Religious Conflict And Sacrifice In Khushwant Singh's Train To Pakistan
The Preamble to the Indian Constitution proclaims India to be a secular country, and Article 25 guarantees to all its citizens freedom of religious belief and practice. India is a multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious society and she has been able to retain its unity in diversity. However, the sheer reality is pretty contrasting. The decree for the nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), in the recent parliament elections is an indication that India’s majority Hindus are uncomfortable with their minority Muslim counterparts. The truth is that secularism is a feature of modern industrial society, not of the foregoing feudal society. India is still semi-feudal as evident from the unrestrained casteism and communalism prevalent in our society, therefore, the adjustment between these two communities has been a failure so far, resulting in violent communal riots. The partition of India left both India and Pakistan devastated. The Hindus and Muslims used to live together peacefully but it did not last for long. August 14th, 1947 saw the birth of the new Islamic Republic known as Pakistan. The two countries were founded on religion, with Pakistan as an Islamic state and India as a secular one. On the eve of the partition of the Indian subcontinent thousands fled from both sides of the border seeking refuge and security. The natives were uprooted and it was certainly a ghastly experience for them to give up their belongings and rush to a land which was not theirs. Not only was the country divided, but also were the provinces of Punjab and Bengal divisions that caused catastrophic riots and claimed the lives of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike. The partition was exceptionally brutal and large in scale and unleashed misery and loss of lives and property as millions of refugees fled either Pakistan or India.
Train to Pakistan, a novel by Khushwant Singh, is a heartrendering tale of a country divided by religious and political differences. The backdrop is set during the historic Partition of India in the summer of 1947, which is considered one of the bloodiest times in the country’s history. Singh’s narrative marks how entire families are made to abandon their lives and uproot themselves to realign their lives based on religious allegiance to ensure safety and survival. Many refugees attempted to flee to the far outskirts of the skirmish, where they imagined they might outrun the violence. Mano Majra is the place of the action of the novel. It is a tiny village situated on the Indian border, half a mile away from the river Sutlej where trains’ arrivals and departures were a part of the daily life cycle of the villagers. The Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus lived in perfect harmony in this village and there was a time when no one in the village knew that The British had left the country and the country was divided into Pakistan and Hindustan. Life for the villagers of Mano Majra begins to change suddenly when the first ghost train (or funeral trains) arrives. Partition began to take its toll in this tiny village also. Khushwant Singh has divided the novel into four parts and it is in the fourth part named ‘Karma’, that he emphasizes the philosophy of ‘Karma’, that is, action, as described in The Bhagavad Gita.
The partition touched the whole country and Singh attempts to look at the tragic and terrible events from the point of view of the people of Mano Majra. He doesn’t blame any particular community for the riots, rather he says both the sides are equally responsible:
“Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped.”
Khushwant Singh raises the curtain by giving an account of the summer of 1947 and what happens these days. During the pre-partition days, the village is depicted as a place where diverse religions co-exist retaining their distinct physical identities. There was mutual cultural harmony among the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians who visited the village. The village is inhabited by about seventy families among which there is only one Hindu family, while the others are Sikhs and Muslims about equal in number. The Sikhs own all the land around the village; the Muslims are tenants and share the tilling with the owners. There are a few families of sweepers whose religion is uncertain. The Muslims claim them as their own yet when American missionaries visit Mano Majra the sweepers wear khaki sola topees and join their womenfolk in singing hymns to the accompaniment of a harmonium. Sometimes they visit the Sikh temple, too. Singh describes a scene of religious contact as Muslim Mullah at the Mosque sings “Allah-o-Akbar” and Sikh priest in Sikh temple succeeds them. The railway station occupies an important position and a small colony of shopkeepers and hawkers also grew up around it to supply travelers with food, betel leaves, cigarettes, tea, biscuits and sweetmeats. In the novel we see that initially the general atmosphere was peaceful and people did not as such mind the presence of people belonging to different religions. Mano Majra remains unaffected as the sub-inspector of police says: ‘No communal trouble in the area?’... ‘We have escaped it so far, sir’. They never forgot the fact that they had been living together for years and a momentary decision should not be strong enough to break those bonds. Even after the communal tension envelops most of the regions, Mano Majra manages to maintain the peace and tolerance in spite of the heterogeneity of the village. But partition had its effects on Mano Majra as well later on as it is written in the novel:
“Partition touched Mano Majrans at both levels — at the community level and at the individual level. At the community level it affects very badly the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The dark clouds of suspicion and fear arise among the Sikhs and Muslims, who have lived together for centuries”.
The routine life of Mano Majra was disturbed one evening in August 1947. The village moneylender, Ram Lal’s house was raided by dreaded dacoits. On the roof of his house, the money lender was beaten with butts of guns and spear handles and kicked and punched. The police's action in investigating the murder germinates distrust between the two communities by bringing in the Muslim's hand in the murder. The murderers of Ram Lal are Malli and his gang but arrested for the crime to those who are unknown and innocent to the murder, the persons like Iqbal Singh and Juggut Singh. Besides this, the happy and peaceful town Mano Majra disturbed a lot by the trains, its delayed and its arrival full with corpses. The same time rumors spread in the border villages about the communal riots.
As a result of the tensions across the country many Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan thronged in the village and with them carried the news of arsons, rape and killings. Rumors of atrocities committed by both Sikhs and Muslims in Patiala, Ambala, and Kapurthala began to spread. They had heard of gentlewomen having their veils taken off, being stripped and marched down crowded streets to be raped in the market places. They also heard of mosques being desecrated by the slaughter of pigs on the premises and of copies of the Holy Quran being torn up by infidels. Quite suddenly every Sikh in Mano Majra became a stranger with an evil intent. For the first time, the name of Pakistan came to mean something to them as a refuge where there were no Sikhs.
Moreover, the tension is aggravated by the discovery of corpses of men, women, children and animals floating down the river Sutlej. Yet the feeling and spirit of mutual welfare and brotherhood endured. There was a message that the government was planning to transport Muslims from Mano Majra to Pakistan for their safety and security. Hindu-Muslim feeling became acute. Muslims massacred Hindus and Hindus massacred Muslims. When the news of evacuation came, it created a mournful numbness and made them weep. As the Muslims were evacuated from the village, some young Sikhs burning in anger at events taking place in Pakistan, came to the village. The leader talks of the atrocities inflicted on Sikhs by Muslims. On their instigations quite a few of the Mano Majran Sikhs who weep at the departure of Mano Majra Muslims volunteer to aid and abet the destruction of train, carrying Muslims to Pakistan, stealthily at night.
They reach the conclusion that the only way to stop violence in Pakistan is to return violence for violence. The magistrate and police are totally unable to control the communal violence that threatens to erupt. They decide to entrust the task to Juggut Singh and Iqbal Singh whom they have arrested on the charge of dacoity and murder of Lala Ram Lal. The magistrate believes that these two persons will be able to influence the people and save the Muslim from being slaughtered. Because Iqbal is a social activist and Juggut Singh is in love with a Muslim girl called Nooran.
Train to Pakistan also tells us about the sacrifice of one man to save a few hundred lives while insanity prevails everywhere. It is the story of one man struggling with his thoughts and debating with himself weather it is correct to stand in front of 50 men waiting to kill hundreds of their own species, to stop because what they are going to do is immoral. When Juggut Singh comes to know about Nooran and the people’s plan about the train, he performs the act of supreme self-sacrifice to save the lives of people. Though there were others also who knew about the plot and wanted to fail their plan but they were unable to prevent the plot against the fleeing Muslims. Juggut Singh, on the other hand, does not care for his own safety and foils the plot to ambush the train, letting it to roll over his body to Pakistan.
Khushwant Singh has hinted at the reality in the novel that there were people who could have done things to stop the disturbance from taking the ugly form that it eventually took. But for various reasons, such people kept them away from the trouble. They did not even try in this direction.
In the novel thus, when the disturbance starts in Mano Majra, Juggut was in police custody. Along with him, there was Iqbal, educated in England and an expert in preaching Hindu-Muslim unity. Police free them from the custody hoping that both of them will help in stopping the villagers from killing the Muslims who were going to Pakistan through train. While Juggat loses his life in the effort, Iqbal, a non-communal political worker, an idealist and nationalist takes a worldly wise approach and keeps himself away from the trouble. Juggat, in spite of knowing the possible consequences of his decision, does not change his mind. His love for Nooran appears for him to be more valuable than anything. His self-sacrifice is motivated by his love for Nooran.
Jugga makes his supreme sacrifice for his love, Nooran, who along with others of her caste were going to Pakistan by the train by saving it from being derailed. Thus initially Jugga’s love for Nooran was mere personal physical love but it is transformed into the love for the entire train load of Muslims. At the time of crisis the lover in him takes a prominent decision of rescuing his beloved but was eventually shot by his co-religionists.
When Juggat learns from his mother that Nooran visited him before leaving for the refugee camp and she carries his child in her womb, he cannot bear the separation from his beloved. When the fanatics prepare to attack the train when it passes through Mano Majra railway bridge, Juggut Singh appears on the bridge and cuts the rope stretched to sweep off the people sitting on the roof when the train passes through the bridge. The leader of the gang fires shots at him and he falls down. The scene is described as:
“There was a volley of shots. The man shivered and collapsed. The rope snapped in the center as he fell. The train went over him, and went to Pakistan.”
We see how Juggut draws strength from God to help himself in his noble pursuit which seems to be the novelist's plea also. Violence cannot be conquered by violence and it is only love that can pacify the hatred in human beings. Love has the power to transform a criminal like Juggut Singh into a courageous human being who sacrifices his own life for the well-being of the other people irrespective of their caste, class and religion.
To conclude, it can be said that Train to Pakistan is based upon conflict of cultures and ethnic violence. The entire story revolves round the communal riot between Hindus and Muslims. The partition of India was an important event not only in the history of the Indian subcontinent but in world history. The partition was exceptionally brutal and large in scale and unleashed misery and loss of lives and property as millions of refugees fled either Pakistan or India as it is depicted in this novel. Singh’s characters and their distinct voices portray the possibility of dialogue in their actions. Juggut Singh’s action of saving hundreds of Muslims on the bridge, in order to save his Muslim lover, Nooran, is Singh’s endeavor to show dialogue is present in hybrid love. As Nooran carries a Sikh child in her womb she is a harbinger of Sikh Muslim entente. Juggut chants the unknown religious mantra while cutting the rope across the bridge which could have killed hundreds in the train to Pakistan. Jugga sacrificed his life and finally succeed in his plan of saving Nooran and others. In this well-conceived plot Khushwant Singh shows how partition took place and the situation at the end turns out to be different from the one at the beginning of the novel. The title itself is suggestive of journey. In the first part of the novel, people travel smoothly, slowly and unharmed from Delhi via.Mano Majra to Lahore and vice versa. In the later part of the novel, quick and anxious journey is depicted. Hindus and Sikhs, who travel from Pakistan to India, travel for the last time. On the contrary, Muslims who are sent to Pakistan from India are sent alive because of the sacrifices of people like Jugga. So, one can see the element of romance in this apparently rational plot.
