Aag ka Darya (River of Fire) and Ramanand Sagar’s Aur Insaan Mar
Gaya (Blleding Partition) were written in Urdu. Aani Manasacha Mudada by
Saripad Joshi and Nahi Chira Nabi Panati by Nilkanth Deshmukh were written
in Marathi. Kartar Singh Duggal’s Nahun Tey Mas (Twice born Twice Dead)
and Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar (The Skeleton) were written in Punjabi. Bhisham
Sahani’s Tamas was written in Hindi. Besides the novels, there are also short
31
stories, memoirs and diaries depicting the ghastly events of partition.
Dr. D.R.More in his work The Novels on the Indian Partition remarks, “Short
story writers like Adnyeya, Bhisham Sahani, Mahipsinh, Mohan Rakesh and
Prakash Tandon have given best partition stories to the world” (52).
Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column written in 1961 is an icebreaking novel on the theme of partition, because it was the first novel written
by a Muslim writer. As a woman, she tries to present the agonies experienced
by women during partition. It is not only the Indian writers who have written
on the partition theme but also the Pakistani writers.
The first partition novel that was written by a Pakistani writer is Pawn to
King Three (1985). Mohumad Sipra’s this novel is a story of a boy called
Adan, who has lost his parents in one of the bloodiest partition massacres in
Amritsar. Bapsi Sidhwa is another Pakistani writer, who wrote the novel IceCandy Man on the theme of partition. She was an eyewitness of the disastrous
partition, so, she presents the horrors she experienced at the time of partition.
Since she is a Parsi, she stands unbiased in her interpretation of the cruelties of
the partition. Another monumental work on the theme of partition was a
collection of short stories written by Saadat Hasan Manto in Urdu. He was
forced to migrate from Bombay to Lahore during partition. He died of the
despair of partition at the age of forty-five. His master piece was Mottled
Dawn: 50 Sketches and Stories of Partition is a fine collection of short stories
on partition. In addition to this new genre known as partition novels; there are
32
also a great number of oral narrations about partition in India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh.
Many creative minds ventured to give cinematic depiction to the bloody
riots of the pre-partition and the post-partition India. Khushwant Singh’s Train
to Pakistan was adapted into a Hindi film by Pamela Rooks. Bhisham Sahni’s
Tamas was adapted into a TV series for Doordarshan later it was turned into a
four hour feature film. Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy Man was filmed by Deepa
Mehta with the title Earth. Amrita Pritam’s novel Pinjar was filmed in 2003.
The Sky Below is a feature-length documentary on partition. Even the movies
like Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough and Hey Ram directed by
Kamal Hassan have several scenes connected to partition.
A good number of literary works have been written on the theme of
Indo-Pakistan partition. The present study is done only on a few select IndoEnglish novels which deal with the theme of partition. This study focuses on
four well known works that vividly depict the incidents related to partition and
its aftermath. They are; Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (1956), Manohar
Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges (1964), Chaman Nahal’s Azadi (1975) and
Shiv K Kumar’s A River with Three Banks: The Partition of India: Agony and
Ecstasy (1998).
Khushwant Singh was born in Hadali in West Punjab (now part of
Pakistan) and had his education in Lahore, Delhi and London. After his studies
he came back to Lahore and began his career as lawyer. The riots that broke in
33
Lahore in the middle of 1947 forced him to leave Pakistan. In his preface to
Train to Pakistan he says, “Lahore was burning but we were determined not to
leave. It was after all my home. We sent the children to Delhi but stayed put in
Lahore, hoping against hope” (xvii). But Chris Everett, a friend of Khushwant
Singh advised him to leave Lahore. Finally on 12th August, 1947 he and his
family left for Delhi by road. He left everything, including his newly-acquired
bungalow. Later, during one of his visits to Lahore, he stayed as a guest in his
own house. Since he had the first hand experience of the partition and its
sinister and venomous impact, he could spin an impressive novel out of it. He
stayed in Bhopal where he wanted to articulate his excruciating pain and
experience that he himself had lived through. After nine years he published his
Train to Pakistan (1956).
Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan was originally titled as Mano
Majra (the village which stands as the centre stage for the entire novel). It won
Grove Press Award in the same year. It was the first novel in English by an
Indian about the partition of the sub-continent. Singh published Train to
Pakistan in 1956. Since then there has been a continuous flow of novels about
the event.
Train to Pakistan is a major breakthrough in the line of Indo-English
fiction. The partition of the Indian sub-continent serves both as a background
and a foreground to the novel. The novel is set in a peaceful North-west
frontier village called Mano Majro, which is equally populated with Sikhs and
34
Muslims. Mano Majra is on the bank of the river Sutlej. The novel has four
sections – the first is Dacoity, the second is Kalyug, the third is Mano Majra
and the fourth is Karma. Singh clearly builds the turbulent days of partition in
these four sections. The events of the novel begin from one night in August
1947, and presents events as they unravel in the weeks following. During this
period, the people of the whole village pass from the state of happiness and
steadiness to that of bitterness and disturbance. Sudhir Bose in his film review
titled “From Print to Film: Train to Pakistan” says, “Singh recreates the lull
and the storm that swept the living humans turned brutes and the dead humans
across swollen waters” (37).
A Bend in the Ganges was written by a Maharashtra born writer
Manohar Malgonkar. Malgonkar is a prominent writer in Indo-English literature
who has immense gift in dealing with history and politics. E.M.Forster called
A Bend in the Ganges as one of the three best novels of 1964. Richard Church
in his assessment of the novel compared A Bend in the Ganges with Leo
Tolstoy’s War and Peace. R. K. Narayan is reported to have said that
Malgonkar is his favourite Indian novelist in English. Malgonkar, the grandson
of one of the former Diwans of the princely state of Indore, began his career in
the Indian Army. He entered the Indian Army as a soldier and rose to the rank
of a lieutenant colonel. He began his literary career with the novel Distant
Drum. His army life experiences are beautifully documented in many of his
35
novels and short stories. Though Malgonkar is predominantly remembered for
his novels, he has also written more than fifty short stories.
A Bend in the Ganges begins with the Civil Disobedience Movement of
the early thirties and ends with the post-partition riots in Punjab. The novel
contains thirty-six chapters formed into three parts. The first thirteen chapters
cover the period between 1937 and 1939 and set in West Punjab. The next ten
chapters cover the period between 1939 and 1942 and set in the Andamans.
The last thirteen chapters cover the period between 1942 and 1947. These
chapters describe the country’s independence and the partition horrors and
communal riots in Punjab. The novel is packed with events one after another.
Meenakshi Mukherjee in her review on A Bend in the Ganges points out the
various events that are depicted in the novel: “…the boycott of foreign goods,
the secret activities of terrorist groups, the outbreak of the second World War,
the Japanese occupation of the Andamans, the British retreat from Rangoon,
the long march of evacuees from Burma, the Bombay dock explosion and the
dismemberment of India” (79).
A Bend in the Ganges has two protagonists – one is Debi-dayal and the
other is Gian Talwar. They both vary in a number of respects like background,
rationale and conviction. It is their lives through which Manohar Malgonkar
proceeds to present the entire action of the novel. There are a few other
characters like Sundari, Shafi, Tekchand and so on; they only play a supportive
role to Gian Talwar and Debi-dayal. The author even brings a few historical
36
figures and events to reinforce the political ambience of the novel. The
appearance of Gandhi and Jatin Das is found in the novel; similarly the events
like Jallianwalabagh massacre and the Kuch Kaurianwalan confrontation in
Amritsar. The action of the novel ranges from domestic feud to national
bloodshed. However, the theme of partition is given sharp focus only in the last
part of the novel. The novel is adventurous, well-knitted and full of action.
Chaman Nahal’s Azadi is the next novel taken for the study. Chaman
Nahal was born in Sialkot (now in Pakistan) in 1927. His family migrated to
India at the time of partition. He served as lecturer in many universities in
India. He was serving as reader in English in Rajasthan University between
1962 and 1963. Then he served as professor of English in Delhi University
between 1980 and 1992. He is a visiting faculty at several universities in the
U.S.A., Canada, Japan, North Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. He has written
nine novels besides a good collection of short stories, essays and critical works
on Melville, D. H. Lawrence, Hemingway, Nehru and so on.
Azadi is the Sahitya Academi Award winning novel by Chaman Nahal.
It presents a very persuasive and graphic depiction of the horrors and paradoxes
of partition experience felt by the people of north-western India during the time
of partition. It deals with the political, social, economic, religious,
psychological and cultural implications of freedom. It was written in 1975.
Since Nahal and his family migrated from Pakistan to Delhi, he himself
witnessed the sufferings of the people and a number of communal killings, riots
37
and rapes. So Nahal is seen as an angry young man who tries to articulate his
feelings of torment through his novel Azadi. The novel is set in Sialkot
(Nahal’s birth place) between the partition announcement of June 3rd, 1947 and
the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30th, 1948. It nearly covers
eight tumultuous months in the history of the Indian sub-continent.
Azadi narrates the pathetic plight of five families along with a huge
number of Hindus and Sikhs from Sialkot to Delhi. Lala Kanshi Ram is the
protagonist of this novel. He is a well-established grain merchant in Sialkot. At
the pronouncement of partition, Sialkot, a Muslim majority city experiences
looting, killing and burning. Lala Kanshi Ram, his wife Prabha Rani, his son
Arun and his Hindu and Sikh neighbours seek asylum in the refugee camp.
When Lala Kanshi Ram hears the death of his daughter Madhu and her
husband at the hands of the Muslims, he becomes utterly wrecked. He and his
family members later join the foot convoy to India. In spite of an armed escort,
the convoy witnesses relentless attacks, killings and abduction of Hindu
women by Muslims. Finally, they reach Delhi with wrecked hearts to begin
their life afresh. Lakhmir Singh in his article “Chaman Nahal: Azadi” writes:
Azadi is, in fact, the story of millions of people uprooted from
their homes for no fault of their own and this story is symbolized
in the person of Lala Kanshi Ram and his family and the pain that
they go through during the process of this cataclysm in their lives
and their estrangement from their own home-land (226).
Azadi is a striking psychological study on freedom and the partition.
38
The fourth novel taken for this research work is Shiv K Kumar’s A River
with Three Banks. Kumar was born in Lahore in 1921. He had his early
education at Dayanand Anglo-Vedic High School and Forman Christian
College, Lahore and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He received his
doctorate in English Literature from Cambridge University. He taught English
literature at Osmania University and the University of Hyderabad besides being
a visiting professor at various universities in the U.S.A. and England. He
received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987 for his work Trapfalls in the Sky
(a collection of poems). He has written six novels besides being a novelist,
short-story writer, poet, playwright, translator and critic.
Kumar’s A River with Three Banks was published in 1998. Mulk Raj
Anand in the blurb of A River with Three Banks has applauded this novel as, “It
re-creates, in a language that glows with fragrance and colour, not only the
trauma that one associates with partition, but also love, compassion and
forgiveness that evoked even in the midst of communal frenzy. Here is a poet’s
visualization of the India of 1947 – its brutality and romance, its agony and
ecstasy.” Since Kumar lived in Lahore at the time of partition, he witnessed the
unbearable horrors of partition. His migration as a refugee from Pakistan to
India and his experiences of the holocaust kindled him to write this story.
S. Robert Gnanamony in his work Literary Dialectics: Notes and Chords from
East and West notes Kumar’s reason for writing this novel: “All that he had
seen with his naked eyes started haunting him wherever he went to. So after
39
many years, Shiv K Kumar has crystallized the chunk of reality in his A River
with Three Banks” (115).
Unlike the other novelists of partition, Kumar’s dealing of partition is
entirely different. His novel is an ideal mixture of historical precision and
creative imagination. The author spins a beautiful love story against the
backdrop of the communal frenzy that followed the partition of the Indian subcontinent. The author focuses on the values of love, compassion and
forgiveness that were found in some individuals and were missing in many.
The novel is set in Delhi, Allahabad and some other parts of Northern
India at the time of the partition. The novel stresses on the man-woman
relationship like marriage and divorce, love and hate, forgiveness and revenge.
Gautam Mehta is the central character of the novel. He is a Delhi based
journalist. In order to divorce his adulterous wife he takes refuge in
Christianity. Later, he meets Haseena, an abducted Muslim girl from Allahabad
by a gang headed by Pannalal, and forced her into prostitution. Gautam again
gets converted into Islam to marry Haseena. He risks his life by taking
Haseena’s mother and sister to Pakistan.
Since partition literature has become a major chunk of Indian literature,
many research studies have been undertaken on them. There are studies on the
partition novels of North Indian writers, the partition novels of South Indian
writers, the partition novels in Hindi, the partition novels in Punjabi and the
partition novels in Urdu. There are some researches which focus on the theme
40
of partition novels. And a few other studies mainly concentrate on the aspects
of plot, characters and setting of the partition novels; whereas the present
research aims to study the human and economic loss; and the religious and
psychological trauma of the people during the time of partition through a few
select Indo-English partition novels.
This research work is done based on the study of the above four novels.
And this thesis tries to probe the socio, economic, political, psychological and
religious conditions of the people during the partition holocaust. Keeping these
aspects in mind, the research study is divided into four chapters apart from the
introduction and the conclusion.
The second chapter is tiled as “The Irreparable Human Loss”. The
partition of the sub-continent witnessed a terrific human massacre – leaving
millions of people being killed and a huge exchange of refugees from either
side of the international border. There was a great upsurge of violence like
killings, rapes and arson. Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan presents
innumerable dreadful sights of horror like trainloads of corpses and the
swelling of the Sutlej with corpses. Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges depicts
the mad killings, rapes and abductions, and wailing and weeping which were
common during that time. Similarly, Chaman Nahal’s Azadi gives the killings
of the Hindus which became a daily ritual in Sialkot after the announcement of
partition. Shiv K Kumar’s A River with Three Banks too has similar portrayal
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of violence that was witnessed in Delhi, Allahabad and many parts of the
Northern India.
Since the ensuing chapter is entitled as “Brutal Religious Persecutions”,
it aims to scrutinize the various religious intolerances presented in the select
novels that are taken for study. Train to Pakistan speaks of the troubled
relationship between the Muslims and the Sikhs as the announcement of the
partition; and the sacrifice made by Juggut Singh to save his beloved Nooran, a
Muslim girl. A Bend in the Ganges exhibits the distrust that was rampant at the
time of partition between the Muslims and the Hindus. The Muslims betraying
their Hindu counterparts and the visa versus are described in this novel. In
Azadi, Sardar Niranjan Singh who burns himself is of the view that he was
ready to lose his life but not his Sikh dharma. During the exodus, Nahal
describes a number of defiled and destroyed places of worship of the Hindus
and the Sikhs. In A River with Three Banks, Gautam, the protagonist finds that
religion was the chief tool that was used at the time of partition. Gautam is
basically a Hindu, later becomes a Christian and finally a Muslim. He
experiences joy in all the religions.
The next chapter is titled as “The Huge Material Loss”. It analyses the
various material losses presented in the novels that are taken for study. In Train
to Pakistan a group of youngsters attack the Muslims of Mano Majra and take
away their cattle and other belongings. Killing of animals and destroying
houses, shops and the places of worship were the order of the day. A Bend in
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the Ganges gives the heavy economic loss of Tekchand. He had one of the best
houses and a lot of property in Duriabad. He has to leave everything and go
bare handed towards an unknown destination. Azadi presents the majority
Muslims freely looting the minority Hindu and Sikh houses and shops. The
Hindus leave Sialkot empty handed leaving behind their houses and properties
which they took years to earn. In A River with Three Banks, Shiv K Kumar
gives an explicit picture of the enormous property loss due to the communal
rage. Burning of vehicles, houses and shops are narrated in the novel.
“Psychological Trauma” is the title of the next chapter. Partition caused
physical, economical, religious and psychological agonies. Among these,
psychological wounds were the deepest, and remained with the people for a
long period. In Azadi, Arun remains a torn boy. The gift of Azadi to Arun was
his everlasting separation from his beloved Nurul Nisar. His father Lala Kanshi
Ram’s emotional outpouring is found when he was forced to leave his own
home and flee as a refugee.
In A Bend in the Ganges Tekchand faces a great psychological crisis.
The city of Duriabad was his and his ancestors. The announcement of partition
compels him to leave the city. He could not compromise his emotional
separation of the town of Duriabad. Similar is the case of Juggut Singh in Train
to Pakistan. Nooran, his beloved has to leave Mano Majra to the newly created
nation of Pakistan. He carries Juggut Singh’s child in her womb. This brings a
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great agony to Juggut Singh. He sacrifices his life to save Nooran and his
unborn child.
Shiv K. Kumar in his novel A River with Three Banks gives the
psychological agony faced by a Muslim family. Abdul Rahim of Allahabad
goes in search of his abducted daughter Haseena. He and his family undergo a
great mental agony. He is killed by a group of Hindu fanatics while he was
searching for his daughter. This leaves the family to further ruin. Haseena too
undergoes psychological torture when she is forced to become a prostitute.
The concluding chapter of this thesis sums up the entire study
highlighting the process of this research. The burden of partition still lies heavy
in the hearts of millions. The bearing of partition and the way it has affected the
relationship between India and Pakistan is given a sharp focus in this chapter.
The study also tries to probe the objectivity of these select authors and the
message they wish to impart to the world. Further, it proposes a few other areas
of research which could be carried out along the same line.
CHAPTER - II
THE IRREPARABLE
HUMAN LOSS
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CHAPTER – II
THE IRREPARABLE HUMAN LOSS
The creation of the new nation called Pakistan and the sudden departure
of the English from India transferring the administration to Indians themselves
left lakhs of Indians who lived on the frontiers with unfathomable woes. It was
a departing kick of the British Imperialism both for Hindus and Muslims. The
clash of communal venom in the late 1947 was something unimaginable in the
land of Buddha and Mahatma. The five rivers of prosperity, civilization and life
flooded with corpses and blood that rose out of the loss of human values.
Instead of jubilation, there were fear and horror. People became aliens in their
own homes. Freedom and the creation of a new nation in the Indian subcontinent came in the form of devouring demon. The innocents became flies to
the wanton boys.
There was a great exodus both from India and Pakistan. People on the
border discarded their houses, properties and relatives in order to save their
lives. Communal frenzy reached its peak. The hard fought freedom through
non-violence had its celebration in the form of violence. Friends became foes
over night and began to crouch on each other. Killing, raping, looting and
burning became the order of the day. The whole of North India experienced a
tumultuous period. Men had their sport in counting on their prey. There was a
mass migration like that of the Israelites in the Old Testament.
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In order to save the precious lives, evacuation works were carried on
both the sides. From the day of the announcement of partition, on an average of
50,000 non-Muslims were brought to safety everyday with the available means
of transport. After Partition, published by the Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting, Government of India, gives the following detail about the mass
migration: “From September 18 to October 29, 1947, in 42 days, as many as 24
non-Muslim foot convoys, totaling 8, 49,000 souls with hundreds of bullock
carts and thousands of cattle crossed over to India” ( 53). Between August 27
and November 6, 1947 about 673 refugee trains ran between the two nations
carrying over 27,99,368 refugees on both the sides. By the end of 1947 about
12, 50,000 refugees were given shelter in 160 camps all over India. In short, the
late 1947 was marked with horrified flight on the entire frontier region. Despite
these evacuative measures and military escorts, the two nations witnessed
lawlessness and violence to the core. Khushwant Singh in his Train to Pakistan
describes the situation in this manner: “…all of northern India was in arms, in
terror or in hiding” (3).
The entire nation was bewildered and shocked to see a nation of Ahimsa
with guns and spears thirsting for blood, property and women. Harish Raizada
in his article “Train to Pakistan: A Study in Crisis of Values” points out, “The
harrowing incidents of 1947 had shaken the faith of all the sensitive and
thinking people of India in the intrinsic nobility of man, taught by its sages and
saints including Mahatma Gandhi during various stages in its cultural evolution
of thousands of years” (161).
46
The partition and its aftermath was the darkest period in the history of
modern India. Many literary and non-literary works have been produced on the
partition of the Indian sub-continent. Of the many literary works, Khushwant
Singh’s Train to Pakistan is the first novel in English written by an Indian
about partition. It was first published in 1956 as Mano Majra when Khushwant
Singh was forty. The novel abounds with the description of the partition
holocaust. Khushwant Singh himself felt a great mental agony at the ghastly
human tragedy of partition. Harish Raizada in his article “Train to Pakistan: A
Study in Crisis of Values” quotes what Khushwant Singh said in one of his
interviews:
The beliefs that I had cherished all my life were shattered. I had
believed in the innate goodness of the common man. But the
division of India had been accompanied by the most savage
massacres known in the history of the country…. I had believed
that we Indians were peace-loving and non-violent, that we were
more concerned with matters of the spirit, while the rest of the
world was involved in the pursuit of material things. After the
experience of the autumn of 1947, I could no longer subscribe to
these views. (162)
The action of the novel is spun around a tiny village called Mano Majra.
There were about seventy families in Mano Majra. This village was situated in
Punjab, the most affected area of partition. It was on the border of India and
47
Pakistan; and on the bank of the Sutlej. Though the village was dominated by
the Sikhs, there were also Hindus and Muslims. They had all lived peacefully
together since time immemorial. They did not even know that the British had
left India and the Indian sub-continent was divided into two nations. The subinspector informed to the deputy commissioner in Khushwant Singh’s Train to
Pakistan, “I am sure no one in Mano Majra even knows that the British have
left and the country is divided into Pakistan and Hindustan” (30).
The action of the novel is spread over a few weeks of August and
September in 1947. It covers only the disorderly days of partition. Peace-loving
Mano Majrans entered into a world of chaos with the killing of Lala Ram Lal.
Five decoits entered the village and killed Lala Ram Lal, the moneylender of
the village. Through Lala Ram Lal’s killing the author sets the note for the
horrors that are going to follow a suit. Though he was killed by the dacoits,
Malli and his men, two innocent persons became scapegoats for the action. The
next day of the murder, police arrived at Mano Majra and arrested Juggut Singh
and Iqbal suspecting them for the murder. Prafulla C. Kar in his article
“Khushwant Singh: Train to Pakistan” observes, “Thus the sleepy village
awakes to life and slowly joins the turbulence outside” (95).
Though the
village had heard of the communal troubles that have taken place in the other
parts of the district, it had not experienced any partition violence. With the
killing of Lala Ram Lal and the arrest of Iqbal and Juggut Singh Mano Majra
too began to experience the partition trouble.
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In Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, Hukum Chand, the magistrate
and Deputy Commissioner of the district says to the sub-inspector, “Do you
know, the Sikhs retaliated by attacking a Muslim refugee train and sending it
across the border with over a thousand corpses? They wrote on the engine ‘Gift
to Pakistan’!” (26). Then the sub-inspector narrated another incident that took
place in the markets of Sheikhupura and Gujranwala and how Pakistan police
joined hands with the Muslim Mob in killing Hindu and Sikh refugees. He
reported that the Pakistan police and the army took part in the killings in which
almost the entire community of Hindus and Sikhs were washed out. Some
women killed themselves and their children by jumping into wells. Many of the
wells in that area were filled with corpses.
There was a railway station at Mano Majra. A few trains ran through
this station. One among them was the train that ran between Lahore and Delhi.
The village had its rhythm of life in tune with the trains those passed through
Mano Majra. After the announcement of partition, the trains were filled with
Sikh and Hindu refugees from Pakistan and with Muslim refugees from India.
Even the roofs were full of fleeing refugees. One day in the early September, a
ghost train reached Mano Majra. It came from Pakistan. It was filled with
corpses of men, women and children. Khushwant Singh in his Train to
Pakistan describes the train in the following manner:
There were bodies crammed against the far end walls of the
compartment, looking in terror at the empty windows through
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which must have come shots, spears and spikes. There were
lavatories jammed with corpses of young men who had muscled
their way to comparative safety(129).
The dead bodies were removed from the train and were carried on crude
bamboo stretchers to a leveled ground. The bodies were thrown one above the
other. A police officer came to Mano Majra and ordered the people in
Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan: “Every one get all the wood there is in
his house and all the kerosene oil he can spare” (125). With the wood and
kerosene collected from Mano Majra, a mass cremation was done near the
station. Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan describes the manner in which
those corpses were burned: “Red tongues of flame leaped into the black sky. A
soft breeze began to blow towards the village. It brought the smell of burning
kerosene, then the wood. And then – a faint acrid smell of searing flesh” (127).
This incident brought a heavy shock in the lives of the Mano Majrans and
completely worried the whole village. Even Hukum Chand, deputy
Commissioner of the district was bewildered and frightened.
There were more than a thousand dead bodies in the train and another
four or five hundred might had been killed on the roofs, on footboards and
between buffers. Mano Majra alone did not experience this revulsion but all the
places on the border line witnessed this type of nightmarish event. Swain, S. P.
in his article “Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan: A Thematic Analysis”
points out, “Everywhere there is mass madness and Mano Majra too reels
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under the opprobrious and ghastly scene of communal frenzy” (85). The trains
that ran through Mano Majra were crowded with Sikh and Hindu refugees from
Pakistan or with Muslim refugees from India.
The onset of forty to fifty Sikh refugees from Pakistan created a tensed
atmosphere. Though Muslims of Mano Majra offered them food, there was a
panic that they might start killing Muslims of Mano Majra in vengeance to the
pains that they underwent in the hands of Muslims in Pakistan. So, Hukum
Chand sent a message to the commanding officer of the Muslim refugee camp
asking for trucks to evacuate Mano Majra Muslims. In Khushwant Singh’s
Train to Pakistan, the Sikh refugees from Pakistan spoke of, “… women
jumping into wells and burning themselves rather than fall into the hands of
Muslims. Those who did not commit suicide were paraded naked in the streets,
raped in public, and then murdered” (178). Rumours of atrocities committed by
Sikhs on Muslims in Patiala, Ambala and Kapurthala created an antagonistic
atmosphere in Mano Majra. An unknown hostility began to germinate between
the Muslims and the Sikhs of Mano Majra.
The guiltless people of Mano Majra did not think that they had to pay a
heavy penalty for the freedom that they never yearned for. A Muslim youth in
Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan says, “Freedom is for the educated
people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves
of the educated Indians – or the Pakistanis” (69). The lambardar informed the
people of Mano Majra, “The winds of destruction are blowing across the land.
51
All we hear is kill, kill. The only ones who enjoy freedom are thieves, robbers
and cutthroats. … We were better off under the British. At least there was
security” (71). Even the officials and police had their own hands in supporting
such people of their own religion.
While describing the partition holocaust, Khushwant Singh stands
unbiased. He presents an unprejudiced account of the partition calamity.
D.K.Chakravorty in his article “The Theme of the Partition of India in Indian
Novels in English” comments on the impartial stand of Khushwant Singh in the
following way: “Evidently the author does not take any side. He is admirably
free from partition attitude. Throughout this novel we find his balanced and
unbiased attitude” (45). A truckful of fleeing Muslim soldiers from Amritsar to
Lahore killed a number of Sikhs who were walking along the road to reach
India from the recently created Pakistan. They stabbed some naive Sikh
pedestrians and hastened their truck. The same way the Sikhs and the Hindus
committed atrocities over the Muslims. A group of four Sikh Sardars who were
driving a jeep began shooting a mile-long column of Muslim refugees walking
on the road. With four stern guns they shot as many as Muslims they could.
All these incidents began to perturb the state of affairs of Mano Majra.
The release of Malli and his band in the middle of Mano Majra created fear and
anxiety. Mali and his men began spreading the rumour that Lala Ram Lal was
killed by Muslim criminals, but they were the factual killers. They put a knife
on the homogeneity of the Muslims and the Sikhs. They unleashed a reign of
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terror in Mano Majra. To add fuel to the fire, the Sikh refugees who reached
Mano Majra started to speak of the ruthless and vicious killings of the Sikh
men, women and children by the Muslims in Pakistan. They often congregated
in the temple and narrated their woes to others. The Muslims felt that they
were insecure in Mano Majra. The Muslims, who had earlier decided to stay in
Mano Majra, were forced to migrate to a refugee camp. They found that they
were not protected in the land where they had lived for generations. The
Muslims of Mano Majra were taken to a refugee camp at Chundunnugger, later
to be taken to Lahore by train.
On the same day, there was a steady rain and the Sutlej began to rise.
There was a panic among the people of Mano Majra that the Sutlej might flood
and drown them. Singh’s Train to Pakistan notes that the lambardar appointed,
“… four parties of three men each for watch to be kept all through the night”
(198). At midnight the three men who were on watch heard human voices
calling for help. They heard cries from the river. They noticed dead cows, bulls
yoked to carts, and dead men, women and children floating on the river.
Vultures and kites flew over the river to eat the floating carcasses. There were
hundreds of corpses floating on the Sutlej. They were not drowned but were
murdered. Khushwant Singh in his Train to Pakistan describes the floating
dead in the following way: “Some were without limbs, some had their bellies
torn open, and many women’s breasts were slashed. They floated down the
sunlit river, bobbing up and down” (202).
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There was another train that came to Mano Majra with full of dead
bodies. This too had come from Pakistan. The people of Mano Majra waited
for the soldiers who might come to collect oil and wood to burn the dead
bodies. This time the soldiers did not come to gather oil and wood instead, a
bulldozer reached the Mano Majra railway station. It dug a rectangular trench
for fifty yards then the dead bodies were brought from the train and laid on the
large pit. After the mass burial the bulldozer leveled the trench with the ground.
Two soldiers were left to guard the place from the devastation of jackals.
With the abandoned Muslim houses, the entire village looked like a
haunted one. One night a few militant youth came to the gurdwara of Mano
Majra. They wanted the youngsters of Mano Majra to join with them in killing
the Muslims. In Train to Pakistan, Singh observes the angry words uttered by
the leader of the militant group:
For each Hindu or Sikh they kill, kill two Musulmans. For each
woman they abduct or rape, abduct two. For each trainload of
dead they send over, send two across. For each road of convoy
that is attacked, attack two. That will stop the killing on the other
side. It will teach them that we can also play this game of killing
and looting. (222)
This talk by the stranger infuriated the youths of Mano Majra. Malli and
his men along with a group of refugees joined with the militants. They charted
to assault a train carrying Muslim refugees of Mano Majra and other places to
54
Pakistan on the next day. They planned to tie a wire rope across the bridge
which will sweep all those sitting on the roof of the train. That will leave
around four to five hundred Muslims dead. Then the militants with guns will
begin to shoot at the windows and kill as many as they could and send the train
only with dead bodies.
The next morning the lambardar went to the police station at
Chundunnugger to notify the police of the plan of the young militants. But
Hukum Chand, the Deputy Commissioner uttered his powerlessness to stop the
action of the young militants. Singh’s Train to Pakistan notes the caution given
by the sub-inspector to Hukum Chand: “There are mobs of twenty to thirty
thousand armed villagers thirsting for blood. I have fifty policemen with me
and not one of them would fire a shot at a Sikh” (232). Hukum Chand decided
to release Juggut Singh and Iqbal because he was convinced that Juggut Singh
will do something to save the train in which his beloved Nooran with his
unborn child in her womb would be migrating to Pakistan. The sub-inspector
clearly informed Juggut Singh about the designed attack of the train in which
the Muslims of Mano Majra would be going to Pakistan. He even made
provision to drop them in Mano Majra at the earliest.
Hukum Chand befell completely frustrated with the events that occurred
around him. Looking at the killings and lootings, he called, “… it is a bloody
Holi.” He reminisced the three nasty and gory incidents that happened to a few
people due to the communal venom of the partition. The first incident was
55
related to one of his orderly’s daughter called Sundari. She got married four
days ago and went to Gujranwala with her husband where her husband worked
as a peon. She had not yet slept with her husband not even seen his face
completely. Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan narrates their cold-blooded
murder in the following way:
There were large stones on the road. Then hundreds of people
surrounded them. Everyone was ordered off the bus. Sikhs were
just hacked to death. The clean-shaven were stripped. Those that
were circumcised were forgiven. Those that were not were
circumcised. Not just the foreskin: the whole thing was cut off.
She (Sundari) who had not really had a good look at Mansa Ram
was shown her husband completely naked. They held him by the
arms and legs and one man cut off his penis and gave it to her.
The mob made love to her. She did not have to take off any one
of her bangles. They were all smashed as she lay in the road,
being taken by one man and another and another. (259-260)
Then Hukum Chand brooded over the calamity of Sunder Singh. Sunder
Singh was a valiant soldier. He traveled to Sindh along with his wife and three
children by a train. The compartment which was meant to carry forty sitting
and twelve sleeping had over five hundred men and women. There was no
water in the train. The train was stranded for four days during scorching heat of
summer on a wayside station. He could not even supply water to his children so
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he gave them his urine to drink. When that too dried up he could not bear the
agony of his children; so he pulled out his revolver and shot his children and
his wife. All these incidents scared Hukum Chand and he sensed beaten up for
his inability to do anything against all these incidents. The entire frontier
suffered with these types of cruelest happenings.
The novel ends with the great sacrifice of Juggut Singh. What could not
be done either by Hukum Chand or Iqbal was carried on by Juggut Singh.
When the young militants along with Mali’s gang and the volunteered refugees
were prepared to kill the Muslims who were bound to Pakistan in a train were
saved by Juggut Singh. He climbed on a steel span where a wire rope was tied
to sweep away the Muslim refugees who were on the roof of the train. He took
his kirpan and began to cut of the wire rope. Singh’s Train to Pakistan
describes his great sacrifice in the following way: “He went at it with the
knife, and then with his teeth. The engine was almost on him. There was a
volley of shots. The man shivered and collapsed. The rope snapped in the
centre as he fell. The train went over him, and went on to Pakistan” (263). The
budmash became the unknown saviour not only to his beloved Nooran and his
unborn child but also hundreds of Muslims who travelled by the train. If not
Juggut Singh, all would have been killed.
Through out the novel are found, incidents relating to murder, killing,
mass burials and trains filled with human corpse. Singh uses the trains as well
as the Sutlej as the symbols of horror and carriers of human corpse. Earlier the
57
trains that passed through Mano Majra brought life. The people knew their
timings only through the passing trains. But now, the trains that passed through
Mano Majra had a ghastly look. They were loaded with human corpses.
Similarly, the Sutlej was the largest river in the Punjab. Its water irrigated vast
vicinity. But during the time of partition it flooded with blood and corpses of
human beings and cattle. Thus, both the trains and the Sutlej became agents
and messengers of death.
A Bend in the Ganges written by Manohar Malgonkar covers a number
of events before it props into the horror filled days of partition. The novel
begins with the terrorist activities of Ram Rahim group in Duriabad; then the
author depicts the horrors of Andaman Cellular Jail. It is followed by the
Japanese invasion in Andaman and the out break of the II World War. Next
comes the role of I.N.A. (Indian National Army) and the Japanese bombing on
Bombay. Finally, the author proceeds to depict the killings, the lootings and the
mass migration that took place in the Indian sub-continent on the wake of
partition. The novel is set in the entire Indian sub-continent. It starts from
Duriabad, and then proceeds to the Andamans, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta and
Lahore. The climax is set in Duriabad.
The huge loss of human lives is common in all the partition novels.
Malgonkar too views this tragic phenomenon towards the end of the novel. The
novel opens with Ahimsa (a non-cooperation agitation), and gradually rises
with tension to witness the agonizing partition which came in the form of
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violent massacres, rapes, murders and abductions. Dr. Vikas Sharma in his
Treatment of History in Indian English Novels examines:
It (A Bend in the Ganges) shows the dawn of freedom greeting
the sub-continent in the pools of blood. It throws light upon the
catcalls of the crowd, and the carrying away of innumerable
women struggling and screaming at top of their voice. The novel
depicts the Muslim fears of being ruled by the Hindus after the
departure of the Britishers. It expresses the Muslim belief that the
Hindus are their real enemy, and they are more dangerous than
the foreigners. (111 – 112)
A Bend in the Ganges clearly studies the painful events of partition and
seeks to explore the fatal details of the partition history. The novel begins and
ends in Duriabad, a town in West Punjab. The youth of the town stood united
in driving away the British from India. Shafi Usman, whose father was killed in
the Jallianwalabag massacre of 1919, led a terrorist movement containing
thirty-seven Hindu and Muslim nationalistic youths. They indulged in a few
terrorist activities in order to disturb and to drive away the British from the
Indian soil. They never bothered about their religion instead they stood united
for the cause. But Hafiz Khan, the acknowledged chief of the terrorists in India,
brought a divide and caused communal malice among those young men.
Malgonkar points out the words of Hafiz Khan that stimulated Shafi in A
Bend in the Ganges: “The time has come to take a second look – to reorientate
59
ourselves. The enemies of the moment are not the British; they are the Hindus.
That’s what we must recognize!” (89). He infuriated Shafi further by stating:
“Remember that in the Muharam riots, seven people were injured in the rioting
itself, eighteen men died by police fire – all Muslims. … It is to that end that
we must all work, must all recognize the new enemies: the Hindus!” (92–93).
These words of Hafiz set flame in Shafi’s heart. Shafi, a religionless nationalist
became a religious extremist over-night. He turned blood thirsting on Hindus
and killed a number of guiltless Hindus.
The Indian sub-continent experienced an immeasurable agony and
blood-shed when it was partitioned. Debi-dayal, one of the major characters of
the novel brooded over the condition of India at the time of partition in
Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges : “It is almost as though just when they are
on the point of leaving the country, the British have succeeded in what they set
out to do. Set the Hindus and Muslims at each other’s throats” (289). The last
few pages of A Bend in the Ganges describe a number of sadistic incidents that
rocked the nation on the wake of partition.
The first incident that was portrayed in the novel was the disfigured face
of Basu’s wife Dipali. Basu was Debi-dayal’s friend, when Debi called on Basu
in Calcutta; Basu recounted the dreadful incident that happened to his wife. His
wife Dipali was once lovely like a heroine. During one of the Hindu – Muslim
riots in Calcutta her face was disfigured by some Muslims. Malgonkar’s A
Bend in the Ganges observes the words of the disillusioned Basu: “Someone
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threw acid at her face – an electric bulb filled with sulphuric acid. That was the
standard weapon of the Hindu – Muslim riots, don’t you know? That is what
has happened to the face of India – the mutilation of a race conflict” (289). This
brutal act was done by some Muslims. Dipali becomes house-ridden because of
the ugly wound and scar on her face caused by a fanatic Muslim.
Debi, the son of Tekchand was burnt in wrath to revenge Shafi, who
betrayed him and his fellow Hindu members. He travelled to Lahore along with
Basu to revenge Shafi. Debi revenged Shafi by buying the prostitute called
Mumtaz, with whom Shafi had affair. Angered Shafi tried to throw an electric
bulb filled with sulphuric acid on the face of Mumtaz. Malgonkar’s A Bend in
the Ganges gives Shafi’s angry words while throwing the bulb: “Take that, you
slut!... that will make you more beautiful than ever!” (311). Debi saves Mumtaz
by taking the hurt on him by pushing her aside.
Since Duriabad was in Punjab, it had Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs living
there for years. Whenever one of the communities had its festival, there was
inevitably some clash resulting in a few killings. But the commotion felt in
August 1947 was something unimaginable. Everyone was caught in the frenzy
– including the officials and the armed forces. Malgonkar in his novel A Bend
in the Ganges puts the situation in the following words:
Tens of millions of people had to flee, leaving everything behind;
Muslims from India, Hindus and Sikhs from the land that was
soon to become Pakistan; two great rivers of humanity flowing in
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opposite directions along the pitifully inadequate roads and
railways, jamming, clashing, colliding head-on, leaving their
dead and dying littering the landscape. (332)
The entire country witnessed a religious civil war. There were huge
atrocities wherever the Hindus and the Muslims lived in equal number. The
situation was worse in Punjab. Through the horrors faced by Tekchand and his
family in Duriabad, Malgonkar presents the situation that prevailed on the
frontier region at the time of partition. Tekchand in Malgonkar’s A Bend in the
Ganges saw, “The freedom they had longed for was only a day away; a
freedom that would bring only misery to millions of them. The entire land was
being spattered by the blood of its citizens, blistered and disfigured with the
fires of religious hatred; its roads were glutted with enough dead bodies…”
(332). Earlier when his wife suggested him to leave Duriabad, he laughed at
her. He believed that it was his ancestral city where he would always be safe
and sound. But then the circumstances were entirely different; even escaping
from the hands of maddened Muslims was not easy. His driver, Dhansingh was
burnt alive by a sprawling mob, when he tried to escape to India along with his
family. Dhansingh’s two children were stoned to death in front of his eyes and
his wife was taken by the mob.
Helpless Tekchand could not find a way to flee from the fuming Muslim
mob. He remained locked in his house along with his wife Radha and daughter
Sundari. He tried to be in touch with the police officials in order to join the
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convoy to India. But that too failed because of the indifferences between the
Indian and the Pakistani officials. Tekchand glimpsed through the window the
burning of Sikh and Hindu houses in the city. Later he got a call from his Sikh
friend Sardar Awtar Singh. Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges records the
information given by Sardar Awtar Singh to Tekchand: “We are at least fifty
here – about a dozen men … We have three shotguns and a pistol…the men
take it in turns to keep guard, night and day” (342). Sardar Awtar Singh asked
Tekchand and his family to join with them. While they were in conversation,
Sardar Awtar Singh screamed in alarm the coming of thousands of hungry
Muslim mob towards his house. Sardar Awtar Singh uttered his last incomplete
sentence: “They are setting the house on…” (343).
The only hope that Tekchand had too vanished. He became a beaten and
wrecked man. At this point Gian arrived like god-sent man to save Tekchand
and his family. Gian was no more a self-centered person; rather he came there
with genuine concern to save Sundari and her family. He took a week to reach
Duriabad from Delhi. He told them that he had come there in order to give
whatever help he could to the family of Tekchand. Gian’s coming gave a little
optimism to the lost family. Gian went out twice to find out the leaving of the
convoy to India. Finally, he learnt that the convoy had left already and he urged
Tekchand and his family to get into the car and join the convoy. When they
were about to leave, Shafi came with three other men to kill them and to loot
their things. At the end of the tussle, Shafi fired at Tekchand’s wife and killed
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her. Sundari became mad and took the statue of Shiva and beat Shafi to death.
Leaving Shafi, his friends ran away for their life.
Tekchand finally decided to join the convoy along with Sundari and
Gian. Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges gives the mourning made by
Tekchand throughout the journey: “They killed her, my Lakshmi – and I have
left her behind, not even cremated. All alone! – I promised I wouldn’t. She
would never have left me” (380). On the way the convoy was halted for an
hour to make way for another convoy that was going in the opposite direction.
When the convoy resumed its journey, Sundari could not find her father. She
waited for him for a while; finally she decided to continue her journey leaving
her father behind.
Debi and Mumtaz, who stayed in Kernal decided to go to Duriabad.
They joined the mass migration that was on its way to the newly created
Pakistan. They were sure of the dangers; still Debi wanted to join his parents
who lived in Duriabad. They left Kernal on August 12, 1947 – just three days
away for the long awaited freedom. Since the announcement of partition, many
railway employees ran away to their own countries – the Hindus to India and
the Muslims to Pakistan. The railway stations that were on the border suffered
a lot without station masters, signalmen, engine drivers, clerks, and so on. Debi
and Mumtaz got into a train that was bound to Duriabad. On their way they
watched scene after scene of carnage; like flood filled pools, disfigured dead
bodies and scattered things. Malgonkar in his A Bend in the Ganges describes
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the partitioned Punjab in the following manner: “The land of the five rivers had
become the land of carrion. The vultures and jackals and crows and rats
wandered about, pecking, gnawing, tearing, glutted, staring boldly at their
train” (360).
Since, the entire Punjab was seething with communal passion; Debi
disguised himself like a Muslim with a dark-brown fez and a long, knee-length
shirt. He used a common Muslim name called Karim. Before they reached
Duriabad, a mob of thieves dismantled the railway line. So, the passengers
were asked to walk for two miles, where in another train would be arranged for
their further journey. They began their two miles of walk in weariness. All in a
sudden a frantic mob of Muslims emerged on either side of the refugee
movement. The mob began to search Hindus among the refugees. They even
accounted about the killing of fifty Hindus, who came to Pakistan in the
disguise of Muslims. They recognized an old man as Hindu. The mob cut off
his penis and killed him. They murdered a few others and abducted some
women. Malgonkar gives another distressing description in A Bend in the
Ganges: “Someone threw a small child high in the air, and before it fell down,
a man with a sword ran forward and caught it on the point of his sword” (368).
All in a sudden, someone among the refugees pointed out Debi as a
Hindu, because he was suspicious through out the journey, and he did not show
much cheer when they entered into Pakistan when the Muslims were joy filled
to see their new nation. Mumtaz pleaded to the mob to spare her husband. The
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mob tore away his dress and confirmed that he was a Hindu. It was the 15th of
August 1947; and the time was early morning. The mob pierced a big knife in
the middle of Debi. Then the mob dragged away Mumtaz naked when Debi
was dying in a pool of blood. Thus the entire family of Tekchand except
Sundari, perished because of partition.
Unlike the other partition novels, Chaman Nahal’s Azadi straight away
explores the partition holocaust experienced from Sialkot to Delhi. Since,
Nahal himself migrated from Sialkot to Delhi at the time of partition; he is able
to give a touching document on the plight of the millions due to partition. The
novel opens on June 3, 1947 - the date on which the partition of the subcontinent was announced. And it ends on January 30, 1948 – the day Gandhi
was assassinated. Thus the novel is completely at the issue of partition. The
novel does not take up any side issue or events. Through Lala Kanshi Ram, his
family and his neighbours; Nahal presents the barbaric days of partition.
Gundur in his work Partition and Indian English Fiction states, “It (Azadi) is a
well written novel on the partition. In Nahal’s hand the theme of partition
assumes epic dimension. Through the moving saga of Lala Kanshi Ram’s
family,… Nahal gives on authentic picture of the partition, which makes it an
unbiased document in history… (56).
Lala Kanshi Ram, the protagonist of Azadi was a wholesale grain
merchant. He lived in Sialkot (now in Pakistan), along with his wife Prabha
Rani, and son Arun. His house was among the Sikhs and the Hindus of that
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area. It was exactly at 7 p. m. on third June, 1947 that Lord Mountbatten, the
Viceroy made his announcement of the partition. His announcement turned the
entire situation of Sialkot up side down. A great catastrophe was let lose amidst
jubilations and celebrations. The minority Sikh and Hindu communities of
Sialkot became victims of the partition brutality. The Viceroy’s announcement
was followed by a frantic procession by the Muslim mob with spears. The mob
wanted to pass their procession through the mohalla, where the Sikhs and the
Hindus lived. But the dangers of violence got averted because of the arrival of
the Deputy Commissioner of Sialkot, who was a Hindu.
In general, the Viceroy’s announcement of partition created irruption,
riots and killings in many parts of India. Nahal, in his Azadi describes the
violence of partition in the following manner: “Many cities of the Punjab had
been aflame for months; there were large scale killings and lootings in Lahore,
Gujarat, Gujranwala, Amritsar, Ambala, Jullundur, Rawalpindi, Multan,
Ludhiana and Sargodha” (125). But the condition of Sialkot remained intake,
because of the vigilance of the Deputy Commissioner. The first communal
violence in Sialkot began on June 24, 1947, in which a number of Hindus and
Sikhs were killed. Nahal describes the situation of Sialkot in the following
manner in his Azadi: “And then it became almost a daily ritual. There were four
or five cases of stabbing each day, and at least four or five fires. It was not
mass killing or organized killing – not yet” (125).
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The real trauma in Sialkot began only after the arrival of the Amritsar
train. The train reached Sialkot with the wounded, driven away and attacked
Muslims in Eastern Punjab and other places. The news spread like a wild fire in
the entire city. And that night, the first great violence broke out in the city. The
Hindus and the Sikhs, who lived in Dharowal mohalla were looted, burnt and
beaten. They ran away seeking shelter in the nearby refugee camp. From then
on, there was curfew every night in Sialkot. This incident left the Hindus and
the Sikhs of the city in panic. Then the Muslims systematically burnt one each
Hindu mohalla every night.
As the incidents of violence increased, people began to migrate from
one country to another. Almost half of the Hindus and the Sikhs of Sialkot
migrated to India with in a month of the Viceroy’s announcement of the
partition. The shops of the minority communities got looted; including Lala
Kanchi Ram’s. All the hopes of living in Sialkot vanished among the Hindus
and the Sikhs when the Deputy Commissioner was killed. The Deputy
Commissioner, who was a Hindu, got killed by his Muslim bodyguard. The
Muslims began to loot and burn one each mohalla every night. Finally Lala
Kanchi Ram and his neighbours left for the refugee camp, with the hope of
returning back to their loved city soon. Mukunda’s mother refused to join them.
She did not want to leave Sialkot until her son Mukunda was released from
prison.
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The second part of the novel, The Storm presents the horrible
catastrophe that took place due to the bifurcation of the country. The first
killing that shattered Lala Kanshi Ram was the killing of his daughter Madhu
Bala. Madhu Bala and her husband Rajiv were travelling from Wazirabad to
Sialkot to join Lala Kanchi Ram’s family. A mob of Muslims got into the train
and killed all the Hindus and the Sikhs, including Madhu Bala and Rajiv. Arun
and Suraj Prakash along with Barakat Ali went to the spot of the massacre to
identify the dead bodies. Abdul Ghani, a fanatic Muslim in Nahal’s Azadi told
to Arun, “Who told you your sister was killed, my boy? But don’t worry. I put
her and her husband into fire with my own hand, and they are now on their way
to dozakh, to hell – where I hope they rot for ever!” (185).
The Punjab Boundary Force was set up in August 1947, to safe guard
the minorities in the Punjab. But they could not do much. Nahal in his Azadi
describes their situation in the following manner: “… the minorities in East and
West Punjab were slaughtered while men of the Boundary Force looked on. In
such a vicious ambiance, what could one or a few Englishmen do?” (211).
Even Nahal called the killings as “organized slaughter” and “fratricidal war”
committed by both the nations. There were about two thousand refugees in the
Sialkot camp. They were waiting for the Indian escort to take them to India.
Finally a lage body of Gurkha troops arrived from India. Even foot convoys
were not spared despite of the escort. In many of these convoys only half of
them reached the other side of the border; and the rest perished due to hunger,
or disease, or violence.
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The Sialkot foot convoy started on September 24, 1947. The transfer of
the people was the greatest problem that both India and Pakistan faced during
the partition. From Sialkot the foot convoy had to reach Dera Baba Nak, a
border down on the Indian side. The distance was forty-seven miles. On their
way, they saw a number of butchered bodies, disfigured human limbs and
skeletons. The convoy faced three attacks by the Muslim mob on their way.
The first attack on the convoy took place near Pasrur. A large number of
Muslims armed with rifles and swords ambushed the convoy and killed
hundreds of refugees and carried away a large number of young girls from the
convoy. Leaving the dead and the abducted the convoy moved on for its safety.
The following day, the convoy again got assailed near Qila Sobha Singh; in
which about two hundred people were killed, many women were snatched and
hundreds of people were wounded.
The biggest of the assault came, when they stayed in Narowal refugee
camp. A huge number of Muslims with the support of Pakistan army attacked
the camp in the night. It was an unanticipated assault. The terrified refugees ran
here and there. Throughout the night they hid under the trees or in the open
fields. The next morning they found out more than two thousand bodies; over
thousand women were kidnapped and six of the Indian officers were killed.
Padmini’s daughter Chandini was also abducted. Suraj Prakash was murdered
cold-bloodedly. Nahal illustrates the killing of Suraj Prakash thus in Azadi: “He
was stabbed through the abdomen; his face was also mutilated – both his eyes
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were taken out…So savage had been the vengeance, every single body had
been badly mutilated” (317). Every family reached India by loosing one or two
of its members. When they reached India they saw the same mayhem
committed by the Hindus and the Sikhs on the Muslims. They glimpsed train
loaded with slaughtered Muslims; Muslim women’s naked procession; a long
line of dead Muslim bodies in the railway station and massacred Muslim
bodies.
Shiv K Kumar’s A River with Three Banks is a recent addition to the
dominant Indian literature in English on the subject of partition. Though the
partition had receded fifty years when the novel was written, the author
presents a clear and realistic picture of partition days in the novel. Like
Khushwant Singh and Chaman Nahal, Shiv K Kumar too migrated from
Pakistan to India. So, his novel has reliable presentation of the partition.
Gundur in his work Partition and Indian English Fiction quotes Sachindra
Mohanty’s interview with Kumar: “I myself an immigrant from Pakistan. I was
born in Lahore and migrated to Delhi in 1947 when the communal holocaust
was at its worst” (188). Like Khushwant Singh and Chaman Nahal, he too was
an eyewitness of the enormous partition tragedy.
The novel was set at the back-drop of Delhi and Allahabad. The
personal problems of Gautam and Haseena were presented against the
background of the partition. It was Haseena, who endured a lot due to partition.
She was abducted from a college in Allahabad. Then she was taken to Delhi by
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a pimp called Pannalal. Later she was compelled into prostitution. Her father
Abdul Rahim, who came to Delhi in search of her, was killed by a Muslim
gang. Gundur in Partition and Indian English Fiction observes, “The most
suffered victims of the partition were neither Muslims, nor Hindus, nor Sikhs
but women of all these communities. Women were put to death, nakedly
paraded in public, raped, abducted and forced to prostitution” (192). His
comment aptly fits to Haseena. She too endured all the above mentioned
atrocities, in one form or the other.
The novel opens with a brief narrative on the partition violence in Delhi.
From the day, the sub-continent was partitioned; there had been reports of
killings everyday. No one could resist the Hindu and the Sikh refugees who had
fled from Pakistan. They began to payback the Muslims, whenever they got a
chance. Delhi remained a troubled city with innumerable killings, burnings and
curfews. The first agonizing event that was registered in A River with Three
Banks was the killing of Abdul Rahim. He was an innocent Muslim of
Allahabad. He came to Delhi in search of his daughter, who was abducted,
when she went to college to study. He searched everywhere in Delhi to find out
his daughter. Through a Muslim he came to know that many of the abducted
Muslim girls were forced into prostitution. One day, when he was on the streets
of Delhi, searching his daughter, a group of frantic Hindus and Sikhs identified
him as a Muslim. They began to track him in order to kill him. The old man fell
in front of St. John’s church gate and got viciously killed by the mob. Father
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Jones and Gautam felt horrific at the sight. They removed the dead body and
buried it in the backyard of the church.
The rioters and the killers were partly supported by the police. When
Father Jones asked Gautam on getting the help of the police; Gautam in
Kumar’s A River with Three Banks replied, “But would it serve any purpose?
I’m certain they’re in league with these killers. They move in much after all is
over” (12). Not only have human beings become the victims of the holocaust
but also animals. An old cow which was searching for some food in a garbage
got killed by a few Muslims.
Gautam salvaged Haseena from the brothel. He took her to Delhi
railway station in order to take her to Allahabad. As they waited in the railway
station, they saw a number of gruesome events. A refugee train from Amritsar
reached Delhi. Kumar describes the people who got down the ghost train in the
following way in his A River with Three Banks: “… men with amputated
penises, young women whose breasts had been chopped off after they had been
raped…” (99). They also saw a Muslim couple who were hiding behind a
newspaper stall, being pulled away by a group of frenzied mob and knifed to
death. On reaching Allahabad, Gautam perceived a particular Muslim mohalla
which was hectic with smelting and sharpening of knives, swords, spears and
other weapons for fortification. The killings and violence were so large in the
partitioned India. Looking at the barbaric situation, Mrs. Taylor, a British says
the following words in Kumar’s A River with Three Banks: “What I can’t
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understand is how all this is happening in the land of the Buddha and Gandhi”
(147). She saw the whole sub-continent was exercising barbarism despite its
great cultural legacy.
The raid at Neel Kamal gave yet another side of the partition woes. Neel
Kamal was a restaurant which offered wine, woman and fun to its clientele.
Most of the women who were used there for brothel were abducted women of
the Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs. Each of these women had a miserable
tale of her own. One among them was Lakshmi. She lost her entire family in
the Multan riots. Later she was forced to become a prostitute. Even Haseena
recounted the agony of some of the abducted girls in Neel Kamal who were
forced into prostitution. If they objected, they were afflicted with physical
punishments.
Haseena’s mother and her sister Salma saw a grave situation that
prevailed everywhere. They believed that they could no more be safe in India.
Haseena’s mother articulated her feelings to Gautam in Kumar’s A River with
Tree Banks: “I can’t let Salma be whisked away next. You can’t take charge of
the entire family when there are abductors lurking everywhere” (169). She also
saw a possible assault on their mohalla by the Hindus. So, they decided to leave
for Pakistan. The train in which they boarded was attacked many times. They
witnessed a number of their fellow Muslim migrants being massacred in the
train. Thus, Kumar presents the horror filled days of partition in an equitable
manner.
CHAPTER - III
BRUTAL RELIGIOUS
PERSECUTIONS
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CHAPTER – III
BRUTAL RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS
India was the fountain head of many religions in the world. They include
Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. By nature, Indians were warm
hearted to the alien religions like Islam and Christianity too. That is why
masques, churches and temples are found in many villages in India. Despite
their varied religious practices, all Indians enjoyed camaraderie and
brotherhood. Whenever there was a communal tussle, the kings and emperors
breached the gap and nurtured cordiality. Emperor Akbar experimented a
universal religion known as Din-e-Ilahi. Syed Ali Mujtaba in his The Demand
for Partition of India reports, “The 15th, 16th and 17th centuries were the period
of cultural assimilation, mutual tolerance and religious co-existence…. Dadu,
Nanak, Kabir, Pipa were the torch bearers of religious tolerance and religious
co-existence in India” (8).
The English East India Company, which was established in 1600, had an
upper hand over the natives of India. At the initial stage, all communities stood
united to throw away the Company. The Muslims first realized their minority
position only after the local bodies’ election. They did not have adequate
numbers in electoral politics. Using it as the right coin, the British followed a
system known as divide and rule.
The formation of the Muslim league in 1906 brought another death blow
and stood as challenge to the unison of the Indian sub-continent. There were a
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number of talks and conferences to bring unity among the Hindus and the
Muslims but all in vain.
The Muslims stood firm in safeguarding their
dwindling position by demanding a separate nation for the Muslims. Due to
their fervent demand, real communal malice began to take its roots between the
Muslims and the Hindus. This was followed by a number of riots and killings.
In the Calcutta riot of August 1946, about five thousand people were killed. It
was followed by the Nokhali riots in which a few thousands were killed and
many were forced into conversion. Then came the Bihar riots which claimed
about ten thousand lives. Slowly, the entire nation was caught into communal
clashes of diverse forms.
The efforts of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, to put out communal
fire proved futile, except to cut India into two parts. Religions that were
established to bring peace and brotherhood stood with rifles, swords and spears
to cut the throat of others. S.Bhagwat Goyal makes the following comment in
his article “Nahal’s Azadi: A Review”: “Religion, which is supposed to be an
embodiment of human and spiritual values, became an instrument of hatred,
rapaciousness, evil, exploitation, sadism, torture, murder, rape and wholesale
destruction” (124). A great human atrocity was done in the name of religion. It
was religious fanaticism that shook the face of the Indian sub-continent. The
fanatic religious leaders and their cohorts were the main cause for the division
of the nation and for the irruption of violence. The division of the Indian subcontinent was not done on the basis of language, colour or caste but on the
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basis of religion – a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan. So, religion became
the main target of the fanatics to fan the violence to the ceiling. They carried
out their atrocities in the name of Gods.
Partition witnessed unbelievable amount of religious mayhem.
Thousands of people were forced to get converted into other religions.
Temples, Masques and gurdwaras were sullied. Those who had firm faith in
their religions resisted religious conversion. Eventually, they committed suicide
to avoid forced conversions. Holy books were burnt. Many shrines of worships
were turned into stalls and markets. Even animals were branded in the name of
religion. People changed their dress code and names according to the locale
they lived or travelled.
Religion is a highly sensitive issue, which will easily evoke any Indian.
Unlike the westerners, the Indians are tinged with their religion. They feel
religion as their skin, which cannot be peeled off till death. In India, if anyone
wishes to converse or write on religion they should do it with utmost care and a
note of caution. Any religious delusion will put the entire nation in flames, like
the Babar-Masjid issue or the Godhra violence. This research is done on four
novels by four different authors. But none of them is subjective in their
approach; none of them feels that their religion is better than the others; and
none of them identifies with the religion of their own.
The novelists, Khushwant Singh, Chaman Nahal, Manohar Malgongar
and Shiv K Kumar had their first hand experience of the partition holocaust,
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but none of them show their religious mark in their works. They never portray
that their religious people were the best and the others were the worst. They
spot a sheep as well as a wolf in every religion. They are not carried away with
their religious nepotism or fanaticism; instead stand firm on religious tolerance
and unanimity. They have their protagonists drawn from all the three warring
religions – Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism.
Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan pictures a religious homogeneous
village called Mano Majra. Mano Majra consisted of a Hindu family and Sikh
and Muslim families of equal number. It was a village known for its integrity,
communal concord and brotherhood for time immemorial. The protagonist of
Train to Pakistan was a Sikh called Juggat Singh who was in love with a
Muslim girl, Nooran. This showed the homogeneity of the village where interreligious marriage was possible. Again the mullah of the village, Imam Baksh
always greeted the Sikh priest Meet Singh as brother and in turn Meet Singh
called Imam Baksh as uncle. Chote Lal Khatri in his article “Trauma of
Partition in Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan” makes his comments on
Mano Majra:“…in the beginning we see that peaceful coexistence and
communal harmony has been prevailing in the village. It stands as a replica of
unity and integrity in diversity that is the fundamental feature of Indian culture”
(42). But all of a sudden, communal revulsion and religious intolerance erupted
in this peaceful village in the name of religion.
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Though Singh’s Train to Pakistan explores more of the political and the
economic condition of the people during partition; it too has a few references to
religious intolerances and persecutions that were faced by many innocent
people in the East and the West Punjab. It also exposes religious sacrilegious
done to the holy places and books. Since Singh also experienced the
amiabilities and the atrocities committed in the name of religion; he is cautious
in handling the religious sentiments of the people. He nowhere reveals his
religious identity.
The first victim of religious fanaticism in Singh’s Train to Pakistan was
Iqbal, a social worker sent by the People’s Party of India. He was sent by his
party to bring serenity among the people of the border area. He reached Mano
Majra from Delhi. Iqbal was a common name used by Muslims as well as
Sikhs. He pronounced that he had no religion. But the police who arrested him
imposed a religion upon him. They branded him as Muslim and a member of
the Muslim League. Hukum Chand, magistrate and deputy commissioner of the
district asked the police to make the following entry on Iqbal’s warrant in
Singh’s Train to Pakistan: “Name: Mohammed Iqbal, son of Mohammed
something-or-other or just father unknown. Caste: Mussulman. Occupation:
Muslim League worker” (90). This is an evidence to show how people were
tortured in the name of religion. Again the sub inspector affronted Iqbal by
saying: “You are a Muslim. You go to Pakistan” (99). Where as Malli and his
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gang, who were the real killers and villains in the novel were let scot-free,
because they were all Sikhs.
Singh also recapitulates the religious lenience and harmony that were
exercised between the Muslims and the Sikhs of Mano Majra, while the rest of
the nation was engaged in the religious war. Fifty Sikh refugees reached Mano
Majra from Pakistan. They were driven away by the Muslims from their own
homes. Those refugees were genially treated by the Muslims of Mano Majra.
The Muslims brought food to the temple and gave to the Sikh refugees. But this
affable relationship was not found in every heart. There were a few religious
vandals who longed to slash the village into two parts on the basis of religion.
Women were the most awful sufferers of this religious viciousness.
They were abducted, raped and were forcefully converted. Even animals were
not spared. Cows were killed by the Muslims and in turn, the Hindus and the
Sikhs dirtied the Masques with pigs’ meat. Singh’s Train to Pakistan reveals
some of the religious vengeances committed by the Sikhs in the Masques:
“…mosques being desecrated by the slaughter of pigs on the premises, and of
the copies of the Holy Koran being torn up by infidels” (178). Again Singh
gives a graphic description of the floating of cows in the Sutlej, which might
have been the act of Muslims.
The news of religious massacre and brutalities committed by both the
Muslims and the Sikhs reached Mano Majra too. Their long lasted brotherhood
turned into a mutual suspicion and distrust. The Muslims found no choice but
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to leave Mano Majra, because the village was dominated by the Sikhs. Thus the
religions that bound the Muslims and the Sikhs for generations after
generations now had become a tool of division and hatred. Even after the
Muslims vacated Mano Majra, the fanaticism did not die down. Looking at the
state of affairs, Chote Lal Khatri in his article “Trauma of partition in Singh’s
Train to Pakistan” notes, “Quite suddenly every Sikh in Mano Majra became a
stranger with an evil intent. His long hair and beard appeared barbarous, his
kirpan menacingly anti-Muslim. For the first time, the name Pakistan came to
mean something to them – a heaven of refuge where there were no Sikhs” (44).
A gang of Sikhs reached Mano Majra and inflicted communal malice
among the youth of Mano Majra. Though the village elders pleaded them not to
harm the Muslims of Mano Majra, they stood strong and obstinate to kill all the
Muslims of Mano Majra. The gang along with a select group of Mano Majra
Sikhs planned to assail the train bound to Pakistan carrying the Muslims of
Mano Majra. They sought the blessings of God, whenever they began their
brutal act. Seema Murugan in her article “No Small Matter: Interpretations,
Thematic Reinterpretations and Realistic Over Interpretations in Train to
Pakistan” comments, “The divine aid was sought for killing Muslims on the
train and the Sikh youth had chanted the following verses as a prelude to his
plans of violence: By the grace of God / We bear the world nothing but good
will” (32).
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The mullahs inflicted communal malevolence by carrying skulls and
bones saying that they were the skulls and bones of the Muslims killed in India.
Even gurdwaras echoed the preaching of violence and hostility. Thus, Singh
presents a number of incidents, events and communal carnages that were
executed in the name of religion during partition. He looks at religion as the
major force that kindled suffering, humiliation, agony and loss.
Manohar Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges is concerned with a
number of political events that took place between the Civil Disobedience
Movement of the early 1930s and India’s freedom on August 15, 1947. The
division of the Indian sub-continent and its consequences are depicted only in
the last few chapters of the novel. But the partition theme gets the greatest
connotation in the entire novel. Since Malgonkar was interested in history, he
looks at the partition from political-historical point of view.
Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges is both praised as well as criticized
for his handling of the religious aspects in the novel. Many indict him by
saying that he had sided with the Hindus by creating affirmative Hindu
characters and harmful Muslim characters. Many believe that the characters
Shafi Usman and Hafiz Khan stand as villains against Hindu-Muslim concord.
But Basavaraj Naikar in his article “The Theme of Anti-Colonialism in A Bend
in the Ganges” quotes the words of R. S. Singh in order to shield this remark:
The feeling that Malgonkar has written his novel from a biased
Hindu’s point of view does not hold good since, if he had
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condemned Shafi, a Muslim, for religious fanaticism and lacking
in-human qualities, he has damned Gian also who, although a
Hindu, was mean and disloyal. What Malgonkar dislikes most is
hypocrisy, and he would not spare anyone who would lack in
human sympathy and ideals, be it Shafi or Gian, a Muslim or a
Hindu (130).
Malgonkar faithfully presents the warring humanity and their ravaging
atrocities done in the name of religion through the family of Tekchand. He sees
the partition holocaust as merely a religious conflict and the fear of one religion
over the other. For some, religion became a guard and for others, a sword
during the tumultuous days of partition. Psychologically, religion was the
foundation for the horrid violent upheaval. It all began due to some unwanted
religious aversion among the Hindus, Muslims and the Sikhs. Even the two
major parties that were formed to drive away the British from the Indian soil
soon became tinged with religion – the Congress for the Hindus and the
Muslim League for the Muslims.
In the beginning of the novel, the Hindu and the Muslim youth stood
united, because their main focus was to drive away the British from India.
Shafi Usman and Debi-dayal were such good friends, despite their different
religions. Even Debi looked at Shafi as a Muslim who had become a Sikh and
looked like Buddha. The Hanuman Physical Culture Club unified the Hindu,
the Muslim and the Sikh youths of Duriabad. They remained committed in
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order to over throw the British rule in India. They did not see religion as a
hindrance to their nationalism. Malgonkar in his A Bend in the Ganges writes,
“…Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs, men of different religions united in the
cause of freedom as blood-brothers: the Freedom Fighters” (68). But these
blood-brothers soon became sworn enemies when they were injected by
communal malignity.
It is Kafiz Khan, a leader of the terrorist movements in India, who
poisoned Shafi’s mind with religious devilry. He was of the opinion that India
is for the Hindus and a new nation called Pakistan is for the Muslims; and the
real foes of the Muslims were not the Britishers but the Hindus. Though, in the
beginning, Shafi was mystified gradually, he became a complete fanatic who
thirsted for Hindu blood. It was not only Shafi who became an irrational
communalist; almost all the members of the club became communal haters.
Basu, one of Debi’s friends says in Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges, “What
had been aimed against the British, has turned against itself. And the ugliest
thing it has bred is distrust. No Hindu can trust a Muslim any more, and no
Muslim trusts a Hindu” (290). Thus, it was the religious ill-will that brought all
the untold woes in the Indian sub-continent.
Despite the religious pandemonium and madness, there were a few
people in the novel, who craved to love and help the innocent victims of the
partition. A few characters in the novel stood as messiahs of serenity and
religious harmony. Debi, though cheated by Shafi, a Muslim, he saved a
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Muslim girl called Mumtaz from a brothel in Lahore. Later, he decided to
marry her. Since they were conscious of the religious violence, forced religious
conversions and persecutions, they changed their names and dress code, when
they travelled to the newly carved Pakistan. Debi changed his name as Karim
and dressed like a Muslim with a dark-brown fez and a long, knee-length shirt.
During the time of partition, the people began to develop an inquisitive
information of identifying a person’s religion from dress code and manner of
behaviour. Malgonkar in A Bend in the Ganges states, “Many people claimed
that just by looking at a man they could tell a Hindu from a Muslim; …” (362).
This shows the suspicion and mistrust that ran among the Muslims, the Hindus
and the Sikhs. When Debi and Mumtaz travelled to Duriabad, they observed a
deep suspicion in the eyes of every traveller. If they were not able to decide the
religion of a particular person, the simple method they followed was to remove
off the person’s trousers and examine whether the person was circumcised or
not. Debi became a victim of this religious investigation on the day of India’s
independence – August 15, 1947.
Tekchand, the father of Debi and one of the richest men in Duriabad
first thought that he and his family were out of harm in their ancestral town
Duriabad; but when the partition aggression mounted to its max out, he realized
the dangers awaiting him and his family. His daughter Sundari thought that
they could get out of Duriabad and join the convoy only if they disguised as
Muslims – with Muslim names and dress code. She was sure that, it was the
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religious fanaticism that had created all these tumult and only by pretentious
scheme they could save their lives. This obviously shows the religious lunacy
of the people.
Towards the end of the novel, Shafi entered the house of Tekchand.
Tekchand’s house was filled with the idols of Hindu gods. He showed great
veneration to them and saw blessedness in every idol that was in his house. But
for Shafi and his friends they were merely obscene gods. So, Shafi’s squad
became iconoclasts. Malgonkar, in A Bend in the Ganges describes their
iconoclastic act in the following way: “Shafi began to stare at the images,
almost as though he has just become aware of them. He strode over, seized one
of the statues in his hand and crushed it on another. Then, as though seized
with frenzy, he went about the room, raining blows on the figures, toppling
them down” (377). Thus, Malgonkar perceives at the great partition catastrophe
in the light of religion and further underlines how religious animosity paved
communal malice and caused terrific persecutions.
Unlike other partition novels, Chaman Nahal’s Azadi completely
concentrates on the turbulent days of partition. It just covers eight months of
events that infected the Indian sub-continent in the name of partition. The novel
precisely begins on June 3, 1947 – the day on which the news of the partition
of the sub-continent was announced. Though Nahal’s Azadi broods more over
the psychological aspects of partition, he too sees, how religion became an
influential and powerful weapon in the hands of fanatics in order to carry on
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their vengeance and venom. Nahal sees that all the horrors – pillaging, killing,
raping, humiliating and persecuting were committed during the time of
partition were either in the name of Allah or of Ram or of the great Gurus. A.
V. Subba Rayudu in his article “A Wiped out Dream: Azadi” observes,
“Religion cease to be a humanizing influence. It creates a strong sense of
division of separation, so that all who belong to another religion become
‘other’, legitimate targets for attack” (122).
Partition left millions of people landless, homeless, rootless, parentless
and loveless; the only cause for all these loss was irrational religious belief and
illogical communal disgust. Nahal in his Azadi convinces his readers with the
idea that the brutalization that was followed by the proclamation of partition
was due to communal frenzy and religious bias. Like the other writers of
partition novels, Nahal too stands communal free while presenting his
characters. Lakhmir Singh in his article “Chaman Nahal: Azadi” makes the
following observation on Azadi: “The novel in fact gives a picture of these riots
in their totality, without presenting a Hindu or Muslim point of view. Nahal
blames both the communities for losing their sense of balance and sanity”
(234). The brutalities committed by the Muslims in Pakistan were repeated in
India by the Hindus.
Sialkot, the city where Azadi was set is a typical Punjabi city. The
Muslims, the Sikhs and the Hindus all lived mutually with one spirit known as
Punjabiat. They had many common bonds like language, festivals, dress code,
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ceremonies and food items. Only in the seclusion of their homes they
worshiped diverse gods. The harmonious co-existence of these three religious
people is finely described by Nahal in his Azadi: “So there was utter harmony
among them, and the fact that Ghani was a Muslim and Lala Kanshi Ram a
high-caste Hindu never entered their heads. They spoke a common tongue,
wore identical clothes,…” (54). But what on the earth shook their bonds of
friendship is a miracle. How religious chauvinism rose among their harmonious
life is a mystery.
The fanatic Muslims of Sialkot openly displayed their religious insanity
at the pronouncement of partition by Lord Mountbatten, the viceroy. Though
Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Baldev Singh spoke in the radio
after the announcement of partition asking the people to maintain peace; it
could not penetrate into the deaf ears of the maddened, irrational fanatics. The
homogeneous city of Sialkot witnessed barbaric and fierce procession by the
Muslims celebrating the birth of a new nation called Pakistan. The celebration
was followed by setting up of fire on the shops and houses of the Hindus.
Later some Muslims forced the Hindus and the Sikhs to leave Sialkot.
Abdul Ghani, a Muslim who owned a shop close to Lala Kanshi Ram’s said the
following to Lala Kanshi Ram in Nahal’s Azadi: “I want you to leave because
you’re a Hindu, and you don’t believe in Allah.” Lala Kanshi Ram replied,
“You know that’s not true. I believe in God as much as you do” (134). This
shows how the Muslims were eager enough to chase away the Hindus and the
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Sikhs from Sialkot. Their religious madness was further intensified when they
heard the violence in East Punjab against Muslims. Even communal elements
sneaked into the judiciary and government offices. The Deputy Commissioner
of Sialkot was a Hindu. He went around the city with his Muslim body-guard
in order to instill confidence among the two communities. But the same bodyguard killed the Deputy Commissioner in his communal fury.
The escalating atrocities of the fanatics in the name of Gods and
religions left all the rational ones in bewilderment. They saw Sialkot whirling
under communal madness. The Hindus and the Sikhs were either killed or
chased away from their homes; their properties were either looted or destroyed
and their places of worships were either converted into shops or demolished.
The whole city whirled under the command of religious vandals. In Nahal’s
Azadi, Prabha Rani, the wife of Lala Kanshi Ram saw the circumstances of
Sialkot in the following way: “…was certain those who stayed behind after the
fifteenth of August had either been annihilated or converted to Islam; it was no
city for the Hindus any longer” (172).
Lala Kanshi Ram became a beaten man in the confrontation of religions.
He lost his shop, house and daughter. Despite the profound physical and mental
distress, he never lost his hope. He never gave up his prayer. Every morning
and evening he sat before the portrait of Lord Krishna and chanted his prayers
and hymns. Sometimes, he was joined by his wife and son. It was his fervent
religious spirit that made him live despite the heavy shocks that he faced.
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Nahal had observed that among all the religions, the Sikhs were the
worst sufferers of the partition. There were two main reasons for their massive
sufferings. The first reason was, the precise division or the cutting of the Indian
sub-continent into two nations fell in the middle of Punjab; and the next reason
was, the Sikhs were easily identifiable. They had clearly identifiable things like
beard, turban, kangan and so on. The only way for a Sikh to get to India safely
was to shave off his hair. Many Sikhs underwent this ordeal of shaving their
heads and beards.
The Sikhs of Sialkot went through immense humiliation and ordeal at
the hands of Muslims. They were whisked away from the camp and killed.
Nahal in his Azadi notes that the beard and the hair on the heads of the Sikhs
were once, “…a kind of badge of courage, which in olden days distinguished
you (them) as a warrior. In these times it was like shouting your (their) identity
from the housetop – which meant speedy death for you (them) at the hands of
the Muslims” (245). Sardar Jodha Singh asked his son and grand-son to shave
off their beard and cut of their hair. He made this request for the safety of their
migration to India. Though his son Teja Singh agreed, his grand-son, Niranjan
Singh felt greatly affronted. He did not want to deflect from his Sikh dharma.
Every one in the family tried to persuade him. But none of their words changed
him from his strong faith in Guru Maharaja. He believed that his Guru
Maharaja would save him from the evil hands of the Muslims.
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Niranjan Singh’s wife, Isher Kaur pleaded him to do so for the sake their
child, who was going to be born in a few days. Even Lala Kanshi Ram said to
Niranjan Singh in Nahal’s Azadi, “The moment you reach India, you can grow
your hair again. And if you like, you can do penance at the Golden Temple in
Amritsar” (246). He stood intractable and irreconcilable in his faith. He fell at
the feet of Sardar Jodha Singh and lamented in Nahal’s Azadi, “Please,
grandfather, I’ll give my life for your sake. Only please don’t ask me to cut my
hair” (247). Every now and then, they all reminded Niranjan Singh of his
protection, whenever they heard any violence against the Sikhs. Since Niranjan
Singh was completely devoted to Guru Maharaja, he refused to shaving off his
beard and cutting off the hair of his head since he considered them violating
faith.
Isher Kaur’s fears increased as her husband refused to cut off his hair.
Every night she began to cry with fright. Finally, it was her tears that melted
Niranjan Singh. One night he told his wife that he would cut his hair for the
safety of the family. But his sense of Sikh distinctiveness tormented his
consciousness. He collected wood from neighbouring places and set himself
ablaze when the entire camp was asleep. For Niranjan Singh his faith and belief
in his religion became more imperative than mere endurance. Nahal in his
Azadi writes the final words of Niranjan Singh’s staunch faith, when he burned
in fire: “I belong to Waheguru, Waheguru is great.’… ‘Life I’ll gladly lose, my
Sikh dharma I won’t” (262).
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Teja Singh and Suraj Prakash also belonged to Sikh religion. Though
they too respected their religion, for the safety and security of the family and
their lives, they agreed to shave off their head and beard. They did not find any
harm in loosing their hair for survival. But the case of Gangu Mull was
different. Gangu Mull, the husband of Bibi Amar Vati decided not to leave
Sialkot, because he showed excessive attachment to his property and
belongings. He owned two buildings in Sialkot, which he did not want to part
with. In order to save his property, he became Ghulam Muhammed, a
converted Muslim. In Azadi, Nahal quotes the words uttered by Gangu Mull to
Lala Kanshi Ram: “Well, they were my property, and I have decided to stay on
here as a Muslim. They will continue to remain my property” (270). He
reflected on marrying a Muslim women even, in order to save his property.
Nankana Sahib, the birth place of Guru Nanak (the founder of Sikh
religion) was attacked by Muslims. Nankana Sahib is the holiest of the holy
places for the Sikhs. After partition, it became part of the newly created
Pakistan. The Muslims annihilated all the Sikhs in that town and damaged the
shrine thereby it was closed for worship. While the convoy proceeded from
Sialkot to India, they witnessed a number of Sikh and Hindu places of worship
being sacrileged by Muslim vandals. They were also defiled with obscene Urdu
words written on the walls.
Despite these tumultuous religious situations, there were people, who
were not carried away by the fanatic spirit that prevailed. Nahal presents a few
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characters that were cordial and homogeneous towards the people of other
religions. Chaudhri Barakat Ali’s family was one among such broadminded
families in Sialkot. Barkat Ali and Lala Kanshi Ram were bosom friends.
Whenever there were celebrations or festivals, the two families joined the
celebrations, despite their religious differences. Barkat Ali brought up his entire
family with the spirit of religious integrity and made them love others as their
own brothers and sisters. He remained a great source of moral support to Lala
Kanshi Ram and his family, when they underwent hurt after hurt in the hands
of the frenzied Muslims. It was Barkat Ali along with his son Munir who went
to identify the dead bodies of Lala Kanshi Ram’s daughter Madhu Bala and her
husband, Rajiv. When Lala Kanshi Ram was in the camp, Barkat Ali often
visited him to console and to offer solace. When the convoy left for India,
Barkat Ali and his son Munir walked along with Lala Kanshi Ram’s family for
six miles.
Nahal in his Azadi describes the deep and devoted friendship that existed
between Barkat Ali and Lala Kanshi Ram through the words of Barkat Ali: “If
not in our life-time, Insha-Allah in the life-time of our children this folly will
surely be undone’… ‘We are one people and religion cannot separate us from
each other” (276). Similarly, there was another kind hearted Muslim doctor
called Hakim Saheb in Narowal. He candidly condemned the narrow minded
Muslims of Narowal for their atrocities done in the name of religion. He felt
deeply sorry for the inhuman attitude of Muslims towards the women of other
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religions, when the abducted Sikh and the Hindu women were paraded nakedly
in the streets of Narowal.
Many of the partition novelists, besides portraying the chaotic and
turbulent days of partition spin their stories amidst love and passion. Nahal too
presents an inter-religious love story between Arun (a Hindu boy) and Nur (a
Muslim girl). Despite their religious differences, they loved each other
passionately. Arun was ready to embrace Islam for the sake of Nur. Even Nur’s
brother Munir helped the lovers in exchanging love letters and arranging their
meeting places.
Shiv K Kumar’s A River with Three Banks is set in Delhi and in
Allahabad. Allahabad means city of God, but the city of God was turned to be
savage combat zone in the name of God. Whenever a Muslim mob or a Hindu
mob went out either to kill or loot, they used the names of Gods. The Muslims
articulated Allah-ho-Akbar before they started any ravaging act against the
Hindus; similarly the Hindus pronounced Har Har Mahadev before they started
any atrocity against Muslims. They subjugated the names of God for indulging
in all kinds of anti-social activities. Though all religions forbid killing, looting,
molesting, degrading and abducting others partition witnessed all these things
in the name of God. People practised all these brutalities to show their religious
spirit and power. S. Robert Gnanamony in his work Literary Polyrhythms: New
Voices in New Writings in English quotes Gulam Abbas’s story “Avtar: A
Hindu”:
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You have spilt so much of blood… You have raped women;
stripped them naked and paraded them through the streets of the
city; chopped off their breasts and noses; burnt them alive. You
have their children with spears and flung them in the air. You
claimed that you committed these crimes in the name of your
religious duty… You are not human beings. You are worse than
jackals. (23)
Even God was petrified to see the butcheries committed in His name. He
cursed and damned them as heartless animals. Kumar’s A River with Three
Banks unfolds the poignant and fanatic savagery committed by irrational
human beings in the name of religion.
Gautam, the central character of the novel was portrayed as pious in
heart but he was not attached to any religion and its practices. Though born as
Hindu in Lahore, he became a Christian in order to divorce his unfaithful wife
Sarita; and later he became a Muslim and adopted a Muslim name Saleem by
reciting the kalma. Kumar in his novel A River with Three Banks calls Gautam,
“…a Hindu, turned Christian, was now committed to marrying a Muslim”
(198). He stands as an icon of religious tolerance and harmony. His religious
secularity is vivacious when he utters the following words to Father Jones:
“Look at what my co-religionists are doing these days. All this pious talk about
Brahma, ahimsa, the Higher Self, cow worship, and then this senseless killing
of innocent Muslims!” (6).
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Gautam’s father, Shamlal and his mother Radha were ardent followers
of Arya Samaj. For them Maharishi Dayanand was the holiest of the holy gods.
When they migrated from Lahore to Delhi in 1947, they witnessed a number of
Hindus and Sikhs being persecuted by Muslims. Though they disliked other
religions in the beginning, they changed their stance later. Like Gautam, they
too found divinity in every faith. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ kindled
Shamlal. Later he took interest in reading the Holy Koran. He asked Gautam to
read the following lines from the Koran in A River with Three Banks:
All human beings are created as a family
A single community
Then God sends His Prophets
Bearers of glad tidings,
Who guide those who believe in Him
And punish the evil (191).
Along with Gautam he went to attend a prayer meeting of Gandhi. In the
prayer he heard the chanting from the Buddhist scripture and the Gita; then a
Parsi hymn and a Christian poem written by Cardinal Newman and finally, a
reading from the Koran. Shamlal became mesmerized. Kumar has put the
feeling of Shamlal in his A River with Three Banks, “Gautam’s father
exchanged an omniscient look with his son” (198).
The title Three Banks suggests three religions – Hinduism, Christianity
and Islam. It also suggests the union of the three rivers at Triveni – the Ganges,
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the Jumna and the Saraswathi. Gautam flows in the river of three religions.
Again the death of Abdul Rahim brings these three religions to one spot. He is
a Muslim killed by the Hindus and buried by the Christians.
The letter that Abdul wrote to his wife Sultana Begum shows how the
streets of Delhi were alarmed with religious narrow-mindedness. Kumar’s A
River with Three Banks describes the condition of Faiz Bazar in Delhi, “… a
watershed between the two belligerent communities, Hindus and Muslims,
sworn to eternal enmity” (15). Whenever violence irrupted, it became a routine
thing that the Muslims blamed the Hindus and the Hindus blamed the Muslims.
Later both, the Hindus and the Muslims jointly blamed the English that they
had sided with one of the two religions. Since the partition was done on the
basis of religion; the Hindus thought that India was only for them and the
Muslims thought that Pakistan was only for them. But unfortunately the
guiltless peace loving people became the victims of communal vandalism.
After his baptism Gautam went home with his friend Berry. Suddenly, a
Muslim mob caught hold of them to butcher them. Gautam and Berry escaped
from their swords by saying that they were Christians. The crazy mob left them
only after verifying Gautam’s baptism certificate. Though neither Gautam nor
Berry was a Christian, it was the religious certificate that saved them from the
irrational Muslim mob. The turbulent days of partition had no time for
rationality but for madness. Those who pretended easily got away from any
angry mob. A number of such instances are found in Kumar’s A River with
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Three Banks. Gautam says in a sardonic manner, “It should be all right so long
as I move about in a dhoti and kurta, some caste mark displayed on my
forehead.’… ‘How funny, one’s life depends upon what one wears these days”
(119).
Many people changed their names, dresses, appearances and religious
symbols in order to save their skins from the religious fundamentalists.
Gopinath Trivedi was a Hindu who lived in a Muslim dominant locale in Delhi.
There were only a few Hindu families in that area. Whenever he saw a frenzied
Muslim mob around his house, he raised the Pakistani flag on the top of his
roof. He said to Gautam and Berry in Kumar’s A River with Three Banks,
“Well, I’m Gopinath Trivedi and, since we’re just a few Hindu families around
here, I always put up a large green flag with a crescent, whenever a Muslim
mob passes by” (56). Whereas he had the picture of Swami Dayanand in his
house. Such an irony became an unavoidable need of the hour.
Gautam too altered his colour according to the place he went. When he
took Haseena to Allahabad, she pleaded Gautam to visit her house. Since her
house was in the Muslim dominated mohalla, he disguised himself as a Muslim
(with a sherwani and fez cap) in a public toilet and went to her house. It sounds
idiotic but in reality it is rational. Show of religious activities and symbols
spared many lives. Again when they went out to visit Allahabad, Haseena wore
kumkum on her forehead and Gautam put on Hindu caste mark.
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S. Robert Gnanamony in his work Literary Polyrhythms: New Voices in
New Writings in English had quoted the words of Gandhi that appeared in
Communal Unity: “Hindu women were without the auspicious vermilion mark
on their heads and foreheads and without their conch shell bangles” (17).
Similarly Muslim women posed themselves as Hindu women to escape rape,
abduction and murder.
In a world of madness, any rational and practical human being would
first consider of her/his protection. Since communal frenzy was created by
maddened people, there was no harm in just changing a person’s exterior. But
such disguise could not be adopted by the animals. The irrational communalists
even branded animals in the name of religion. Kumar in A River with Three
Banks narrates one such pitiable event. When a gang of Muslim goons were not
able to quench their thirst of a kafir, they spotted a cow as kafir cow. A man
pierced a spear in its belly and butchered it ruthlessly. The cow made a terrific
cry and fell against a lamp post. This satanic deed will definitely freeze all who
are human.
The wanton mob not only killed people and animals but also demolished
shops and houses and dirtied shrines and holy places of worship. A few events
of sacrileges are narrated in A River with Three Banks. A Hindu local paper
called Our Land carried a report about the defiling of a Shiva temple with the
meat of a butchered cow. And the paper branded that the vandalism was done
by Indian Muslims with the help of Pakistan and demanded instant action. A
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cow’s head was thrown into a Hanuman Temple in Allahabad and that action
too was ascribed to the Muslims.
Though the fanatics accused other religions about the sacrileges the
English commissioner had a different opinion. He says in Kumar’s A River
with Three Banks, “It was a Hindu who did it. It’s always a Hindu who throws
a cow’s carcass into a temple, and a Muslim who dumps a pig’s head into a
mosque…. Diabolic ingenuity, isn’t it? The idea is to keep the battle raging”
(146). A number of mosques in India and temples and gurdwaras in Pakistan
were dirtied and desecrated by religious fanatics. A communal malice filled
Hindu cried in Kumar’s A River with Three Bank, “We’ll turn every mosque in
Delhi into brothel” (200). They even blamed Gandhi that he had sided with
Muslims and called Gandhi as Maulana Gandhi.
Many of the partition novelists attempted to alleviate the religious
tension created by partition by their holistic approach. They portrayed interreligious marriages and inter-religious friendship. Through this they wanted to
put across to the world that God is not in the form and figure of religions, their
symbols and utterances of prayer but in loving fellow human beings. Gautam,
Shamlal, Father Jones and Haseena are shaped by Kumar to convey this
message. They are the representatives of universal brotherhood and instruments
of peace. When goons turn into bloodhounds with their religious marks these
people stand as torch-bearers for others.
Kumar cites a number of verses from the Holy Scriptures of different
religions and monuments in his fiction in order to hark back the religious
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fundamentalists that religions are not created for annihilation but for
construction. S. Robert Gnanamony in his Literary Dialectics: Notes and
Chords from East and West remarks, “Shiv K Kumar through this novel seems
to imply an apparent solution to the repulsive communal tension in our country.
He wants the readers to read the Holy Scriptures with an open mind and live by
it” (121).
A River with Three Banks contains versus from the Koran, the Gita and
the Bible. It makes references to the scriptures of other religions too. Gautam
went around Allahabad for a visit. When he was at the Ashoka Pillar, he was
awestruck by the great vision of Ashoka which was engraved both in Pali and
English. The verses go this way:
True religion does not recognize any barriers
Between one human being and the other. It embraces all living
creatures – man animal and bird.
Compassion, endurance, understanding and love are man’s
greatest treasure (157).
The above words clearly spell the character of a true religion. Religion
has human values and it is the embodiment of all the virtues. But at the time of
partition people used religion as the weapon of vengeance. Jim an American
tourist in A River with Three Banks says, “What a shame we kill each other in
the name of God!” (172).
Kumar is a visionary writer like Tagore. A River with Three Banks
echoes the following lines of Tagore’s Gitanjali:
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Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple
with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where
the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered
with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle on the dusty soil!
… Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and
incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him in toil and in sweat of thy brow. (7)
CHAPTER - IV
THE HUGE MATERIAL
LOSS
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CHAPTER - IV
THE HUGE MATERIAL LOSS
In a chaotic carnage and turbulent situation, the ruffians get attracted
towards two things – first material and then women. The partition of the Indian
sub-continent, which brought unsurmising woes in the lives of millions of
people left a massive material loss and women were exploited as commodities
by the maddened mob. People deserted their houses, shops, lands, properties
and cattle in order to save their lives. D.K. Chakravorty in his article “The
Theme of Partition of India in Indian Novels in English” observes the
holocaust, “The upshot of this (partition) was that twelve million people had to
flee, leaving their homes…. It is also on record that over a hundred thousand
women, young and old, were abducted, raped, mutilated” (43). Buildings and
houses that were built by the blood and sweat were either burnt or demolished
or occupied by others; properties were abducted; costly things were looted and
cattle were mercilessly killed.
The records say that fifty-five lakh Hindus and Sikhs were evacuated
from the newly created nation Pakistan by December 7, 1947 and a few lakh
people were evacuated later. All the migrants were given accommodation in
hundred and sixty refugee camps that were established in various parts of India.
The migrants had the hope that they could return to their native places and
could inhabit their houses and land. Since Pakistan was turning entirely an
Islamic country, the possibility of repatriation became impracticable. It became
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a tough job for the Indian government to provide job and safe haven to all these
migrants. The early migrants were asked to reside in the houses that were left
by Muslims. But that was scarcely enough even for one-fourth of the flooding
migrants.
A survey was made to know the extent of property left by the Hindus
and the Sikhs in Pakistan. After Partition, a work published by the Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, documents, “…The
amount of loss incurred by the refugees as a result of migration from Western
Pakistan to India, that in Delhi alone up to July 22, 1948, over 94,364 claims
were registered with the Registrar of Claims. The registered value of 66,583
claims from out of these, so far consolidated comes to Rs. 806 crores” (72).
The work also estimates the agricultural land that was left by the Hindus and
the Sikhs in West Pakistan exceeded the land that was left by in East Punjab by
1200000 acres. Pramod Kapoor in his preface to Singh’s Train to Pakistan
comments:
Migrating men used their women’s odhnis to wrap up whatever
they could salvage of their wealth – treasures accumulated over
generations tied in three yards of cloth – and ran in opposite
directions – Hindus to the east, Muslims to the west. Mansions
were deserted, acres left behind, families cut to half – the entire
geography of a sub-continent was soaked in blood. (xiii)
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Even while making the boundary fixation, the members of the
commission had differences of opinion among themselves. After Partition
gives the opinion of Sir Cyril Radcliffe: “…the weight and value attached to
them made it impossible for the commission to arrive at any agreed solution”
(23). It clearly shows that the members of the commission focused their
attention to the wealth and resources that the provinces had in itself. In the
division of Bengal, the Muslims could not accept the loss of Calcutta,
Murshidabad and part of Nadia district, because they were the sources of
economic boom. The Sikhs in Punjab became acrimonious, because it was they
by their sweat and toil turned the rough and barren lands into high yielding
agricultural farms. They felt that they had lost half a century of their
measureless labour.
Migrants lamented over the loss of all that they earned for years and
years. They could not get back their money and jewels that were in bank
lockers. They could not carry all their possessions and precious things. When
they ran for safety, they could only carry the bare minimum. Margaret BourkeWhite in Singh’s Train to Pakistan registers one such incident:
There seemed hardly a person who was not nursing some loss,
such as the rich Muslim woman from Amritsar who had thrown
her jewels in the bottom of the well, when her home fell on the
Indian side of the line. She had run across the border to Pakistan,
and when I saw her there, she was trying hysterically to hire a
driver to go back and retrieve the jewels from the well. (250)
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Some left their valuables in lockers; a few others buried them in the
earth with the hope of getting them back when they returned and yet others left
their possessions in the care of a known neighbour. But returning could not
become an actuality in their lives. Even a great number of cattle owned by the
people of various communities were left behind. All the migrants reached
either India or Pakistan only with what they could carry. Many of them lost
their near and dear ones; but all of them had material loss.
Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan is often branded as a sociopolitical novel. The novel explores the social condition of the people of Mano
Majra village and how political sway changed the entire destiny of the village.
Unlike Chaman Nahal’s Azadi, Singh’s Train to Pakistan does not completely
spin around the partition trauma. He narrates the socio-political condition of the
people at the back-drop of partition. The novel does not give much weight on
the material loss of the people due to partition. But there are instances, where
Singh speaks of looting, destruction of buildings and abduction of livestock.
Like millions of migrants who left their belongings, Singh’s family too
left everything in Lahore in 1947. His family left its newly-acquired bungalow
to a Muslim friend called Manzur Qadir. Pramood Kapoor in his preface to
Train to Pakistan quotes the nostalgic sentiment of Singh during one of his
trips to Lahore: “I stayed as a guest in my own home. I had put him (Manzur)
in possession of it when I left Lahore in 1947” (xvi).
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Singh begins the novel by introducing the socio-cultural aspects of the
village called Mano Majra. Then he proceeds to narrate a looting done by
professional robbers. Though the burglary was not an outcome of communal
separation it set the tone to the lootings that were going to follow suit. The
decoits headed by Malli entered the house of Lala Ram Lal, the moneylender of
the village. The moneylender pleaded to the dacoits in Singh’s Train to
Pakistan, “You can take all – jewellery, cash, account books. Don’t kill
anyone” (13). But they killed him and took away all the money and jewels.
This prelude is followed by an enormous material loss of millions of people.
Mano Majra was a typical village which was known for its religious
forbearance and brotherhood. The Muslims and the Sikhs almost were equal in
number. The mosque and the gurdwara stood in side by side. The village had
no resent against any religion. All the religions were welcomed into this
village. They also had a common deity in the form of a three-foot slab of
sandstone erected vertical under a keekar tree. The entire village had faith in
this common deity. V. T. Girdhari in his article “Historical Text, Human
Context: Kushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan” describes Mano Majra,
“Khushwant Singh’s picture of Indian society in Train to Pakistan is like the
state of Eden…” (32).
The first report of looting and taking away the possessions of others
reached the village only in the form of rumour. Hukum Chand, the magistrate
of the district wanted the Muslims of Mano Majra to go away to Pakistan in
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safety. But he did not want them to take too much belongings with them. Singh
in his Train to Pakistan gives the reasons for this attitude of Hukum Chand:
“Hindus from Pakistan were stripped of all their belongings before they were
allowed to leave. Pakistani magistrates have become millionaires overnight”
(30).
The refugees who had come from Pakistan little by little fanned the
communal inferno. Their entry created a dismal state of affairs over Mano
Majra. Hukum Chand had no other go except to evacuate the Muslims of Mano
Majra. Pakistan soldiers were called to take the Muslims to refugee camp. The
people who had enormous belongings did not know how to take everything
with them. They started packing their things and got ready to go to the camp.
The Muslims of Mano Majra thought that they would soon be back to their
houses in Mano Majra.
Next morning Pakistan officers along with a few soldiers came to take
the Muslims of Mano Majra to a refugee camp in Chundunnugger, later to be
taken to Pakistan by train. The Muslim officer in his demanding voice ordered
the Muslims of Mano Majra: “The only luggage you can take with you is what
you can carry – nothing more. You can leave your cattle, bullock carts,
charpoys, pitchers and so on with your friends in the village” (Singh 194).
They were permitted to take only the baggage that they could carry with their
hands. This shocked the Muslims. Though they insisted for taking all their
belongings their requests were denied by the officer. So, they left behind a vast
amount of their possessions and belongings and moved to the refugee camp.
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It was a dismal sight. Some of them had nothing to carry except a
blanket, a few others had only a pair of clothes bundled in a blanket. In their
journey to an unknown destination, they hardly thought of their belongings.
When their lives were at stake, what would be the use of the materials that they
carried? Vicki Goldberg’s words that are quoted in Singh’s Train to Pakistan
reveal the state of the people when they reached the alien land: “Many who
survived walked into a strange land without money, a change of clothing or a
hoe to cultivate the alien land” (117).
The peace loving Sikhs of Mano Majra requested the officials to allow
the Muslims to take their properties along with them. They told the officials
that property was a bad thing that would poison their mind and they might be
tempted to steal them away. The Sikh officials made an arrangement to leave
the cattle, carts and houses under the care of Malli and his men. The officials
also cautioned the villagers not to meddle with Malli or his men. Malli and his
men were notorious and were known for their looting and thieving.
Kamal Mehta describes the character of Malli and his gang in his article
“Train to Pakistan: A Study of the Partition and its Impact on the People”: “It
is a great irony that these five people (Malli and his gang) are the parasites on
society. They can’t be useful to people. These are hooligan, anti-social,
absolutely self centered and immoral people” (28). As soon as the Muslims left
Mano Majra, Malli and his gang started to ransack the houses of Muslims.
They freely looted the unoccupied houses of the Muslims. They drove away the
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bullocks, cows and buffaloes and mares and grabbed away the chickens,
utensils and other articles of value.
Mano Majra was on the bank of the Sutlej. It was a resource of life for
millions of people who lived on its banks. The Sutlej brought agricultural
bounty in Punjab. Partition holocaust turned this life giving mother into life
taking monster. It became a carrier of dead bodies. The entire river turned into
red. With the coming of partition, the water level of the Sutlej increased. The
swell of the river was due to the immense dumping of dead bodies and things.
Singh’s Train to Pakistan narrates, “The river had risen further. Its turbid water
carried carts with the bloated carcasses of bulls still yoked to them. Horses
rolled from side to side as if they were scratching their backs” (201). Cattle
were killed and thrown into the river. Things carried by the fleeing refugees
were snatched from them and were thrown into the Sutlej.
The looting and marauding of Muslim houses was repeated again and
again in several villages of Punjab. There were looters everywhere; as soon as
the Muslims were evacuated, these looters entered into their houses and
blundered their properties. After the evacuation of the Muslims of Mano Majra,
the Muslims of Chundunnugger were also evacuated to the refugee camp. The
Sikh and the Hindu goons entered the area inhabited by the Muslims and
devastated their entire property. They looted what they wanted and burnt the
rest. Every Muslim house in that area was turned into ashes. The police and the
officials could do nothing against this free looting. The reason was that the
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violent mob always outnumbered the police in many folds. At places, the mob
formed twenty to thirty thousand people but the number of the police men were
only fifty. Some times even the police and the officials sided with these looters
and got a share for them.
Manohar Malgonkar’s works are known for their daring nature and
adventurous spirit. His works boldly question some of the established orders
and stigma in the society. This aspect of Malgonkar is vibrant in A Bend in the
Ganges. The novel includes personal as well as national events in it. It
questions the practicality of Gandhi’s ahimsa (non-violence). Since he believed
violence as an indispensable and inseparable part of human nature; and
backlashes Gandhi’s notion of non-violence. The novel opens with non-violent
protests and closes with wide spread violence of the entire sub-continent
resulting in millions of human death and heavy loss of assets and belongings.
Through huge material loss incurred by Tekchand, Malgonkar wishes to
communicate the inestimable amount of wealth that was lost in the partition
communal frenzy.
Malgonkar draws his two major characters – Gian Talwar and Debidayal from aristocratic families. The former comes from the family of landlords
and the later is the son of a flourishing industrialist. The novel closes with the
absolute economic disaster in both the families. Gian’s family lost all the
wealth due to personal enmity and Debi’s family lost all the property due to the
partition catastrophe. The case of Debi’s family was the case of millions of
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Indians who were fleeing both to Pakistan and India. All that they earned by
their hard labour could not be carried along with them.
They evacuated their houses only with a meager amount of things they
could carry to an unknown destination. Some women wrapped up their jewels
in a piece of cloth and threw them into wells with the hope of coming back and
retrieving them. But they could never come back to posses their jewels again.
K. K. Sharma and B. K. Johri in their work The Partition in Indian-English
Novels state, “Millions of people became homeless, lost their belongings, fell
victims to violence and insult, faced a new challenge and had to start all over
again” (55).
The first great destruction narrated in A Bend in the Ganges occurred in
Bombay during the Second World War. The Japanese invaded India and
bombarded the city of Bombay. They dropped bombs in the harbour of
Bombay. This left the ships and the docks being blown up and a large number
of people were killed and wounded. A man called Baldev reported in
Malgonkar’s A Band in the Ganges, “The bombers have destroyed the city. The
Japanese have reduced the city to dust” (271). Though this bombardment was
not directly connected with the partition; it forewarned the great calamity that
was going to engulf the entire sub-continent in a short span.
The news of the partition turned the entire atmosphere up side down.
The administration collapsed; the police and officials became dumbfound. The
irrational mob began to rule the streets. They freely burgled and burnt the
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properties of others. Dhansing, the driver of Tekchand went to bring his family
to a safer place. On the way, his family was caught by a sprawling Muslim
gang. The gang killed Dhansingh’s entire family and burnt the car. A number
of Hindu and Sikh houses were set fire and were reduced to ashes. Wherever
the people turned they could see the glow of fire in the entire city of Duriabad.
Sardar Awtar Singh, a friend of Tekchand lived in one of the isolated areas of
Duriabad. As the partition savages increased, he collected around fifty people
in a house, so that they could guard themselves from any onslaught by the
Muslims. All in a sudden a ruthless mob surrounded the house and set the
entire house including the people in fire. All the people were burnt alive.
The killing of cows became a common thing in Duriabad after the
proclamation of partition. They were killed because they were branded as
Hindu animals. Since all the cows were killed, the entire city ran short of milk.
The indefinite closer of the banks left the evacuating people in a flex. They
were neither able to withdraw their savings nor able to deposit. In their flight,
their savings scarcely came to their minds. Tekchand who had a large savings
in banks was not able to withdraw even a single paisa because of the nonfunctioning of banks. And so he decided to take only the jewels in a box and
left the rest in Duriabad itself.
The same was the case of millions of migrants, who were fleeing from
their own natives and homes as if their places were invaded by some alien
rulers. Malgonkar in his novel A Bend in the Ganges narrates, “They left
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behind everything they possessed; their lands, houses, cattle, their household
goods” (355). He also notes one of the pathetic carnages on the migrants,
which resulted them to run away for life leaving everything that they carried.
“At one place there was scatter of pitiful human belongings: bed-rolls, bundles,
tin trunks, chickens in bamboo baskets, brass utensils gleaming in the sunlight,
perambulators, boxes, tiffin-carriers, earthen surais… but not a human being”
(359). The roadsides were littered with burnt-out cars, lorries, bullock carts,
carts and tongas.
Tekchand was the most affected character in Malgonkar’s A Bend in the
Ganges. He suffered a great loss at all the levels – physical, mental and
material. Tekchand was an affluent person. His house was one of the best
residential buildings in Lahore. He owned a brand new Ford V8, which was not
possible even for rich Indians. Malgonkar describes the house of Tekchand in
the following manner: “His family had lived in Duriabad for over a hundred
years. They owned the Kerwad Construction Company, and the Kerward
Housing Development, and God knows what else – even a street in the
cantonment was named after them: Kerward Avenue” (12). His company was
spread in many cities and towns, including Bombay. He was mounting richer
and richer everyday with his countless business. Malgonkar terms him as a man
worth million.
Tekchand had a huge collection of brass, bronze and copper statues of
antiquity in his private museum. In A Bend in the Ganges Malgonkar states that
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the museum had a grand collection and there was “… no equal outside the
Prince of Wales’ Museum in Bombay” (14). He was also the possessor of a
number of gardens and farms. He had enough servants at his call. But partition
brought massive ruin in his life. All his servants ran away for their lives leaving
him alone to suffer. He lost his total fortune and became completely a wrecked
man. He even thought that he should have left Duriabad a month or two weeks
ago and that would have saved a good portion of his assets. Tekchand lamented
to his daughter Sundari in Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges: “Your mother
wanted us to leave a whole month ago. Even two weeks ago, we could have
done it – just driven off. I could have brought over all the trucks from the
works here, and we could have loaded them with everything we wanted to take
from here” (336).
Tekchand went to bathroom and sobbed thinking about the treasures he
was going to leave behind – the biggest construction business in Punjab, the
splendid museum, a regal abode with its articles and furniture and a number of
farms and gardens. As he was about to leave Duriabad, he had the last fleeting
look at the house. Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges gives the following
description on the richness of Tekchand’s house:
The Kashan and the Kermanshah carpets which had covered the
floor and were now rolled up, carpets that he had been collecting
with a connoisseur’s fussiness and avidity for the past twenty
years and more, carpets that had come to him from his father and
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grandfather, were now worthless; as were the other possessions
they had prided themselves upon; the Spanish silver candlesticks,
the baccarat chandeliers and the Georgian tea service, the
Minton dinner set and the rosewood dining table that seated
twenty-four. (341)
His ancestral properties and all the expensive materials he earned
through his business and possessed from his ancestors looked remote and they
did not belong to him any more. Soon someone would occupy the moneyed
house and all the belongings. He left Duriabad, with Gian and his daughter
Sundari, in a car. He carried only little things that could be accommodated in
the car. With absolute obliteration, he was not able to pull himself towards the
new destination. He did not know where he was heading towards and how he
was going to start all again his future. Tekchand lost the savings and
investments of his grandfather, father and his own savings at the hands of the
gory demon called partition.
Chaman Nahal’s Azadi is often applauded with one accord as the best
novel on the theme of partition. The time of the action precisely spreads around
the traumatic days of partition. Even his characters are directly caught up in the
process of partition. Lala Kanshi Ram, the protagonist of the novel stands as
part and parcel of the partition trials and tribulations. Nahal uses Lala Kanshi
Ram as his mouthpiece to present the horrors of partition. Rama Jha in his
review of Azadi states, “Lala Kanshi Ram whose experiences symbolize the
soreness and sufferings of the millions affected by the partition” (114).
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The novel is set in an environment of tension and that tension runs
throughout the novel. C.N. Srinath in his article “The Writers as Historical
Witness: Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan and Chaman Nahal’s Azadi”
notes, “There is violence, butchery, accounts of rape, murder, ghastly incidents,
slaughtering of Hindus and Muslims, riots and rampage in Azadi” (63). Nahal,
without deviating his focus, completely dwells upon the partition horrors and
its related actions.
Nahal uses the term azadi in a sardonic manner. Azadi means freedom,
but none of the characters in the novel experienced and enjoyed the long
awaited freedom. The freedom brought neither celebration nor prosperity, but
doom. Every house in the border had some despair to share. For the
frontiersmen, azadi came in the form of devouring demon, which wrecked the
people both physically and mentally. It came in the form of bloodshed tearing a
beautiful nation into two halves and turning millions of people destitute and
homeless refugees. Paul Love in his article “The Narrative of Migration:
Nahal’s Azadi in Comparative Context” remarks, “Freedom, ‘Azadi’, has
become an occasion of crisis and catastrophe for them” (71). The complete
ambiance was in gripping gloominess. Every character had a loss in one form
or the other. Some had physical loss; a few others underwent emotional
calamity and yet others lost their materials and reached the new nation bare
handed. Even Mahatma Gandhi, the prophet of non-violence became a prey of
the frenzied partition mob.
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The partition announcement turned the entire sub-continent into looter’s
den. Wherever there was a minority community, the people belonged to it were
forced to leave behind everything they possessed. Azadi is set in Sialkot. The
people of Sialkot enjoyed harmony and homogeneity, when it was part of the
undivided India. The Boundary Commission award marked Sialkot as part of
the newly shaped nation, Pakistan. Since Pakistan was created for the Muslims,
the Hindus and the Sikhs became the minorities and aliens in their own birth
place. Most of the Hindus and the Sikhs of Sialkot were traders and they owned
shops and palatial houses. Some of them even had multi-storied buildings. But
partition fluctuated them from prosperity to adversity.
Lala Kanshi Ram, the protagonist of Azadi was a reputed wholesale
grain merchant in Sialkot. He had earned enough for his family through his
hard work. Nearly for three decades he toiled and sweated to acquire the assets.
He had eight small trunks filled with pricey metals and other materials. But
unfortunately the partition devastated his thirty long years of savings. The
tempting eyes of the Sialkot Muslims fell on the property and belongings of the
Hindus and the Sikhs. They devised a scheme to loot the shops and the houses
of the Hindus and the Sikhs. One day in the afternoon a ravaging mob entered
the marketplace and ransacked the things from the shops of the Hindus and the
Sikhs.
Lala Kanshi Ram, who was in his grain shop, became alarmed by the
approaching Frankenstein monsters. The unruly Muslim mob broke open all
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the shops of the Hindus and the Sikhs and took away everything from the shop
leaving nothing. Lala Kanshi Ram, who could not prevent the demonic acts of
the bunch of hooligans, ran home for life. He did not even lock the shutters of
his shop. While running from a distant corner he saw the mob entering his shop
and raiding away sacks of grains. The only source of his income – the shop,
was now devastated by the religious hooligans.
The mob not only looted the belongings of the Hindus and the Sikhs but
they had also great pleasure in destroying their properties. During night time
they set fire to one each mohalla. Almost from the day of the announcement of
partition, every night the sky of Sialkot glowed with fire. In Azadi, Nahal
picturizes the state of Sialkot: “The fires were started in the night, and the four
fire engines in the city had, were kept rushing from one fire to the next. More
than murders, it was the fires that were frightening and demoralizing” (126). If
one gang had set fire on an east mohalla of Sialkot, the other group would have
set fire on the west. Throughout the night, the fire engines were kept hectic.
The Hindus and the Sikhs had many sleepless nights, fearing that their mohalla
may be attacked and set ablaze at any time by the Muslim vandals.
Almost for a week, the fanatics burnt down one mohalla every night.
Chaudhri Barkat Ali, the bosom friend of Lala Kanshi Ram, disclosed the cruel
plan of the fanatics that they had targeted the street where Lala Kanshi Ram
dwelled. The entire mohalla, inhabited by the Hindus and the Sikhs was left
just before six hours to save their lives and properties. Bibi Amar Vati, who
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owned two large buildings in Trunk Bazaar, had no other go except to abandon
the building. Lala Kanshi Ram, who had already lost his grain shop, had to
leave the plot where he had planned to construct his new house. Almost the
entire population of the Hindus and the Sikhs of Sialkot migrated from their
home town to unknown destinations with the bare minimum that they could
carry with them.
Lala Kanshi Ram had a well furnished house, stocked with luxurious
and costly fineries. His eight trunks and two steel chests were filled with
expensive blankets, bedspreads, towels, shoes and so on. In Azadi Nahal
recounts the coziness of Lala Kanshi Ram’s house in the following words:
“The furniture in their house was so massive, beds so strongly made and tables
and chairs with thick, solid legs and tops,…” (145). Since they were
forewarned about the impending assault that would take place in a short while,
they became crumbled and crushed completely. They did not know what to
carry and what to leave.
Lala Kanshi Ram and his family had finally decided to go to the refugee
camp with one steel trunk and a bedroll filled with some clothes. The rest they
left in the house itself hoping that they would be back soon to possess them
again. But Lala Kanshi Ram had foreseen that he might not come back to
reclaim his belongings that he had earned by his sweat. Lala Kanshi Ram burst
out this to Bill Davidson, a British officer in Nahal’s Azadi: “…all that I had
taken nearly thirty years to build is being lost because you refuse to protect us”
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(147). He even felt aged and worried that it might not be possible for him to
earn afresh all the comforts and belongings in an unknown place, where he was
going to live for the rest of his life. Unable to carry with him all the hard earned
assets, he felt dejected and moved to the refugee camp with the members of his
family and his neighbours.
Later, the refugees were taken to India by an escorted foot convoy. On
their way from Sialkot to Dera Baba Nanak – a border town in India, they
glimpsed enormous devastation to the properties of the Hindus and the Sikhs.
On the way they found a village comprising twenty houses belonging to the
Hindus and the Sikhs, being smashed. Not even a single person was seen in that
village. The entire village had a grisly look and was littered with broken
household things. Finally, the convoy reached Amritsar with empty pockets
without knowing what to eat, where to sleep and what work to assume.
Amritsar too had a horrific and phantom look. Many buildings had been
destroyed. Some buildings stood like skeletons without any roof. Nahal’s Azadi
gives the picture of Amritsar in the following lines: “The city looked as if it
had been bombed from the air. Not a building in Hall Bazaar, the main
thoroughfare of the city stood intact; they were in total ruin. The roofs were
gone. The window frames burned out, the walls collapsed” (326). Looting and
devastation of property were a common phenomenon during the time of
partition. There was an enormous mutual destruction both in India and Pakistan
– the Indians destroyed the properties and belongings of the Muslims and the
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Pakistanis did the vis-à-vis. Since Nahal’s Azadi deals more on the issue of
psychological trauma of partition he does not focus on the materials that were
ravaged during the time of partition.
The entire North India underwent a great desolation due to the partition
of the Indian sub-continent. Since people were on flight to save their lives, they
left behind their possessions and valuables. As soon as the owners left, the
louts claimed the evacuees properties as their own. The malevolent mob
brought down buildings, houses and places of worship. The entire frontier was
ravaged by looters. Even the states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Assam,
Tripura, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Jammu and
Kashmir were under-fire. Buildings and monuments were toppled down. Every
work that deals on the theme of partition has something to say about the
material loss caused by the partition. Shiv K Kumar too narrates a few events
related to the material loss faced by people at the time of partition.
A River with Three Banks traces the havoc and ravages occurred in
Delhi, Allahabad and a few other areas of North India. Gautam, the central
character migrated from Lahore to Delhi safely, along with his family. But he
had lost all his property. It was not only Gautam who had lost his property in
the new nation (Pakistan); but also millions of others. When Gautam went to
report on Gandhi’s prayer meeting a number of distressed Hindus and Sikhs
recounted their woes and how they ran away to India, leaving all their
belongings in Pakistan. A Pakistan migrant in Kumar’s A River with Three
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Banks reported, “…while our temples in Pakistan are being used as urinals?
We have no shelter now…”; another migrant shared, “I lost my entire property
in Peshawar…” (199).
Gautam, while taking Haseena’s mother and sister to Pakistan, saw the
pathetic flight of millions of Muslims. Most of them carried only a handbag or
a suitcase. That was the only property they were able to carry to their new
destination. They deserted their houses, farms, plots, furniture and other heavy
materials which they could not carry along. Since many of the migrants
traveled by crowded trains, it was difficult for them to carry even the minimum
luggage.
Common properties and buildings were attacked by the marauding mob.
A River with Three Banks describes a cinema hall that was gutted near Asaf Ali
Road in Delhi. The cinema hall was blasted because it was showing a Hindu
movie. Even animals became the victims of the mass destruction. The Hindus
killed pigs and threw them into the masques. Whereas Muslims killed cows and
buffaloes those belonged to the Hindus. In A River with Three Banks, Kumar
describes the killing of an old harmless cow by a Muslim mob. The innocent
cow was chewing some food in a garbage; a fanatic Muslim gang branded it as
a Hindu animal and put it to death by their swords. The irrational and
malevolent hooligans always had great delight in the destruction of the
properties and belongings of others; and partition gave them a let out to carry
their desired destructions freely.
CHAPTER - V
PSYCHOLOGICAL
TRAUMA
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CHAPTER – V
PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA
A scar or a wound that is caused in the body will be healed sooner or
later; but what is inflicted in the heart can never be cured. A person’s mental
agony will always linger afresh as long as the person is alive. Partition
accompanied physical butcheries, emotional turmoil, material loss and religious
persecutions. People might have forgotten the physical and the material loss;
even the religious atrocities might have been wiped away from their memories.
But the scar that was implanted in their hearts is fresh even today.
R.K.Agnihotri in his article “On a Pre-Partition Partition: The Question of
Hindu-Urdu” views, “Never in the history of mankind had such a large-scale
migration taken place in such a short time. What is worse is that this
nightmarish experience of partition left such deep scars on the minds of Hindus
and Muslims that they are nowhere close to healing even after 50 years” (29).
Many of the partition novels and stories are written by the writers, who
witnessed the partition holocaust with their naked eyes. The psychological
turmoil that they underwent at the time of partition is the main cause for this
vast creation of literature known as Partition Literature. All the partition
literatures are known for their delineation of the mental and emotional anguish
endured by an assortment of people. The chief concern of all the partition
novelists is the mental trauma faced by millions of people during partition. All
other concerns and losses find only a partial trace in the partition literatures.
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Urvashi Butalia was a child at the time of partition. She along with her
parents left West Punjab and reached Delhi because of the partition of the
Indian sub-continent. Butalia, later made an evaluation between the scourges
faced by the migrants during partition and the panic experienced by the Sikhs
of Delhi during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. In her article “Listening for a Change:
Narratives of Partition”, she identified a number of Sikhs recalling the horrors
they underwent at the time of partition. She concludes her article by stating that
the partition event, “…rely heavily on people’s memories of an event, a time or
a place” (141). The psychological rack experienced by millions can never be
wiped off from their lives.
Partition brought interminable woes in the lives of many a millions. All
the Muslims who lived in India underwent the revulsion of irrational mob.
Similarly all the Hindus and the Sikhs who lived in the East and the West
Pakistan came to India with inconsolable sores. Among all the sufferers,
women underwent the worst abuse and maltreatment at the time of partition.
They were treated worse than cattle. First they were abducted, then raped, next
converted forcefully and finally they were sold in the market for prostitution.
The tribulations of women were many folds during the time of partition.
They were physically offended, psychologically tormented and spiritually
persecuted. Some women who underwent all these ordeal were later rescued by
social workers and government agencies. When they were sent back to their
own houses, many of the families did not admit these grieved women into their
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own houses. Their own family members blamed them saying that they have
become infected. In the article “The Repetition of Silence: Partition, Rape, and
Female Labour in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India” Lopamudra Basu quotes an
appeal made by Nehru through newspaper in 1946:
I am told that there is an unwillingness on the part of their
relatives to accept those girls and women (who have been
abducted) back in their homes. This is a most objectionable and
wrong attitude to take and any social custom that supports this
attitude must be condemned. These girls and women require our
tender and loving care and their relatives should be proud to take
them back and give them every help. (8)
At the proclamation of the partition, the entire frontier region was hectic
with evacuation and migration work. Foot convoys were arranged in order to
evacuate the people. Millions of people who had great inclination and love for
their birth place were uprooted from their ancestors’ home-land to an alien
land. The migrants left behind everything they cherished for years and years.
The people, with whom they worked, played, laughed and shared were all
shattered into different parts of India, East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and West
Pakistan (Pakistan). They left their beloved places with sorrow and sadness.
Ten million people were uprooted due to partition. Many agonized men
and women made human cries, when they heard the word partition. Parting the
loved ones was an excruciating experience. They felt that their roots were
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completely cut off. Their lifelong relations and bonds were all gone. They lost
their sense of affinity and belongingness in their own soil where they enjoyed
every right.
The sense of uprootedness is vividly presented in Khushwant Singh’s
Train to Pakistan. The novel was set in a village called Mano Majra. It was a
typical Indian village with its own tradition and customs. There were about
seventy families in that village. The Sikhs and the Muslims were about equal in
number. When half of the village was forced to migrate to Pakistan, there was a
great emotional explosion in the entire village. Nooran left Mano Majra for
Pakistan, carrying Juggut Singh’s unborn child in her womb. She underwent
immeasurable mental torment and heartache in her life due to partition. Juggut
Singh became psychologically torn, when he heard the plan of attacking the
train in which his beloved Norran would travel. Hukum Chand, the magistrate
and deputy commissioner of the district was thrown psychologically broken,
when he became aware of his powerlessness to stop the butcheries. Iqbal, a
social worker was badly treated and humiliated by the police. The ill-treatment
and abuse caused on him brought unfathomable woe to his heart.
Hukum Chand, the magistrate and deputy commissioner of the district
foresaw a great catastrophe that would fall on Mano Majra due to the outpouring number of refugees from Pakistan. The refugees, who reached Mano
Majra with serious losses, began to spread the cruelties committed by the
Muslims on the Sikhs and the Hindus. Their woe filled tales began to sow the
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seeds of hatred, vengeance and venom among the fanatics of Mano Majra.
Hukum Chand smelt the danger at the right moment and he immediately sent a
police to the commander of the Muslim refugee camp to come at once and
evacuate the Muslims of Mano Majra through trucks.
The Muslim refugee commander along with a few Pakistan army men
reached Mano Majra for an inspection before the actual evacuation was done.
In Train to Pakistan Singh narrates the result of their coming in the following
manner: “…had divided Mano Majra into two halves as neatly as a knife cuts
through a pat of butter” (178). This brought the entire village under the cloud
of gloom and suspicion. Despite the external threads, the bond that united the
Muslims and the Sikhs was strong. Some of the Sikhs came and comforted the
Muslims. They promised their help for the protection and safety of the Muslims
of Mano Majra. In Singh’s Train to Pakistan, a young Sikh told the Muslims,
“As long as we are here nobody will dare to touch you. We die first and then
you can look after yourselves” (184).
Imam Baksh, the mullah of the mosque became emotionally busted,
when he heard the news that the Muslims of Mano Majra have to leave for
Pakistan. He broke down with unbearable psychological and emotional
ailment. He uttered the following in Singh’s Train to Pakistan: “What have we
to do with Pakistan? We were born here. So were our ancestors. We have lived
amongst you as brothers” (184). His outburst melted the entire gathering.
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The Muslims could not assimilate the thought of parting their ancestral
place for ever and go and settle in an alien place without any roots and
establish all again everything. It was a heartbreaking experience for them to
part with the place where they had their great ancestry for centuries. Even the
Sikhs were tormented, when they heard that the Muslims would be soon
evacuated to Pakistan. They could not think of parting their Muslim brothers
with whom they had lived their entire life. Singh gives their collapsed psyche
in Train to Pakistan, “Imam Baksh broke down. Meet Singh clasped him in his
arms and began to sob. Several of the people started crying quietly and were
blowing their noses” (184). Again Singh gives another picture of the emotional
bond between the Muslims and the Sikhs in the same novel, “Sikh and Muslim
villagers fell into each other’s arms and wept like children” (185).
Since the Muslims of Mano Majra would be leaving for the refugee
camp the following morning, no one slept that night in Mano Majra. The
Muslims with their bleeding heart and untold woes kept on packing their
things. Singh’s Train to Pakistan paints the saddest night that the Muslims of
Mano Majra experienced in their lives:
The whole village was awake. In most houses she (Nooran) could
see the dim flickers of oil lamps. Some were packing; others were
helping them pack. Most just talked with their friends. The
women sat on the floors hugging each other and crying. It was as
if in every home there had been a death (187).
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The following morning, the Muslim refugee commander and the
Pakistan soldiers reached Mano Majra to evacuate the Muslims of Mano Majra
to the refugee camp in Chundunnugger and later to Pakistan by train. The
Muslims were not allowed to carry all their materials; rather they were
permitted only to carry a handful of things. The Muslims of Mano Majra had
the palest look and the greatest mental agony when they left their loved place,
people and things. Even the Sikhs took part in their pitiable departure. The eyes
of the Sikhs were all fixed on the mourning Muslims till they vanished from
sight. The Sikhs turned to their houses with heavy hearts. The same type of
departure was experienced by ten millions of people during the time of
partition.
In Singh’s Train to Pakistan, Nooran, the daughter of Imam Baksh was
greatly affected due to partition. She was bewildered, when her father asked her
to pack the luggage in order to go to the refugee camp. She never thought that
such a frightful event will ever happen in her life. She did not want to leave
Mano Majra, because she carried Juggut Singh’s child in her womb. In Singh’s
Train to Pakistan she shouted with dismay, “Who will throw us out? This is
our village. Are the police and the government dead?” (187). Since she loved
Juggut Singh so much and she wanted her child’s father to be along with, it was
hard for her to go to Pakistan without him. She desperately needed Juggut
Singh in her and in her child’s life.
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The same night, when every Muslim was getting prepared to go to the
refugee camp Nooran slowly crept to the house of Juggut Singh and begged
hard to his mother to accept her as her daughter-in-law because Juggut Singh
had promised to marry Nooran. On hearing this Juggut Singh’s mother turned
wild and rash. She shouted at Nooran as pitch. Singh’s Train to Pakistan,
narrates the pain filled wailing of Nooran. She fell at the feet of Juggut Singh’s
mother and uttered, “Beybey, I have Jugga’s child within me. If I go to
Pakistan they will kill it when they know it has a Sikh father” (189). She left
Mano Majra without any hope or any life – both for herself and for her unborn
child.
The next prominent character, who underwent deep psychological
ferocity in Singh’s Train to Pakistan was Juggut Singh. Juggut Singh was an
assortment of good and bad qualities. A. G. Khan in his article “Contrastive
Study of Characters in Train to Pakistan” sketches Juggut Singh as, “… robust,
gay and impulsive. He bears no hatred for the policemen. He develops friendly
relations with anyone he meets, be he the tonga driver or Iqbal. He always
takes initiative. Fond of making jokes he is a real Sikh who can laugh at
himself. He loses his temper whenever there is a remark about Nooran” (17).
Like his father, he too was a budmash (a notorious criminal). But he had a
devoted heart to sacrifice his life in order to shield the lives of others.
It is a common fact that most of the partition writings deal with interreligious love relationship. Singh’s Train to Pakistan too paints a love affair
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between a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl. Juggut Singh was a Sikh who was
profoundly in love with a Muslim girl called Nooran. It resulted in Nooran
bearing his child in her womb. The partition drew away Nooran and other
Muslims to Pakistan. Juggut Singh was freed from his confinement on the very
same day, when the Muslims of Mano Majra were to be taken to Pakistan by
train.
When Juggut Singh was released, the sub-inspector intimated him that
all the Muslims of Mano Majra had left for the refugee camp and they were to
go to Pakistan by a train that night. The next dreadful news that he received
was the intended attack of the train that was bound for Pakistan along with his
beloved Nooran. Juggut Singh turned thoroughly crushed and paralyzed at the
news. The thought of Nooran and his child in her womb caused him
insufferable agony. He felt a stirring and by all means determined to save the
lives of his unborn child and his beloved Nooran. His mental agony and
emotional anguish turned him into a saviour.
The whole village knew the preplanned assault of the train by the
militant Sikhs along with Malli’s gang. But none dared to thwart it – including
Hukum Chand, the deputy commissioner of the district. Juggut Singh alone had
the nerve to avert the train attack and he became bold because of the emotional
attachment he had for Nooran. After seeking the blessings at the gurdwara at
night, he instantly went to the bridge, where the militants were awaiting for
their assault. He resolved to give his life in order to save Nooran.
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He scaled up the steel span and got on the rope. Then he started to slash
the rope heavily with his kirpan. The rope was tied by the militants in order to
crash away all the Muslims who travelled on the roof of the train. He used all
his potency to cut the rope. He was fired by the militants, but with wounds and
blood, he continued the task unrelentingly. He fell on the track, when he
accomplished the mission. The train went over him taking Nooran and his child
safely to Pakistan. K. K. Sharma and B. K. Johri in their article “The Scenic
and Naturalistic Treatment of the Theme: Khushwant Singh’s Train to
Pakistan” remark the sacrifice of Juggut Singh: “He hacked the rope
vigorously. He set an example of supreme sacrifice and lay down his life for
the sake of enabling the Muslims, particularly his mistress, Nooran, to reach
Pakistan safely” (83).
Hukum Chand is an archetypal magistrate and deputy commissioner
fashioned by Singh in Train to Pakistan. He was a well balanced and an
experienced bureaucrat. He had the qualities of an individual as well as a
bureaucrat. He too suffered emotional crunches on three diverse occasions. His
first emotional disillusionment occurred, when he realized that the messy
circumstances created by the partition could not be controlled by him. Banta
Singh, the lambardar of the village came to Hukum Chand to report about the
intended train attack by the militants. Hukum Chand realized his helplessness
to prevent the attack because the entire state of affair was in the hands of the
irrational fanatics.
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Hukum Chand’s mind was troubled, because, he could not do anything
to sustain law and order in his locale. In every violence, the armed mob always
outnumbered the police. The police with their limited forces could do nothing
against the huge mob. Singh’s Train to Pakistan gives Hukum Chand’s
emotional eruption through the following words: “What am I to do? The whole
world has gone mad. Let it go mad! What does it matter if another thousand get
killed? … What is a few hundred out of four hundred million anyway? An
epidemic takes ten times the number and no one even bothers” (228 – 229).
Hukum Chand turned so frustrated and pale, when he heard the diverse
occurrence of violence that were ravaging around him. He recapitulated the
death of Prem Singh. Prem Singh was his colleague. When he went to Lahore
to amass his wife’s jewellery he was killed by the Muslims. Then he recalled
the death of Sundari and her husband. Sundari was the daughter of Hukum
Chand’s orderly. Sundari and her husband Mansa Ram went to Gujranwala
after their marriage. On the way, they were caught by a Muslim gang and
Mansa Ram was mercilessly butchered and Sundari was dragged away.
The next death that he brooded over was the death of Sunder Singh.
Sunder Singh was a valiant soldier. While he was travelling with his wife and
three children to visit his estate in Sindh, the train was halted in an unfamiliar
place for four days. The passengers were not allowed to get down the train.
When his children cried of thirst, he gave his urine. When that too dried up, he
had nothing to provide them. He could not stand their cries, so, with his own
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pistol he killed his children and his wife. All these gruesome deaths created an
internal commotion in Hukum Chand. He felt that he was lost in the world of
insanity and barbarism.
Haseena Begum was Hukum Chand’s sweet-heart. He used her to
gratify his physical desires. But his infatuation, later turned into real affection.
Though, she was the age of his lost daughter, he began to love her. She was a
Muslim from Chundunnugger. When the Muslims of Chundunnugger were
startled of the communal violence, she believed that Hukum Chand will save
her by all means. Since the Hindus and the Sikhs designed to attack the
Muslims, the total Muslim community of Chundunnugger was evacuated to the
refugee camp. Haseena too was taken to the refugee camp.
The Muslim refugee commander was cautioned of an attack on the
refugee camp by the mob of the adjacent villages. So, he decided to take all the
refugees (including the Muslims of Mano Majra) to Pakistan by train. Haseena
was one among the travellers in that train. The sub-inspector informed Hukum
Chand about the assault of the refugee train that was going to take place. When
Hukum Chand heard this bitter news, he turned heart-broken, because, in the
same train Haseena too would travel to Pakistan. He was certain that, by no
means, the planned attack on the train could be prevented. He frantically
wanted his Haseena to reach Pakistan securely; but he had no means to stop the
huge carnage that was planned by the mob. Finally he learnt that in the same
train, Juggut Singh’s beloved Nooran too travelled. So, he issued an order to
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release Juggut Singh at once and leave him in Mano Majra itself. He was
definite that Juggut Singh will do anything to save the life of Nooran. It was
Juggut Singh who finally saved the life of Nooran, Haseena and thousands of
others by sacrificing his life.
Iqbal is yet another character who suffered grave humiliation and
dishonour in Train to Pakistan. He was a communist worker sent by the
People’s Party of India to the frontier to establish peace. He had come to Mano
Majra in order to stop the bloodshed that was going on in the border due to
partition. Many critics had branded him as a pessimistic character who lacked
courage, simplicity and commitment. K. C. Belliappa in his article “The
Elusive Classic: Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan and Chaman Nahal’s
Azadi” evaluates the character of Iqbal: “In Iqbal, we have the portrait of an
‘armchair intellectual’ who eats sardines, uses Australian butter, sleeps on an
air mattress and drinks whisky from his hip flask” (64).
He reached Mano Majra a day after the killing of Lala Ram Lal. But on
the very next morning of his entry, he was detained. He was shamed by the
police by fastening handcuffs around his wrist and taking him through the
street. He did not commit any blunder but he was erroneously charged. He was
accused of a Muslim Leaguer, who had come to generate trouble in the border
region. Though he was a Sikh by birth, while in prison, his name was entered
as Mohammed Iqbal and his religion as Islam.
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He was debased in front of others in the police station. Singh’s Train to
Pakistan states the way in which Iqbal was tormented by the sub-inspector. The
sub-inspector asked him, “Why don’t you go and do your propaganda in
Pakistan where you belong?” (98). The sub-inspector accused him as a Muslim
and asked him to go to Pakistan. He was locked in the same cell where Juggut
Singh was. He was stripped off to find out whether he was a Sikh or a Muslim.
Iqbal’s frustrated soliloquy in Singh’s Train to Pakistan discloses his
aggravation: “Where on earth except in India would a man’s life depend on
whether or not his foreskin had been removed?” (239). When he was freed
along with Juggut Singh, he was like a lifeless being. He attained a high state
of disillusionment and could do nothing to avert the train attack that was
deliberated by the Sikh militants. He was offended mentally and emotionally.
The partition of the Indian sub-continent witnessed many enforced
evacuations. The people did not desire to go to an unknown place leaving their
relatives, friends and things. At the same time, there was great peril for the
Muslims to remain in India and for the Sikhs and the Hindus in Pakistan. Ten
million people, who migrated to unfamiliar places, had deep bangs in their
hearts. Many women were kidnapped by outsiders; and those women were
molested and possessed by many men. Some were forcefully converted,
married and made to bear children for strangers. There was crucifixion at every
moment of their lives and that agony remained with them till they died.
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Anis Kidwai’s memoir, Azadi ki Chhan Mein (written in Urdu) contains
a number of sad occurrences related to the dismal plight of women at the time
of partition. In “Listening for a Change: Narratives of Partition” Urvashi
Butalia has quoted a few lines from the memoir of Anis Kidwai: “In all of this
sometimes a girl would be killed or she would be wounded. The ‘good-stuff’
would be shared among the police and army, and the ‘second rate stuff’ would
go to everyone else and then these girls would go from one hand to another and
then another and after several would turn up in hotels to grace their decor”
(130).
Millions of people were physically, mentally and emotionally
traumatized during partition. All the partition novels and stories account the
psychological wreckage faced by millions of people. Manohar Malgonkar’s A
Bend in the Ganges too has a number of incidents related to emotional
outbursts and agony filled cries due to the wounds that were inflicted in their
hearts.
Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges has multi-dimensional themes,
events and viewpoints. The writer takes the readers to the entire India. Many
critics have ruled A Bend in the Ganges from the list of Indo-English partition
novels. Despite the crowded events and episodes, the last fifty-two pages of the
novel truly appraise the horrors of partition in a thespian manner. The last three
chapters of the novel entirely focus on Duriabad and its surrounding. Duriabad
was on the frontier and it was completely submerged in the pool of blood. The
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people of Duriabad had sleepless nights. Every night there was fire, arson,
wailing and crying. Malgonkar presents the agonies of partition through Dewan
Bahadur Tekchand and his family.
August 1947 saw unpredictable amount of commotion in the entire
undivided Punjab. The long awaited freedom was only a few days away, but
the entire frontier region began to feast on blood. Tekchand, one of the richest
men of Duriabad was shocked to see the tumultuous atmosphere of Duriabad.
He had huge amount of wealth, which was earned by himself and his ancestors.
He had more than a dozen servants at his beck and call, but all of them had fled
away as violence engulfed the entire Duriabad. When the city burnt in violence,
there were only three in his large house – Tekchand, his wife Radha and his
daughter Sundari.
Tekchand became wretched, as his fears began to grow. He brooded
over his fifty-one years of solid labour and his profound attachment to the city.
Malgonkar notes down the deep anguish articulated by Tekchand to his
daughter Sundari in A Bend in the Ganges:
After a lifetime spent in this part of India, in this town, and giving
oneself to it and taking from it; letting one’s roots sink deeper
and deeper. There is a street named after my father, a library after
me, a maternity home and a girls’ school after your mother. This
is my city, as much as that of its most respected Muslim families
– the Abbases, the Hussains, the Chinais. I, my family, have done
so much as any of them to make it prosperous and beautiful. (337)
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He had immense emotional attachment to the city of Duriabad. Parting
Duriabad was like parting his root and life. He had to shake, all that was part of
his life. Malgonkar had devoted a few pages of the novel, exclusively to show
the emotional sobs of Tekchand. His attachment to Duriabad was something
more than mere money and property. It was something that he was habituated
to, lived to, craved to and enjoyed to in his life.
Tekchand gazed at his gorgeous house, its ornaments, his personal
collection of bronze and the rich articles that he had accumulated for years in
his house. He saw a part of his life in every possession he had. He began to
moan with aching thought. He surmised that all his hard earned possessions
will be looted away by others and his bungalow will be occupied by someone
soon. He went into his museum, which had a vast and rich collection of statues
and antiques. He was fond of every statue and always viewed them as living
gods. Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges reports Tekchand’s intense emotional
attachment to the statues and other things in the museum through the following
lines: “To him they were like living creatures; more alive than many people he
knew. He felt at home in their midst, for they meant something to him – they
held a message for him, a message that was the secret of his life and the next
and the many lives that lay beyond” (339).
Tekchand’s wife and his daughter kept on urging him to leave for India.
Almost, all the Hindus and the Sikhs had left Duriabad, except a few. Even
those who were in Duriabad were packing to leave at the earliest. He sobbed
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and mourned whenever he thought of parting Duriabad. The thought of his son,
Debi-dayal often came to his mind. He had not seen him for the last eight
years. He wished that his son was with him. If Debi was with him, he would
have brought some relief to the family. He longed for Debi’s presence.
Gian reached his house like a saviour in order to rescue them safely to
India. Tekchand yielded to the petition of his family and agreed to leave
Duriabad. When they were about to unhouse, Shafi along with three other men
came to Tekchand’s house in order to ransack the things and take away
Sundari. There was a tussle between Shafi’s group and Tekchand’s family. At
the end, Shafi killed Tekchand’s wife with his revolver. Sundari took an idol of
Shiva and started beating Shafi. She gave blow after blow until he died.
Gian urged Tekchand and Sundari to get at once into the car to join the
convoy that had already left for India. Tekchand left his dead wife in the house
itself and left Duriabad with indescribable agony. He could not pull himself
with a burdened heart. He cried and wailed throughout the journey. He kept on
murmuring at the loss of his wife. Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges presents
Tekchand’s desolation that he told to Sundari: “I have left your mother all
alone. She would never have left me … I am running away from it. Leaving my
wife alone – just lying in that room” (380). After a short halt on the way, the
convoy resumed its journey. Tekchand sunk with sorrow, could not continue
his journey. He got lost on the way. Gian and Sundari continued their journey
leaving Tekchand. Where did Tekchand go? Did he reach India or remained in
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Pakistan? Was he alive or dead? Though the author does not provide answer to
these questions, the readers can clearly conjecture the fate of Tekchand.
The next prey in Tekchand’s family was his only son Debi-dayal. Debi
who was away from his family for the last eight years, yearned to join his
family in Duriabad. He was certain of the vulnerabilities both for himself and
for his parents. He wanted to help his parents and sister from the communal
violence that engulfed in the region. The entire Punjab was in doom and
disaster. Maddened mob were found everywhere with spears and guns. All the
trains those plied between India and Pakistan were packed full – even the roof
tops were crowded. In A Bend in the Ganges, Malgonkar accounts the
condition of the bleeding Punjab: “A week ago, they had all been citizens of
India; men and women jubilant at the advent of the long-awaited, long-foughtfor freedom. Today they were just a small section of seething movement of
humanity” (345).
The trains were stopped at many places. People who travelled in trains
suffered a lot without water, food, light and safety. Trains were attacked by
armed mob every now and then. Debi and Mumtaz got into one such a train to
reach Duriabad. There was panic and fear in the face of every traveller. The
train was stopped a few miles away from Duriabad; and the travellers were
asked to walk up to the next station. All of a sudden, a mob gathered on both
the sides of the track. They had axes, swords and shotguns. They hunted for
Hindus among the travellers and killed them mercilessly. Finally their
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suspicion fell on Debi. Debi’s wife Mumtaz pleaded that he was her husband
and his name was Karim Khan. The mob removed off his dress and found that
he was a Hindu. Some men dragged away Mumtaz naked and others pierced
their knives on Debi. Helpless Mumtaz screamed pathetically at the sight.
Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges portrays the physical and emotional
aspects of partition through Tekchand and his family. Tekchand, his wife
Radha, his daughter Sundari and his son Debi endured immense emotional
turmoil due to partition. They experienced agony after agony before they were
completely destroyed. Only Sundari was able to reach India with a broken heart
– leaving all her family members dead in the newly created Pakistan. Through
Tekchand, Malgonkar voices the psychological trauma suffered by millions of
people at the wake of partition violence.
Psychologically, partition brought a huge human crack among the
people. Human bonds like the ties of love, fellowship and brotherhood were
utterly lost in the tumult of partition. The entire frontier wore a heartbreaking
look. There were whimpers everywhere. People who had their deep emotional
attachment to their land, home, friends, animals and property were driven away
from their natives and were forced to seek shelter hither and thither. Long
established communities were shattered and lost their uniqueness and identity
beyond redemption.
Chaman Nahal’s Azadi discloses the unpalatable human suffering
endured by the people of the frontier region at the time of partition. Azadi has
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been acclaimed as one of the best novels on the theme of partition. It faithfully
documents the physical, mental and emotional agonies of the Hindus, the Sikhs
and the Muslims. Nahal expresses the anguished state of millions of migrants
through Lala Kanshi Ram and his neighbours. Nahal has woven a true picture
of partition in Azadi. Like Lala Kanshi Ram, the protagonist of the novel;
Nahal and his family migrated from Sialkot to Delhi in 1947. Nahal and the
other migrants were as desperate as Lala Kanshi Ram. S.C. Singh’s article,
“Chaman Nahal’s Azadi: An Appraisal” records one of interviews given by
Nahal about his state of mind at the time of partition: “Many of us…were angry
young men who had lost everything in Pakistan, including the dear ones who
were assassinated in the riots” (2).
Lala Kanshi Ram and his neighbours encountered many ordeals and
psychological distress because of partition. His shop was looted by the
Muslims; he and his neighbours were forced to leave their houses and seek
shelter in the refugee camp; his daughter and son-in-law were killed; he
suffered a lot during the migration; and he underwent humiliation and suffering
to find a living in Delhi. His son Arun too had emotional shocks and sufferings.
All his neighbours – Bibi Amar Vati, Suraj Prakash, Sunanda, Niranjan Singh,
Isher Kaur, Sardar Jodha Singh, Padmini, Chandini and Mukanda’s mother had
intolerable emotional crunches in their heart.
Communal revulsion began to shake Sialkot as soon as the Viceroy Lord
Mountbatten made his pronouncement of the partition of the Indian sub-
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continent. The partition proclamation disillusioned the Hindus and the Sikhs of
Sialkot. They were sure that the Muslims will not spare their lives. Many
Hindu and Sikh families began to vacate their houses. The Muslims of Sialkot
began to loot and set fire to the houses and properties of the Hindus and the
Muslims. Since the atrocities increased day by day, the Hindus and the Sikhs of
Sialkot were evacuated to a refugee camp.
Lala Kanshi Ram could not sleep for several days. He heard pathetic
human cries every night. He brooded over the future and the safety of his
family. A gang of Muslims looted his grain shop, which fulfilled the economic
requirements of his family. Lala Kanshi Ram was inconsolable at the loss of his
shop. As he was grieving, his friend Chaudhri Barkat Ali, informed him of the
impending attack on their mohalla that night by the Muslims.
The entire mohalla, which enclosed the families of Hindus and Sikhs
had only six hours to evacuate their houses. There was an enormous
commotion in the entire mohalla. There were weeping and wailing at the
thought of parting their beloved place. They were not sure whether they would
be back to posses their belongings and houses. Every house was busy packing
their things to reach the refugee camp. Lala Kanshi Ram’s face turned pale at
the thought of leaving the house. He felt that he was going to lose all that he
earned for thirty years through hard work. At the age of fifty, it was hard for
him to earn the lost fortunes once again. He could not even extract his cash
from the bank, due to the short span of time that was available. The thought of
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going to a refugee camp killed him alive. Nahal points out the emotional
outburst of Lala Kanshi Ram in Azadi: “I was born around here, this is my
home – how can I be a refugee in my own town?” (130).
Tears began to role in his eyes when his hand moved on the walls of the
house. As his wife packed the things, he felt that he was stripped bare like the
house. They filled only a steel trunk and a bedroll. All the other things were left
in the house itself. In Azadi Nahal records the emotional rage showed by Lala
Kanshi Ram to Bill Davidson, a British officer who came to help them: “All
that I had – all that I had taken nearly thirty years to build is being lost because
you refuse to protect me” (147). He wanted to come back and die and be buried
in Sialkot.
The entire edifice in which they lived for many decades looked like a
phantom house when the people left for the refugee camp. Each one longed to
occupy their houses once again and live there till they died. They had the
saddest departure in their lives. Everyone had burdened heart to leave the
houses in which they were born and brought up. Finally they all reached the
refugee camp. They were given small tents to live. Sometimes two or three
families shared a lone tent. Life in the camp was distressing and pathetic. They
were provided a bare minimum of ration. As the communal violence was
turning from bad to worse, there was a heavy flow of refugees on both the sides
of the border. They waited for the Indian escort to take them safely to India.
Lala Kanshi Ram’s hope of returning back to Sialkot became futile.
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The subsequent shock that shattered Lala Kanshi Ram was the butchery
of his daughter Madhu Bala and his son-in-law Rajiv. They were killed by
Muslim hooligans while they were travelling from Wazirabad to Sialkot to join
Lala Kanshi Ram’s family. The entire family stood in tears at this terrific
incident. All the people tried to console them. The brutal death of Madhu Bala
and her husband was one of the greatest losses that the family suffered.
The death of Madhu made Lala Kanshi Ram to leave for India at the
earliest. On twenty-fourth September, 1947 the convoy containing twenty
thousand migrants left Sialkot. It was escorted by Indian soldiers. Chaudhri
Barkat Ali and his son Munir reached the camp to bid farewell to Lala Kanshi
Ram and his family. It was a pathetic moment for the entire camp to leave
Sialkot forever in their lives. Nahal’s Azadi illustrates the shattered emotional
state of Lala Kanshi Ram: “As the city vanished from his sight, he became
more concerned about what lay ahead. The problems that loomed in the future
were a thousand fold more complex and bewildering than what he had gone
through” (274). Chaudhri Barkat Ali and his son Munir walked with them for
six miles. Finally, the lifelong friends – Lala Kanshi Ram and Chaudhri Barkat
Ali parted in two different directions for two different nations with the hope
that they would at least meet once in their life time.
The convoy suffered a number of horrors on the way. Often it was
ambushed by gangs of Muslims. A number of women were seized during the
exodus. Sunanda was raped and her husband was killed. The abducted women
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were humiliated and spitted upon. They were insulted by making them to
parade naked in the streets. When the convoy reached India, the people were
emotionally empty. They could not rejoice their arrival. Everyone’s hearts was
filled with sorrows and sufferings. After reaching India, the convoy parted in
different directions to find out their own living. In the article “Curate’s Egg:
Chaman Nahal’s Azadi” Parvati N Rao surveys, “Tired and worn out, the batch
of travellers arrive in India and have a sigh of relief. But this is the end of one
trouble for them and the beginning of another” (49).
Lala Kanshi Ram and his family along with Sunanda’s family decided to
go to Delhi. Delhi was pouring with refugees. The refugee officials notified
that there were about six hundred thousand Hindu and Sikh refugees in Delhi
alone. A number of refugee camps were set up in Delhi to accommodate the
Hindu and the Sikh migrants from Pakistan and to transport the Muslim
refugees securely to Pakistan. Lala Kanshi Ram, losing all his pride and shame
pleaded to the rehabilitation officials to grant him some shelter in Delhi. In
Azadi, Nahal recounts the emotional outpouring of Lala Kanshi Ram to the
officials: “Sir, I’ll be ruined if you don’t come to my rescue. I only want a
small flat and a small little shop to be allotted to me” (342). Finally, they were
given a small brick hutment in Kingsway Camp, where they started their lives
again after a huge loss and emotional scares. Lala Kanshi Ram setup a small
petty shop in front of his hutment and Sunanda started earning by sewing
clothes.
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Lala Kanshi Ram’s son Arun Kumar and Isher Kaur’s Husband Niranjan
Singh were part of the millions who faced emotional disaster due to partition.
Arun, who was in love with Nurul Nisar, the daughter of Chaudhri Barkat Ali
was utterly shattered when he left Sialkot. He promised Nur that he would even
embrace Islam for her sake; but the thought of his aged parents and their
resettlement in India made him to leave Sialkot. He still had the hope that one
day he would come back to marry Nur. When Arun along with his family left
the refugee camp, Munir brought a love letter written by Nur. It was filled with
her tears. Nahal’s Azadi describes the broken heart of Nur through her letter:
“I’m weeping when I write this to you… will I ever see you again? God alone
knows why people are so full of hate. I wish they were not to part souls that
love each other” (266). The parting of lovers caused suffering, both for Arun
and Nur. Arun left Sialkot with a wounded heart.
The next excruciating shock to Arun came through the death of his sister
Madhu Bala. Madhu was like a friend to Arun, who taught him the behaviours
of adulthood. The death of Madhu and her husband caused a vacuum in his
heart. He, along with Chaudhri Barkat Ali, Munir and others set to find out the
dead bodies of Madhu and Rajiv. But their bodies had been put into fire, before
they reached Nizamabad, where the massacre took place. He vainly searched
for Madhu’s dead body among the burning corpses; but he could not identify
Madhu’s dead body among the burning corpses. He sadly returned to the camp.
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The thought of his beloved Nur and his sister Madhu ached his heart. In
order to reroute himself from his emotional disaster, he began to love Chandini,
the daughter of Padmini. He often met her in the nights and conveyed his love
for her. He wanted to marry her and he openly expressed his craving to his
mother of his proposed marriage with Chandini after they reached India. The
next great tragedy came to Arun at Narowal. The refugee convoy halted at
Narowal, before it headed for its last phase. On the third day of their stay at
Narowal, a massive unexpected attack took place on the refugee camp. It was
done by the local Muslims with the help of Pakistan soldiers.
The ambush left hundreds of people dead and a large number of women
were abducted. Sunanda was raped and her husband Suraj Prakash was killed.
Arun’s beloved Chandini was carried away by the Muslims. Arun could not
bear the loss of Chandini. Nahal shows his disillusioned state in the following
manner in Azadi: “Chandini had come his second self. She moved with him, ate
with him, went to sleep with him. Only she ever remained a little apart. And he
ached so because he couldn’t shorten that distance” (365). With three disasters
– the death of Madhu and the loss of Nur and Chandini, Arun reached India
completely beaten up with incalculable woes in his heart.
The humiliations underwent by Niranjan Singh was different. The Sikhs
always had their highest preference for their religion. They considered their
religious duties as the first and foremost ones. Since their beard and head
clearly exposed their religion they were easily spotted and killed. His wife,
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father-in-law and his friends and relatives requested him to shave off his hair
for his safe journey to India. He had unbearable mental agony to part off his
hair and his Sikh faith. He was tormented for many days. Finally, he immolated
himself rather than losing his faith. For Niranjan faith was more important than
mere living. His death brought a deep doom to his entire family.
Nahal’s Azadi discloses the pandemonium that was spread in the frontier
region at the time of partition. The bitter disheartenment of millions of innocent
people is powerfully presented through a small community of Sialkot migrants.
S. C. Bhatia in his review of Azadi indicates, “Chaman Nahal’s Azadi is a
powerful portrayal of an individual’s torment caused by the workings of certain
historical forces. It is in response to these forces that the individual
consciousness grows from an obsession with the self to an appreciation of a
larger consciousness” (229).
Unlike the historical account of partition, the literary aspects of partition
have a lot to speak about the emotional and mental trauma faced by millions of
people on both the sides of the Radcliffe line. Shiv K Kumar’s A River with
Three Banks was published in 1998. Kumar was one among the millions who
came to India from Pakistan in 1947. He took nearly fifty years to articulate his
uprooted status. He aptly begins the novel with a quotation taken from the book
of Jeremiah: “Woe is me because of my hurt! My wound is grievous.”
The novel presents a fine love story between Gautam Mehta and
Haseena amidst the tensed days of partition. Kumar movingly narrates the
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ordeals faced by people in the communal frenzy erupted due to partition. Abdul
Rahim’s pitiable search for his lost daughter and his cold-blooded murder,
Haseena’s torn life in the brothel, the suffering of guiltless abducted girls,
innocent people’s painful plight, the uprooted life of Haseena’s mother and
sister and the huge migration of the wretched Muslims to Pakistan are vibrantly
presented in this novel. Since Kumar’s A River with Three Banks is set in
Delhi, Allahabad and its surrounding it records the pain and turmoil
experienced by the Muslims, at the same time the writer makes some passing
references to crimes committed by Muslim mob against the blameless Hindus.
Abdul Rahim was an innocent Muslim of Allahabad. His daughter
Haseena was carried away to Delhi by some pimps. He came to Delhi in search
of his daughter. In Delhi he underwent a lot of suffering. He often hid himself
from the searching eyes of the Hindu fanatics. The account of a Muslim
shopkeeper about the abducted girls shocked and terrified Abdul Rahim. In A
River with Three Banks, Kumar gives the content of the letter written by Abdul
Rahim to his wife Sultana Begum:
This morning I talked to a Muslim shopkeeper in Urdu Bazaar,
near Jama Masjid. I was shocked to learn that most of the girls
abducted from Allahabad, Lucknow and Patna have been brought
to Delhi, where they are forced into prostitution. O Allah! And, in
this nefarious business, both Hindus and Muslims are operating
as close accomplices. I shudder to think of our dear child. (10)
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Abdul Rahim’s letter clearly shows the mental agony he experienced
due to his daughter’s abduction. As a father, it was heart-breaking for him to
know that his daughter was forced into prostitution. He did not know the way
to save his daughter from the abductors. He feared to go out with beard,
because it revealed his Muslim identity. Though a Muslim shopkeeper
promised to help him to salvage his daughter through a heavy ransom, Abdul
Rahim was not sure of his daughter’s living. As he was madly wandering in
search of his daughter, a hysterical mob caught him in front of a church and
cruelly murdered him.
The woes underwent by Haseena were manyfolded. She was a college
student. When she went to college, she was carried away by a pimp from
Allahabad to Delhi and she was forced into prostitution. She suffered awfully,
whenever a man touched her in the brothel. She was emotionally wrecked for
two reasons – the first was her shameful life in the brothel; and the second was
the murder of her beloved father. Kumar’s A River with Three Banks notes her
terrific feelings shared to Gautam about her life in the brothel: “You took the
trouble of writing to my mother. That was very gracious of you. The news
would shatter her, I know, but still…And here I am in Delhi – abused,
humiliated – and now so brazened to any sense of shame” (79). Gautam with
great difficulty rescued her from the brothel and safely left her in her house in
Allahabad. Their life slowly bloomed into love. Haseena truly loved Gautam,
she often regretted that she could not come to Gautam as a virgin.
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Women were the worst victims of partition tragedy. They were
physically afflicted and mentally humiliated. A River with Three Banks gives a
few events which detail the torments endured by women. A boy and a girl, who
were going to see their ailing mother was caught by a Muslim gang. They
stripped off all the clothes of the girl and publicly exposed her nudity. The
timely arrival of the police saved her from any further ill-treatment and
humiliation.
The mortification faced by young innocent girls in a prostitution house
near hotel Neel Kamal was heart-melting. A large number of young girls, who
were abducted in India and Pakistan were brought to Delhi and were forced
into prostitution. Those who refused were physically tortured with fire and
beatings. Based on the information given by Gautam, The police raided the
brothel. The police shot Sulieiman Ghani, the leader of the brothel and rescued
all the girls from the death cells. The excitement of the freed girls was beyond
words. Kumar’s A River with Three Banks observes their happiness: “Like a
flock of caged birds, suddenly set free, they fluttered about the courtyard,
happy and excited” (180). William Thornton, the police officer who rescued
them promised that they all would be taken safely to their homes soon.
Haseena’s family had gruesome memories of the partition. Her family
was almost devastated and uprooted without any identity. The first bang to the
family came in the form of Haseena’s abduction and her being forced into
prostitution. The second blow came in the form of her father’s horrid murder.
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The third shock was the sad departure of Haseena’s Mother Sultana Begum and
her sister Salma to an unknown destination in Pakistan. They decided to leave
Allahabad, because they were scared that Salma may be abducted like Haseena.
They felt that their life was safer in Pakistan than in India. Though, Haseena
was secure under the care of Gautam, she lost all her roots. Haseena and
Gautam accompanied, Sultana begum and Salma till the international border to
bid farewell to them. Kumar’s A River with Three Banks gives Sultana
Begum’s tear-filled parting words: “God willing, we’ll meet again” (213).
The railway stations were full of refugees and there were many
volunteers to help them. Those volunteers were able to nurse only their
physical wounds but not their emotional and psychological anguishes and
agonies. As Gautam and Haseena stood watching the fading figures of Sultana
Begum and Salma, they saw a large number of people pouring into Pakistan.
They were all tired and poignant. Every face had a painful woe to narrate. Their
only properties were either a handbag or a suitcase. Tears welled up in their
eyes when they left their last foot impression from the country where they were
born and grew up.
CHAPTER - VI
CONCLUSION
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CHAPTER – VI
CONCLUSION
The partition of the Indian sub-continent is an inerasable incident in the
history of modern world. The partition had varied facets in it – political,
religious, economical, social, physical, psychological and emotional. The
partition came in the company of joy and sorrow. The freedom of India and the
birth of a new nation called Pakistan brought joy and celebration; but the
economical,
physical,
religious, psychological and emotional agonies
experienced by ten million people were the saddest occurrences in human
history. There were between five hundred thousand to one million deaths
during the massive population switch over. The 27th October 1947 issue of
Time magazine in its cover page carried a self-hurting goddess Kali with the
caption “India: Liberty and Death”. A freedom won through non-violence had
sadistic partition killing even the victor of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi.
The bangs and horrors experienced by the partition fatalities are still
fresh in many hearts. They could not come to terms with the agonies that
deformed them. The boundary division based on religion brought pitiable life
for several millions. The division of the Indian sub-continent resulted in
allocation of a number of things among the two nations. The partition accord
clearly stated the division of Indian government resources between Pakistan
and India. They included; the division of Indian Civil Service, the Indian
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Army, the Royal Indian Navy, The Indian railways, the central treasury and
other administrative services.
The chief component of the partition was the geographical separation of
the Indian sub-continent into the Domain of Pakistan (Pakistan) and the Union
of India (India). The Bengal Province was divided into East Bengal and West
Bengal and was given to Pakistan and India respectively. The Punjab Province
was divided into East Punjab and West Punjab. East Punjab was added to India
and West Punjab with Pakistan. After the partition, all the princely states were
incorporated either with Pakistan or with India.
A cloud of enmity and distrust began to surround the two nations after
partition. People who lived for many centuries as brothers and sisters in a
single nation turned into sworn enemies due to partition. The first of their
conflict began immediately after partition in the form of Indo-Pakistan war of
1947. A number of wars, conflicts, terrorist activities, allegations between India
and Pakistan have continued since then. The mutual hostility between the two
nations is intensely expressed in the cricket matches played between the two
nations. No other cricket match draws such an attention like that of a match
between India and Pakistan. These matches pull a large crowd apart from huge
betting.
The cricket rivalry between India and Pakistan is one of the most tensed
sports rivalries in the world. The losses of their team have resulted in a number
of suicides among the fans. It is observed that an India-Pakistan cricket match
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attracts nearly three hundred million television viewers. Cricket players like
Amir Elahi, Gul Mohammad and Abdul Hafeez Kardar have played cricket
matches both for India and Pakistan. They migrated to Pakistan only after a few
years of the partition. The present Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
invited his Pakistan counterpart Yosuf Raza Gilani for the World Cup semifinal cricket match that was played between India and Pakistan on March 30,
2011 in Mohali.
The fright and shock created by partition still continue to exist between
India and Pakistan resulting in a number of untoward incidents. The boundary
line between India and Pakistan always remains tensed. The cross-border
terrorism has brought menacing experience to the people. Large number of
unreceptive incidents have taken place within India among Hindus and
Muslims. Tension surmounts the entire atmosphere, whenever a religious
festival is celebrated either by the Hindus or by the Muslims.
The partition riots and killings created a psychological hostility between
the two nations. The politicians and the people of both the nations began to
look at each other as rivals. The issue of Kashmir still remains an unsettled
event. Three wars were fought between Pakistan and India over Jammu and
Kashmir. The first Indo-Pakistan War took place in 1947. It was fought
between Pakistani backed tribal-army and Indian troops over the annexation of
Kashmir with Pakistan. The second Indo-Pakistan war took place in 1965. It
was fought by India to stop the Pakistan-backed guerrillas from invading
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Indian administered Kashmir. The third Indo-Pakistan war took place in 1971.
This war helped the formation of another new nation called Bangladesh. The
Kargil war that took place in 1999 was a minor one. The Indian army chased
away the Pakistani troops and Kashmiri insurgents who infiltrated the Indian
administered Kashmir during winter.
There were also a few nuclear clashes between India and Pakistan.
Pokhran-I known as Smiling Buddha was detonated by India on May 18, 1974.
To give a reply to India’s nuclear test, Pakistan conducted a series of twentyfour different tests known as Kirana-I. India’s the second nuclear test PokhranII (Operation Shakti) was conducted on May 11, 1998. In order to reciprocate
India, Pakistan conducted another two tests – Chagai-I on May 28, 1998 and
Chagai-II on May 30, 1998.
The cross-border terrorism raised by Pakistan led to a number of
bombings, violence, riots and clashes between Hindus and Muslims in India.
Among the perennial riots, the demolition of Babir Masjid created a prolonged
violence and stress in many parts of India. The sixteenth century mosque of
Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished by Hindu Karsevaks on December 6,
1992. The demolition led to several months of inter-communal rioting between
the Hindus and the Muslims of India. Over two thousand people were killed
and in Mumbai alone properties worth nine thousand crore rupees were
destroyed. The Muslims carried retaliatory attacks on the Hindus in Pakistan,
Bangladesh and in many other Muslim countries. The students of Quaid-i-
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Azam University, Islamabad called for holy war against the Hindus. In
Bangladesh, the Muslim mobs attacked the Hindu temples, shops and houses.
The demolition of Babri Masjid led to a number of consequent violence
which created a hostile ambiance between the Hindus and the Muslims. Many
bombings were carried out in Mumbai in retaliation for the enormous Muslim
casualties of the Babri Masjid demolition riots. All the explosions in Mumbai
were believed to have been executed by the terrorists trained and supported by
Pakistan. The first of its type was the bombing of Mumbai on March 12, 1993.
A series of thirteen bombs were exploded under the mastermind of Dawood
Ibrahim. It left two hundred and fifty dead and seven hundred wounded. Most
of those bombers were tutored in Pakistan and in Dubai. Another bomb was
exploded on December 6, 2002 in Mumbai to mark the tenth anniversary of
Babri Masjid demolition. On August 25, 2003 twin car bombing rocked
Mumbai. It left fifty-four dead and two hundred and forty-four wounded.
There was another bomb attack in Mumbai on July 7, 2006. Bombs were
planted in trains. In the explosion two hundred and nine were killed and seven
hundred were injured. As reported by the Mumbai police, this explosion was
carried out by Lashker-e-Toiba and Students’ Islamic Movement of India
(SIMI). Another terrific attack on Mumbai fell on November 26, 2008. It is
often referred as 26/11. It was carried out by Islamic terrorists, who came from
Pakistan through sea route to Mumbai. The attackers began their operation on
November 26, 2008 and it lasted until November 29, 2008. The attackers
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targeted eight places. Ajmal Kasab was the only attacker who was captured
alive. He later confessed that the attack was operated with the support of
Pakistan’s ISI. This attack left one hundred and sixty-four dead and three
hundred and eight wounded. The next detonation took place on July13, 2011.
In this attack a series of three coordinated bombs were exploded in Mumbai. It
killed twenty-six people and injured hundred and thirty.
The state of Gujarat was marred by a series of riots and violence
between the Hindus and the Muslims in 2002. The Sabarmati Express train,
which came from Ayodhya with Hindu pilgrims was attacked and burnt by a
large Muslim mob at Godhra. In this pre-planned attack, fifty-eight pilgrims
were killed. The angered Hindus started their retaliatory attacks on the
Muslims. Communal violence and riots engulfed the entire state. This tragedy
left seven hundred and ninety Muslims and two hundred and fifty-four Hindus
dead and two hundred and twenty-three were reported missing. A vast damage
was done to houses, shops and places of worship.
The tension and panic that prevails between India and Pakistan and also
between the Hindus and the Muslims of India is as old as partition itself. The
seeds of vengeance, hatred and hooliganism were sowed at the time of partition
and it still continues in varied forms between India and Pakistan. The intrusion
of terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir creates persistent disturbance and
disorder in the valley. Despite the continued bilateral talks between India and
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Pakistan, tension between the two countries continues to remain a great
concern.
The psychic wounds created by partition still haunt its victims. Their
wounded souls were voiced in the form of paintings, songs, poems, films,
stories, memoirs and novels. The genre known as Indian partition literature
keeps on growing with new additions every now and then. This research study
is focused only on four select novels written on the theme of partition. Each of
these novels was written with the gap of around ten years. Three of these
novels were written by authors who were the real victims of partition
holocaust. Kushwant Singh, Chaman Nahal and Shiv K Kumar were born and
educated in Pakistan. They along with their families migrated to India in 1947,
due to the partition of the Indian sub-continent. They witnessed the horrors and
heard the cries of pain with their own eyes and ears.
They eyewitnessed the massacre of their friends and family members.
These three writers were part of the ten million who ran away towards new
destinations with uncountable sufferings. Manohar Malgonkar was an army
officer, who eye witnessed the horrors of partition. These four authors have
recreated what they went through in their lives in a magnificent manner
through their novels. Prafulla C. Kar’s article “Khushwant Singh: Train to
Pakistan” remarks, “Some novelists, who actually suffered due to partition,
have used the incident as aesthetic compensation for their loss; those who did
162
not suffer have used the occasion as a watershed in history to suggest that
fiction can re-live the event which history tends to distort” (90).
Khushwant Singh was born in Hadali (now in Pakistan) in 1915. After
his education in Lahore, Delhi and London, he started practicing law in Lahore.
His career was cut short due to the partition. He along with his family left all
the belongings and properties in Lahore itself and migrated to India. Nine years
after the holocaust, in 1956 he published Train to Pakistan. N. Radhakrishnan
notes the view of Singh in his article “Partition”: “…I think it (Train to
Pakistan) is a documentary of the partition of India, an extremely tragic event
which hurt me very much. I had no animosity against either Muslims or the
Pakistanis but I felt that I should do something to express that point of view”
(43).
Train to Pakistan was the first novel written on the theme of partition by
an Indian in English. It received high acclaim and appreciation from every
quarter. It is set in an archetypal Indian village called Mano Majra. The novel
has a fine merge of characters – officials, ordinary people, a political worker,
some rationalist and goons. Juggut Singh, the protagonist of the novel is a
blend of a hero and a villain. The names created by Singh are suggestive and
have got allegorical significance. ‘Imam’ means religious, ‘Meet’ means
affectionate, ‘Iqbal’ means fortune, ‘Hukum’ means order, ‘Nooran’ means
luster and ‘Haseena’ means beautiful.
163
Singh’s Train to Pakistan does not aim to give a mere picture of
partition horrors but it is concerned with humanity. He wants people to realize
the mistakes of partition and not to replicate such a mistake again. In the
preface to Train to Pakistan, Singh writes, “The only conclusion that we can
draw from the experience of the partition in 1947 is that such things must never
happen again. And the only way to prevent their recurrence is to promote closer
integration of people of different races, religions and castes living in the subcontinent” (xvv). He is objective in his approach and does not blindly charge
any sect. He has given a dramatic closing to the novel. Suja Alexander’s article
“Personal Concerns Go Public in Khushwant Singh’s – Train to Pakistan”
applauds by saying, “Train to Pakistan is a nightmare with an exciting finish;
one closes the novel with a sense of relief. A novel unbeatable in its
extraordinary power and unrelenting realism” (50).
Parting a beloved person or a thing or a place will cause a great woe in
the heart. Manohar Malgonkar evokes the agonies faced by Tekchand and his
family members through their forced parting in A Bend in the Ganges.
Malgonkar who saw the pathetic plight of millions of partition victims, has
clearly voiced his anguish through this novel. Since, Malgonkar had experience
in diverse fields; he could easily spin a fine story. Unlike the other partition
novels, A Bend in the Ganges slowly rises to the tension of partition. The
characters of the novel are commonplace and down to earth. They have their
own ups and downs; and fortunes and misfortunes. Some become good and
164
some others turn bad in the course of their lives. M. Rajagopalachary’s article
“Malgonkar’s Idea of Novel” surveys, “…, the characters emerge in flesh and
blood, asserting their identity in their interaction with events” (115).
Malgonkar’s sense of history and the way he handles it are highly
lauded by all. He is known for creating suspense and making the readers to grip
in his stories. The novel focuses on two important issues in the history of India.
The first is the ousting of the British from the Indian soil and the second is the
communal toxin that seeped into fanatics leaving a great holocaust at the time
of partition. A Bend in the Ganges stands as a masterpiece chronicling the
forgotten humanity during the partition of the Indian sub-continent.
Chaman Nahal was born and brought up in Sialkot (now in Pakistan).
He had great attachment to the city of Sialkot. The partition uprooted and
forced him to flee from Pakistan to India. He was one among the millions of
wretched men who reached India with bitter experiences. His sorrow soaked
heart is rendered in the form of Azadi. He uses the title Azadi (freedom) in an
ironic way. His characters did not celebrate freedom but mourned on the day of
freedom. Though he left Sialkot in 1947 as an angry young man, he slowly
developed his mental maturity. Azadi was written in 1975 – nearly after
twenty-eight years of his migration. It does not reveal the author’s whims and
fancies anywhere. He shows his national and humanistic concerns throughout
the novel.
165
The humiliations and horrors of partition are graphically woven by
Nahal. No other Indian author has shown such perfection in their narration. He
does not deviate and confuse the readers. The death of Madhu, the suicide of
Niranjan Singh, abduction of numerous women during the migration and the
naked parade of Narowal linger in the minds of the readers for a long time.
Even the love between Arun and Nur is passionate and realistic. The friendship
between Lala Kanshi Ram and Chaudhri Barkat Ali shows the power of true
relationship. O. P. Mathur in his article “Chaman Nahal” quotes Nahal’s words
of hope: “I don’t have a commitment with a slant. I am only committed to the
affirmation of life. Life consists in taking on the challenges. I’m essentially an
affirmationist” (96).
Shiv K Kumar’s A River with Three Banks was published in 1998. The
novel consists of agony and ecstasy. The agony he depicts is the uprooted
feeling he and his family witnessed in their native soil – Pakistan at the time of
partition. The ecstasy is his finding a new root in India. He was a victim of
partition, who waited nearly fifty one years to share his anguished heart. His
novel probes the maddened atmosphere of partition in Delhi and Allahabad. He
believes that meaninglessness of life was the outcome of lack of love and
understanding. So, his novel carries a faithful love story to spread the message
of love and compassion that was missing at the time of partition. The novel has
many good Samaritans go risked their lives to save the lives of others. Kumar
wrote A River with Three Banks with a clear vision. He echoes his vision
166
through Gautam in the novel: “Yes, we’ll start a new race – sans caste, sans
religion, sans nationality” (214).
The novel is poetic, romantic and evocative. It does not show any single
speck of dirt on any particular community or religion. Kumar sees a ray of
hope from the tumultuous days of partition. S. Robert Gnanamony in his work
Literary Polyrhythms: New voices in New Writings in English observes the
message of the novel: “…put into practice the Gandhian demand to seek love
in hatred, peace in the midst of turmoil, light in darkness and hope in despair”
(29). All the partition works aim to renew universal brotherhood, unify the
broken souls and wish that no such malevolence should ever touch humanity in
future.
The partition of the Indian sub-continent is an ineffaceable event in the
history of modern world. It greatly affected the fate of three nations – India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh. The partition shock has found a strong footing in the
literatures of all the three nations. This enormous creation of partition literature
has a fine prospect for the researchers who aspire to make their future study.
Since Punjab suffered the worst, a good number of Punjabi writers have written
novels and poems on the theme of partition. They include Khushwant Singh,
Raj Gill, H.S. Gill, Amrita Pritam, Gurcharan Das and so on. Research on the
Punjabis’ experience of partition could be worth studying. Similarly many
Bengali writers (East and West Bengal) have voiced their wounded emotions
through their writings. Studies can be done on the Bengalis’ experience of
partition.
167
The physical and mental trauma underwent by women at the time of
partition was heart-rending. The partition experience of women could be a fine
subject for future research. Similarly, a number of women writers like, Padmini
Sengupta, Attia Hosain, Anita Desai, Amrita Pritam and so on have written
excellent literary works on partition. Women writers’ perspectives of partition
can be analysed through their novels. Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai and
Qurratulain Hyder are some of the eminent Urdu writers who wrote on
partition. Their works too can be explored for study. Pakistani writers’
approach to partition could be discovered through the works of Bapsi Sidhwa,
Mahmud Sipra and others.
Partition – a division based on religion has created enough disputes and
troubles among the South Asian countries. The communal riots and massacres
of partition days are often repeated in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. All the
writers who wrote on partition had only one vision. They had a clear
visualization that such barbaric times should never be repeated in the history.
Despite the violence and the horror, all the writers reveal inter communal love
to show humanism and affirmative vision. In Train to Pakistan a Sikh boy falls
in love with a Muslim girl; in A Bend in the Ganges a Hindu boy loves a
Muslim girl; in Azadi a Muslim girl and a Hindu boy are in passionate love
with each other and in A River with Three Banks a Hindu boy rescues an
abducted Muslim girl and finally marries her. Pramod Kapoor’s preface to
Singh’s Train to Pakistan gives the intention of the novel: “This book (Train to
168
Pakistan), … is an exercise in perpetuating the memory of those perished and a
lesson for future generations to prevent a recurrence of this tragic chapter in
our history” (xiii).
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169
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