Giving Voice to Millions

Fifteen million people were displaced in 1947 when Great Britain’s presence in India ended. One of Great Britain’s final acts in the area was to create the separate countries of India and Pakistan (Keen). These fifteen million people became refugees based on their religion and the new national boundaries created by a government which was leaving the area. One of these people was writer Saadat Hasan Manto. In his short story titled “Toba Tek Singh”, Manto highlights the emotional impact assigning new borders had on the indigenous population.

The separation of British India into India and Pakistan divided 400 million based solely on their religion, resulting in what could be the largest mass migration of people ever. Partitioning India/Pakistan was said to be done to accommodate religious differences between the Muslims, who became citizens of newly created Pakistan, and the Hindus, who made up the primary population of India. The fact is, prior to European involvement these two religions, and a third – the Sikhs – were able to coexist in the same regions. A quote from the private journal of Christopher Beaumont, private secretary to chairman of the Indo-Pakistan Boundary Commission, states “The trouble was that Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were an integrated population so that it was impossible to make a frontier without widespread dislocation” (BBC News). Beaumont’s journals clearly show that he considered the Partition of India/Pakistan to have been a hasty operation taken without enough consideration of the people who would be directly affected.  

Manto, who chose to stay in India after his family immigrated to Pakistan, was as torn with conflict as the rest of the population. He gave voice to this conflict in his writing. The short story “Toba Tek Singh” expresses the confusion, insecurity, and frustration about the Partition.

One effect of the Partition was confusion about location. Manto expresses this concern - “As to where Pakistan was located, the inmates knew nothing. That was why both the mad and the partially mad were unable to decide whether they were now in India or in Pakistan. If they were in India, where on earth was Pakistan? And if they were in Pakistan, then how come that until only the other day it was India? (Manto 732).” Generations of families lived and died in the same area they were born in. The land is more than just where they live; it has become who they are. Suddenly, that area has a new name and a new religion prevails. Feeling lost and confused, people are uprooted from all they have known and moved somewhere else. “That day he abused every major and minor Hindu and Muslim leader who had cut India into two, turning his beloved into an Indian and him into a Pakistani” (Manto 731).

Confusion leads to insecurity. If the place changed once, it could happen again. Unresolved boundary issues continue to cause problems between India and Pakistan (Keen). Manto also voices this concern – “It was anybody’s guess what was going to happen to Lahore, which was currently in Pakistan but could slide into India at any moment. It was also possible that the entire subcontinent of India might become Pakistan. And who could say if both India and Pakistan might not entirely vanish from the map of the world one day?”

Confusion also leads to resistance, drawing a line in the sand. In Manto’s story two characters react this way. One, a Muslim inmate, climbs a tree and refuses to come down stating, “’I wish to live neither in Indian nor in Pakistan I wish to live in this tree.’ (Manto 730)”.  This character is eventually persuaded to come down from the tree, in essence conceding to the plan of those in charge. The other, the title character who is a Sikh, refused to cross from one country to the other. He refused to capitulate to the powers that be and chose to die as a man between countries. “There, behind barbed wire, on one side, lay India and behind more barbed wire, on the other side, lay Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh. (734)” . It was resistance to the partition that resulted in “riots, rapes, murders, and looting” along the border, especially in Punjab (Keen) (BBC News).

In his short story “Toba Tek Singh”, Saadat Hasan Manto was able to highlight the angst felt by citizens displaced by the Partition. Through the characters’ reactions to the news of the Partition, Manto gives voice to all those who were directly affected by the government’s decisions. The setting of an insane asylum allowed the characters to speak freely of their confusion, their frustration, their loss of identity, and, in some, their resistance to new ideology. 

Sources: 

BBC News. 10 August 2007. Partitioning India Over Lunch. Web. 8 February 2014. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6926464.stm>.

Keen, Shirin. "Partition of India." July 2012. Postcolonial Studies @ Emory. Web. 7 February 2014. <http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/partition-of-india/>.

Manto, Saadat Hasan. "Toba Tek Singh." Akbari, Suzane, et al. Norton Anthology of World Literature Volume F. New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 729-734. Print .