Resistance in Toba Tek Singh:

Belonging to the alienated

“No writer has been able to convey the violent ambiguities of communal conflict with as much
force and conviction as Saadat Hasan Manto. Many of his short stories focus on the sense of
despair and dislocation caused by the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947. Manto vividly
recreates the anger and horrors of this period and the trauma of refugees uprooted and victimized
by the delineation of arbitrary borders. As the characters in Manto's stories confront the ruthless
inhumanity of Hindu-Muslim violence, murder, rape and mutilation-their only conceivable
response is madness.” (Alter 91)
Thus Stephen Alter has correctly pointed out the characteristic of Manto’s short stories that deal
with partition: madness. As Alter says, although many writers have written great works on the
partition of India creating a Pakistan, many works were from the point of view of what our
society calls, “normal” people. But Saadat Hasan Manto has taken another step towards defining
the trauma of partition by shifting the mike from the sane to the insane people. What would
partition be for them? What does it feel like? Do they even care? Does their unstable mind and
brain make them realize the trauma of getting ripped off from somewhere one belongs to? These
questions are naturally to be pondered upon while reading this work. Along with this concept of
madness and identity crisis comes a unique form of resistance. Manto thus worked on these,
which made his work a masterpiece in today’s world.
One thing about this work which is compelling is that Manto did not take sides of either of the
parties. His whole notion about partition was, “Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become
independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries -- slave of
prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.” Thus, the ills
already prevailed but partition fueled it with more hatred.
The whole story is centered around the insane lot of Hindu and Muslim people from the then
India and Pakistan, who are been send to their places, the places where their religion ‘belongs’
to. “These people being the victims of partition have showed very reasonably and intelligently
the resistance to the partition, when the news reached to them. The questions asked by the
lunatics repeatedly carry an ambiguity, which needs to be justified and answered. Though for
people living a rational and saner life, these people are mere commodities which need to be
exchanged based on their religion, but for Manto these people are more rational and saner who
possess the unconditional love and harmony among each other.” (European Academic Research
Vol II, Issue 7 / October 2014, 4).
The controversial area throughout the play is a land called Toba Tek Singh, which was initially
in India but now in Pakistan. This name also bears its own historical significance. As is
mentioned in a certain blog post:
Toba is a word in Punjabi that means ‘Pond’. It is a district in the Punjab province of Pakistan.
The town and district is named after a Sikh religious figure Tek Singh. Legend has it that Mr.
Singh a kind hearted man served water and provided shelter to the worn out and thirsty travelers
irrespective of any cast or creed who passed by a small toba which eventually was called Toba
Tek Singh and surrounding settlement acquired the same name.
Toba Tek Singh was developed by British toward the end of the 18th century when a canal
system was built. People from all over Punjab moved there as farmlands were allotted to them.”
Thus, this kind of place after partition was nowhere to be figured out leading to the ultimate
irony of the partition. The speaker of our short story Bishan Singh probably belonged to this
place. This place which once belonged to all types of people irrespective of their caste now
resisted partition by disappearing into thin air.
There are many other instances that voice out the trauma of the lunatics who resisted partition.
To cite some, in the initial part of the story, the speaker mentions a lunatic who is a regular
reader of the newspaper who is asked by one of his ally about Pakistan (where is it?). The
answer to this question was, “A place in India known for manufacturing cut-throat razors." Thus
Manto suggests how the lunatic resisted this whole idea of a Pakistan. That probably, creation of
Pakistan, led to the devastation of Muslims and Hindu brothers. In the course of the story a Sikh
lunatic questions his comrade, “Sardarji, why are we being sent to Hindustan? We can’t even
speak their language” … Thus, we see how linguistic components acts instrumental in the sense
of belongingness. As goes the saying, “With languages you are at home anywhere” but what if
you fail to understand a language? You won’t feel homely then! During the partition time, your
home belonged where your language was spoken. Similarly, threats of a foreign language
threatened that Sikh lunatic and made him feel the horror of alienation and partition. But he
resisted this threat by putting a straight-forward question that showed his resistance of not going
where he was about to be sent (India). A Muslim madman while taking a bath suddenly shouts,
“Pakistan Zindabad” with a sudden zest of passion because of which he slips and falls
unconscious. Through this, we see a sort of negative patriotism that does no good to an
individual. . This sudden belongingness to the land becomes an imitation of the other fake
people who in the name of patriotism play dirty politics.
A state of existential crisis is also suffered by some lunatics. The sudden transgression from
India to Pakistan is something that they just cannot comprehend. The mapping of the land was
insanely horrendous for them. To cite an example from the text, “… they had no idea where
Pakistan was. That was why they were all at a loss whether they were now in India or in
Pakistan. If they were in India, then where was Pakistan? If they were in Pakistan, how come that
only a short while ago they were in India? How could they be in India a short while ago and now
suddenly in Pakistan? Thus, this confusion highlights the insanity of creating artificial countries
overnight leading to the sense of being cut-off from their roots.
One of the best examples of resistance can be seen through a lunatic who gets so exhausted by
the whole India-Pakistan partition that he climbs up a tree and says, “I don't want to live in India
and Pakistan. I'm going to make my home right here on this tree." Thus we can see how he wants
a land of his own, where cartographic mapping which leads to a sense of alienation does not
exist. He just wants a spot which would give him a sense of belongingness and from where no
one would force him to leave.
One more instance from the work shows how the warm feeling of love is also put at stake by
political mapping because of partition. The Hindu lawyer turned lunatic is not able to take the
fact that his beloved has become an Indian and he a Pakistani because of the political
cartography of the lands. His love gets torn apart which makes his sense of belongingness (here,
his beloved) alienated.
In this entire hullabaloo, there is a man constantly talked about who is Bishan Singh. He is
actually addressed to as ‘Toba Tek Singh’ probably because firstly, he was the resident of that
place and secondly, because the land Toba Tek Singh and the fate Bishan Singh encountered was
similar i.e. identity crisis. Toba Tek Singh, the land, lost its existence, similarly, partition made
Bishan Singh lose his existence. Bishan Singh can be seen standing throughout the play. Even
his swollen feet refuse him to take a seat. He is shown constantly asking the fellow characters,
where is Toba Tek Singh? But he gets a lot many interpretations or sometimes his question just
goes unanswered. “He began asking where Toba Tek Singh was to go. But nobody seemed to
know where it was. Those who tried to explain themselves got bogged down in another enigma:
Sialkot, which used to be in India, now was in Pakistan. At this rate, it seemed as if Lahore,
which was now in Pakistan, would slide over to India. Perhaps the whole of India might become
Pakistan. It was all so confusing! And who could say if both India and Pakistan might not
entirely disappear from the face of the earth one day?” This excerpt makes a reader realize the
pattern of Bishan Singh’s resistance to the partition. He refuses to sit for his mind is constantly
pondering over the horror of partition. He is constantly in the quest of the land: Toba Tek Singh
for he believes he might find his lost identity there, the land where there won’t be any barrier like
casteism. Thus we, as readers can also experience the lunatics’ sense of alienation and the loss of
their identities and nationalities from the land where they thought they once belonged to.
In the climax of the story, we see that Bishan Singh along with other lunatics is being sent to
India and his Muslim brothers stay in Pakistan. Here as well, he asks one officer about Toba
Tek Singh’s location on which he is answered for the first time without confusion clearly, “"In
Pakistan, of course." The land where he belonged to according to him was Toba Tek Singh.
Somewhere he had a hope that he would find himself there. Singh becomes hyper and just rips
off from the clutches of the officers wanting to return back to his place but the political mapping
had already alienated him and made him an odd-man-out. Thus, he is left there standing and the
guards over there, treat him as some random harmless old mad man.
The striking end of this short story can be considered as a masterpiece in the partition literature.
In the end, a piercing cry arises from Bishan Singh and he gives away his standing posture and
lies on the ground which is a No man’s land. He, over there finds a place for him. “On one side,
behind barbed wire, stood together the lunatics of India and on the other side, behind more
barbed wire, stood the lunatics of Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay
Toba Tek Singh.” Thus, the land that separates India from Pakistan, the land that was alienated
by India as well as Pakistan, embraces Bishan Singh. Bishan Singh as well, embraces the land
that shared a fate of his like.
To conclude, Manto made the insane people his mouthpiece to show his resistance to partition.
The lunatics resist partition in many ways. They act or show what they feel which probably a
sane human would have failed to. They try to somehow make space for themselves by refusing
to ‘fit in’ in this newly created cartographical land. Thus, infusing madness with identity crisis
gave Manto a perfect blend of resistance which was what he probably wanted to express through
his work. .
Bishan Singh finally finds his identity and embraces his sense of belongingness on this deserted
land. Thus, he eventually succeeds in discovering his Toba Tek Singh.

References:
Primary Source:
http://www.sacw.net/partition/tobateksingh.html
Secondary Source:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/tobateksingh/storynotes.html
Alter, Stephen, “Madness and Partition: The Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto”