Train To Pakistan by Khushwant Singh After the prolix of Love in the Time of Cholera, Train to Pakistan was a refreshing change. Not merely for its brevity and directness, but also for a context with which I could very much relate. Although fiction, the background events are real. Thousands of refugees perished during the exodus, when a Pakistan was split from India. Instead of joy in freedom, it was misery and bloodshed that greeted many of the new citizens. Trainloads of dead crossed the border, as people in vengeance sought an insane form of justice. The brew is indeed acrid, and would leave one rather burned, but for the salve in the end. T he sacrifice of Juggat Singh, alias Jugga, for the love of his Muslim fiance. “The train went over him, and went on to Pakistan.”
The train with Jugga’s fiance. Whom he will never marry, in whose womb grows the child he will never see. The brawny thug had the wisdom which political leaders of the time lacked.
The story is set in an isolated border village, Mano Majra, where Sikhs and Muslims lived in harmony, till the wake of the partition. There are several relevant characters. characters. There’s the tough guy Jugga, a convict in parole, in love with a Muslim girl. There’s the Europe returned intellectual Iqbal, a communist soci al worker seeking to reform the simpletons, but becomes a frustrated victim of bureaucratic quagmire instead. Then there’s Hu kum Chand, the seasoned district magistrate, scheming, playing his moves as in a game of chess. While Jugga, in denouement, is a portrayal of how love can elevate the motives of a common criminal, Iqbal and Hukum Chand, from their own different perspectives, reveal the bitterness in the abject failure of a political move. A move that heavily cripples both countries to this day, and is likely to do so for many more years. Khushwant Singh, with his acerbic prose, effectively drives home the dual themes of the novel: the brutality of partition, an d the incapabilites, even indifference, of an inept politcal class To end this piece in a less sombre note, here is Khushwant Singh’s translation, in this novel, of the first few li nes of a famous Hindi number of yore: In the breeze is flying My veil of red muslin, Ho sir, Ho sir.
Partition that has left many scars in the hearts hearts of several Indians and those tragic days which still haunt the new India, India, the memories of that tragic period still makes people shiver, are brought alive through a great great novel by Khushwant Singh. This story is set across during the time when India was butchered into two nations of India of India and Pakistan. Pakistan . This book was first published in 1956 when the horrendous memories of the holocaust were still afresh in everybody’s minds. The present edition released on the occasion of its 50th anniversary includes the heart -rending photographs contributed by Margaret Bourke-White (who is?). The Images provided by her go very well go with the inner sense of the story and show the intensity of the Partition and the exodus of over a million immigrants, the largest in human history. It is well known that the Partition was carried out upon instigation of the British and based on communal communal lines. While the politics behind this tragic incident is what is most talked about, , this piece of fiction by the author has has attempted to bring forth the sufferings sufferings faced by commoners. The story primarily revolves around a fictional village located along the borders, named by author as Mano Majra. The story begins with a vivid description of how the village was like. It is followed by a dramatic incident that took place there one night. Ram Lal, the village money lender is killed by a neighbourin g village’s dacoit, Malli. Now the story shifts to its main characters Juggut Singh, Iqbal and H ukum Chand. Juggut Singh is arrested as murder suspect by the police. He is is portrayed as local badmaash of the village who loves only daughter of half blind mulla of the village named as Nooran. On the other side, Iqbal, a social reformer, is a visiting commie in disguise who wants to mobilize support for the socialist party of India. Then we come across the character of Hukum Chand who is the village magistrate. The descriptions of various characters in the story are presented in great detail that may allow the reader to form picture of what all happened. The village is portrayed to be a peaceful and harmonius place until the seeds of hatred and suspicion were sown . The story can be viewed from different angles. If it was a love story between a Sikh boy and Muslim girl, it was also a story that depicted the brutalities suffered by the people generated as a result of partition. Not just this, it also tried to show how people viewed famous personalities like Mahatma Gandhi in some way or the other. The bravery of Juggat Singh is brought about in the story, when he attempted to save several innocent lives and his lady-love, Nooran too. The crisis began when the horrifying train with corpses entered the village. Moreover the brutally mutilated bodies evoked the furies and drove the Hindus of Mano Majro to shoo away the Muslims who were till then their good friends and kinlike. Various situations that lead to one incident from another and the author weaves a heart-wrenching story in the backdrop of Partition.
The story by Khushwant Singh even being a work of fiction is very close to reality in terms of the scenes that are created. The story has a tone that is quite depressing and touches the core of the heart. This book is a must read for all those who want to get a glimpse of what had happened as consequence of one of the most saddened episodes of not just of the history of the subcontinent but also in human history.
…….. Train To Pakistan
is a historical novel by Khushwant Singh, published in 1956. It recounts the Partition of India
in August 1947. Instead of depicting the Partition in terms of only the political events surrounding it, Singh digs into a deep local focus, providing a human dimension which brings to the event a sense of reality, horror, and believability. It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and Muslims of Mano Majra, a village on the border of India and Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion falls upon Juggut Singh, the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim girl. When a train arrives, carrying the bodies of dead Sikhs, the village is transformed into a battlefield, and neither the magistrate nor the police are able t o stem the rising tide of violence. Amidst conflicting loyalties, it is left to Juggut Singh to redeem himself and reclaim peace for his village. POINT OF VIEW Singh's version of the morality which Singh asks through his characters, such as whether t he bad needs to be recognized to promote the good, and what constitutes a very good deed. Social structure and cultural understanding
In a relatively short book, the reader gets to know a lot of characters in detail. Examination of the varied groups of people not only increases cultural and social understanding of that time and place, but also shows that the blame could not be placed on any one group; all were responsible. “Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped” (1). Mano Majra, the fictional village on the border of Pakistan and India in which the story takes place, is predominantly Muslim and Sikh. Singh shows how they li ved in a bubble, surrounded by mobs of Muslims who hate Sikhs and mobs of Sikhs who hate Muslims, while in the village they had always lived together peacefully. Villagers were in the dark about happenings of larger scope than the village outskirts, gaining much of their information through rumor and word of mouth. This made them especially susceptible to outside views. Upon learning that the government was planning to transport Muslims from Mano Majra to Pakistan the next day for their safety, one Muslim said, “What have we to do with Pakistan? We were born here. So were our ancestors. We have lived amongst [Sikhs] as brothers” (126). After the Muslims leave to a refugee camp from where they will eventually go to Pakistan, a group of religious agitators comes to Mano Majra and instills in the local Sikhs a hatred for Muslims and convinces a local gang to attempt mass murder as the Muslims leave on their train to Pakistan. If groups of people are examined on a closer level than their religious attachments, a more detailed social structure emerges. Government officials were corrupt, manipulative of vill agers, and could arrest anyone they chose for any reason, more often than not for their own benefit. They did just enough in terms of dealing with the dispute so that nobody could say that they did not do anything. The law enforcement was completely at the whim of the local government, meaning that in practice, there was no law. Also, small amounts of educated people trickled in and out of villages, trying to instill in people democratic, communist, or other western ideologies, though the common people were turned off and confused by their unorthodoxy. When one such educated man was speaking to a villager about freedom, the villager explained,
“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” (48). This is a startling point of view which reveals to what extent the uneducated were not benefiting at all from England’s leaving India. The majority, the uneducated people, were forced into this confusing mess, and it is not hard to see how easily influenced their opinions were and how susceptible these groups were to placing blame. It also deals with the principle value that if the educated people have taken a right step at the right time then there would not have been such a massive bloodshed in India
[edit] Moral message and character development In addition to giving an understanding of human actions and pointing out that everyone was responsible, Singh makes a background moral commentary which bubbles up through main characters in their thoughts and their actions. Hukum Chand is the regional magistrate, and the most influential character in the story. It becomes apparent that he is a morally conflicted man who has probably used his power over the years with much corruption. He is often described with a dirty physical appearance as if he is overwhelmed with unclean actions and sins, and is just as often trying to wash himself of them, similar to Pontius Pilate after Christ was condemned. Hukum Chand’s ethical issues are shown in one of repeated encounters he has with two geckos, which likely represent Muslims and Hindus in conflict, on the verge of fighting each other. When they start fighting, they fall right next to him, and he panics. The guilt he gets from not helping when he has more than enough power to do so literally jumps onto him. “Hukum Chand felt as if he had touched the lizards and they had made his hands dirty. He rubbed his hands on the hem of his shirt. It was not the sort of dirt which could be wiped off or washed clean” (24). Alcoholism is another tool Hukum Chand uses in attempt to clean his conscience. He feels the guilt of his actions by day and relieved of them by night, when his alcohol is able to justif y visits with a teenage prostitute the same age as his deceased daughter. In all his conflictions, he is able to acknowledge that what he is doing is bad, but is still unable to promote good. The two other main characters that are given a lot of attention are Iqbal Singh and Juggut Singh, and are likely meant to be contrasted. Iqbal is described as a slightly effeminate, well-educated and atheist social worker from Britain who thinks politically (and cynically). Juggut is a towering, muscular, and uneducated villager who places action over thought and is known for frequent arrests and gang problems. As if to warm them up for comparison, they were both arrested for the same murder they did not commit, and were placed in adjacent cells. Upon their release, they learned that a gang was planning to attack the train taking Mano Majr a’s Muslim population to Pakistan. They each had the potential to save the train, though it was recognized that this would cost their lives. Juggut, nevertheless, acts on instinct after he found out about the fiasco that was going on, he then sacrifices his life to save the train. Iqbal spends pages wondering to himself whether he should do something, exposing a moral paradox on the way: “The bullet is neutral. It hits the good and the bad, the important and the insignificant, without distinction. If there were people to see the act of self- immolation…the sacrifice might be worth while: a moral lesson might be conveyed…the point of sacrifice…is the purpose. For the purpose, it is not enough that a thing is intrinsically good: it must be known to be good. It is not enough to know within one’s self that one is in the right” (170). The questions of right versus wrong which Singh poses throughout the book are numerous, including those of what one should do when one has the opportunity to prevent something bad, when an act of goodwill is truly worthwhile, and how much importance is the consciousness of the bad. Train to Pakistan, with its multiple gruesome and explicit accounts of death, torture, and rape for the public to read, makes the case that people do need to know about the bad. As for the understanding Kasarla tries to implement more and more about the regional issues like nativity and with integration it is an understanding of human elements for the development of human civilization.
[edit] Politics Khushwant Singh does not describe the politics of the Partition in much detail. This is mostly because his purpose is to bring out the individual, human element and provide a social understanding, two aspects of historical events which tend to be either ignored or not covered effectively in texts. In the Partit ion, the major change was political; Britain’s splitting of India into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The effect of the change, however, was significant and as Singh has shown, f righteningly, social, as religious groups rearranged and clashed violently. Singh makes it clear that many people played a part in this chaos and everyone was equally worthy of blame, all while integrating examples of the sheer moral confusion which arises from trying to make sense of an event as momentous as the Partition.
[edit] Movie A movie based on this novel and having the same title Train to Pakistan was released in 1998. It was directed by Pamela Rooks and this movie was nominated in Cinequest Film Festival, 1999 in the best feature film category. Nirmal Pandey, Mohan Agashe, Rajit Kapoor, Smriti Mishra, Divya Dutta, Mangal Dhillon were the main cast of this movie. Train To Pakistan
is a historical novel by Khushwant Singh, published in 1956. It recounts the Partition of India
in August 1947. Instead of depicting the Partition in terms of only the political events surrounding it, Singh digs into a deep local focus, providing a human dimension which brings to the event a sense of reality, horror, and believability. It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and Muslims of Mano Majra, a village on the border of India and Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion falls upon Juggut Singh, the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim girl. When a train arrives, carrying the bodies of dead Sikhs, the village is transformed into a battlefield, and neither the magistrate nor the police are able t o stem the rising tide of violence. Amidst conflicting loyalties, it is left to Juggut Singh to redeem himself and reclaim peace for his village.
Contents [hide]
1 Point of view 2 Social structure and cultural understanding 3 Moral message and character development 4 Politics 5 Movie 6 2006 edition 7 Notes 8 Sources
[edit] Point of view Singh's version of the morality which Singh asks through his characters, such as whether t he bad needs to be recognized to promote the good, and what constitutes a very good deed.
[edit] Social structure and cultural understanding
In a relatively short book, the reader gets to know a lot of characters in detail. Examination of the varied groups of people not only increases cultural and social understanding of that time and place, but also shows that the blame could not be placed on any one group; all were responsible. “Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped” (1). Mano Majra, the fictional village on the border of Pakistan and India in which the story takes place, is predominantly Muslim and Sikh. Singh shows how they lived in a bubble, surrounded by mobs of Muslims who hate Sikhs and mobs of Sikhs who hate Muslims, while in the village they had always lived together peacefully. Villagers were in the dark about happenings of larger scope than the village outskirts, gaining much of their information through rumor and word of mouth. This made them especially susceptible to outside views. Upon learning that the government was planning to transport Muslims from Mano Majra to Pakistan the next day for their safety, one Muslim said, “What have we to do with Pakistan? We were born here. So were our ancestors. We have lived amongst [Sikhs] as brothers” (126). After the Muslims leave to a refugee camp from where they will eventually go to Pakistan, a group of religious agitators comes to Mano Majra and instills i n the local Sikhs a hatred for Muslims and convinces a local gang to attempt mass murder as the Muslims leave on their train to Pakistan. If groups of people are examined on a closer level than their religious attachments, a more detailed social structure emerges. Government officials were corrupt, manipulative of villagers, and could arrest anyone they chose for any reason, more often than not for their own benefit. They did just enough in terms of dealing with the dispute so that nobody could say that they did not do anything. The law enforcement was completely at the whim of the local government, meaning that in practice, there was no law. Also, small amounts of educated people trickled in and out of villages, trying to instill in people democratic, communist, or other western ideologies, though the common people were turned off and confused by their unorthodoxy. When one such educated man was speaking to a villager about freedom, the villager explained, “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” (48). This is a startling point of view which reveals to what extent the uneducated were not benefiting at all from England’s leaving India. The majority, the uneducated people, were forced into this confusing mess, and it is not hard to see how easily influenced their opinions were and how susceptible these groups were t o placing blame. It also deals with the principle value that if the educated people have taken a right step at the right time then there would not have been such a massive bloodshed in India
[edit] Moral message and character development In addition to giving an understanding of human actions and pointing out t hat everyone was responsible, Singh makes a background moral commentary which bubbles up through main characters in their thoughts and their actions. Hukum Chand is the regional magistrate, and the most influential character in the story. It becomes apparent that he is a morally conflicted man who has probably used his power over the years with much corruption. He is often described with a dirty physical appearance as if he is overwhelmed with unclean actions and sins, and is just as often trying to wash himself of them, similar to Pontius Pilate after Christ was condemned. Hukum Chand’s ethical issues are shown in one of repeated encounters he has with two geckos, which likely represent Muslims and Hindus in conflict, on the verge of fighting each other. When they start fighting, they fall right next to him, and he panics. The guilt he gets from not helping when he has more than enough power to do so literally jumps onto him. “Hukum Chand felt as if he had touched the lizards and they had made his hands dirty. He rubbed his hands on the hem of his shirt. It was not the sort of dirt which could be wiped off or washed clean” (24).
Alcoholism is another tool Hukum Chand uses in attempt to clean his conscience. He feels the guilt of his actions by day and relieved of them by night, when his alcohol is able to justif y visits with a teenage prostitute the same age as his deceased daughter. In all his conflictions, he is able to acknowledge that what he is doing is bad, but is still unable to promote good. The two other main characters that are given a lot of attention are Iqbal Singh and Juggut Singh, and are likely meant to be contrasted. Iqbal is described as a slightly effeminate, well-educated and atheist social worker from Britain who thinks politically (and cynically). Juggut is a towering, muscular, and uneducated villager who places action over thought and is known for frequent arrests and gang problems. As if to warm them up for comparison, they were both arrested for the same murder they did not commit, and were placed in adjacent cells. Upon their release, they learned that a gang was planning to attack the train taking Mano Majra’s Muslim population to Pakistan. They each had the potential to save the train, though it was recognized that this would cost their lives. Juggut, nevertheless, acts on instinct after he found out about the fiasco that was going on, he then sacrifices his life to save the train. Iqbal spends pages wondering to himself whether he should do something, exposing a moral paradox on the way: “The bullet is neutral. It hits the good and the bad, the important and the insignificant, without distinction. If there were people to see the act of self- immolation…the sacrifice might be worth while: a moral lesson might be conveyed…the point of sacrifice…is the pur pose. For the purpose, it is not enough that a thing is i ntrinsically good: it must be known to be good. It is not enough to know within one’s self that one is in the right” (170). The questions of right versus wrong which Singh poses throughout the book are numerous, including those of what one should do when one has the opportunity to prevent something bad, when an act of goodwill is truly worthwhile, and how much importance is the consciousness of the bad. Train to Pakistan, with its multiple gruesome and explicit accounts of death, torture, and rape for the public to read, makes the case that people do need to know about the bad. As for the understanding Kasarla tries to implement more and more about the regional issues like nativity and with integration it is an understanding of human elements for the development of human civilization.
[edit] Politics Khushwant Singh does not describe the politics of the Partition in much detail. This is mostly because his purpose is to bring out the individual, human element and provide a social understanding, two aspects of historical events which tend to be either ignored or not covered effectively in texts. In the Parti tion, the major change was political; Britain’s splitting of India into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The effect of the change, however, was significant and as Singh has shown, f righteningly, social, as religious groups rearranged and clashed violently. Singh makes it clear that many people played a part in this chaos and everyone was equally worthy of blame, all while integrating examples of the sheer moral confusion which arises from trying to make sense of an event as momentous as the Partition.
[edit] Movie A movie based on this novel and having the same title Train to Pakistan was released in 1998. It was directed by Pamela Rooks and this movie was nominated in Cinequest Film Festival, 1999 in the best feature film category. Nirmal Pandey, Mohan Agashe, Rajit Kapoor, Smriti Mishra, Divya Dutta, Mangal Dhillon were the main cast of this movie. Train to Pakistan:--An ode to communal harmony The most well-known work brought forth by the multi--faceted Khushwant Singh, "Train to Pakistan "addresses as it's central theme the mindlessness and the futility of communal hatred and violence. Set in the year 1947 in an Indian village --Mano Majra-along the Indo--pakistan border , the Novel shows how a communal wedge of distrust is drawn between the peaceful Hindu and Muslim denizens of the village.The Hindus of the village are incited to murder their Muslim neighbours and friends to send a Train f ull of Muslim corpses to Pakistan, as an act of retribution to a similar mass murder performed by Muslims on ther other side of t he Border. However, the Love of a village Rogue , Jugga,for his Muslim Beloved Nooro, finally , motivates the Rogue , who is a Sikh of the village,to save the lives of the Muslim Refugees aboard the Train from a planned Hindu
assault. The Novel describes how peaceful villagers are forcibly drawn into the vortex of communal violence, and , how futile this violence ultimatly proves to be in front of their traditional Brotherhood.
