Chapter – I

Introduction

India attained freedom on 15th August 1947 which marks the end of the nearly

two centuries of colonial rule in the sub-continent. It is indeed a significant

achievement for the Indians who fought for independence against the British Empire.

However, just before independence, the sub-continent was divided into India and

Pakistan. The Partition of the Indian sub-continent into two independent nations led to

one of the bloodiest carnages that the world has ever seen. It is very difficult to

imagine the impact of the holocaust of the Partition on human lives, since it affected

human beings at the domestic, social, political, cultural and psychological levels.

Gopal Das Khosla, one of the earliest chroniclers of the event of Partition, in his book

Stern Reckoning (2015) describes it as the "great upheaval" which was "an event of

unprecedented magnitude and horror," and as "a fratricidal war" and "a hideous

monster"(3).

Urvashi Butalia, in her book The Other Side of Silence:

Voices from the Partition of India (2001) refers to the event

of Partition as “one of the great human convulsions of

history”(3). In his book, Divide and Quit (2015), Penderel

Moon opines on the phenomenology of the Partition thus:

"The dawn of Indian Independence was marred by

massacres and migrations in the Punjab on a scale

unparalleled in world history in time of peace. Within the

space of three or four months thousands were killed or died

of privation and millions were compelled to abandon forever

 2
their ancestral homes and to start life afresh in new

surroundings.”(7).

Before assessing the gamut of creative literature on the Partition, it remains

imperative for as to survey the historical background to the great catastrophe. The

demand for separate Muslim states was made in 1940, which was concentrated in the

north-western and north-eastern parts of India. It was perceived to be a logical

conclusion to the long-standing communal divide. Hence, it is necessary to look in to

the communal tension and search for what made Muslims to press for a separate

nation for themselves. This makes us to look for the act of various forces since the

arrival of Islam in the sub-continent, more importantly after the Muslims lost power to

the British.

Ancient and medieval India was often exposed to external invasions and

internal disturbances. Owing to India’s assimilative character, the intruders made

India their home. As a result of a lack of unity, long-standing conflicts and

indiscipline amongst them, Hindus could not protect their nation. Consequently, the

Islamisation of India was successful. The arrival of Islam in India resulted in two

important changes. The new rulers’ religion became Islam and the political power of

the country went into the hands of the Muslims. In all the other matters there wasn’t

much difference. Hindus were regarded very essential to control the civil

administration. A large number of Hindus were inducted into their armies by the

Muslim rulers to strengthen their power. Rajputs became the chief weapon of the

Mughal Empire. Under Deccan Sultanates, the Marathas performed the same role.

Likewise, when the Sikhs, Marathas and Jats became the rulers, they also inducted
 3
Muslims in their armies. In this manner, the process of absorption continued with the

people belonging to both the religions living side-by-side with rare outbursts.

After the conquest of Delhi in 1803 by the British, the political and communal

atmosphere in the country changed. The British rulers took advantage of the religious

differences to consolidate their power. Since the power went out of their hands and

also worsened the fate of the Muslims, the ulama proclaimed a holy war against the

British. The Muslims were instructed by Shah Abdul Aziz not to learn the English

language. He also advised them not to serve the British. However, this was

unsuccessful and it fostered hatred and animosity towards the Muslims. As a result,

the British adopted a strategy of removing the Muslims from the higher ranks in

administration as well as by affecting them economically in a big way.

Gradually in most of the government jobs, the Hindus replaced the Muslims.

The Hindus learned the English language and acquired a modern education.

Consequently, the Muslims lost power and wealth. The transfer of wealth and power

from the Muslims to Hindus obviously generated hatred and hostility in the minds of

the Muslims towards the Hindus. This was further intensified by the British rule,

which directly supported the Hindus against the Muslims. The revolt of 1857 or the

sepoy mutiny provided an opportunity of unity between the Muslims and the Hindus

to unite and oust the British. But, the opportunity was lost as the rebels rose in anger.

As part of their imperial strategy, the British wanted to create a discord between the

two communities and were successful in their attempt to pay one against the other.

After the revolt of 1857, the Muslims could not coordinate and plan to launch any

political protest against the British government. The loss of power, change in the

court language, lack of modern education, the hostility of the new rulers, and
 4
widespread poverty gave rise to a situation which necessitated an important change in

their leadership as well as political thinking. Modernity slowly dawned on them.

Some Muslims like Syed Ahmed Khan, acknowledged the challenge and stood firmly

against the ulama. The Muslims were persuaded to receive English education and

alter their approach with regard to the British Raj. Accordingly, the people belonging

to the Muslim aristocracy called ashraf, were the first to strengthen their position by

receiving English education and by remaining loyal to the British.

Ironically, after the 1857 sepoy mutiny, the approach of Hindus and Muslims

towards British Raj were inverted: the Hindu elite slowly began deflecting from the

path of allegiance to the British government and the Muslim leadership gradually

became the pillar of British Raj. A corresponding change was that the Muslims got

alienated from the Hindu elite, that had in the British privilege, secured power and

also prospered which had been their earlier preserve.

Under these circumstances, in 1885, the Indian National Congress was

established and the succeeding history was influenced by the many-sided interaction

between the forces of the Congress, British Raj and Muslim and Hindu communalism.

Since then, there was a constant struggle between the Congress, that brought people

of the whole nation on a single platform and a Muslim leadership that aspired to plan

a distinct course. The major problem between the Muslim leadership and the

Congress was that the former regarded the Congress to be a Hindu body and

repudiated its assertion to represent Muslims. This strife between the Muslim

leadership and the Congress had an impact on the events from 1885 to 1947.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a Muslim leader in 1887, opined that the Muslims and

the Hindus were two different nations because the Hindu contestants with their
 5
majority would always win and the practice of representative government would

result in the continuous Hindu oppression over the Muslims. He argued that the

people who represented the Muslims in the Congress weren’t the true agents of the

Muslims. The Congress remained unconcerned and persisted with its policy of

attracting the Muslims. The politically conscious Muslims felt orphaned with the

death of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan since he left behind no proper institute or society that

could continue his work. So, the Muslims at the start of the twentieth century felt the

necessity to have a political party or an association similar to the Congress, that would

take up their cause.

The tactics of colonial power also played its role in creating a rift between the

Hindus and the Muslims with their policy of ‘divide and rule’. They understood that

the Hindu-Muslim clashes would ascertain the chances of their survival in India. Lord

Curzon, The viceroy, in 1905 divided the Bengal Presidency into the Muslim-majority

province (East Bengal) and the Hindu-majority province (West Bengal). The partition

of Bengal transformed nationalist politics as nothing else prior to it.

The real intention behind the Bengal Partition was to please the Muslim

community and to create among them a feeling of safety under the British Raj, though

the British Government let it be known that it was an administrative measure. Khwaja

A. Khalique in his article “Genesis of Partition”(2002) opines that the Bengal

Partition made on 16th October, 1905 immediately led to political consciousness

among Muslims. It then gradually paved the way for enmity between the Hindus and

Muslims. (120).

The overwhelming Hindu agitation in opposition to the Partition of Bengal

and the fear of reforms benefitting the Hindus, led the Muslims to meet Lord Minto in
 6
1906 to demand for the Muslims for separate electorates. In addition to this, They also

asked for proportional legislative representation. This resulted in the establishment of

the All-India Muslim League in Dacca in the year 1906.

The Muslim League’s demand for weightages and separate electorates

engendered a rival communalism. However, through the Minto-Morley reforms in

1909, the British government introduced separate electorates to prevent the growing

nationalism. One of the main causes that distanced the Muslims was the usage of

Hindu symbols in the struggle for national freedom. The growing militancy of the

Arya Samaj was another reason for their estrangement. They established an

organization called the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha or Shuddhi Sabha in 1907 to convert

back the non-Hindus to Hinduism. In north India, this gave rise to widespread

communal animosity.

On the other hand, in the course of Muslim politics a major change took place.

When the British Partitioned Bengal in 1995, it was firmly resisted by the Congress

although the Muslims welcomed it. But, when it was annulled in 1911, the Muslim

League regarded it as an act of infidelity. The repeal of the Partition of Bengal, the

British hostility towards Turkey and the pre-war situation were largely responsible for

this change. The Muslim League Council, in 1912, made an effort to work, "in

cooperation with other communities, for a system of self-government suitable to

India". (Khalique122).

At the end of the First World War, the Khilafat Movement supported by

Mahatma Gandhi and his Non-Cooperation movement, stimulated the entire political

conditions of the nation and led to a profound transformation in Hindu-Muslim

relations.
 7
The Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movements gave an opportunity for

Hindu-Muslim concord for a brief period of time, but it soon disappeared and the

nation had to see the worst Hindu- Muslim communal violence. In December 1925,

within a year of the termination of the cordiality between the Muslim League and the

Congress, the League took up nationalism as an ideology and emphasized that the

Hindus and the Muslims were not just two different religious sects, but two different

nations. The Muslim leaders did not take part in the 1925 session of the Congress.

Maulana Azad and Ali brothers were the only Muslim leaders present at the session.

After the boycott of the Simon Commission, in August 1928, the All Parties

Conference convened by the Congress, appointed a Committee headed by Motilal

Nehru as Chairman to determine the principles of the constitution of India. The report

of this committee, supported a unitary government at the centre and rejected

federation as a possible solution to the communal problem. The report also did not

recommend any weightage or separate electorates for the Muslims in the provinces

where they were in a minority. Reservation of seats for the Muslims was restrained

only to the centre. Here, the Muslims rejected this.

In 1928, at the All Parties Convention in Calcutta, Jinnah tried to convince to

consider some demands of the Muslim. Jinnah’s fourteen points were put to vote and

lost. The fears of the Muslims were not assuaged and since then Jinnah dissipated

from the Congress.

The next step in moving away from the Congress was the publication of

Simon Commission report in May 1930, after visiting India in 1928 and 1929. The

Simon Commission report proposed a federal framework for India. Though the

League set aside its decision aware of the fact that the issue will be finally resolved at
 8
the Round Table Conference, the Congress rejected the report. The three meetings

held in 1930 and 1931 in London, did not settle the communal crisis. Therefore the

imperial government in August 1932, delivered its own verdict wherein separate

electorates for Muslims were retained. But the decision did not please any party. In

the Government of India Act, 1935, the proposals of the Round Table Conference

were integrated which came into force on 1 April, 1937.

In 1937, the Congress established its governments in the six provinces after

the general elections - C.P., U.P., Bombay, Orissa, Bihar and Madras, after getting

involved in two disputes with the Muslim League. Firstly, the Congress had acquired

a commitment from the Viceroy that the provincial governors would not use their

special power provided in the Act for supporting the concerns of the minorities. This

was totally disliked by the Muslim League. Secondly, the rejection of the Congress to

form a coalition government with the League, made the Muslims distrust the objective

of the Congress which they perceived as being dominated by Hindus.

The Congress rule from July 1937 to October 1939 in the six provinces was

considered by the League to have been traumatic for the Muslims. Fazlul Haq’s

pamphlet, Muslim Sufferings Under Congress Rule, the Shareef Report and the Pirpur

Report gave details of the alleged embarrassments of the Congress governments

against Muslims, like the noisy processions before mosques at prayer time, ban on

beef, the boycott of Muslim shops, attacks on worshippers in mosques etc. All India

Muslim Education Conference appointed a committee to look into the Congress

education policy. The committee attacked and denounced the scheme of Vidya

Mandirs and the Wardha scheme of education. The Muslims alleged that it was
 9
intended to superimpose Hindu culture on the education system, as well as introduce

Sanskritized Hindi at the cost of Urdu.

By the year 1937, The Indian political atmosphere had undergone a profound

transformation since the Muslim League’s objective was no longer the political unity

of India. In March 1940, at its annual three-day session in Lahore, the All India

Muslim League adopted its what came to be called the historic Lahore Resolution,

sometimes also known as ‘Pakistan Resolution’.

The Pakistan Resolution approved the creation of an independent Muslim state

as its final objective. It declared that the geographically proximate and adjacent units

are to be drawn into regions which should be constituted with such territorial

realignments as may be necessary, that “the areas in which the Muslims are

numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India should

be grouped to constitute ‘Independent States’ in which the Constituent Units shall be

autonomous and sovereign.” (Khosla 23-24). Thus, M.A. Jinnah tried to elevate the

status of the Muslim League to the level of the Congress. At this point of political

development, the Muslim mass accepted him as their leader.

The British government after the outbreak of the Second World War, on

8thAugust 1940 put forward a plan of setting up of a body for constitutional reforms.

At the end of the war, it assured a constituent assembly and Dominion Status for

India. This is known as the ‘August Offer’. It also promised sufficient safeguards for

the minorities in any future revision of the constitution. While the Muslim League

welcomed this proposal, the Congress condemned it.

 10
The British government, through the Cripps Mission, took a new political

initiative in 1942, to draw greater Indian cooperation for the war effort. However, it

was not successful because it intended the perpetual vivisection of India.

Under these circumstances, the Congress launched the Quit India Resolution

on the 8thAugust 1942, to express the anger of aggravated people. The British

government realized this as a major threat to their rule since the revolt of 1857. At

this juncture, Gandhiji gave “the do or die” call. The anxious British government,

immediately arrested Gandhi and other Congress leaders and imprisoned them until

August 1945. For the next three years, the League was able to propagate its message.

As a result, the supporters of the League Rised rapidly between 1942 and 1945, with

Jinnah himself acknowledging, "The war which nobody welcomed proved to be a

blessing in disguise." (cited in Khan 88).

The Gandhi-Jinnah talks were held in September 1944, in which the concept

of Pakistan within a federation was accepted. The Muslim League, the British, and a

section of the Congress considered this as a symbolic victory for Jinnah. Owing to the

disagreement on the question of communal representation, the Simla Conference in

June-July 1945 failed. At this moment, even in Muslim provincial politics Jinnah’s

demand for an independent Pakistan did not get full support. However, the British

rulers were determined on playing out their policy of divide and rule.

In the elections held in December 1945 for the central Legislative Assembly,

the League won all the Muslim seats. Similarly, the Congress victory in non-Muslim

seats was remarkable. The outcomes of the general elections in 1945finally confirmed

that the League stood for the Muslim India and Congress stood for the rest of India

making visible the Hindu-Muslim communal discord in all its stark reality.
 11
Under these circumstances, Jinnah declared 16th August 1946 as the Direct

Action Day, with the objective of emphasizing the claim for an independent Muslim

homeland in British India. However, Direct Action Day turned violent in Calcutta

which was later called the "Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946". Provoked by

extremist leaders the Muslims across Noakhali turned on the minority Hindus. The

violence and riots spread to the other parts of the nation including the Punjab and the

NWFP and set the entire subcontinent on fire.

The Muslim League’s attitude became more rigid After November 1946.

Between November 1946 and February 1947, the League’s attitude to the Interim

Government, its attempt to overthrow by force the Unionist ministry in Punjab, its

refusal to enter the Constituent Assembly and to accept the Cabinet Mission plan of

16 May 1946 – all signified its intent to achieve Pakistan.

On December 31st 1946, the League called for the termination of the

Constituent Assembly. After this, two important incidents took place. First, Lord

Wavell was called back, and Lord Mountbatten replaced him as the viceroy of India.

Second, Atlee’s Government made its historic declaration of20thFebruary 1947, that

it had “a definite intention... to effect the transfer of power to responsible Indian

hands by a date not later than June 1948.”(Khalique 132).

Lord Mountbatten had to prepare another proposal since the Cabinet Mission

Plan was obsolete. He put the Plan on 2nd June 1947, before a meeting of the League

leaders, the Congress and the Sikh representative, Baldev Singh. It was accepted by

all the three parties. In a Press meet on June 3rd 1947, Mountbatten declared 15

August 1947 as the provisional date for the transfer of power to India, thus hastening

the date.
 12
The then Viceroy, Mountbatten, made his Reforms Commissioner to prepare a

plan for the Partition of the sub-continent in just four hours. He himself went to

London with this plan and made Mr. Attlee and his Cabinet to agree to the plan in just

five minutes. "It is all very well," says the historian Leonard Mosley, "to draw up a

plan to divide India in four hours and accept it in five minutes. How, in a land

consisting of 250 million Hindus, 90 million Muslims, 10 million Christians and--

particularly—5 million Sikhs, do you implement it?" (cited in Singh, Iyer and Gairola

xv).

The process and procedure of the Partition was specified in the V.P. Menon

plan. According to the plan, the sub-continent was to be divided into two independent

nations, known as India and Pakistan. The dominion state of Pakistan was to be of the

truncated regions including the Partition of the provinces of Bengal and Punjab.

Preparations were to be made to seek the public opinion in the Muslim-majority

provinces. Preparations were also to be made for apportioning the administrative

services, the assets and resources of the Central Government and the armed forces

between the respective authorities and for execution of a similar division with regard

to the provinces of Punjab and Bengal. Finally, the Legislative Assemblies of Punjab

and Bengal voted for Partition. The plebiscite in NWFP went in favour of joining

Pakistan and the district of Sylhet also decided to join Pakistan.

A commission headed by Cyril Radcliff was set up to decide the geographic

boundaries of both the countries. Radcliffe drew borderlines on the map of Indian

sub-continent splitting up into two Dominions. Urvashi Butalia in her book The Other

Side of Silence (2001) observes:

 13
Radcliffe arrived in India on July 8, 1947 and with mere

five weeks of time, he got down to the significant job of

drawing a boundary line that divided a province of

thousands of villages, towns and cities, canals and

communication systems, and more importantly five million

Sikhs, fifteen million Hindus and sixteen million Muslims,

who in spite of their religious differences, "shared a

common culture, language and history." (83-84).

At midnight on 14 August 1947 Pakistan was born a day before India became

an independent nation. Though the year 1947 commemorated India’s freedom from

the colonial rule, it was at the expense of her vivisection into two different

independent countries, India and Pakistan. Thus on 15th August 1947, arrived the

long cherished moment of independence with pangs of Partition. “At the same time,”

write Amritjit Singh, Nalini Iyer, and Rahul K. Gairolain the introduction to

Revisiting India's Partition (2016) this long cherished freedom brought with it

staggering numbers of the dead, mutilated, raped, or forcibly converted.” (xvi).

The division of the country with neither any preparation nor foresight resulted

in a massive destruction. Two new nations were created overnight. The whole of the

Punjab was on fire as extreme violence broke out. No one ever expected that a mass

migration would take place displacing millions of people, or that rivers of blood

would flow as a result of the large scale communal violence. All the villagers were

compelled to uproot and resettle themselves in the places that were totally foreign to

them. Many of them didn’t know whether their villages were in India or Pakistan.

They also did not know in which direction they were to move. They were isolated
 14
from their familiar and cultural tie-ups, which resulted in a growing nostalgia for the

places dwelt in for ages. Separation of families, abductions and rapes, forced

conversions, demolition of property and massacres were the order of the day. Some of

the migrants made their way on either side of the newly drawn boundaries in trains,

foot columns and planes. On their way to safer places, they were attacked by men

belonging to other communities who slaughtered and looted villages, while women

and children were abducted, raped and mutilated. Francisco Jason in his article “In the

Heat of Fratricide” (2000) opines that

One can't encompass the loss of the property and the

devastation. Even the number of those raped, abducted,

beaten, tortured and of those physically brutalized could

never be estimated. So immeasurable was the pain

experienced by friends and the members of the same

family.(371)

Approximately a million people did not make their destination and over

twelve million took to the road. Nearly two million people were brutally massacred.

Trains crowded with Muslim migrants, most of them ruthlessly mutilated and

slaughtered during their travel reached West Pakistan, with messages written “A Gift

from India”. In retaliation, the Muslims from Pakistan sent trains loaded with brutally

murdered Hindus and Sikhs with the words inscribed “A Gift from Pakistan”. Foot

convoys of about 750000 people and about eighty miles long, transferred between the

two nations. Thousands were brutally massacred on the way and many others died of

malnutrition, cholera and other diseases. Of the violence that accompanied the
 15
division of the sub-continent, historians Gurharpal Singh and Ian Talbot in their book

The Partition of India (2009) observe:

The eyewitness accounts of the victims that were maimed and mutilated are

countless. The brutal acts include the pregnant women being disemboweled, the little

babies whose heads were slammed against the brick walls and those victims whose

limbs and genitalia were cut off and heads and corpses were put on display. So

indescribable was the brutality that no history book had ever contained such crimes

caused by communal riots (67 - 68).

Amrijit Singh, Nalini Iyer and Rahul K. Gairola in the introduction to their

book Revisiting India's Partition (2016) observes The partition led to not only

irrational and unlawful division of land but also the devastation of shared histories,

traditions, cultures and memories among Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. These tragic

consequences had their lasting impact on millions throughout South Asia and in South

Asian diaspora. (xvi).

Impact on Literature

The division of the subcontinent was a significant incident that had a

tremendous impact on the human emotions that all creative arts and artists have come

under its influence. Therefore, not only the writers but also film and T.V. serial

producers also have dealt this event in their respective medium. But it is fiction that

offers an extensive canvas for the delineation of the theme of Partition. This genre has

also drawn the attention of the writers of all Indian languages and so we have novels

and short stories written on the theme of Partition in the regional languages as well.

Amrita Pritam, Khushwant Singh, Nanak Singh, Bhishma Sahni, Chaman Nahal,

Gurucharan Das, Bala Chandra Rajan, Manohar Malgaonkar, Padmini Sengupta, Raj
 16
Gill, H.S. Gill, Kartar Singh Duggal, Salman Rushdie, Attia Hossain and Yashpal are

a few notable writers who have dealt with the theme of Partition in their works.

Khushwant Singh is the first Indo-Anglian novelist to choose the theme of the

holocaust of Partition in Train to Pakistan (1956). The novel portrays the traumatic

effects of the Partition of the subcontinent into two independent states and the

incomparable exodus along with the gory slaughter followed. It is primarily a

personal memoir of Khushwant Singh, who had experienced the horrors of the

catastrophe, first hand.

Bala Chandra Rajan’s The Dark Dancer (1959) with the partition as the

background, portrays an East-West encounter. It is the story of the love and marriage

of the protagonist, Krishna, who returns to India after ten years of his education in

England. He has to face a geographically altered India. Krishnan marries Kamala and

takes up a government job in Delhi as a Secretariast. But the coming of Cynthia, his

Cambridge friend, changes the very course of his life. He is married to Kamala but

attracted to Cynthia. Kamala goes to Shantihpur, the Partition affected city, and

begins her life as a nurse. After a few days, Krishnan realises his folly and he too goes

to Shantihpur. In Shantihpur, the communal poison is at its work. While attempting

valiantly to save the life of a Muslim girl from the vicious hands of hooligans, Kamala

meets a sad end. In this way the novel incorporates the personal struggle of the

protagonist with the struggle of the country for freedom, thereby merging, the

polarities of fact and fiction. Amidst the terrible scenes of violence and destruction,

the writer emphasises the value of hope, beauty, truth, and compassion.

Attia Hossain’s novel Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) occupies a

distinctive place in Partition fiction as it is written by a woman novelist who is a

 17
Muslim. It presents the impact of Partition and its inexpressible effects. It is the

initiation of religion into politics that engenders communal hatred. The writer holds

the leaders of all parties responsible for the dreadful acts of cruelty. The novel also

accuses the British strategies of divide and rule policy. It is the story of Laila, the

narrator- heroine of the novel, an upper class Muslim girl growing up in Lucknow,

before and after Independence. The division of the country leads to the division of a

joyous, beautiful Muslim home ‘Ashiana’. Laila’s two cousins, Saleem and Kemal, go

to opposite camps, the Congress and the Muslim League respectively, struggle for

their faiths and suffer for it. Finally Saleem opts to go to Pakistan, whereas Kemal

resolves to stay in India. Thus, Laila experiences the effect of Partition in her own

house. The maintenance of thorough balance between compassion and violence of

both the communities is a brilliant accomplishment of the novelist. The novel makes a

strong appeal to shun all frenzy and hatred, and embrace non-violence.

Red Hibiscus (1962), the first novel of Padmini Sengupta, deals with the

theme of freedom - struggle and Partition. It is a touching story of a reputed Bengali

family- Dr. Bimal and his wife Kusum. It is also the story of a girl held between

tradition and modernity. The action of the novel begins in the pre - independence days

and ends on the day of freedom, 15th August 1947, which is accompanied by the

agonies, sufferings and privations of Partition. Padmini Sengupta portrays the tension

that prevails among the Hindus and Muslims as a result of the call of Direct Action

Day by Jinnah which finally leads to the massacre of thousands of Hindus.

A Bend in the Ganges (1964) by Manohar Malgaonkar is another powerful

exposition of the event of Partition. It focuses primarily upon the distressing

consequences of the Partition comprehensively. It is the only novel which

 18
concentrates on the terrorist aspect of the freedom struggle. The characters of Debi-

Dayal, Basu and Shafi Usman are depicted as the models of the typical

revolutionaries. The main characters Gian Talwar and Debi-Dayal appear to represent

the two aspects of the Indian National Movement, the dogma of non-violence and the

terrorist methods respectively.

In the novel The Rape (1974), another prominent voice Raj Gill, depicts the

effect of the tragedy of Partition on the Sikh community. It portrays the collapse of

human values. It shows that dislocation and the horrors of Partition has demoralized

the refugees so much that Leila, the Muslim beloved of the protagonist, Dalipjit, is

raped by his own father, suggesting degradation of human values. Through the young

protagonist, the plot of the novel exposes the horrible consequences of the holocaust

and the debasement of human ethics.

Ashes and Petals (1978) by H.S. Gill is set just before the Partition of the sub-

continent. It is another powerful depiction of the dark-days of the Partition. It presents

the ordeals of the people who suffered the agonies of the migration. The novel also

portrays the pathetic picture of starving refugees standing in long queues for bread,

wheat, and pulse. Besides presenting the difficulties of the migrants, it records an

important aspect of Partition – the touching incidents of the massacre of their own

daughters, grand-daughters and women, by the members of their own family to save

them from the trauma of abduction and rape.

The partition is the backdrop to Clear Light of Day (1980) by Anita Desai.

The novel is set in Delhi during the time of the horrible experiences of the upheaval.

The book depicts the story of disintegration in the family of Das. Partition changes the

very profile of the family and forces the younger members of the family - Bim, Raja
 19
and Tara-to make emotional and intellectual adjustments in their lives. The

distinctiveness of the novel is that it displays how the Partition distorted the lives of

those who were neither associated with nationalist politics, nor were the victims of

dislocation or exile after the Partition.

Salman Rushdie’s magnum opus Midnight’s Children (1980) is an

interpretation of a period of about 70 yrs of India’s history dealing with the events

leading to the Partition and beyond. Saleem Sinai is the narrator and the protagonist of

the novel, who is born precisely when India became an independent nation. The novel

depicts how Saleem Sinai’s story is linked with the three partitioned countries of

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact, the portrayal of the Partition in Midnight's

Children is really important and unique because it puts forward some of the vital

questions about Indian politics regarding nationalism and secularism, the failures of

1947 and the politics of religion and language.

A Fine Family (1994) an autobiographical novel by Gurucharan Das, has, as

its background the pre-independent India during the time of Partition. It traces the ups

and downs of the Punjabi family of a lawyer, Bauji. The violence and bloodshed at

the time of Partition compels him to migrate to India. In this upheaval, Bauji’s family

loses everything. As a result, he finds it very difficult to abandon his homeland and

relocate in completely unfamiliar surroundings.

Looking Through Glass (1995) by Mukul Kesavan, a historian is set in the

troubled days of India’s Partition. The novel demonstrates that Partition was

something of a distorted accomplishment. What happened in the subcontinent was

traumatic and horrendous. Although the novel embodies the scenes of extreme
 20
suffering and violence, it depicts the zest for life that the refugees display in the midst

of destruction desolation misery.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance (1995) spans from the turbulent times of

the country’s Partition in 1947 to the blood bath following Mrs.Gandhi’s assassination

in 1984. The novel is the story of four ordinary people who suffers a loss. The horror

and carnages associated with the Partition of the country come alive in the novel.

The first novel of Manju Kapur, Difficult Daughters (1998) is Set around the

chaotic days of Partition. It presents the life of a woman against the political activities

before and after the division of the nation. The novel is the story of Virmati, the

protagonist, caught between the desire for education, family duty and illegitimate

relation. She falls in love with a professor, who has already got married. The

professor eventually marries her and she gives birth to a child, Ida. Virmati’s daughter

is a concrete representation of the psychological effects of the Partition. The novel

appears to emphasise that the forces of life and love are more strong and influential

than death and hatred.

The debut novel of Shauna Singh Baldwin, What the Body Remembers (2000)

is written on the backdrop of the tragic scenes of the Partition of the nation. It depicts

the conflicts faced by women during the turbulent days of Partition. The novel is the

story of two Sikh women Satya and Roop and their husband Sardarji. As Satya, the

first wife of Sardarji fails to bear him a child, he marries a sixteen year-old Roop, for

the sole purpose of providing the family with an heir. The most important aspect of

the novel is its attempt to allegorise the tale of Roop and Satya to indicate the disaster

of the Partition, although the Partition comes as a background towards the end of the

book.
 21
The debut novel, Partitions (2011) of Amit Majmudar, deals with the

tumultuous days of Partition. The novel is about three separate journeys : a young

Sikh girl, a Muslim doctor and the Hindu twins. All are the victims of the devastation

of Partition. The Hindu twins, Shankar and Keshav, lose sight of their mother when

they were making a strenuous effort to board the last train to Delhi. Simran Kaur, A

young Sikh girl, runs away as her father is certain to kill her rather than suffer the

humiliation of rape. Similarly, an elderly Muslim doctor, Ibrahim Masud, as he is

driven away from the place of his birth, is on his way to his new homeland of

Pakistan. Amit Majmudar has excelled in all the aspects in depicting the faithful

account of the misery and the ordeal of the event of Partition.

In the regional languages too, Partition is a recurrent theme. It is available in

Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu languages since these regions have endured the

tragic experience of the disaster. The province of Punjab was a major participant and

the first casualty of this calamitous incident. So the Punjabi psyche was obviously the

first to react to the tragic event of Partition in numerous literary works. Khoon De

Sohle and Agg Di Khund (1947 and 1948) respectively by Nanak Singh which is in

fact one book in two parts, mainly deals with violence in Punjab, particularly in

Amritsar. Communal frenzy and its shameless exhibition are honestly depicted in

them. Nanak Singh’s other fictional works Mazdhaar (1949) and Chitrakaar (1950)

also portray the difficulties of migrants, which is an effect of Partition.

In Punjabi literature Amrita Pritam is one of the distinguished writer for the

literary articulation of the Partition crisis. Her master piece Pinjar (1970), translated

into English by Khushwant Singh as Skeleton (1987), portrays the plight of women

during the Partition. It is the tale of a Hindu girl, Puro, who is abducted by Rasheed, a
 22
Muslim boy. She secretly returns to her home but her parents refuse to accept her.

When Puro goes back to Rasheed, he willingly marries her. At the time of Partition,

the Muslims also abduct Laajo, the wife of Puro’s brother. However, Laajo is

accepted by her family, since attitudes in the society changed over the time. Similarly,

Puro gets an opportunity to go back to her family and re-unite. She However declines

to go back to her home as she starts loving her husband, who is a Muslim. The focal

point of the book is women- Pooro and Laajo. Both of them are the sufferers of the

holocaust of Partition. But ultimately love resolves all their problems and difficulties.

Love transcends animosity and hatred.

Kartar Singh Duggal’s Twice Born Twice Dead (1979) convincingly presents

the trauma caused by the Partition. It depicts the whole panorama of convulsion that

gripped the Punjab during those fateful days through the experiences of a Sikh village

headman, Sohne Shah of Dhamyal, a village near Rawalpindi. The experiences of

these two characters forms the primary story of the novel.

K.A. Abbas The World is My Village (1984) treats marginally the event of

Partition. The novel depicts a realistic picture of the communal violence that took

place at the time of Partition. It is in the last chapter of the novel that the writer

symbolically presents the impact of the ghastly event of Partition on the common

man. Anwar, a son of Hindu-Muslim is stabbed to death by both, the Muslims and the

Hindus and that too after achieving their long-cherished freedom. By creating a

protagonist who is the son of Hindu-Muslim parenthood, Abbas seem to be

questioning the real intention of Partition. His (Anwar's) identity displays the

meaninglessness of Partition.
 23
Sati Maiya Ka Chaura (1959) by Bhairav Prasad Gupta is written with a

communist perspective. The writer suggests that people should realize that the age of

blind faith has come to an end because the co-existence of people belonging to

different beliefs in India is inevitable.

Dharmaputra (1961) by Acharya Chatursen Shastri is a powerful tale of

human suffering written about Partition. A Hindu family adopts a boy who turns out

to be an anti-Muslim fanatic. Later the boy learns that he is in fact the son of a

Muslim woman. In Desh Ki Hattya Gurudatt has a rather orthodox Hindu perspective.

He depicts dozens of characters who are tormented by the Muslims. Although

prejudiced, as far as some of the political aspects and events are concerned, his novel

is undoubtedly realistic.

Yashpal’s Jhutha Sach (1958-60) is a novel in two volumes. It is a true

account of the pre-Partition and post-Partition situation of India. Through the painful

experiences of Tara, Kanak, Urmila and many others, the novelist portrays the

miserable condition of women who are the victims of abduction, rape, massacre, and

rejection by their own kith and kin. Another novel, Meri Teri Uski Baat (1974) is a

large work which contains the story of three generations who react to trauma of

Partition.

Rahi Masoom Reza’s Aadha Gaon (1966) translated into English by Gillian

Wright as A Village Divided, depicts the pain and suffering of the consequences of the

Partition. Guzra Hua Zamana (The Broken Mirror) (1994), is a powerful Hindi novel

by Krishna Baldev Vaid that portrays the gruesome carnage that accompanied the

Partition. The book displays the sociological and psychological change in a Punjabi

village during the time of the Partition.

 24
Kamleshwar’s Kitne Pakistan?(How Many Pakistan?) is a Hindi novel

wherein the writer brilliantly explores the nature and pointlessness of religion and

divisive politics. He successfully creates a fictional court where different historical

characters from Aurangazeb to Shahjahan, Bahadurshah to Lord Mount Batten, Jinnah

to President Truman of USA, River Ganga to Jamuna, all are summoned, either as

accused or as witnesses.

Qurratulain Hyder’s Aagka Darya (1959), translated in to English as River of

Fire (1998), is outstanding among the Urdu novels that deals partly with Partition. It

presents Partition as one of the important events in the history of the sub-continent

and its devastating effects.

Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Purab-Paschim (East and West) (2000) is a Bengali

saga, which is a skilful portrayal of middle-class Bengali family that had to migrate to

West Bengal from East Pakistan, and their fight against the tide.

Since Pakistan has also been affected by the catastrophic event, obviously

Partition has also been a major theme in many Pakistani literary works. Mumtaz Shah

Nawaz’s novel The Heart Divided (1957), explores the tragedy of Partition. Set in

1930s and 1940s colonial India, it portrays the story of two sisters, Sughra and Zohra,

and their brother, Habib, in Lahore. In the backdrop is the freedom struggle of India.

The narrative moves rapidly between the family and politics, between fact and fiction

with amazing ease.

Intizar Husain’s Basti (1979), is a Urdu novel translated by Frances

W.Pritchett. It is a tale that revolves round Zakir, who remembers his childhood in an

idyllic town in Rupnagar, India. Unexpectedly, life changes when the family of Zakir

had to move to Pakistan during the time of Partition. Sabirah, Zakir’s childhood
 25
friend, after the 1947 Partition is the only one to remain in India, while her family

members and all other Muslims including Zakir leave for Pakistan. She continues to

disturb Zakir’s mind. However, he finds it very difficult even to contact her because

of many years of separation.

A few other novels are also noteworthy which probe into the theme of

Partition. Pawn to King Three (1985), the debut novel of Mahmud Sipra is one of the

finest novels on the theme of Partition. It is the story of Adnan, a small boy, who loses

his parents in one of the bloodiest Partition massacres in Amritsar. The striking thing

about the novel is that the novelist’s Partition world seem to be fresh and realistic.

Shadow of Time (1987) by Mehr Nigar Masroor presents the Pakistani version of the

disastrous events. The novel depicts the volcanic passion that was conjured up during

the Partition and presents how the catastrophe engulfed innocent children and women.

Finally, Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice- Candy-Man (1988) is a well-known novel written on the

theme of Partition from the Pakistani side. Deepa Mehta made a film based on the

novel titled The Earth 1947.

Apart from novels, the Partition and its aftermath has been explored very

touchingly and elaborately by some writers in their short stories as well. These short

stories depict the riots, violence, arson, slaughter, abduction and rape during the

Partition. The major stories could be catalogued as follows:

Rajender Singh Bedi’s Lajwanti, Attia Hosain’s After The Storm, Krishna

Sobti’s Where is My Mother?, Bhishma Sahni’s Pali and Train has Reached

Amritsar, Qurratulain Hyder’s When the Prisoners were Released the Times had

Changed, Kartar Singh Duggal’s Kulsum, Intizar Husain’s The City of Sorrow and A

Letter from India, Yashpal’s A Holy War, Krishan Chander’s The Peshawar Express,
 26
Sheikh Ayyaz’s Neighbours, Syed Mohamad Ashrafs Separated from the Flock,

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s Revenge, Salil Chaudhary’s The Dressing Table, etc.

A remarkable writer is undoubtedly Sadat Hasan Manto. It is an irrefutable

fact that his magnificent short stories deal with the Partition of the sub-continent and

its aftermath. His stories like Toba Tek Singh, Thanda Gosht (Cold Meat), Khol Do

(Open It), Titwal Ka Kutta (The Dog of Titwal), Fifty-Fifty, Sharing the Loot,

Warning, Wages of Labour etc., all depict unbearable pain, trauma and barbarity of

Partition. His stories portray the brutality of Partition violence as a plain and simple

descent into the heart of darkness intrinsic in man.

Not only men of letters but also film and T.V. serial producers ventured to

give cinematic depiction to the event of Partition and its aftermath in their respective

mediums. The narrative accounts of the tragic event provided the film producers

ample scope to depict the bitter experiences of the division of the sub-continent. TV

serials and films have been made to educate and appeal the public regarding the

Partition. The popularity of this genre owes greatly to the ways visual representations

serve as a powerful means for the dissemination of shared communal beliefs.

Films like Chhalia (1960), Ritwik Ghatak’s Partition trilogy – Meghe Dhaka

Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star, 1960), Komal Gandhar (E-Flat, 1961), and

Subernarekha (The Golden River, 1962), Dharmputra (1961), Garam Hawa (1973),

Mammo (1994), Train to Pakistan (1998), 1947- Earth (1999), Gadar (2001), Pinjar

(2003), Veer Zara (2004), Khamosh Pani (2005), Midnight's Children (2012) etc. are

few films portraying the event of Partition.

Television serials like Buniyaad (The Foundation, 1986) and a multi-episode

Tamas (Darkness, 1987) are also made by the serial producers. Many such films and
 27
T.V. serials have been produced to illustrate the horrors of Partition and its disastrous

social, political and economic effects on its victims. Garam Hawa (Hot Wind or

Scorching Wind) (1973), is a Hindi film directed by M.S. Sathyu based on an

unpublished short story by Ismat Chugtai. It is a story about the impact of Partition of

Punjab on a Muslim family living in Agra. Shyam Benegal's film Mammo (1994) is a

representation of the female refugee of the 1947 Partition in the sub-continent. It

shows the aftermath of the Partition on the two sisters who get separated during

Partition. Train to Pakistan, a Hindi film directed by Pamela Rooks is based on

Khushwant Singh's novel of the same title set during the time of Partition of India.

The film Earth 1947 (1999), directed by Deepa Mehta, is an adaptation of Bapsi

Sidhwa's novel Ice-Candy-Man. Aamir Khan played the leading character of the Ice

Candy Man. It is a must watch film to get a better glimpse into how the innocence is

destroyed and the earth is divided.

Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (Revolt: A Love Story) is a 2001 Hindi film Directed

by Anil Sharma is set in the time of the Partition of India in 1947. The film depicts the

tale of Tara Singh, a Sikh truck driver, (Sunny Deol), who falls in love with Sakina

(Amisha Patel), a Muslim girl, belonging to an upper-class family.

Pinjar (The Cage) is a 2003 Hindi film based on a Punjabi novel of the same

title, written by Amrita Pritam, a person who experienced the holocaust of Partition

first hand. Midnight's Children (2012) directed by Deepa Mehta, is a Canadian-British

film based on Salman Rushdie's novel of the same name. The movies like Gandhi

directed by Richard Attenborough and Hey Ram directed by Kamal Hassan also have

several scenes connected to Partition.

 28
To conclude, all these works are an account of cataclysmic chronicles of the

gruesome tragedy that followed the Partition of the sub-continent in 1947. The

disaster and the narrative patterns are moving. All the writers have succeeded in

depicting a hint of the horror, gruesomeness and complete recklessness of the

Partition tragedy.

Several Partition scholars and writers have interpreted and provided pertinent

discourses about the catastrophe of the Partition. They have researched and provided

distinctive modes of interpretation about the Partition of the Indian sub-continent. The

Partition Omnibus (2015), with an insightful introduction by Mushirul Hasan, brings

together, four classics on the genesis and the growth of the idea of Partition, its

inevitability, the Partition and the subsequent turmoil that followed the establishment

of Pakistan, and the problems arising out of decolonization and nationalism.

The Partition of India (2009) by Ian Talbot and Gurhalpal Singh tells the story

of Partition, from the events that led to it and the terrors that followed it, to exodus

and relocation. They say that during this period there was a transformation from

traditional to communal violence and bloodshed which was more brutal and had

elements of ethnic cleansing.

Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India

(2001) is an extraordinary oral narrative about the Partition of India and Pakistan in

1947. She focuses on the stories of the women, members of the lower castes and

children.

Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s

Partition (1998), gives a poignant glimpse at how women suffered during the time of
 29
Partition. Every chapter opens with interviews and closes with an analysis and

exploration that results in a feminist reading of Partition crisis.

Partition and Indian English Women Novelists (2007) by Seema Malik

provides a comprehensive analysis of women writers on Partition who substantiate the

whole process from a gendered point of view. She analyzes the impact of and

response to the Partition in the discourses of women writers.

Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender and National Culture in Postcolonial

India (2011) by Kavita Daiyais a comprehensive work that analyses varied

representations of gendered violence and dislocation in the postcolonial public sphere.

The book is distinguished by its focus on cinema, along with literature.

Apart from these scholarly works on the Indian history and Partition, there

have been many attempts made by some researchers to focus on the issues of Partition

and associated history and politics through their Doctoral thesis in various Indian

universities. The Partition in Fictional and Film Versions: A Critical Study of the

Novels and the Films Based on Partition by R. Yagnik Premal is a thesis submitted to

Saurashtra university in 2013 that examines the novels and the films based on

partition. Representation of History: A Study of the Partition Event in the Selected

Novels by Mrs. Radha S. Gautam is another doctoral thesis submitted to Veer Narmad

South Gujarat University Surat in December 2014 explores the history of the event of

Partition as depicted in the selected literary works. Exploration of the Literary and

Cinematic Expressions of Communal Violence as Portrayed in Indian Writings in

English and in Indian Cinema by Manju Sharma is yet another thesis submitted to

Banasthali Vidyapith in 2016 that critically examines the dynamics of communal

violence in the cinematic and literary works.

 30
The primary objective of this research work is to explore the event of Partition

and the resulting consequences of the event on the lives of ordinary people as

represented in the proposed novels. Another objective of this research work is to delve

into the variety of this body of fiction and find out the intentions that provoked the

different novelists to write about the event of Partition. The novels which will form

the subject matter of this study are Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (1956),

Bhishma Sahni’s Tamas (1973), Chaman Nahal’s Azadi (1975), Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-

Candy-Man (1988), and Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988) where the theme

of Partition is a major preoccupation of the novelists.

This thesis has been divided into five chapters between an Introduction and a

Summing Up. The first chapter, which is introductory traces the events leading to

Partition - the origin and the growth of the idea of Pakistan. The chapter also presents

a brief survey of the novels in which the theme of Partition is a central theme and the

works where Partition occurs marginally or incidentally with a view to gaining wider

perspective on the topic of my study.

The second chapter, “The Trauma of Partition in Khuswant Singh’s Train to

Pakistan” discusses how a peaceful and tranquil village like Mano Majra suddenly

wakes up to unprecedented violence and horror on the eve of the Partition. The

chapter also studies how the Sikhs and the Muslims, who had for generations lived

together with peace and harmony as brothers, can no longer trust each other and

Muslims are threatened with retaliation.

Chapter three “The Holocaust of Communal Violence in Bhisham Sahni’s

Tamas” analyses the novel Tamas written by the victim of Partition. This chapter deal

in detail with the eruption and working of riots while enumerating the sufferings of
 31
individuals. The chapter also presents a critique of the failure of the British

government in curbing the communal violence.

Chapter four “Migration, Displacement and Relocation in Chaman Nahal’s

Azadi“ studies the horrible incidents caused by Partition, the enforced exodus and the

plight of the migrants as depicted in the novel during the time of Partition. It also

deals with the problems of rehabilitation of the uprooted refugees.

Chapter five “The Partition and its Horrors in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man”

analyses how Sidhwa deals with the eruption of communal riots and more particularly

violence against women as well as the treatment of abducted women. The chapter also

studies the physical and psychological torments that the innocent children suffer at the

hands of the harsh world around them and how Sidhwa clearly states her loyalty to

Jinnah and the newly created nation state of Pakistan.

Chapter six “Futile Cartographies in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines”,

takes up the case of Partition violence, and conveys the idea that nationalism, based

on geographical borders and boundaries, makes no sense. This fictional work

delineates with the aftermath of Partition and with the Partition of Bengal as well. It is

very significant to observe that Amitav Ghosh is the only major English novelist who

is engrossed with the Bengal Partition, vis-a-vis the exilic movements that it led to.

Chapter seven “Summing Up” the last chapter of this thesis sums up the entire

study highlighting various aspects of Partition presented in the select novels. It also

tries to probe the message that the writers wish to impart to the world. Further, it

proposes a few other areas of research which could be carried out along the same line.