Train to Pakistan

This is a very interesting book about the partition of India and Pakistan. It is written very well, but the content is very graphic and very sad considering the things that happened during this time. It is one thing to read about the experiences of that time, but this book is about how one small village went from muslims and hindus living together peacefully and harmoniously even after the partition started, but get torn apart neighbor against neighbor as the muslims were forced to relocate and then be finally sent on a train to Pakistan, and facing that trip when they know about the horrible and cruel massacure as trains are used to shuttle hindus from Pakistan, and muslims to India. Muslims decide to massacure Hindus coming across the border to Indian, and the Hindus decided to reciprocate with their own massacures of the Muslims. The story is about how one village managed to derail the massacure of their village members of Muslims who would have normally been facing the same fate as all previous trains. This book shows how people of two different religions can live together harmonously until interfered with by the tides of time and government policies. A really good book, and I would suggest anyone interested in Indian history of this time to read it to understand how it actually played out in some peoples lives.

TRAIN TO PAKISTAN, by Khushwant Singh, first published in 1956, is something of a classic in India, but I ran across it quite by accident. I'm glad I did, as it offers a quick and surprisingly entertaining - and educational - glimpse of the bloody civil war that erupted between the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims in 1947 during the partition of a newly independent India. During this time distrust, fear and hatred ran rampant, causing formerly peaceful neighbors to betray and even murder each other over religious and political differences. Singh used the tiny, remote village of Mano Majra, situated near the border of the newly created state of Pakistan to illustrate how quickly things could change. The author's famously agnostic views play a prominent part in his story, particularly represented by Iqbal, the "stranger in town," an educated "social worker" whose questionable religious /ethnic identity leads to his arrest following a murder in the town. There is also an understated "love story" between Jugga, a Sikh petty criminal, and the daughter of the local Imam, which figures in. Singh's feelings about organized religion are stated thusly - "India is constipated with a lot of humbug. Take religion. For the Hindu, it means little besides caste and cow-protection. For the Muslim, circumcision and kosher meat. For the Sikh, long hair and hatred of the Muslim." And he has more to say - about Christians, ethics, philosophy ("muddleheadedness"), Yoga, reincarnation, etc. But you get the idea. There are generous helpings of sly humor and sarcasm here too in its portrayals of minor officials and religious clerics. But what takes center stage by story's end is the wholesale butchery and horror of this awful conflict, with its trains full of bodies going both ways across the border in those early days of the partition.I TRAIN TO PAKISTAN is Singh's best known book, and was also successfully adapted to the screen. It is a powerful little novel, no question. Very highly recommended. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

The summer of the Partition of India in 1947 marked a season of bloodshed that stunned and horrified those living through the nightmare. Entire families were forced to abandon their land for resettlement to Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. Once that fateful line was drawn in the sand, the threat of destruction became a reality of stunning proportions. Travelers clogged the roads on carts, on foot, but mostly on trains, where they perched precariously on the roofs, clung to the sides, wherever grasping fingers could find purchase. Muslim turned against Hindu, Hindu against Muslim, in their frantic effort to escape the encroaching massacre. But the violence followed the refugees. The farther from the cities they ran, the more the indiscriminate killing infected the countryside, only to collide again and again in a futile attempt to reach safety. Almost ten million people were assigned for relocation and by the end of this bloody chapter, nearly a million were slain. A particular brutality overtook the frenzied mobs, driven frantic by rage and fear. Women were raped before the anguished eyes of their husbands, entire families robbed, dismembered, murdered and thrown aside like garbage until the streets were cluttered with human carnage. The trains kept running. For many remote villages the supply trains were part of the clockwork of daily life, until even those over-burdened trains, off-schedule, pulled into the stations, silent, no lights or signs of humanity, their fateful cargo quiet as the grave. At first the villagers of tiny Mano Majra were unconcerned, complacent in their cooperative lifestyle, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and quasi-Christian. Lulled by distance and a false sense of security, the villagers depended upon one another to sustain their meager quality of life, a balanced system that served everyone's needs. There had been rumors of the arrival of the silent "ghost trains" that moved quietly along the tracks, grinding slowly to a halt at the end of the line, filled with slaughtered refugees. When the first ghost train came to Mano Majra the villagers were stunned. Abandoning chores, they gathered on rooftops to watch in silent fascination. With the second train, they were ordered to participate in burying the dead before the approaching monsoons made burial impossible. But reality struck fear into their simple hearts when all the Muslims of Mano Majra were ordered to evacuate immediately, stripped of property other than what they could carry. The remaining Hindus and Sikhs were ordered to prepare for an attack on the next train to Pakistan, with few weapons other than clubs and spears. The soldiers controlled the arms supply and would begin the attack with a volley of shots. When the people realized that this particular train would be carrying their own former friends and neighbors, they too were caught, helpless in the iron fist of history, save one disreputable (Hindu) dacoit whose intended (Muslim) wife sat among her fellow refugees. The story builds impressive steam as it lurches toward destiny, begging for the relief of action. In the end, the inevitable collision of conscience and expediency looms like a nacreous cloud above the hearts of these unsophisticated men, a mere slender thread of hope creating unbearable tension. I was impressed with the power of Singh's timeless narrative, as the characters are propelled toward a shattering climax, as potentially devastating as any incomprehensible actions of mankind's penchant for destruction. I was struck also, by the irony: how the proliferation of a rail system that infused previously unknown economic growth potential to formerly remote areas, also became the particular transport of Death. Only a few years earlier, a rail system in another part of the world carried innumerable Jews to Hitler's ovens, another recent barbaric use of Progress, originally intended to further enrich the potential accomplishments of the human race.

インド・パキスタン分離というのは小説の題材としては一つの定型なのでしょうか。そういえば、 A Division of the Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) の最後にもこの題材が扱われています。１９４７年の夏という凝縮された時間、通常では考えられない移動の規模、そこで流された流血、残虐行為の非合理性、そこにすべてインド亜大陸の歴史的な矛盾が自然発生的に凝縮されて噴出したかのようです。そういう意味では、いつまでも変わらない小説特に悲劇のイマジネーションを刺激するのでしょうか？ 本書は１９５６年の作品です。まだ悲劇の具体性が消え去っていない時期です。これがもう１０年たつと悲劇は歴史的な題材としての抽象性の刻印を帯び始めますが。題材は一般的なものですが、著者の特性が小説のディテールにははっきりと表れています。選択されたパキスタンとの国境沿いの町は、多数のシーク教徒と少数派のイスラム教徒が居住する町なのです。ここにはマスとしてのヒンズー教徒の存在は見当たりません。もっともサブ・プロットは、ヒンズー教徒の金貸しの家への強盗（dacoist)の襲撃に始まるのですが。ヒンズー教徒の存在を消すことによって、悲劇の不可避性のイメージを弱めようとしたのかもしれませんが。 この作品には主人公はいません。複数の中心となる人物が、この町を超えたところで起きる予想外の事態に、翻弄されて行く展開が主題となります。この町自体には、惨劇を引き起こす歴史的、個人的な必然性は存在していないのです。ある者は、状況へ機会主義的に対応することになり、この惨劇の後に来るであろう政治の世界での地位の確保を目的としています。ここには、体制側の人物だけでなく、社会主義革命を夢想する反体制側の者も含まれます。ある者は、過去の継続と暴力の非合理性にこそ、宗教の本質を見出します。 しかしながら、インドの現実は、この凝縮された時間の中では、様々な感情の噴出や思い出の想起や政治的な操作を可能とします。そして現実に、パキスタン側から送られてくる「死の列車」は、生半可な理想の維持を不可能とします。この現実に立脚しない「高尚な理想」の提唱（ The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture And Identity とすさまじい現実の交錯こそが、インドの本質なのです。 小説なので種明かしはできませんが、結末の部分の評価は難しいところです。このような結末のつけ方こそ本質的な問題のintractabilityを如実に示すものなのではないでしょうか。そもそもなぜ同じ村に住む人々の宗教がどうして別れてしまうのか。このような「ノーマル」ではない状況が日常的に存在してしまう歴史的な経緯こそが、インドの現実なのです。

Me gustó que llegó en el plazo previsto, tenía partes subrayadas con fosforito y algún post-it, pero todo perfecto relación calidad-precio. Muy buen libro sobre la partición de la India-Pakistán.

Really interesting book, loved the insights and perspective on Indian and Pakistani history.

What a superb,concise account of the partition of India in 1947. Every page of this novel was almost perfect, the balance,the narrative,the message. Khushwant Singh has managed to convey the horror of 1947 in the Punjab with clarity and venom as the communal violence spreads along the borders of the new states. He uses the voices of his characters to give some account of the bloodletting and violence that caused peaceful communities to implode. The trains in the novel are at the centre of the message as they carry refugees back and forwards past a little Punjabi village by the banks of the Sutlej river. New Delhi seems a world away from the chaos enveloping the region, the neat incisions of the political cartographers are revealed as gaping wounds. The Sikhs and Muslims in this novel are the victims of the horror,Singh portrays the inter-faith traditions of the village and the difficulties that result as their awareness of the horror in Pakistan is revealed. The stories of the local bad boy Juggat Singh and a party worker back from england are woven into the fabric of tragedy and terror. The martial Sikhs facing daily murder and violence,the muslims who don't want to go to Pakistan,there are many confused people here as the new order comes into being. A lot of the blame for this horror lies with the unhealthy speed at which the British pulled out of India and the obvious danger of splitting a religiously mixed region (the Punjab) into two different nations. The Sikhs possibly suffered worst during that summer of 1947 but nobody living along that border will ever forget the communal hatred and massacres that burst upon them and scarred the creation of Pakistan for ever. 5 stars.

A window into the trauma of partition of India.