Understanding the Historicity of the Text: A Reading of Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan (original) (raw)
Related papers
Indialogs, 2016
Partition is a complex historical reality that continues to puzzle the minds of scholars, historians and imaginative writers. Ever since its occurrence, they have endeavored to comprehend the subtle nuances of the complex strands that shaped the making of this seminal event. Through a comparative analysis of Singh's Train to Pakistan and Sahni's Tamas, the present study attempts to examine, how the profoundly sensitive and deeply perceptive imagination of both Singh and Sahni create texts which re-enact, with sheer clarity and force, the violent happenings of partition. Thus they enable the readers to revision the complexities involved, create awareness/consciousness in them regarding those historical blunders, the consequences of which are still borne by the people, and also urge them to revise/reform their beliefs, thinking and practices so that their present as well as future is safeguarded against such catastrophic events.
A "Messy" History and its Many "Messy" Texts: An Essay on Partition (India, 1947) and its Narratives
Literature Compass, 2006
The division of British India into India and Pakistan in August 1947 was accompanied by the dislocation of between twelve and sixteen million people and the violent deaths of around a million. Punjab and Bengal, the two provinces that were divided, were the most affected but so were other parts of the country. After all, mixed populations (Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, and so on) were more the norm than not in rural and urban India, making the very notion of two homelands, one with a Muslim majority and another with a Hindu majority, somewhat difficult to realize. Apparently the leadership expected what was euphemistically referred to as “an orderly exchange of population” in spite of the fact that the boundaries were officially announced on August 17, 1947, that is, after the actual transfer of power to the two successor states on August 14–15, 1947. Individuals, families, and communities that found themselves on the “wrong” side of the border were dispossessed of land and home, faced with the threat of bodily harm, spent months on the road and in refugee camps, and began the long process of resettlement. The place where the shock and disbelief first register, as do attempts to negotiate an impossible history of violence, is the literary text. This article attempts to introduce a literature that self-identifies with this traumatic historical experience. Partition literature is best contextualized by developments in two academic, disciplinary fields: history and literary criticism. Disciplinary history has only recently acknowledged the need for a social history of Partition and literary criticism has only recently expanded to allow for ways of discussing a traumatic literature other than the limiting one of “literariness.” Thus the article attempts to interweave a discussion of Partition literature with a discussion of shifting critical approaches to it. By beginning with a look at Partition's erasure in disciplinary history, the article aims to encourage the readership to consider ways in which the historiographical has informed or shaped Partition literature and the history of its reception.
Re-envisioning Partition: An Alternative Analysis of Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan
The last official colonial agenda and the first step towards methodized decolonization drawn and materialized by British supremacy that cursed the lives of millions is India's partition in 1947. The event of partition made space for basically two types of literary approaches: in the first phase, writers concentrated on the depiction of overwhelming violence and incredible confusion and in the second, came a revised form of narrative, a contrapuntal mode of conceiving partition and its various receptions apart from the metanarratives. The second body of writings celebrates a subversive critical engagement concentrated on the cosmopolitan modes of diasporic existence and attempted to bridge the boundaries of transnational, cultural, and religious disparities. The partition constitutes a field of transformation and a reverse discourse that became the condition of multiple possibilities. It also created a framework for the resurgence of nationalism and a glocal positionality of Indian diaspora. The paper investigates a theoretical as well as the very personal fight and plight (along with the political hoax) of the protagonists to survive in changing realities. The protagonists in the course of this short novel evolve into more 2 compassionate beings and mature a sort of hybridity in this partition puzzle. It forges to heal the rupture and aporia and embarks on a potential resistance, intervention, and translation. The article envisions a gateway to rise from racial apartheid and reconcile towards empathetic partition possibilities.
Trauma of Partition: A Study of Khushwant Singh’s “Train To Pakistan” and Chaman Nahal’s “Azadi”
Journal of emerging technologies and innovative research, 2018
Abstract: Indian writings in English, a product of the clash between Indian and the Western cultures, have evolved to a great extent in the post-colonial era. The partition of India, also known as the “Great Divide”, has been depicted by many creative minds through novels, dramas and films. “Train To Pakistan” and “Azadi” are two such novels which depict the effect of the event on the individuals. The effect was manifold and the people had to face unprecedented problems like displacement, abduction of their womenfolk, atrocities and loss of near and dear ones. As an Indian trauma, the partition has been described as a massive human tragedy by both Khushwant Singh and Chaman Nahal. In fact, the incidents which took place as a result of the partition keep on affecting the relationship of India and Pakistan even today. Both the countries are mutually suspicious and the danger of nuclear war is not out of question.
Ruptured Histories: Literature on the Partition (India, 1947
2003
In 1994, the editors of the Indian Review o f Books lamented: ‘it would seem that the great writing that a cataclysmic event like the Partition should have produced is yet to come in full measure, and offer the catharsis that only literature perhaps can’ (1). In the same year, Alok Bhalla, the editor of one of the first Englishlanguage collections of Partition literature reportedly stated in an interview: ‘there is not just a lack of great literature, there is, more seriously, a lack of history’ (qtd. in Ravikant 160).1 This lament has taken on the force of tradition with Professor Jaidev commenting, in 1996, that Partition literature ‘is not a gallery of wellwrought urns’ (2) and Ian Talbot, in 1997, stating that the ‘stereotypes and stylised emotional responses’ typical of ‘lesser novelists’ is ‘pervasive in much of the literature of partition, whether it has been produced by contemporaries or those distanced from the actual events’ (105-106). As recently as 2001, an otherwise val...
RE-MEMORIZING BRUTAL PARTITION IN KHUSHWANT SINGH'S TRAIN TO PAKISTAN
IJCIRAS, 2019
"The wounds will take decades to heal, centuries to overcome the trauma." (Gulzar) Literature gets affected by the historical events and the writer cannot ignore the reality. History can be called the upholder of past events. History establishes an illuminating bridge between reality and imagination. India, which once known as Golden Bird got partitioned in 1947. India is the land of Gods, Saints and Seers where people from different religions live together with love and affection but the incident of partition has changed all these values. The partition of sub-continent in 1947 was not merely the division of land but also the division of feelings, love and the unity of the innocent citizens that got butchered. Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan portrays the horrible experience of the partition as millions of people have to leave their ancestral homelands. Truth meets fiction with incredible affect as Singh's Train to Pakistan recounts stories that he, his family and companions themselves have experienced. This research paper attempts to show how Khushwant Singh describes the realistic tale of the Partition of India and Pakistan. The purpose behind Singh's writing this novel was to highlight the holocaust which happened during Partition on India Pakistan border which affects the psyche of the people till today. The Partition of 1947 has compelled the Hindus to leave Pakistan and Muslims to leave India. After studying Singh's Train to Pakistan one can himself creates a moving picture before the eyes, what had happened during the time of partition?.
A Study of Partition Experience in the Writings of Select Writers of India and Pakistan
IJBAR (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH), 2019
Partition encompasses the division of a given territory peacefully and efficiently. The Partition of India in 1947, sordidly, led to a holocaust. The Holocaust took one million lives and an equal number being either displaced or rendered missing or refugee (Mufti 55). The Partition, ironically, has become bread and butter to politicians and capitalists on both sides of the border. Invariably these state operators are being operated by some non-state actors residing thousands of miles away from the site of strife and safe from being suspected or implicated. Surprisingly, little fiction of considerable importance and proportion on the Partition is available. The available literature is, again, not proportionate to the effects it had on the lives of people. The problem is not indecipherable though. Partition is a significant issue in the history of India and Pakistan with an ever-evolving pertinence. Now and then it rises from its ashes and claims lives. Sometimes the losses are of catastrophic proportion. There is no particular intellectual or rational constant on which a writer can delve for a long time while handling it. Emotions have always taken the upper hand while discussing Partition. The Partition and its ever-changing algorithm are comparable with the Israel-Palestine issue in the Middle-East. This paper has steered clear of such lopsided emotional discourses and focussed on the feel the universal vibes in the writings of some prominent writers of Pakistan and India who saw the dark days of Partition and subsequently ventilated their experiences in prose and verse. Through the looking glass of their writings, this paper will look-within the limited span of a research paper, of course-at the fate of humanity during a tumultuous phase in the history of two-nations, many partitions.
Akshara, Vol. 16 , 2024
This paper attempts to study the catastrophic events of India and their consequences due to arrival of the British through the lens of Partitions. Partiton of India and Pakistan has left an indelible mark on the psyche of the citizens of both the countries. The present generation knows about partition through many representations: historical, social, political, literary, etc. This traumatic partition has been recorded by journalists, writers, poets of the age. Most of the fictional and non-fictional works contribute to the history of Indian Partition. Partitions by Kamleshwar doesn't only deal with the partition of India and Pakistan but also discusses multiple partitions all over the world. It revisits the catastrophic events through various ages and poses significant questions about the same. This paper focuses on the events which took place in India due to the involvement of the British and had left terrible consequences. Kamleshwar has depicted the British as 'the other' and considers them responsible for the numerous catastrophic events which took place in India.