Cowardice & shame@ Partition of India. Review on Toba Tek Singh and Other Stories - Saadat Hasan Manto

Partition, separation, division, sectionalism ah aren’t those words by themselves so depressing and glum, I for one feel that they are. The very thought of separating from your near and dear ones, people with whom you have grown up and locales, rituals, occasions which you have thought of being a part of your existence suddenly being snatched away from you and you being called an outsider in your very home, aren’t those some sort of a crime against humanity by itself. The agony of the people and the sheer helplessness of the millions who don’t want all of this to happen is indeed one of the tragic realities of the partition of India. August 15, 1947 would always be remembered as a monumental day not just for the fact that we got independence but also because it was this day that the very heart of the nation was torn apart with such nonchalant ease by one superficial act of the British and drawing of the “I care a damn” Radcliff line. That one act was to unfold tales of miseries, pain and sufferings for millions of people who were uprooted and carted across to both sides of the border. The tragedy finds its parallels to the World War 2 holocaust and the scars of it are still fresh on the body politic of the both the nations and their masses at large.

Having started on a somber, poignant note let me allow Saadat Hassan Manto to take center stage, one writer who turned the pains of partition great literature and arguably the foremost among the short story writers of the subcontinent. Manto was born and spent a major part of his life in Bombay, only to move to Lahore later on. Pakistan inherited the common and shared tradition of Urdu literature that belonged to the literary culture of the Indian sub-continent. Manto added voice to that largely progressive and forward-looking tone of literature. His literature was in sync with the times and it evolved in its identity like the works of others of his time and became the socio-cultural document of an era of hope and hardships. Since he wrote short stories with the central theme being the same, rather then talking about any of his work in particular I am going to talk about his ideas, themes and writing style.

Fratricidal riots on the eve of independence gave birth to a widely different and ominous situation where the decline and fall of human nature made many values and things questionable, and a literature based on communal tension, on mass massacres, arson, and on the refugee camps, emerged under the stress of a large scale migration of people from one dominion to the other. It was a highly distressing state of affairs, and along with it, a new brand of fiction appeared, which is generally known as the Tales of the Riots, and describes the holocaust of the Partition. Manto’s writings belong to the same genre of writers and his works echo the same theme and tone.

Most of the Urdu and Punjabi writers who wrote during the times were either too close to the scenes of partition and they were themselves a part of the tale of sadness and misery and this familiarity reflected in their works and more often then not their works were biased or distorted and failed to depict a non partisan, balanced tale. Of the writers of his time only Saadat Hassan Manto (1912-1955) could have a detached view of the genocide on both sides of the border. He was able to turn pain-giving events into great literature. He remained impartial, took no sides, and wrote with detachment and passion about the atrocities committed in a state of utter madness. As a matter of fact, the crisis of human nature and the decline in moral conduct and behavior during those early years of independence form the structure of Saadat Hassan Manto’s stories about the Partition.

Manto’s voiced one of the most acrid criticisms of the partition and his stories talk about the common man who was did not understand the actions of the governments and to whom the slogans which instilled a sense of hatred between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs did not make any sense. He is sympathetic to the plight of the average man who was caught up in the madness and mayhem of the times and who was forced to do the most heinous of crimes in the names of jargons which made little or no sense to them. His characters are more in sync with the times and are given in to the same frailties and passions like any other ordinary man, unlike other writers he does not fall to the hero cult per se, it was this realistic and earthly themes of his stories which come across in works like Toba Tek Singh, Thanda Gosth and Kali Sarwar to name a few.

Toba Tek Singh is a moving tale through which he has taken a dig at the governments of both the nascent nations and he has also highlighted how to the common masses terms like India and Pakistan were so alien, for them it still one unified country. It’s a tale about how both the governments go about their business of politics in a detached and impassionate manner without thinking about the plights and agonies of the common masses that bore the maximum brunt of the barbarism and madness out there in the open world. Thanda Gosth on the other hand talks about how people had become totally blind in the name of religion and in their bloated communal pride that they lost all sense of humanity and morality. It chronicles the story of a sardar who has butchered many Muslims and how he abducts a Muslim girl and takes her to an abandoned place to rape her, only to realize that she had been dead all this while he was carrying her on his shoulders.

Through his stories Manto has created a niche amongst the writers of that era, he took a third party neutral account of the madness that was prevailing out there and how people on both sides of the border were made to suffer in the name of senseless partisan politics of the insane leaders who were leading them. He was tried several times for his vitriolic criticism and rather cold graphical account of the butchery that was rampant on the streets. His critics branded him an impressionist who stoked up frenzy in the name of literature but they can’t take away from Manto the honesty and compassion with which he has talked about one of the saddest moments of Indian history.

I strongly recommend Manto to everyone who is interested in knowing the real picture of the partition era and anyone who wants to know what was happening out there during those wild times. Manto makes one think and reflect on the basic human qualities which were at an all time low during those days and how the common masses undivided by the boundaries of religion, nationality and lineage were suffering and leading a sad, pitiful and depressing life.

Questions

A question for the history buffs, could the partition have been averted? Whom do you think was most responsible for the partition?

Would India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been better off if they were together still or they are better off now with their separate identities?

For all those people who have read a lot of partition era literature, who do you think is the most powerful voice of the times?

For the uninitiated, when will we stop fighting in the names of superficial and material things like wealth, land and women?

Watch out for my next review on a brilliant account of India’s journey from the historic midnight of August 15, 1947 to the midnight which dawned the millennium.