"Freedom must be a good thing. But what will we get out of it? 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.” These are not the starting lines of Khushwant Singh’s The Train to Pakistan but profound ones which reverberate after one finishes this book.

     Set in the tumult period of 1940 in which one of the most brutal episodes in the history took place resulting in killing of a million men, women, and children and ten million displaced from their homes and belongings. There took place no war in 1947 that resulted in so many inhuman killings. Just the creation of two independent nations reminded humans the fallacy of modern nation states raked up on parochial nationalism.

The partition stories are still waiting to get uncovered although numerous books have been written. Khushwant Singh, a journalist, columnist and a former MP needs no introduction. In his slim and powerful novel ‘The Train to Pakistan’ first published in 1956, Singh weaves a story based on factional account.  Woven with emotions and tragedy the book also contains patches of humor.

“The Train to Pakistan” takes no sides, all are held responsible. As Singh recounts, "The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped".  The author recreates the already divided history into two distinct eras one being ‘Before Partition’ and the other being ‘Post Partition’.

The book opens with the line "The summer of 1947 was not like other Indian summers". And yes, in the midst of the book this line gets justified. Right after the first line the reader is immediately taken on a tour of the novel's setting, the border village of Mano Majra. At the start of narrative, we are told it is one of the area's few remaining "oases of peace". In this hamlet about seventy families live together peacefully, only one of them being Hindu; the rest are divided between Sikhs and Muslims–the former being the farmers while the latter ones being tenants. The author using plethora of charming little details narrates the entire routine of daily village life which is closely regulated by the rattling of trains, albeit only few of them stop there.

The plot's action swings swiftly into gear, during a chilling scene in which Ram Lal, the head of Mano Majra's only Hindu family, is brutally murdered in his home by dacoits. This episode results in our introduction to two of the three main characters. One of them is Hukum Chand, the magistrate often simply referred to as "the Government". The other is Juggut Singh, the infamous village gangster, or "Budmash Number Ten". The next day, we meet another principal character, a Western-educated visitor and a Communist Party worker, with the ambiguous name of Iqbal (ambiguous because we are not told his surname).

The ordinary townspeople, leading simple and often downtrodden lives, are portrayed as pragmatic and astute. As one of them remarks during a conversation with Iqbal, who is unsuccessfully exhorting them to participate in his esoteric conception of the class struggle says, “We were better off under the British. At least there was security". Singh through Iqbal makes it clear during the conversation, “Criminals are not born. They are made by hunger, want and injustice”.

For money lender’s murder, Jugga and Iqbal are round-up. The absurd, evidence-less arrests of Juggut Singh and Iqbal for the murder of Ram Lal depicts how the police works in India right from the Independence as Singh writes “the police are the kings of the country.” They can let off the criminals if they like, also they can trump a case to detain an innocent if they want.

They can fabricate facts and documents as pleases them. The police then write the name of Iqbal as Muhammad Iqbal, Member of Muslim League fit to be called criminal.

The arrests are soon followed by the worse thing when a train from Pakistan arrives full of Sikh corpses. After this the most heart rending passage is described when the government makes the decision to transport all Muslim families from Mano Majra to Pakistan. They are ordered to board in truck within ten minutes.

Here Singh succeeds in showing the human dimension of the momentous event of partition through ordinary characters. Now revenge-takers swing into action and as the title suggests we are able to picturise what could be the next– yes, of course the ‘The Train to Pakistan’ full of Muslim but corpses.

But in the final climactic scene, we see the utter bravado of the village badmash Jugga, who comes to know about the conspiracy plot. He takes it upon himself to save a trainload of innocent people, who did not have any inkling to the unseen misfortune that was to take place. The notorious Jugga sacrifices himself for the safety of others. Goodness, as Singh tries to portray, is not the fiefdom of anyone. The book makes an important point that it is the government who is responsible for all sorts of disturbances because “they maintain order with power behind them”.

There are no prefabricated answers to any questions. The author portrays the situation not as black or white but with various shades of human nature. There is no clear path to redemption or salvation. ‘The Train to Pakistan’ is a masterpiece that shows Khushwant Singh's pen at the height of its powers.


(Feedback at skamranmuhammad@gmail.com).

Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 IST