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WRITING PARTITION
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WRITING PARTITION

AESTHETICS AND IDEOLOGY IN

HINDI AND URDU LITERATURE

Bodh Prakash
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Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii

1. Introduction 1

2. Modernisms, Western and Indian 17

3. The Individual and Society 49

4. The Woman Protagonist 91

5. Ideology and Aesthetics 131

Conclusion 193

Bibliography 201

Index 213

About the Author 221

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

So many people have contributed to this book over the years that it is perhaps
not possible to acknowledge each and every one. Teachers, students, friends
and family have all in their own distinct ways inspired, helped, motivated and
enabled me to engage with and write on the issue of Partition. The initial
interest was probably aroused by my mother ’s account of her early married
life in Pahar Ganj. In her mid twenties at the time of her marriage, she wit-
nessed the violent and troubled times of 1947, when Muslim neighbours left
and Punjabi refugees occupied their houses. The galis of Mantola Mohalla
(where I grew up), the houses of Muslims, the mosque, Gandi Gali, Chheh
Tooti and many other landmarks acquired morbid shades as I added colour to
my mother ’s sparse stories. Though distant in time, these stories have
remained with me and perhaps motivated me to choose Partition as my area
of research.
First and foremost I would like to express my gratitude to Professor
Meenakshi Mukherjee for her warm and generous support. Her outstanding
scholarship on the origins of realism in Indian literatures, from a critical per-
spective that locates literature within its social, historical, cultural, philosoph-
ical and epistemological contexts, has been an important influence on my
intellectual development. I have been truly fortunate to have had such an
inspiring teacher and eminent scholar as Professor Mukherjee to oversee the
formative stages of this book.
Prof. G.J.V. Prasad’s support has been equally important in bringing the
project to fruition. I am particularly grateful to him for looking through my
drafts very quickly at short notice and of fering extremely constructive and
useful advice.
Professor Bipan Chandra has been singularly responsible for my interest in
and understanding of communalism and Partition. Over the years, interaction
with him has contributed in a major way towards my approach to this vital
issue. Joginder Paul Sahib has been an inspirational influence for me.
Extremely sensitive and kind, he has encouraged me towards “creative”
research. Intizar Husain Sahib, who graciously invited me over to his house
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viii Acknowledgements

in Lahore in April 2001, left an indelible impression of composite culture on

my first visit to Pakistan. A gentle, soft-spoken, Urdu-speaking migrant from
Dibai in Bulandshahar district, surrounded by Buddhist and Hindu artifacts in
the midst of Punjabi-speaking Lahoris, he symbolized all that had been
destroyed by Partition.
Dr. Mustafa of the Urdu centre of the Central Institute of Indian
Languages, located at Solan, has been extremely helpful in the execution of
this project by translating several primary and secondary Urdu texts and
answering my innumerable queries about Urdu fiction. Dr. Alex Tickell of the
University of Portsmouth was kind enough to go through the draft version
and politely (!) suggest changes and elaborations with regard to modernism
and postmodernism, apart from sending relevant secondary material.
My colleagues, Sukrita Paul Kumar and Vibha Singh Chouhan of the
Department of English at Zakir Husain College, University of Delhi have
supported and helped in many ways, including reading the final drafts and
offering suggestions. Sukrita’ s work on Partition literature and Modernism
and particularly her study of the Nai Kahani/Jadeed Afsana has enriched my
understanding of the area. Vibha’s encouragement has been vital in moments
of self doubt, and there have been many such moments! My first paper pres-
entation and publication on Partition literature was the outcome of Vinita
Damodaran’s invitation to a seminar on “India 50” at the University of Sussex
in 1997. She has continued over the years to invite me for seminars that
required reinventing oneself. I would also like to thank my hosts at confer-
ences in Punjab University , Chandigarh, Rama Devi Women’s College,
Bhubhaneshwar and the University of Southampton for inviting me to pres-
ent my work. Interaction with scholars on these occasions has helped me
rethink many of my own formulations. Discussing issues of shared concern
with John Galaty of McGill University and Chris Theofanadis, musicologist
(who was then composing an opera on the refugee experience), in the beauti-
ful environs of the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio were useful during the
finalization of the book.
Aditya and Mridula have been a constant source of inspiration. They have
been warm, caring and affectionate at all times and contributed in many ways
to my intellectual growth. Alex and Rachel have been generous and welcom-
ing hosts at Oxford and Petersfield. Gyanesh has always been interested in
my academic work and gently nudged me in my lazy moments. Visha was
kind enough to read and comment on one of my chapters and find misplaced
references. Chandana and her father, Ajit Mozoomdar, warm and generous as
always, read the entire draft and of fered several constructive suggestions.
Salil has been very supportive and helpful with books and references. Vikram
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Acknowledgements ix

provided constant cheer and encouragement on warm summer evenings after

a hard day’s work.
My father would have been a proud man today had he lived. He had invest-
ed a lot in my education, both financially and otherwise, and to him I owe a
debt that can never be repaid. I also owe a debt to all my sisters, for my edu-
cation came at the expense of theirs. My mother has always been an emotional
anchor and stood by me through many dif ficult times.
It would be presumptuous to thank Sucheta for her support over all these
years so I shall not do so. Her work on communalism and Partition has been
very useful in my own understanding of the ideological underpinnings of the
politics of the 1940s. I would like to note that had it not been for Varun’s and
Srikant’s strong desire that I finish this project and perhaps spend more time
with them, I would not have been writing this!
Debjani Dutta of Pearson Education has been lar gely instrumental in this
book seeing the light of day . She responded immediately to the proposal of
this book and has ensured its quick publication. My very sincere thanks to
her. I am also grateful to Daniel Luiz for his unstinted support throughout the
production process.
And finally I would like to thank all my students whose interest in and
commitment to literature has kept me going all these years.
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1
INTRODUCTION

For many Indians, 15 August 1947 stands for the day that India achieved free-
dom after a long period of colonial rule; an epochal event in the history of the
Indian people. For others it represents the Partition of India, a bloody and ter-
rible period, unparalleled in the history of modern India. The unprecedented
scale of violence and the dislocation of people, their tortuous and insecure
journeys across newly created borders and the disruption of family and com-
munity lives has made Partition easily the most tragic event in living memory.
Apart from the indelible impression that Partition has left on the minds and
hearts of people, it has also led to social and political processes that continue
to af fect the lives of people even today. Little wonder then that scholars
across disciplines have engaged with Partition and the period of the 1940s
extensively. Historians in particular have brought sophisticated tools of
analysis to explore the processes that contributed to and resulted from the
Partition of 1947. But it is the creative writers who have been able to render
the trauma of individual victims and perpetrators in all its complexity .
The decision to partition India in the year of her independence was the out-
come of a particular kind of political mobilization from the late 1930s. The
stridency of Muslim League demands for the creation of a separate Muslim
nation reached a crescendo by the 1940s. The British government’s espousal
of divisive policies over a long period of imperial rule and its support to
Jinnah’s communal politics also contributed to the creation of an extremely
explosive situation. The League’s position that it was the exclusive represen-
tative of the Muslims flew in the face of the Congress’ claim to be a national
party representing the interests of all Indians. And while the British
Government dithered, the League decided to prove its claims on the streets by
announcing Direct Action Day. The Calcutta killings and the equally violent
massacres in Bihar and Noakhali set the stage for the communal carnage that
engulfed lar ge parts of India. The speed with which Mountbatten, the last
governor general of India, executed the Partition Plan left people on both
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2 Writing Partition

sides of the border vulnerable. Indif ferent to violence not directed against it,
the government did not take strict action against the rioters by deploying the
army, which was under British control. The colonial power decided to divide
and quit, leaving its erstwhile subjects to suffer the ignominy of rapes, abduc-
tions, killings and worse. While Punjab and Bengal were physically divided,
there was large-scale migration of Muslims from Bihar and East Punjab, the
United Provinces, and of Hindus from West Punjab, Sindh, Multan and the
North West Frontier Province.
The Partition of India became a major thematic concern of creative writers
from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and Bihar from the late 1940s, though
some of the more acclaimed works came out in the 1950s and 1960s. Numerous
short stories, novels and poems on Partition were written and continue to be
written even today in Hindi, Urdu, Bangla, Punjabi and English.
Several novels in English have come out in the last five decades of the
twentieth century, prominent among them are Khushwant Singh’ s Train to
Pakistan (1956), Balachandra Rajan’ s The Dark Dancer (1959), Manohar
Mulgaonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges (1964), Chaman Nahal’ s Azadi (1975),
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1982), and Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy
Man (also titled Cracking India , 1988). Some Bangla short stories
(Narendranath Mitra, “The Four Poster Bed” and Ramesh Chandra Sen, “The
White Horse”) have highlighted the subtle shift in the power relations between
the two communities in the wake of Partition. Jyotirmoyee Debi’ s Epar
Ganga, Opar Ganga (1967) is a major classic in Bangla.
The concerns of the East Pakistani novelists before 1971 were somewhat
different from those of their North Indian or West Pakistani counterparts.
While Abul Fazl’s Ranga Prabhat (1957) explored the overlaps between
Islam and socialism, Abu Rushd’s Nongor (1967) was critical of the growing
rift between East and West Pakistan.
In Punjabi, major writers like K.S. Duggal (Nun te Maa, 1951), Nanak Singh
(Khoon De Shole, 1948; Aag Di Khed, 1948; Majhdhar, 1949; Chitrakar, 1950),
Salim Khan Gimmi (Sanjh, 1953) and Amrita Pritam (Pinjar, 1950) published
several novels on the subject soon after Partition. Subsequently there have been
fewer narratives that focus on Partition in Punjabi, than in Hindi and Urdu.
The literary output in Urdu and Hindi has been prolific. Short stories by
Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Bhisham Sahni,
Agyeya, Vishnu Prabhakar , Krishna Sobti and others appeared in the late
1940s. Novels by both Indian and Pakistani writers like Rahi Masoom Reza’s
Aadha Gaon (Hindi, 1966), Abdullah Hussein’s Udaas Naslein (Urdu, 1963),
Yashpal’s Jhoota Such (Hindi, 1958–60) Qurratulain Hyder ’s Aag ka Dariya
(Urdu, 1958) and Khadija Mastoor ’s Aangan (Urdu, 1952), appeared in the
1950s and the 1960s. Later works on this theme were Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas
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Introduction 3

(Hindi, 1974), Intizar Husain’s Basti (Urdu, 1979), Manzoor Ehtesham’s Sookha
Bargad (Hindi, 1983) and Joginder Paul’ s Khwabrau (Urdu, 1990). Intizar
Husain, Mohammad Salim-ur -Rehaman and Joginder Paul have also pub-
lished several short stories related to Partition.
The interest in Partition-related themes and literature witnessed an increase
since the late 1970s and through the 1980s and the 1990s. One possible reason
could be the growing communal polarization in society. The anti-Sikh riots of
1984, the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and, even more recently, the
communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 have all contributed to writings and
debates converging on Partition as a focal point. Partition becomes a kind of
reference point against which contemporary events related to communalism
generally and Hindu–Muslim relations in particular are located. The two
major Indo-Pak Wars (1965 and 1971) and the contentious issue of Kashmir
have also played a role in making Partition a kind of meta-narrative at the
level of popular discourse. Interest in Partition also revived during the 1980s
as the post-Partition generation began to raise questions about its past as it came
of age. The search for one’s roots and their relevance for one’s identity can be
seen in attempts to find commonalities with people across the border .
The surge of interest in Partition-related literary narratives is evident from
the plethora of English translations of these narratives. Ramesh Mathur and
Mahendra Kulshreshta translated and edited a volume titled Writings on
India’s Partition in 1976, and Orphans of the S torm, edited by Saros
Cowasjee and K.S. Duggal, came out in 1985. In the 1990s, three major col-
lections of stories were published, viz., Stories About the Partition of India in
3 volumes, edited by Alok Bhalla (1994); An Epic Unwritten: The Penguin
Book of Partition S tories from Urdu, edited by Mohammad Umar Memon
(1998); and India Partitioned: The Other Face of Freedom, Vol. II, edited by
Mushirul Hasan (1995). English translations of several Partition novels in
Hindi and Urdu (such as Krishan BaldevVaid’s Guzra Hua Zamana, Joginder
Paul’s Khwabraw, Abdullah Hussein’s Udas Naslein and Khadija Mastoor ’s
Aangan) also appeared in the 1990s.
The testimonies, oral interviews, diaries and autobiographies of men and
women who lived and participated in the events of those times have drawn
the attention of many scholars and activists. Begum Anis Kidwai’s Azadi ki
Chaon Mein was translated into Hindi and excerpts in English translation
have appeared in some anthologies. Kamlaben Patel’ s Partition memoir, Torn
from the Roots (original in Gujarati, Mool Sotan Ukhdelan ), has been trans-
lated and published recently (2006). Mushirul Hasan’s India Partitioned: The
Other Face of Fr eedom, Vol. II, carries interviews of individuals who lived
through Partition riots. Since many of the creative writers have also been wit-
ness to Partition, the interface between their testimonies and their creative
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4 Writing Partition

articulation of the experience has also become an important area of study .

Interviews with Bhisham Sahni, Krishna Sobti, Intizar Husain, Krishan Baldev
Vaid, Bapsi Sidhwa, Kamleshwar and Gulzar have been included by Sukrita
Kumar in Narrating Partition: Texts, Interpretations, Ideas (2004) and Alok
Bhalla in his book Partition Dialogues: Memories of a Lost Home (2006).
On a smaller yet significant scale, scholars across dif ferent disciplines
have also published works on Partition-related issues. Many of these essays
have located a few Partition texts within the contemporary political, historical
and broader cultural framework.Alok Rai’s essay, “The Trauma of Independence:
Some Aspects of Progressive Hindi Literature, 1945–47”, has examined some
of the Hindi short stories published in Hans between 1945 and 1947. Based
on substantive primary research, the essay ar gues that the ‘high tide’ that lit-
erary Progressivism was riding in the early 1940s receded in the wake of the
communal violence unleashed by Partition,
…when the enlightened explanations break down in the face of a monstrous
upsurge of mass violence, one is left only with the horror—and the incomprehensi-
bility of this horror, finally, infects the rational understanding, the aesthetic imagi-
nation as well. 1
However, the essay is a selective study of narratives in the late 1940s and
does not relate them to the prevalent modes of progressive realist narration.
Aijaz Ahmad’s essay, “In the Mirror of Urdu: Recompositions of Nation
and Community, 1947–65” (1994), though not directly concerned with Partition
narratives, has ar gued for a continuity in Urdu literature from both Pakistan
and India between 1947 and 1965. The pre-Partition, secular, humanist con-
sensus shared by practically all major Urdu writers belonging to the Indian
Progressive Writers’ Association (IPWA) and the predominantly Prakrit and
Sanskrit base of the Urdu lexicon are among the issues raised in this work.
Jason Francisco’s review article of three collections of Partition stories,
“In the Heat of Fratricide: The Literature of India’s Partition Burning Fresh”
(1996) is a polemical piece and dismisses the idea that Gandhi could be con-
sidered as an ethical and secular role model, given his Hindu political idiom
and the legitimate aspirations of the Muslims represented by the Muslim
League. The article also critiques the ideological assumptions ofAlok Bhalla’s
Introduction to Stories About the Partition of India.
Mohammad Umar Memon, in his article “Partition Literature: A Study of
Intizar Husain” (1980), criticizes the progressive writers for treating Partition
superficially and concentrating merely on the associated violence. According
to him, Intizar Husain and a few select Pakistani Muslim writers saw the
migration of Muslims from India to Pakistan in a lar ger historico-cultural
context of Islam as the Hijrat of Prophet Mohammad from Mecca to Medina.
“The experience of migration, a recurrent phenomenon in the history of the
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Introduction 5

Muslim peoples, was again made available to the Muslims as a result of

the Partition.”2
Ian Bedford’s essay, “Intizar Husain’s ‘An Unwritten Epic’and the ‘Matter of
Pakistan’” (1993) shows how the referential framework of the writer–narratorin
“An Unwritten Epic” allusively interrogates the purpose for which Pakistan
was created by providing “a chimerical vision of what were, or are, or might
have been inter-village communal relations” before Partition. 3
Sukrita Kumar has identified Partition as one of the many social and polit-
ical realities shaping human consciousness in her study of modernism in the
Hindi and Urdu short story , in The New S tory: A Scrutiny of Modernity in
Hindi and Urdu Short Fiction (1990). Focussing on Hindi and Urdu short sto-
ries written from the late 1950s onwards, the book attempts to show how the
Nai Kahani (New Story) became the representative modernist form, and the
appropriate vehicle for the contemporary concerns of the creative writers at
this time.
Translating Partition (2001), edited by Tarun Saint and Ravikant, brings
together a variety of issues related to Partition, including the role of memory and
the print media, apart from specific commentaries on some Partition stories.
This work is dif ferent in both its concerns and its approach from several
recent writings on Partition. This contrast is most evident in the case of works
dealing with issues related to women, nation and Partition from feminist
and/or postcolonial perspectives. These include Ritu Menon and Kamla
Bhasin’s Borders and Boundaries: W omen in India’ s Partition (1998) and
“Recovery, Rupture, Resistance: Indian S tate and Abduction of Women
During Partition” (1993), Gar gi Chakravartty’ s Coming Out of Partition:
Refugee Women of Bengal (2005), Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence:
Voices from the Partition of India (1998) and “Community, State and Gender:
On Women’s Agency During Partition” (1993), Shail Mayaram’ s Resisting
Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity(1997), Farrukh
A. Khan’s “Speaking Violence: Pakistani Women’s Narratives of Partition”
(2006), and The Trauma and the T riumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern
India (2003), edited by Jasodara Bagchi and Shubharanjan Dasgupta. These
works have relied mainly on oral testimonies with interviews through victims
of Partition. Consciously steering clear of ‘objective’ history represented by
‘facts’, these histories attempt to recover the voices of the mar ginalized
women and take forward the project of writing histories ‘from below .’
A recent article by Jasbir Jain, “Daughters of Mother India in Search of
Nation: Women’s Narratives About the Nation” (2006), has shown how ,
despite the frequent use of the image of ‘Mother India’ to represent the nation,
the woman’s relationship to the nation does not figure in literary and other
narratives of Partition. Jain also questions the gender stereotyping of women
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6 Writing Partition

as mere victims of patriarchy and suggests that feminist approaches step

beyond the ‘victim syndrome’. She persuasively argues for a “reading with an
open mind and a dismantling of binary oppositions”.While Jain’s basic prem-
ise that the woman’ s relationship to the nation does not figure in the narra-
tives of Partition is a little misplaced given that these works do not deal
directly with national identities, her approach cautions us to the limitations of
feminist scholarship on the subject.
Literary narratives of Partition figure in many critical works on commu-
nalism, women and nation written from postcolonial perspectives. These
works are largely located within the broader areas of Partition and migration
studies. Sukrita Kumar’s Narrating Partition: Texts, Interpretations, Ideas is
perhaps the only work that has ar gued for a consideration of Partition narra-
tives as a distinct category with its own aesthetic framework, requiring different
critical tools for evaluation. However , even her work remains within the
ambit of Partition studies.
This work is an attempt to explore a moment of literary transformation in
Hindi and Urdu fiction through a study of Partition narratives. It ar gues that
Partition created a flux within society that was conducive to the transition from
the narrative mode of realism to that of modernism. Examining this literary
shift in representations of Partition over roughly the last fifty years involves an
assessment of how both event and aesthetic form come together in the dynam-
ics of a literary culture. Since literary cultures are shaped and influenced by a
variety of factors, not all of which are literary, such an exercise would be use-
ful in unravelling some of the intermeshing threads that underlie narrative
modes of representation. Partition provides a vantage point from which one
can witness the cross-connections between Partition and social and individual
perceptions and their aesthetic distillation.
Fiction on Partition is a vast area and demands an exhaustive study . While
many literacy critics have worked on the theme of Partition and its relation to
a historical event, one has yet to come across a study of this material for a
broader theoretical understanding of the relation between historical events and
their narrative representation. This work attempts to study the conver gence
and divergence of different literary movements through a scrutiny of narratives
on Partition.
In this work, Urdu fiction on Partition, whether written by Indian or Pakistani
writers, has been considered as a single category till the 1960s on the ground that
writers from both sides of the border were part of a broad, pre-Independence,
secular humanist consensus, which continued right up to the Indo-Pak war of
1965. As Aijaz Ahmad has ar gued, when one looks at literary productions
from both India and Pakistan, “the sheer absence of a literary text which i s
Chap01.qxp 10/30/2008 12:27 PM Page 7

Introduction 7

pro-Pakistani in sentiment seems most remarkable and indicative of a cer-

tain consensus of perspective.”4 Between 1947 and 1965, “there is not a single
document of any great literary merit (in Urdu) which celebrates the creation
of Pakistan.” 5 Progressive writers, whether Indian or Pakistani, rec ognized
the larger cultural affinities in the northern areas. For them the division o f the
country along religious lines was a terrible mistake and could not be justified
on any grounds of logic. Thus, the representation of Partition as a tragedy
from a secular humanist perspective was common in most of their stories.
However, the victimization of the communists and the ban on their political
and cultural organizations by the Pakistani state, particularly after the coup by
Ayub Khan in 1958 meant that many of the members of the Pakistan
Progressive Writers’ Association did not find it easy to continue with the secu-
lar humanist approach to Partition.A later generation of modernist writers in the
period after the Indo-Pak War of 1965 went on to refashion Partition by giving
it an Islamic orientation. While Intizar Husain perceived it through the prism
of Shia metaphysics even as he nostalgically recalled the pluralist pre-
Partition past, others like Salim-ur -Rahman transformed it into a welcome
and long-awaited event in which Muslim victims became martyrs for the
cause of Pakistan. The shift from the secular humanist perspective occurred
partly because of extra-literary considerations that related to issues of identity
and the relationship between the ‘self’ and the ‘other.’ In this work, the term
‘Urdu writer ’ pertains to all Urdu writers on both sides of the border till
1965, when the Indo-Pak War broke out. After 1965, the term ‘Pakistani
Urdu writers’ becomes necessary since the trajectory of some of these writ-
ers acquires a pro-Pakistani orientation.
For the purposes of this study, Hindi and Urdu narratives of Partition have
been examined as a single literary unit given that they cannot be distinguished
on the basis of literary sensibility , form or trend. While Hindi and Urdu had
been recognized as distinct languages lar gely on the basis of their respective
scripts and literary genealogies through the segregation that began in the
eighteenth century, the bilingualism of Premchand, who is generally consid-
ered to have initiated socially realistic prose, ensured that Hindi and Urdu
fiction during a major part of the twentieth century followed parallel if not
identical trajectories. 6 Widely recognized as the father of the modern Urdu
and Hindi short story, Premchand’s works were powerful influences for writ-
ers in both languages. Not coincidentally, during the 1930s, the leadership of
the Indian National Movement also promoted the idea of Hindustani (signi-
fying an amalgam of Hindi and Urdu, the language of common speech in
northern India) as a national language because it was believed (mistakenly, as
events later proved) that it would promote the cause of national integration.
Further, the impact of Partition was very widely felt in the northern parts by
both Hindi and Urdu speakers.
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8 Writing Partition

A comparative exercise that seeks to study the process whereby a Western

literary form came to be employed by Hindi and Urdu writers of fiction needs
to take several factors into consideration. Firstly , one must consider whether
the social and cultural determinants that played a key role in the emer gence
of both realism and modernism in theWest existed in India between the 1930s
and 1950s. Secondly, following from this, what were the local historical and
social conditions that went into the fashioning of a realism or a modernism;
what kind of transformations and modifications did this process involve?
Postmodern approaches tend to privilege indigenous narrative forms over any
modern, European ones. The former are considered the more genuine and
authentic forms of expression, which pose a challenge to the imperial centre.
But to identify what is Indian and what is Western is somewhat dif ficult
because it is the malleability of literary forms that allows for their cross-cul-
tural passage. As Meenakshi Mukherjee observes, “All that we can do is note
the differences in given conditions, so that in the analysis of actual texts dif-
ferent literary consequences may seem less strange or inexplicable.” 7
I would like to stress the inter -relatedness of historical, philosophic and eco-
nomic dimensions of society and its literature in tracing the origin of (a) social
realism as a narrative mode in Europe, and the necessary modification of the
mode when transferred to another context, i.e. colonial India; (b) the Progressive
Movement in literature and its political origin in Europe, and how its Indian
incarnation must take into account many determinants other than class, such
as caste, religion, language, ethnicity , etc.; and (c) Modernism as a literary
movement and the cultural, technological and psychological precon ditions
that explain it in the West, as well as the sea change that it must under go when
it is adopted by writers in India who are conditioned by other imperatives. The
alienation of the artist from society—one of the main tenets of modernism—
may not have the same meaning in a dif ferent civilizational context.
As narrative modes, both realism and modernism originated in Europe and
found their way into Indian literature during the colonial period. Consequently,
there were significant spatial and temporal differences and similarities between
the European and the northern Indian contexts. In Europe progressivism was
closely related to the overtly political intention of countering fascism. In a
colonized country like India, the opposition to colonialism could not but be
an essential aspect of progressive writing. Further, the very idea of a progres-
sive literature came at a time when both Hindi and Urdu literatures had begun
to move away from both the historical romance tradition and the didactic nar-
rative tradition of the late nineteenth century, towards some measure of realism.
After the turn of the century, realism, with its ‘lifelike’ characters from all
classes of society , an or ganic view of history and a consciousness of the
present created a tension in literatures, which so far had a distinctly dif ferent
Chap01.qxp 11/3/2008 9:44 PM Page 9

Introduction 9

narrative mode. However, realism could be characterized as progressive right

from its earliest phase in India, in the sense that its emphasis on the contem-
porary life of the ordinary people was counterposed to a distanced and stylized
reality, which served the purposes of writers of didactic works and romances.
Premchand chaired the first session of IPW A at Lucknow in 1936, where
the manifesto affirming the faith of the writer in the specific material realities
of the times was adopted. In his Presidential Address, Premchand observed:
Nowadays literature is not just meant for relaxation, it has a further aim apart from
entertainment.... It no longer seeks inspiration and vigour from wondrous and stupe-
fying tales, or allure in alliteration, but concerns itself with issues affecting society and
individuals...8
The manifesto approved two years later at Calcutta emphasized that the
role of the IPW A was “to rescue literature and other arts from conservative
classes, to bring art closest to people and make them the vital organs that will
register the activities of life, as well as lead us to the future we envisage”. It
expressed the belief that “the new literature of India must deal with the basic
problem of our existence today—the problem of hunger and poverty , social
backwardness and political subjugation.” 9
The co-existence of writers who spanned a wide spectrum under the pro-
gressive label in the 1930s could not be sustained given the rigidity of the
communists in the period after Independence. B.T. Ranadive, the communist
leader, alienated many non-Marxist writers when he appealed to the IPWA at
the Bhivandi Conference in 1949 to rise against the government and condemn
its policies, as well as profess allegiance to Marxism and socialism. Premchand’s
views, as outlined in his Presidential Address of 1936, about all writers being
progressive by nature were easily forgotten in the insistence on making liter-
ature a tool to fight against the neo-imperialist, bour geois Indian State. This
split between the orthodox radical proponents and the relatively liberal prac-
titioners resulted in a distinction between progressivist ( pragativadi, in
Hindi) and progressive (pragatisheel, in Hindi) writing.
As in the case of Progressivism, it was writers exposed to European liter-
atures in the 1930s who sowed the seeds of literary modernism in Indian lit-
erature. The use of modernist techniques or psychological realism can be seen
even in the writings of the 1930s and the 1940s, as for instance in the works
of Jainendra Kumar , Agyeya, or Ilachandra Joshi. Some critics like Linda
Wentinck have even claimed that Angare (1932), a collection of Urdu short
stories, was an important initial step in the evolution of modernist fiction in
Urdu.10 This is contrary to the commonly accepted view that considers
Angare to be a precursor to the Progressive movement. Part of the problem
is created because the term ‘modern’, which is used to qualify the social and
progressive realistic fiction as distinct from the didactic and supernatural
Chap01.qxp 10/30/2008 12:27 PM Page 10

10 Writing Partition

fiction that preceded it. In this sense, Premchand is referred to as the first ‘mod-
ern’ writer in Hindi and Urdu, or as the father of the modern Hindi and Urdu
story. Here, ‘modern’ carries the sense of a new content and a fresh approach
according to which the writer began to engage with the concrete and lived expe-
riences in society. The other part of the problem is related to the simplistic use
of the term ‘modernism’ to include any feature of Western modernism. Thus,
the first-person stream of consciousness narrative, psychological realism, the
influence of Freud and even consciously experimental works like Tara Saptaka
(a collection of modernist experimentalist poetry brought out by Agyeya in
1943) are all referred to as examples of modernism. Given modernism’s plural-
istic nature in Europe, it is not surprising that in Hindi and Urdu literature too
it came to acquire different hues at different points in time.
The creative process is always complex, and it would be simplistic to see
a direct correlation between an altered world view and a new mode of writ-
ing. But to the extent that experiential reality—both individual and societal—
impinges on the writer, one could say that the post-Partition years heralded a
shift in the creative writer ’s consciousness of his environment. The breakup
of an or ganic society, the dislocation caused by rapid urbanization and the
resultant feelings of disillusionment and anomie provided a fertile ground for
an exploration of the inner self. The psyche of the subject acquired relatively
greater importance than the documentation of the external world. Questions
of identity, alienation and rootlessness necessitated a dismantling of the con-
ventional ways of ordering reality in narrative and the use of metaphoric and
symbolic mode in representation and a concise form. While novels continued
to be written, the short story emer ged as a representative and powerful liter-
ary genre of the time. The Nai Kahani in Hindi and the Jadeed Afsana in Urdu
evolved from such concerns and signalled the birth of a new sensibility in the
mid-1950s.
The shift in the mode of representation from progressive realism to mod-
ernism raises several issues that need to be explored. For instance, what is the
relationship between progressive realism and modernism in the context of
Partition narratives? Are these movements successive, simultaneous or partially
overlapping? Is the modernist movement concerned mainly with the formal
aspects of narrative, emphasizing experimentation with technique and lan-
guage, or does it emerge from a shift in the world view of the author and his
society? In what way does the experience of Partition become the converging
point of all these changes?
The operative terms in the discourse—progressivism, modernism and real-
ism—all have extra-literary dimensions, pertaining as they do to ideology, eth-
ical as well as aesthetic values, epistemic grids of perceiving reality and the
social and historical conditions in which the writer and the readers are
Chap01.qxp 10/30/2008 12:27 PM Page 11

Introduction 11

embedded. Hence, the chronological demarcation of a literary movement,

which incorporates all these ‘isms’ in different degrees, is always a complex
and elusive task. But concentrating on the literary narratives of Partition as the
focal point for studying the interrelationship between progressive realism and
modernism can help in understanding this phase of literary history.
This work attempts to combine methods from both literary history and
comparative literature to trace the transfer and mutation of the Western ideas
of progressivism and modernism to the literary landscape of northern India,
and analyse the Partition narratives in Hindi and Urdu as the site where these
trends re-align themselves in a new configuration. New literary history stresses
the relevance of many intellectual sources, such as hermeneutic philosophy ,
political and economic history, cultural anthropology and sociology and commu-
nication theory in the context of literary production. While the work may n ot
draw upon all these sources, it will attempt to explain how and why a partic-
ular narrative mode came to acquire a centrality by recourse to relevant intel-
lectual ideas. The methods of comparative literature will also be useful in this
work not because we are comparing Western texts with Hindi and Urdu texts,
but because it has time-tested methods for exploring relations between dif ferent
literatures. These relations need to be studied with care particularly because
the unequal relationship between the colonial master and subject may have
had a fallout in literature too.
While this work focusses on both progressive-realist and modernist narra-
tives of Partition, the shift in the narrative mode needs to be located within the
broader debates on modernism in Hindi and Urdu. Critics and writers have
held divergent views on the relevance of modernism in the Indian context and
sharp ideological positions have also been taken. However, there is a need to
situate the debate within the creative expression of an ever-changing social and
historical worldview , without being swayed by international aesthetic and
political currents. The chapter “Modernisms, Western and Indian” attempts to
lay out the theoretical framework of modernist fiction in Hindi and Urdu.
Historically, the period of the 1950s, during which Hindi and Urdu fiction
began to evince a distinctly modernist sensibility , was also the time when
people began to assess the impact of Partition on their lives and come to terms
with it. A new sensibility and a dif ferent means of apprehending this changed
reality could not perhaps be expressed within the confines of realism. A fre-
quently levelled charge against modernist fiction is that it remains restricted
to the miniscule urban middle class and is therefore not representative of
Indian society. However, one needs to interrogate whether the modernist sen-
sibility remains restricted to urban society and also whether the experience of
a minority is less relevant simply because it is not a ‘typical’ experience.
Further, the role of the IPWA, particularly its rigid anti-establishment approach
Chap01.qxp 10/30/2008 12:27 PM Page 12

12 Writing Partition

after 1948, also needs to be taken into account in this context. Did the alien-
ation of a few progressive writers who later became the pioneers of the
modernist movement in Hindi and Urdu qualify the nature of modernist writing?
Although the issue belongs to a non-literary domain, it is worth considering,
especially when realism continued to inform modernist fiction and has in fact
carved out a space alongside modernist writing, albeit in a new avatar that was
denuded of its rigid progressivist agenda.
The chapter “The Individual and Society” examines the shift in the rela-
tionship between the individual and society in short stories and novels pub-
lished over the last 50 years. A major theme in Partition narratives, a study of
this relationship as it gets transformed in successive texts also unveils the shift
in the narrative mode. Subdivided into two parts, the first part of the chapter ,
“Leaving Homes”, takes up stories that end with the protagonists poised at the
edge of a new world, uncertain of the direction they have to take and casting
many a backward glance at the homes that they have been forced to abandon.
Cut adrift from their roots, these characters recognize the irrevocable griev-
ous loss they have suf fered, and the resolutions of the stories suggest the
emergence of a new identity. Gani Mian in Mohan Rakesh’s ‘Malbe ka Malik’
and Bishan Singh in Manto’ s “Toba Tek Singh” bring out the loneliness and
bewilderment arising out of a displacement that is not only geographical but
also psychic.
The second part of the chapter deals with stories and novels that squarely
locate characters in the aftermath of Partition. The emphasis in these texts is
on the evolving consciousness of individual as she internalizes a terrible
external reality. A relatively greater interest in the psyche of the subject char-
acterizes many of these modernist narratives. It isthe quality of experience and
its representation that distinguishes the Nai Kahani or the Jadeed Afsana from
the earlier stories of Krishan Chander and Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi like
“Peshawar Express” or “Parmeshar Singh”. The fractured relationship between
the individual and society, the yearning for an idealized re-created past and the
need to negotiate with the present in all its immediacy have been recurrent
themes in the numerous short stories and novels throughout the second half
of the twentieth century. Some questions raised by these stories are related to
issues of identity, both private and public. How do characters come to terms
with their altered present? How far do older identities play a role in this
process? Is the past merely a nostalgic memory or an overwhelming presence
from which the character cannot escape or does it become a source of inspi-
ration in the present? Was Partition a process or a moment of recognition?
How did the creative writer identify the precise moment when the perspective
of the individual changed, when Partition ‘happened’? Writers like Joginder
Paul and Intizar Husain have refashioned and resituated the experience of
Chap01.qxp 10/30/2008 12:27 PM Page 13

Introduction 13

Partition from a contemporary perspective. For their characters, the question

is not what happened and why it happened, but what is to be done now? Does
one leave it all behind and move on? Or, does one refuse to break that umbili-
cal chord and deny the present? From an event represented with all its atten-
dant violence and barbarity to an idea that poses existential questions among
dislocated individuals in a fragmented society—it is this trajectory that has
been studied in this chapter.
A second distinct though related theme in Partition narratives, namely ,
women as victims and as agents, has been examined in the chapter “The
Woman Protagonist”. This strand has to be considered in terms of the pathol-
ogy of violence and the psychology of the scarred victim.The bestiality of the
male, the helplessness of women, the abductions, forced conversions and
marriages—these were described in all their stark details in many of the early
stories. The grim irony with which Manto rendered this theme shocked the
smug and complacent reader, sensitizing her to the starkness of the situation.
But a second and even more relevant aspect of the depiction of women relates
to the female psyche itself. What happens to her inner self when she is humil-
iated and abused? Does she accept it as a condition of being a woman? Or ,
does she begin to perceive the injustice of a patriarchal world in which she is
a pawn for both the aggressor as well as her ‘own’ family and community?
How does an abducted woman decide, if she can decide at all, whether she
should return to her family or accept her abducted state? And can alienation
from a patriarchal, conservative family and community not empower a
woman? Is the ostracism of an abducted, recovered and rejected woman
merely to be held up as an example of patriarchy? Or can the same woman
script a new life for herself given certain enabling conditions?
The private voice of the woman, though still articulated within a patriar-
chal paradigm, was a new element in Hindi and Urdu literature. While writ-
ers like Ismat Chughtai, Qurratulain Hyder and other progressive writers had
raised uncomfortable questions about middle class hypocrisy regarding the
position of women, it is in the Partition narratives from the mid-1950s
onwards that one comes across women characters with a nuanced self-aware-
ness. Although literary narratives are not objective accounts of history , the
creative perspective through which the inner selves of women characters are
probed reveal inherently irresolvable dilemmas and subtle pressures that
introduce shades of grey to the stark picture of a woman’ s ‘victimization’ by
a ‘patriarchal’ and ‘communal’ nation-state, community and family . They
reveal how women perceive themselves and also how they can empower
themselves in enabling contexts even within a patriarchal society .
The last chapter , “Ideology and Aesthetics”, examines how a secular ,
humanist and pluralist perspective has consistently underpinned numerous
Chap01.qxp 10/30/2008 12:27 PM Page 14

14 Writing Partition

narratives of Partition. The first part, “Partition in India” looks at the secular
humanist outlook that has consistently informed representations of Partition
by Indian Urdu and Hindi writers. The secular vision was an article of faith
for the progressive writers, and it was but natural that many of their stories
were highly critical of the communal mindset. Not quite aware of the sub-
tle ways in which communal ideology influenced individuals in moments of
stress, early progressive writers produced descriptive accounts of the barbar-
ities of communal violence. While Alok Rai’s argument (cited above) about
the response of progressive writers—whose given tools of analysis proved
inadequate in the face of the sudden eruption of lar ge-scale communal vio-
lence—is valid, it is worth exploring whether the writers were merely dumb-
founded by the impact of the situation. How, for instance, can one understand
the even-handed rigorous ‘ balance’ between Hindu and Muslim characters?
Was this not one of the earliest forms in which the secular position was artic-
ulated by all Hindi and Urdu writers, irrespective of which side of the newly
created border they were on? The overt and unabashed secular humanist orien-
tation of progressive realist texts could not be sustained in the modernist texts of
Partition. But, do modernist representations of Partition completely shun the sec-
ular humanist perspective? Indeed, is it possible for a Partition narrative to be
totally non-ideological?
Part II of the chapter, “Partition, or the Birth of Pakistan?” raises questions
pertaining to the aesthetic fallout of the mar ginalization of left and progres-
sive formations in Pakistan and the demonization of India as the ‘other .’ For
instance, was the secular humanist outlook jettisoned for an ‘Islamized’ ver-
sion of the events of 1947? How has the Pakistani creative writer of the post-
progressive generation mediated between a pluralist past and an exclusive
national identity based on religious af filiation alone? Is Partition universally
lamented as an unfortunate tragedy or is it also hailed as the realization of a
long cherished dream? At a wider level this debate is concerned with the
interrelationship between state, national identity , ideology and aesthetic rep-
resentation.
Ideology is implicit not only in literary representations but also in critical
readings of literary texts. If Memon, a Pakistani–American critic, runs down
the secular humanist ideal which informs anthologies of Partition narratives
edited by Indian scholars like Alok Bhalla, Saros Cowasjee and K.S. Duggal,
Niaz Zaman, a Bangladeshi scholar, argues that Pakistani writers endorse the
Islamic national identity while Indian writers like Bhisham Sahni are anti-
Muslim. Needless to add, for Zaman, it is the Bangladeshi writer in search of
a national identity who is free from the communal malaise, thus demonstrat-
ing how not just Partition narratives, but even critical approaches to them can
never be ideologically innocent.
Chap01.qxp 10/30/2008 12:27 PM Page 15

Introduction 15

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Alok Rai, “The Trauma of Independence: Some Aspects of Progressive Hindi

Literature, 1945–47” in Amit Kumar Gupta (ed.), Myth and Reality: The Struggle for
Freedom in India, 1945–47 (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1987), p. 321.
2. Muhammad Umar Memon, “Partition Literature: A Study of Intizar Husain”, Modern
Asian Studies 14, no. 3, 1980, p. 410.
3. Ian Bedford, “Intizar Husain’ s ‘An Unwritten Epic’ and the ‘Matter of Pakistan’”,
Journal of Commonwealth Literature 29, no. 1, 1993, p. 30.
4. Aijaz Ahmad, In the Mirr or of Ur du: Recompositions of Nation and Community ,
1947–1965 (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced S tudy and New Delhi: Allied
Publishers, 1994), p. 23.
5. Ibid., p. 34.
6. For more on the issue of overlaps between Hindi and Urdu, see Christopher King,One
Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India(New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994); Suniti Kumar Chatterjee (ed.), The Cultural
Heritage of India, Vol. V, Languages and Literatures (Calcutta: Ramakrishna Mission
Institute of Calcutta, 1978) and Amrit Rai, A House Divided: The Origin and
Development of Hindi/Hindavi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984).
7. Meenakshi Mukherjee, Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 1 1.
8. From Francesca Orsini (trans.), “The Aim of Literature” (“Sahitya ka Uddeshya”), in
Appendix to The Oxfor d India Pr emchand (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2004).
9. Munshi Premchand, “Nature and Purpose of Literature”, in Sudhi Pradhan, Marxist
Cultural Movement, 1936–47 (Calcutta: Navana, 1982).
10. Carlo Coppola, “The All-India Progressive Writers’ Association: The Early Phase”, in
Carlo Coppola (ed.), Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature (Delhi: Chanakya
Publications, 1988), p. 3.
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Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 17

2
MODERNISMS, WESTERN AND INDIAN

Progressive realism, with its ‘life-like’ characters and essentially social and
political concerns, was the dominant narrative mode during the 1930s and
1940s. In the aftermath of Partition, creative writers had to confront a com-
pletely altered social landscape with thousands of refugees displaced from
their secure existence in search of shelter , livelihood and a new identity . A
representation of the resultant feelings of despair , loneliness and alienation
required a somewhat different narrative strategy. It was in this context that the
Nai Kahani in Hindi and the Jadeed Afsana in Urdu emerged as the represen-
tative modernist form.
Like progressive realism, modernism in Hindi and Urdu was also not an
indigenous form. It was writers exposed to European literatures who laid the
foundation of modernism in the 1940s with Tara Saptaka , a collection of
experimental poetry, as one of its earliest expressions in 1943. But what was
the nature and extent of this modernism? What were the different factors, lit-
erary or extra-literary, that influenced its character? In what ways was it sim-
ilar to and different from its Western counterpart? Was it a literary movement
like progressive realism or merely a literary trend? Did it succeed progressive
realism or did the two overlap, partially or fully? While Partition undoubted-
ly created a fertile climate for the emer gence and growth of modernism, it is
necessary to acquire some clarity about its conceptual and theoretical frame-
work before its manifestation in the narratives of Partition can be studied.
The term ‘modern’ has numerous closely related meanings, but is most
commonly defined as that which is opposed to the traditional. Something new
and different from, or even opposed to, the old, the obsolete or the traditional is
the normative interpretation of the term. However, the term in its original sense
did not necessarily imply an opposition to the traditional or the ancient past. In
the pre-Enlightenment period, the modern was that which consciously invoked
the classical ideals of the ancient past to counter contemporary decadence. The
modern epoch was thus defined in relation to the ancient, and the classical age
was a model that was to be recovered in the pursuit of the modern. The modern
Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 18

18 Writing Partition

meant a renewal, a re-knowing, a renaissance, a rebirth of the classical and a

purer, uncorrupted tradition. During the Enlightenment, the term acquired a
somewhat dif ferent connotation. In conjunction with modernity , it implied a
specific change in the European worldview, the growth of science and rational-
ity, and a break with an older, classical age. The belief of modern science in the
infinite possibilities of material and social progress radically altered the nature
of the relationship between the present and antiquity. The notion of a given self
that could be transformed into an achieved self through human agency—this
fundamental premise was the most significant marker of modernity in theWest.
Changes or events that we normally associate with modernity arise out of this
fundamental change in metaphysical thought. It questioned older and fixed sys-
tems of belief at all levels of human existence. According to Habermas, while
the romantic modernists specifically opposed the antique ideals of the classi-
cists, the nineteenth century additionally witnessed the emer gence of a moder-
nity that freed itself from all specific historical ties. 1
Although the term ‘modern’ is commonly distinguished from ‘traditional’
in terms of a temporal frame, the relationship between modernity and tradition
particularly in the sphere of culture is a more complex one. Concepts like the
modernity of tradition or classical modernity indicate an accommodative
relationship between tradition and modernity. Nevertheless, the historical rela-
tionship between the classical ideals of antiquity and the modern has been
completely lost with the advent of Enlightenment modernity .
The radical transformation of Western society , particularly in the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth centuries, the numerous democratic revolutions and the
Industrial Revolution resulted in a complex social dynamic. Modern cities
attracted the rural poor with possibilities of remunerative employment. Older
beliefs, particularly religious ones, were interrogated from rationalist perspec-
tives and nature’s mysteries seemed to be within the grasp of human under-
standing. The reorganization of labour in assembly-line manufacturing units,
the new contractual relationship between the owner of capital and the work-
er, and rapid urbanization created a new environment. The new society prom-
ised better living conditions, the possibility of wealth for all, better health and
greater longevity. Advances in printing technology , itself a gift of science,
enabled the growth of a mass readership and the circulation of modern dem-
ocratic ideas. Belief in the great benefits of science, and the conviction that
the application of logic enhanced human understanding, led to major revalu-
ations of pre-modern beliefs and systems. This was particularly so in the earlier
part of the modernization process.
However, towards the second half of the nineteenth century, one can clearly
detect a growing disenchantment with the promises of modernity in Europe,
and especially in England. Severe poverty attendant upon urbanization, the
Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 19

Modernisms, Western and Indian 19

Darwinian threat to fundamental religious beliefs about human nature, and

the subjection of the individual to newer systems of control like the market or
colonialism, dimmed the lustre of modernity . Doubts about the ef ficacy of
science and reason also began to creep in. In England, Victorian society had
in any case been torn between doubt and faith.Towards the dawn of the twen-
tieth century it became reasonably clear that while science could answer a lot
of questions it could not give ultimate answers. The First World War and the
slow but gradual success of anti-imperialist struggles in Asia and Africa also
led to disillusionment with modernity in the Western world. Science and rea-
son were not completely jettisoned, but were clearly seen as inadequate for
human and social development.

MODERNISM

In a broad sense, the literary and other cultural responses to modernity , both
optimistic and pessimistic, can be referred to as modernism. It was to a lar ge
extent a response to a modernity shaped by, among other factors, the scientific,
industrial and metropolitan establishment. As Bradbury and MacFarlane have
argued, ‘Clearly it [modernism] is an art of a rapidly modernizing world, a
world of rapid industrial development, advanced technology , urbanization,
secularization and mass forms of social life.’2 Chronologically, modernism in
its incipient form was visible in the closing decades of the nineteenth century .
By the 1890s, different cultural and aesthetic forms of representation indicated
a greater concern with the erosion of faith, values and the disintegration of
society. While modernisms in Europe traced different trajectories at different
points in time and different areas of the continent, the broad emphasis was on
disjunctions, rejection of linear time, asymmetrical forms, the alienation and
loneliness of the individual, and the near impossibility of real communication.
The assumption that realistic representation could reproduce objective
truth for the consumption of a neutral subject was questioned by a dif ferent
worldview and philosophy at the turn of the century. Existentialism and phe-
nomenology, which privileged the individual subject as the new site for epis-
temological study, rendered realistic representation inadequate. The emphasis
in modernism was on the subject and its essentially ephemeral being that
could only be represented in art through allusion, suggestion, symbols and
metaphors. The evaluative categories of realism, viz., accuracy and truth,
were questioned and considered inadequate and misleading in philosophy and
art. Jameson describes the transition from realism to modernism in terms of
this crisis of representation: ‘It is in terms of this crisis, that the transition, in
the history of form, from a novelistic ‘realism’of the Lukácsean variety to the
various now classical ‘high’ modernisms, has been described....’ 3
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20 Writing Partition

Aesthetic modernism was characterized by a changed consciousness of time.

The experience of mobility from country to town and the discontinuities in daily
life privileged the elusive, the transitory and the ephemeral. Simultaneously the
emphasis was now clearly on the truth of individual experience, unfettered by
any collective belief or value system. Authentic subjective experience, self-
recognition and realization became the dominant expression of modernism.
Of course, modernism did not evolve simultaneously or even uniformly in
the Western world. Even within Europe, while the death of the modern had
been proclaimed in Germany in 1909, the Anglo–French–American axis of
modernism continued well into the 1930s. Broadly it is possible to demarcate
two phases of modernism in theWest. The first, whose period broadly spreads
over the first four decades of the twentieth century and especially the inter -
war years, included a diverse range of currents: symbolism, expressionism,
cubism, surrealism, etc., and it is perhaps best to refer to them as modernisms.
They include a wide variety of responses to capitalist modernity, science and
technology. Modernism in this phase was a strange amalgam of what
Bradbury and Macfarlane call “the futuristic and the nihilistic, the revolution-
ary and the conservative, the naturalistic and the symbolistic, the romantic
and the classical”.4 The second phase began with the Cold War. The singular-
ization of modernism was related to the political response of the West to
socialist ideology in the post-W ar era. The divide between the Anglo-
American and the Soviet blocs was not restricted to the arena of international
politics; it was also echoed in the field of literature. As a consequence, social-
ist realism or Progressivism was to be distinguished from the modernism of
the West, which was dubbed as ‘capitalist’ and ‘bourgeois’. The post-Second
World War period witnessed the institutionalization of modernism in the
Western academy . Consequently , postmodernist approaches have critiqued
modernism as a monolithic, totalizing and Eurocentric category with a hier-
archy that consistently places the metropolitan centre over the underdevel-
oped periphery. In its depoliticized version, denuded of ideology, modernism,
for postcolonial critics, was complicit with empire. As Patrick Williams has
observed,
One of the reasons for post-colonial animosity towards modernism is no doubt the fact
that post-colonial critics encounter modernism as already in situ, an institutionalised,
would-be hegemonic, seemingly reactionary presence … obsessively concerned with
the condition of the West.5
However, it is equally important to recall that modernism was in some senses
a break from the bour geois realism that preceded it. In its narrative of the frag-
ment as a marker of the discontinuous nature of reality , it posited a concern for
insignificant forms and objects that had been previously disregarded. And
though it could be ar gued that some mainstream modernist writers like Forster
Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 21

Modernisms, Western and Indian 21

and Conrad did not sufficiently critique imperialism, they did not justify empire
as progress either . Thus modernism, from being a multivalent and pluralistic
phenomenon, came to be characterized as anti-progressive and reactionary in the
post-War period. Subsequently, postcolonial approaches have focussed on non-
metropolitan modernisms and characterized them as resistant to the dominant
Western discourse.

MODERNITY AND INDIA

Historically the beginning of modernization in India coincided with the

advent of the Europeans. There is no causal link between the colonial state and
modernization. In fact, colonial intervention not only hindered the emergence
of an independent modern society , it actually imposed a colonial modernity
that was meant to serve the political and economic interests of the colonial
state. Historically, colonial intervention in a largely pre-capitalist society sig-
nals a sudden and radical break, a feature of mostAsian and African colonies.
Some commentators have characterized it as a rupture, a brutal embrace
which destroyed the fabric of a society and an integrated world-view.6 Till the
1970s there were broadly two positions: colonial rule intervened in ways that
damaged almost irreparably the warp and woof of Indian cultures, or colonial
rule set India on a path of modern development and progress. Postcolonial
critiques intersected these positions in a way that devalued the positive role
of the Enlightenment values as well as the collective nationalist vision of a
secular democratic and pluralist society.
Broadly, one can distinguish modernity at two distinct levels—the eco-
nomic, industrial, and scientific on the one hand, and the intellectual, social
and cultural on the other . The British interest in the modernization of India
was essentially aimed at facilitating and strengthening economic exploitation
of the rural hinterland, which was rich in natural resources. This meant that
modern development came much earlier to those areas which catered to colo-
nial political and economic interests. A very large part of the country (includ-
ing some princely states) remained outside the pale of modernization and this
uneven development was furthered even after Indian Independence. The
result of the uneven spread of this process was the co-existence of the mod-
ern with the pre-modern and wide disparities between urban and rural areas.
Secondly, since trade and commerce were controlled mainly by the British,
modernization did not result in the evolution of an Indian middle class till the
second half of the nineteenth century . The modern economy that emer ged
during colonial rule was necessarily limited.
At the second level, i.e. the intellectual, social and cultural, English education
was introduced with the intention of enabling the ‘natives’ to become useful
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22 Writing Partition

minor functionaries in British administration. Racial theories were disseminated

in colonial India, and the inherent superiority of British culture, language, jus-
tice, governance, and society was emphasized. But the exposure of some Indians
(albeit from the elite, feudal classes) to English education paradoxically intro-
duced them to ideas which enabled them to at least raise questions about the
legitimacy of British rule in India and the oft-proclaimed superiority of the
‘white races’.
During the nineteenth century , modern democratic ideas of equality and
human dignity were incorporated in the fight against many of the grossly
inhuman social and religious practices like sati, child marriage and the prohi-
bition of widow remarriage by social reformers. Later, these progressive ideas
provided the inspiration for the struggle against colonialism and imperialism.
Unlike industrial, scientific modernity over which Indians had little or no
control, the cultural aspects of Western modernity were constantly evaluated
and modified before being accepted.
It is important to recognize the relevance of this complex relationship since
there is a tendency among some writers and intellectuals today to completely
debunk modernity and privilege pre-modern Indian tradition(s). Nirmal
Verma, for instance, constantly regrets the path that modern Indian thinkers
and national leaders embarked upon during the course of the anti-Imperialist
struggle. In his essay, “Traditional Cultural Values: Contemporary Challenges”,
he writes, “For the last two hundred years from Raja Ram Mohan Roy to
Jawaharlal Nehru we are desperately trying to recast our image in a hypo-
thetical future, a future designed and fabricated for us by Europe.” 7 And this
teleological vision of time has justified the destruction of what he considers
the moral vision that informs Indian culture and tradition.
According to Verma, the intimate connections between human beings and
nature that were nourished and strengthened in pre-modern communities
were threatened and gradually destroyed by the new imperatives of modernity .
Rationality, modern science, technology and the rampant exploitation of
nature for economic benefit ushered in a new materialistic culture. The spiri-
tual sphere was ignored and even denounced as a remnant of a primitive
world view by modern ideologies. While there is little doubt that modernity
and the modernizing process are not an unmixed blessing, it is equally rele-
vant to point out that the Indian tradition that Verma is eulogizing is also not
as unproblematic as he makes it out to be.There is a strong element of roman-
ticism in the way he conceives it. After all, caste and gender exploitation
existed in the same pre-modern society that Verma is so anxious to preserve.
Since Indian society was introduced to modernity during the colonial peri-
od, modernity and modernization were closely identified with the colonizing
regime. This perhaps explains the reluctance of some of the early social
Chap02.qxp 11/3/2008 9:52 PM Page 23

Modernisms, Western and Indian 23

reformers to accept modernisation under colonial aegis. However , the wide

spectrum of responses by the nineteenth-century reformers also indicates that
there were others who could and did distinguish between modernization and
Westernization. And though modernity has sometimes been regarded as a
Eurocentric phenomenon by those who privilege the pre-modern, the correlation
is not inevitable. As Patrick Williams has argued, “the association between the
Occident and modernity has to be viewed as radically contingent in historical
terms”.8 Viewed from this perspective, modernity can be accepted in the non-
metropolitan periphery even as its Western forms and the ways in which it is
exported from the centre may be resisted. And just as imperialism acquires dif-
ferent forms in distinct times and places, so too, modernity and modernist
responses to it emerge at different moments in their own characteristic modes.
Modernity was not uncritically accepted during colonial times. The essen-
tializing of the West as a superior and advanced civilization and the East as
ignorant and savage was questioned by many intellectuals during the colonial
period. The Indian nationalists debunked the various insidious racial theories
used to justify colonial rule. But the values of Enlightenment, science, reason
and humanism to which Indians were exposed (through English education
and even earlier through contact with Europeans) were readily accepted by
the Indian intelligentsia and successfully wedded to indigenous modes in the
opposition to colonial rule.
This complexity in the response of the colonial intellectual is missed by
those scholars, for instance, G.N. Devy, in whose view “the violent intrusion
of alien literary pressures produced many undesirable tendencies in bhasa lit-
eratures.”9 For Nirmal Verma, the alienation from the roots or sources of one’s
tradition and the emasculation of our culture as a result of foreign domination
has resulted in a slavish imitation ofWestern models of politics, development,
aesthetics, philosophy and language. According to him, the alienation from
one’s tradition is the single most crucial factor that is responsible for the
dilemma of the modern Indian today and what needs to be examined is “the
nature of distortions we have suffered precisely as victims of such pressures.10
The distinction that Devy draws between ‘tradition’ and ‘parampara’ is of
particular relevance here. While the latter is something “very remote, perpet-
uated by continuous family succession”, for instance, the Indian sense of
pride in family and community, the “Western concepts of tradition and culture
[are] interrelated through the common underlying idea of ‘growth’.” Although
Devy concedes that these two senses of tradition have been the subject of the
entire debate “between sanatana (of ancient origin) and nutana (of modern
origin) which characterized late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century cul-
tural life in India”, and that neither concept “seems to have scored a final vic-
tory”,11 he clearly privileges the static parampara in his overall ar gument.
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24 Writing Partition

The limitation of both Devy’s and Verma’s position lies in their unwillingness
to accept that modernity could have a positive impact on contemporary Indian
culture. Unlike Verma, Devy accepts the positive and creative impact that
‘Islamic’ literatures had on Bhasa literatures. But when it comes to the impact
of Western literature, traditions or culture, he sees it as a purely negative and
disabling influence. Firstly, this denies the role of modernity in the spread of
democratic, egalitarian ideas which were the very cornerstone of the national
movement of liberation. Secondly, literary forms like realism and modernism,
which had their origins in Western literatures, were not imitated slavishly but
suitably altered and adapted to the aesthetic concerns of Hindi and Urdu writ-
ers in the twentieth century . Further, the very tradition that Verma eulogizes
has been extremely heterodox and subject to numerous and varied influences,
both domestic and ‘foreign’. In other words, Verma’s understanding of tradi-
tion needs to be qualified by the fact that traditions are not given but con-
structed by people, communities and other formations depending on, among
other factors, the compulsions of the present and a vision of the future. The
reformers of the nineteenth century, the Western Indologists and Gandhiji, all
emphasized Indian tradition, but their varied intentions meant that each one
of them had a different idea of tradition.
Verma and Devy’ s positions share similarities with anti-modernists and
‘anti-secularists’ like Ashis Nandy12 and others, who seek to derive legitimacy
for their anti-modernity position by essentializing Gandhiji and focussing
exclusively on his anti-technology position in Hind Swaraj. However, this seri-
ously limits the tremendous range of Gandhji’s responses to both modernity and
tradition. He drew upon a variety of traditional practices and beliefs (fasting,
sacrifice, renunciation, examples from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata,
etc.) and recast them as powerful and effective tools in the national movement,
which was informed by modern, democratic, egalitarian principles.
The Western responses to modernity represented in modernist works were
extremely diverse and at times even contradictory . They could range from a
celebration of science and rationality to a rejection of the same; they could be
“a celebration of the technological age and a condemnation of it…” 13

However, the more pervasive and popular response to modernity in Anglo-

American modernism after the turn of the century was one of anti-science,
anti-rationality, a celebration of the primitive, as in D.H. Lawrence, or a recov-
ery of the past, tradition, myths, etc., by a society that had become spiritually
and emotionally barren as a consequence of the onslaught of materialism. So,
if modernity in its commitment to the present broke with the past or the sources
of tradition, modernism made an impassioned plea to recover those very sources,
as in T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence or W.B. Yeats.
Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 25

Modernisms, Western and Indian 25

A historical consciousness was closely linked to the secularization of cul-

ture in Europe and an essential part of the project of modernity in India too.
The rejection of mythical, cyclical time in favour of teleological linear time
was initially evident in the attempts of nineteenth-century intellectuals from
Bengal who attempted to write a history of Bengal in response to the British
construction of an uncivilized Indian past. The National Movement also fos-
tered a historical consciousness of time through its fundamental premise that
British rule was temporary and would come to an end as a result of the anti-
colonial struggle. Whereas modernism in Europe rejected the teleological
view of time in the early twentieth century with the emergence of existential-
ism, in India such a shift did not occur , not least of all because of the arrested
and imposed nature of modernity . Nirmal Verma has said that the relevance
of existentialism for him as a creative writer lay in its freeing humanity from
the burden of God and history . But the terms God and history need to be
understood contextually. Nietzsche’s declaration, “God is dead!” indicated
the loss of faith in twentieth-century Europe. However, in India the complete
loss of belief in some notion of God can hardly be ar gued. The death of God
and history, which had led to an absolute privileging of the subject and her
freedom, could not be totally accepted in a traditional society in which indi-
vidualism as a value had not been privileged. As Nirmal Verma himself states
elsewhere, “We are neither religious nor are we so individuated or so secular-
ized that we write from an entirely dif ferent set of values, we are enmeshed
between here and there.” 14

MODERNIST RESPONSES TO MODERNITY

The First World War had a very devastating impact on European society. But
Partition, even though it was a cataclysmic affair, did not destroy our faith in
humanism. Often, too close an identification between India after Partition and
the post-First World War Europe is made, which is somewhat misleading. 15
The essential social fabric remained intact in spite of such a major catastro-
phe. Families did break up and abducted women were rarely accepted by their
families. But the institution of the family did not break down. People did not
lose their religious faith and they certainly did not become isolated and indi-
vidualized. Alienation or loneliness did not arise because social institutions
had broken down or religious belief had been eroded. The experience of lone-
liness (‘alienation’ is perhaps not the appropriate word) in the Indian social
context has been qualitatively different. It was not death and destruction that
created an emptiness in Indian society, as had happened in Europe because of
the War. Rather , a distancing from society was the result of a mismatch
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26 Writing Partition

between the intellectual horizons of the middle class, which were vast, and its
rootedness in conservative social structures. As Nirmal Verma has pointed
out, there are specific dif ferences between “loneliness in a tradition-ridden
society like India where families are breaking up, and the loneliness in a lib-
erated western society .”16 The Western individual was not af fected by the
weight of tradition; she was alienated because her links with the past broke,
her original sources of inspiration dried up. Tradition for the middle-class
Indian particularly became oppressive as it lost its creative dynamism. In his
study of the Nai Kahani, Kamleshwar has observed, “the individual here is
collapsing under the weight of traditions and is anguished because of the
excess of his contact with society.”17 The desire to live life in accordance with
a personal morality came up against not only external social pressures, but
also against the individual’ s internal conditioning in joint families. Both
poverty and a strongly internalized sense of responsibility towards the family
precluded an individualistic lifestyle. The uneven and slow pace of modern-
ization was another disabling factor for numerous educated Indians; “The
Indian man’s intellectual output lies unutilized, because change and develop-
ment did not take place at the pace which was expected, material capital did
not complement intellectual capital.” 18
The emergence of realism and the novel in the West was linked to the rise
of the middle classes and the birth of modern capitalism. One could also
argue that in a similar way , modernism was a literary , aesthetic response to
the modernity of an advanced stage of capitalism.The dynamic individualism
of an early stage of capitalism in the West was considerably nullified in the
emphasis on mass society in the later stage of capitalism. But in Hindi and
Urdu fiction, the shift from social realism to modernism occurred in the con-
text of a traumatized society that had under gone an incomplete process of
modernization and had a colonial modernity thrust upon it, and not because
capitalism had created conditions of social fragmentation and atomized the
individual as in the West.19 The individual in modernist Hindi or Urdu litera-
ture is implicated in her age and its creative dynamism; she is not a nihilist or
pessimist who has severed her links with her context. In fact, as has been dis-
cussed above, it is incomplete modernization and a colonial modernity that
has placed the individual in a dilemma.
The rupture and discontinuity that Partition created was paradoxically
accompanied by the hope of a better future in the newly independent nations.
This meant that the anguish and bitterness of Partition was at the very least
kept in abeyance in the expectation that things would improve. Here, it is per-
haps important to keep in mind what Nirmal Verma has cautioned us about
comparative studies, that beneath the superficial similarities between the
twentieth-century West and post-Partition India are underlying dif ferences
Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 27

Modernisms, Western and Indian 27

between the two situations. 20 But at the same time, to dismiss the modernist
element in Hindi and Urdu fiction out of hand and ar gue that it is merely a
Western importation is to oversimplify . Western modernism was not uncriti-
cally accepted; it was suitably modified to suit the aesthetic needs of the cre-
ative writers. In their fiction, despite the feeling of loss and loneliness, cyni-
cism did not creep in, as in the West. The sense of a critical break with the
past, a significant shift in perceptions and sensibilities, the beginning of a new
era that signified both hope in the possibilities of a new nation as well as
extreme despair and sorrow because of the catastrophe that accompanied its
birth led to a fresh perspective. This perspective finds its reflection in the fic-
tion of the 1950, and more particularly in the narratives of Partition.

MODERNIST MOMENT OR MOMENTS?

Harish Trivedi has argued that the modern moment in Hindi literature can be
located in 1943, the year of the publication of Tara Saptaka, “the first major
and concerted manifestation of modernism in Hindi.” This was an anthology
of seven prayogvadi (experimentalist and/or modernist) poets edited by Agyeya,
“the foremost modernist poet in Hindi as well as impresario of modernism”.21
Depending on how one defines the term modern literature, other periods, pub-
lications or authors can also be cited as the first examples of modernism. For
example, Angare, a collection of short Urdu stories published in 1932, is an
early example of psychological realism and feminism. Consisting of ten short
stories by four Urdu writers who were to become prominent members of the
IPWA, Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmad Ali, Mahmuduzzafar and Rashid Jahan, Angare
attacked the mores and morals of upper -class North Indian Muslims. Some
aspects of modernist narrative, such as the foregrounding of psychological
aspects in characterization, can be found in earlier works such as those of
Premchand’s contemporaries, Jainendra Kumar and Ilachandra Joshi. Namwar
Singh has drawn attention to the period of flux that existed in the late 1930s:
There are periods in history when it seems that life is so complex that it is not pos-
sible to make any judgments about it because everything is unstable and is going
through a state of transition.… such a situation can be seen in the stories written in
the fourth decade, i.e. thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine and forty. Such
question marks were raised by Premchand himself in his last story…. 22
Qamar Rais has correctly observed that unlike Premchand, the new genera-
tion of fiction writers had a ‘modern vision’. These new writers explored a
new level of consciousness and had a distinctly dif ferent point of view; “In
this thirty year period [after Premchand] the Urdu novel manifested various
facets of contemporary life and initiated new innovative techniques in the art
of novel writing.” 23 He adds that in the post-1936 period, if on the one hand
Chap02.qxp 11/3/2008 9:49 PM Page 28

28 Writing Partition

the Urdu writer ’s imagination and sensibility was influenced by Marxist lit-
erature, on the other it was equally receptive to the works of writers like
Freud, D.H. Lawrence, Bernard Shaw and James Joyce. 24 The exposure to
new systems of belief, philosophy and other forms of knowledge enabled
writers to examine the complexity of human character and its motivations
from a new perspective. The influence of Freud can be seen in the stories of
Jainendra Kumar . The new disciplines of knowledge gave an insight into
what Sukrita Kumar calls “the henceforth unexplored expanses of the reality
of outer space as well as the unexperienced terrain of inner psychic reality”.25
However, one must remember that an appropriate intellectual and emo-
tional climate for modernist writing in Hindi and Urdu came into being only
after Partition.26 While writers sometimes experiment with form for the sake
of novelty, aesthetic forms evolve organically from the nature of artistic content
at specific moments in a society’ s existence. Hence, the works of Jainendra
Kumar or Ilachandra Joshi remained experimental in nature even though their
contribution to the evolution of Hindi fiction cannot be denied. 27 Similarly,
Sajjad Zaheer’s London ki Ek Raat (1937) was one of the first novels in Urdu
to use the stream-of-consciousness technique to represent the travails of a
middle-class, educated Indian protagonist in an alien setting at a time when
progressive writers and artists were focussing on issues of fascism, imperial-
ism and colonialism, and the fashioning of a socialist, independent India.
Namwar Singh has ar gued that the modernism of the late 1930s was lar gely
theoretical:
Our ‘modernism’ of the late thirties was much less of an experience. It was more of
an intellectual exercise. It seeped into our culture gradually and evolved into a real
Indian experience much after independence. 28
The decades of the 1940s witnessed a relatively clearer shift towards modernist
representations. But even then the realist form was not completely abandoned.
Qurrutulain Hyder , one of the foremost Urdu writers, introduced stream-of-
consciousness narration within a realistic narrative in her novels Aag ka Dariya
and Mere bhi Sanamkhane. The linear sense of time is frequently interspersed
with experiential time within the character ’s consciousness in Aag ka Dariya.
Numerous modernist writers reveal this rather unique overlap of modernist
and realist aspects during this period and even later . Agyeya, the one writer
whose modernist credentials have been firmly established by both his detrac-
tors and supporters, does not isolate his characters from their social, cultural
contexts, even though he may locate them through suggestion and implication
and not necessarily in the form of a firmly etched background. As Ramesh
Chandra Shah says in the context of Agyeya, “No sensitive reader of this
novel Apne Apne Ajnabi can, nevertheless, fail to perceive that the atmos-
phere, the treatment of this theme is wholly Indian.” 29 Among the modern
Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 29

Modernisms, Western and Indian 29

poets, Muktibodh’s use of fantasy to represent the destiny of modern man cre-
ated problems for Marxist critics who attempted to isolate elements of con-
ventional realism in his poetry . In the self-consciously experimentalist Tara
Saptaka, five of the seven poets were avowedly Marxist—the best example
being that of Muktibodh himself. Harish Trivedi has observed that in spite of
divergent and sometimes opposed tendencies, modernism and progressivism
became “strange bedfellows”. 30
However, progressive literary critics like Namwar Singh, Qamar Rais and
some others consider the relationship between these two literary trends or
movements as an ideological contest between the progressive and the individual-
centred reactionary tendencies. It is worth considering whether this contest
between modernism and progressivism was merely a reflection of the Cold
War political–ideological divide in a context which was far removed from the
realities of the West. Trivedi is of the view that the ideological schism
between the socialist and capitalist blocs in the aftermath of the SecondWorld
War “did not have any similar implications and consequences in India” for
writers and artists, partly because India’ s stance towards the Cold War “was
hardly that of solidarity with Anglo-America.”31
One can locate a reactive tendency in some of the Tara Saptaka poets, but
their reaction was not the result of their alignment with a new capitalist order.
Rather, it was directed against an instrumentalist tendency within Progressivist
writing. This tendency found its clearest reflection at the Bhiwandi Conference
of the IPWA in 1949, where B.T. Ranadive, the Communist leader , declared
that progressive literature must be anti-establishment, as the end of colonial
rule had not freed the Indian people from the domination of the feudal elites
and the bourgeoisie. Poets and writers who were deemed to have diluted the
ideological line of the Party were reprimanded and publicly criticized. Ismat
Chughtai, Saadat Hasan Manto, N.M. Rashid and even Rajinder Singh Bedi
were taken to task for not focussing on the pressing issues of their times.
Quazi Abdul Sattar, in his essay, “Contemporary Urdu Fiction”, points out how
Progressive writers failed to respond to some of the radical changes in the
country at that time—the abolition of zamindari, the Chinese aggression, and
the Cuban crisis. 32 This rigidity was the principal reason why many writers,
including Manto, distanced themselves from the Progressive Writers’ forum.
Thus, if modernist writing was initially reactive, it was so only towards
the political dogmatism plaguing progressiv ist writing and not towards pro-
gressive writing in general. 33 Indeed, the co-existence of progressive and
modernist elements in the Tara Saptaka anthology and within the fiction of
the late 1940s and 1950s is evidence of how the relationship between the two
was accommodative rather than oppositional. One has seen how the didactic
and prescriptive elements of the pre-realist prose forms continued to make
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30 Writing Partition

their presence felt in the realistic fiction of the 1920s and 1930s. Progressive
beliefs and the Gandhian model of moral and social transformation consti-
tuted the new reformist elements. The tradition of prescriptive literature (a
tradition which had gradually mer ged into social realism in the nineteenth-
century English novel) retained its hold on progressive writing lar gely
because the progressives saw their work as playing a social role. In a simi-
lar way many features of the realist-progressive phase continued to exist
alongside modernism. The critical distinction was that while progressive
writers laid a relatively greater emphasis on the class/caste affiliations of the
individual, the writer of the New Story considered him a total, “synthesized,
cultural unit”. 34 Kamleshwar has described the New S tory, a representative
modernist form, as the voice of the individual—the synthesized unit of pro-
gressive values.
Thus, the attempt to identify a ‘modern’ or ‘modernist’ moment in Hindi
and Urdu fiction is extremely dif ficult. Indeed, the very idea that a literary
trend or sensibility undergoes a shift at a particular point in time is an unten-
able idea. It is perhaps more fruitful to talk of broad shifts in literary trends
that have taken place over an extended period of time, or , alternatively, sev-
eral modernist moments. Such an approach is of particular relevance in the
context of the developments in Hindi and Urdu fiction over a relatively short
period of about forty years, i.e. 1920–60. Shifts that occurred in the West over at
least 150 years were traversed over a much shorter time span in these literatures.
Both progressivism and modernism came to India from the West, but they
were assimilated rather than imitated. While the progressive writers had to
suitably amend the category of class to include caste, language and region
together with other cultural specificities, modernism too distinguished itself
from its Western counterpart (particularly English) by retaining a sense of
rootedness in society. Political freedom from the British was also accompa-
nied by a greater interest in non-English literatures. Modern French poetry
and nineteenth-century Russian literature became popular among Indian read-
ers, although the latter had been appreciated even earlier , by writers in the
1930s. According to Trivedi, “Premchand … was so moved by Alexander
Kuprin’s pre-revolution but ‘committed’ depiction of prostitution, Yama/The
Pit (1910; English translation, 1930) that he recommended it to many friends
and wanted it translated into Hindi…” 35

LITERARY CHRONOLOGY: PROGRESSIVE-REALIST TO MODERNIST

When one talks of dif ferent modes of representation in the narratives of

Partition, does one imply a chronology of these modes? Broadly , both Hindi
and Urdu fiction from roughly the 1920s to about the 1950s conformed to a
Chap02.qxp 10/29/2008 9:37 PM Page 31

Modernisms, Western and Indian 31

realistic mould. A progressive outlook informed it from Premchand onwards.

The narratives of Partition in the late 1940s were also written from a secular
humanist and progressive perspective. From about the mid-1950s onwards,
beginning with the Nai Kahani in Hindi or Jadeed Afsana in Urdu, there is a
shift in the kind of Partition narrative that was produced. Aijaz Ahmad has
noted that “the narrative literature—novels and short stories—which came in
the years immediately after the Partition was predominantly that of naturalis-
tic documentation…” 36 Subsequently, we do not come across this kind of
social or historical documentation that was so popular in the late 1940s or
early 1950s. Instead, there was a focus on the predicament of the refugee, his or
her disorientation in a state of homelessness and a nostalgic idealized recre-
ation of the pre-Partition past. Significant action centred around the inner
being of the individual, his or her vibrant inner self, largely constructed by the
memory of a past that carried no meaning in a radically altered present. The
events in themselves did not retain their importance; their implications
became more important. As Qamar Rais says:
In the collective life of Indians, partition, riots, migration, the culmination of princely
states and zamindari, were not so important. What was important was the change tak-
ing place in the inner self of the individual due to the break up of the social, emotional
and intellectual relationships. 37
This shift has been noted in the context of both the short story and the Urdu
novel of the post-Partition period. By 1955, naturalistic documentation was
beginning to give way to the themes of exile and dislocation. The recollection
of what had been left behind or lost irretrievably became the major concern for
the writers of the New Story, “not just the moment of rupture, but in far greater
detail the structure of that which had been ruptured…” 38 Realist novels like
Yashpal’s Jhoota Such (1958–60), Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas (1974) or Manzoor
Ehtesham’s Sookha Bargad (1986) continued to be written. But by the 1970s
this realism had largely lost its progressivist orientation. Shorn of some of its
earlier certitudes, it has subsequently co-existed with modernist literature.

MODERNIST HINDI AND URDU FICTION

What is the modernist element in modern literature? What are its basic charac-
teristics and when does the shift in the narrative mode from realism to mod-
ernism in Hindu and Urdu fiction become evident, i.e. historically at what stage
did progressive writing begin to deviate from its basically realist character? In
an evocative essay on the history of the Urdu short story, Joginder Paul refers to
Premchand’s “Kafan” as the first “minor, modern classic in Urdu” and also states
that it “laid the foundation of the tradition of compassion in the Urdu story”. 39
An earlier collection of Urdu short stories, Angare, published in 1932, is also
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32 Writing Partition

considered an important landmark in the history of Urdu fiction. Linda J.

Wentink has stated that these stories, while written at a time when progressivism
was the dominant literary movement were seminal in the establishment of mod-
ernism, the major post-progressive literary movement, in Urdu. 40 A belief that
situations or circumstances could disable one grievously , together with a com-
passion for such a disadvantaged character, meant that easy and glib condemna-
tion or idealization were no longer possible. Kamleshwar has ar gued that
Premchand was able to shed “the romantic confusion of his idealism” in his last
stories like “Poos ki Raat”, “Kafan” and “Shatranj ke Khiladi”. (p. 11) A greater
empathy with the personal, emotional and psychological trauma of the character
resulted in a turning away from incident oriented stories. The empathetic identi-
fication of the writer with her characters made it possible for the Urdu writers to
bridge the gap between the inner and outer reality . In his essay “Jadeed Urdu
Naval”, Qamar Rais has drawn attention to the changed focus in the Urdu novel:
“Together with their understanding of the changing relationship between the
individual and society, and significant social events, they [Urdu novelists after
Premchand] emphasized the individual and his experiences.” 41
The emergence of modernity in literature was a response to social and lit-
erary pressures that were building up in the period immediately after the
Independence and the Partition of India.As has been discussed above, the slow
integration of refugees in alien, urban settings, and the migration of people from
the countryside to big cities in search of work and education meant that a sub-
stantial number of urban dwellers were removed from the integrated and secure
social community of the village. The break up of joint families that migration
inevitably entailed also created further disruption. It is against such a social
background that Hindi and Urdu fiction began to evince a distinctly modernist
sensibility. In the context of the changes that were affecting society in the post-
Partition phase, Kamleshwar has referred to the age as one in which the entire
consciousness of the society was undergoing a radical transformation. He draws
attention to “those changes which were taking place as a result of the pressures
at the social, economic and intellectual levels. This pressure was affecting the
composite society in which not only two but three or four generations were liv-
ing together.”42 Namwar Singh has also drawn our attention to this change in
the Hindi fiction of those years. According to him, several writers, including
Renu, “presented two generations of characters”, the older one which cherished
the past and its values, while the newer generation struggled with “the depress-
ing complexity of the present”. 43
The initial departure from conventional narratives was made in the pre-
Independence short story itself by writers likeAgyeya, Jainendra, and Ilachandra
Joshi who experimented with new modernist literary forms. Several stories
by Jainendra and Ilachandra Joshi employed the psychological realist mode,
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 33

while many of Agyeya’s novels and stories were cast in the symbolic mode.
According to Ramesh Chandra Shah,
It is no mere co-incidence that the last fictional work too of Agyeya focuses on an
existentialist theme. … In the academic world, it has been customary to regard the
publication of this last story “Gangrene” as the decisive turning point, where Hindi
short story came to evince a distinctly modernist sensibility .44
The earliest expectations of modernist writers in the early 1950s was free-
dom from pre-decided forms and subjects, and the adoption of an appropriate
form in which meaning was not infused into the form but grew out of it or gan-
ically. The newness of the New S tory was related to the expression of con-
temporary situations and the imperative to constantly change with newer
perspectives. As it did not have a fixed form or a model, it was obliged to
remain indefinable. Kamleshwar has distinguished the malleability of the
New Story from both the rigid progressivist and fashionable modernist writing
that preceded it. Unlike progressivist writing which tended towards dogma
(following Ranadive’s advice) or the modernist literature of the early 1940s
which was self-consciously experimental, the New S tory actively engaged
with the frustrations, dilemmas and contradictions of the modern individual.
No one story could become a standard since the dynamism of a modern sen-
sibility meant that its representation in literature itself had to constantly evolve:
“The real process of the Nai Kahani was born out of its ability to weed out
that which was irrelevant within itself. Thus, the word ‘new’ is neither an
adjective nor a noun, but merely an indicator of that process.” 45
The writer of the New Story could not be slotted in any category since this
new kind of writing was extremely varied in terms of both content and form.
The fear and suspicion in inter -personal relationships (Rajendra Yadav’s
“Kinare se Kinare Tak”), the transience of human relationships and an open
acknowledgement of the woman’s physical and psychological needs (Rajendra
Yadav’s “Prateeksha” and Ismat Chughtai’s “Lihaaf”), the individual’s alien-
ation from his entire family and society (Nirmal Verma’s “Pichlee Garmyon
Mein”), and many other issues confronting the modern individual formed the
subject matter of the Nai Kahani. Kamleshwar has pointed out that the writer
in the decade of the 1950s was essentially interested in representing the mod-
ern individual in her specifically modern Indian context, engaging with the
dilemmas and contradictions of her life without any preconceptions. While it
is largely true that writers like Mohan Rakesh, Rajendra Yadav, Kamleshwar,
Nirmal Verma, Ismat Chughtai, Surendra Prakash and many others associated
with the Nai Kahani produced stories and Qurratulain Hyder and Khadija
Mastoor wrote novels that focussed on middle-class urban life, it would be incor-
rect to identify modernist fiction entirely with urban existence. Phanishwarnath
Renu’s characters (particularly Karma in “Ek Aadim Ratri ki Mahak”) are not
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34 Writing Partition

urban middle-class individuals, yet their sensibility is noticeably modern.The

new babu at the station wants to place Karma geographically when he asks
whether his name is “Karma, Karamchand or Karmu” and whether he belongs
to Santhal Par gana or Ranni Hazaribagh. But Karma, whose self-perception
is that of a ramta-jogi, an unattached homeless fakir , is an orphan who was
found on a train from Assam, ‘unclaimed’ and lost. Significantly Karma, merely
chooses to stay with the stationmasters who are posted at a remote, small and
unimportant station distant from both town and village, and refuses a regular
railway job. Karma’ s self-perception through a recall of significant clues in
his memory (he is constantly lost in his dreams of the past even in his wake-
ful state) emphasizes the difference between him and Premchand’s peasants.
The Nai Kahani was not a new form in which any subject could be cast.
Rather, it was a new form which evolved from the expression of a whole
range of new subjects. In this it was not a form which was being imposed
from outside, but a form which was itself an integral part of the new subject.
It grew out of a new and dynamic integration between the form and content,
the content finding its own form in the creative process itself.As Kamleshwar
has said, “neither form nor style retained their independent existence. They
became integral parts of the story itself and could not be given a separate
form; they were a part of the total experience.” 46
The concern with form has been a significant part of western aesthetic
practice in the twentieth century . But there is little evidence of this in Hindi
and Urdu fiction. Critics like Qamar Rais, Kamleshwar and Namwar Singh
have agreed that the representative form in the post-Independence period was
the short story. This was consonant with the concerns of the creative writer in
that period. The wide canvas of the novel had been successfully used by writ-
ers who wanted to capture a whole epoch, the decline of feudal culture or the
rapid changes brought about by colonial modernity . However, the focus on
the individual’s inner self required a concise form, and the emer gence of the
Nai Kahani in the late 1950s was a recognition of this need. But the tradi-
tional form of the story was not rejected. As Namwar Singh has suggested
that, “In contrast [to more experimentalist writing], Nirmalji has experimented
minimally with the form of the story, and yet he has had significant achieve-
ments in very traditional forms.” Phanishwarnath Renu too produced many
conventional stories and yet they possess “a classical freshness”. 47 It was the
treatment of the subject that was dif ferent, not necessarily the form in which
it was cast. But this treatment could by itself result in a new form in some
cases. Some writers creatively employed traditional forms of storytelling like
the kissa or the dastaan, and in the process modernized them. Traditional nar-
rative styles drew attention to the changed nature of society and reality in the
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 35

new age. However, there were other writers who were able to render a modernist
sensibility or experience in the realistic form itself.
It is true that in the earliest phase of modernist writing, some formulaic
stories that took up issues of loneliness, alienation or pessimism used myths,
symbols and the idea of theAbsurd in ways that emphasized form or technique
over content. Char ges of imitation or artificiality have been levelled against
many pre-Independence literary works of Agyeya. Even the term prayogvad
actually calls attention to the experimental nature of these works ( prayogvad
means experimentalist, and is posited against prayogsheelta, which means
experimental). However , the Progressivists too did not venture beyond a
rather restricted and orthodox understanding of Marxism as the exclusive tool
for comprehending reality. The disagreement between the Progressivists and
modernists was not about literary forms and modes; it was about what consti-
tuted ‘significant’ reality. The Progressivist writers were clearly unwilling to
go beyond the restricted and restrictive definition of the ‘revolutionary’
potential of literature as enunciated at the Bhiwandi conference of the IPW A
in 1949. The modernists on the other hand, were responding to the new pres-
sures in society from new perspectives in their engagement with reality .
In the context of ‘significant’ reality that the modernists were engaging
with, it is worth keeping in mind that this reality was a crucial part of the con-
temporary situation itself. The question of what is reality or whether it has
changed in time at a philosophical level is inherently irresolvable. However ,
if one sees significant reality as something constituted by a community and
its contemporary world-view, then one can at least refer to dif ferent aspects
of a total reality. Modernity in literature “was contemporaneity itself, because
at some levels contemporaneity was synonymous with modernity”. 48 But
such a close identification between literary modernity and contemporaneity
may be misleading. Any contemporary idea or value need not be modern.
Traditions and the past too are an integral part of modernist fiction.
The dominant area of emphasis in modernist Hindi and Urdu fiction was
inner experiential reality. Verma’s aantarik yatharth or inner reality is what
distinguished the Nai Kahani from the progressive writing of the preceding
two or three decades. Stories in the progressive-realist phase were largely ori-
ented around incidents. In the Nai Kahani, the action was basically centred on
the consciousness of the central character, her frustrations, lack of communi-
cation with others, and the feeling of loneliness. Essentially, the focus was on
the individual, no longer integrated into the larger community, but lonely and
disillusioned with earlier given ideals which had been belied by historical
events and society, and by the attempt to live according to personal codes of
conduct.
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36 Writing Partition

The search for an individual and unique identity is as much a part of mod-
ernist fiction as the feelings of isolation and loneliness. Frequently, this search
is implied in the imaginatively rich consciousness of the character . While
some of the characters find themselves completely out of sync with their social
community and family and retreat into their inner selves, like the old retired
man in “Wapsi” (Usha Priyamvada) who leaves his family after realizing that
his son, wife and daughter -in-law consider him an imposition, others retreat
into the recesses of their memories to reconstruct an idyllic existence. This is
not necessarily to be construed as nostalgia. In fact, the modernist texts do not
express any sentimental attachment to any character or context. In his analy-
sis of Nirmal Verma’s writing, Namwar Singh has ar gued that the writer is
committed to the authenticity of the central situation, not to the character . In
both cases, what is apparent is the disjunction between the individual and her
social context.
While one cannot privilege inner reality over outer reality or vice versa,
the emphasis on the subjective self in most of the fiction after the 1950s can-
not be denied:
Where the cruelty of sociality ( samajikta) suppresses the reality of the individual,
or where the cruelty of the individual ego rejects the reality of sociality , there the
contemporary story, i.e., the Nai Kahani cannot exist… 49
Modernists like Nirmal Verma insist that modernity does not involve de-
linking the individual from society; “To the modern writer, wary of easy solu-
tions, his own personal experience seems to be the sole authentic criterion of
his art.… But the ‘external world’ does exist and cannot be brushed aside.” 50
The relationship between the individual and society is a critical aspect of
both the realist and modernist modes. While characters in progressive-realist
texts had tended to be types of social classes, castes, regions or professions
who are integrated within the lar ger community, modernist fiction empha-
sized unique characters out of sync with society . Indeed, the unease of the
modernist character arose from the disjunction between her and the lar ger
society itself. Her inability to communicate a personal unique experience to
others, as in Kashinath Singh’s “Sukh” or in many of Joginder Paul’s stories,
illustrate the intense loneliness and alienation of the modern character . The
isolation of Latika in Nirmal Verma’s “Parinde”, or Mohan Rakesh’ s “Miss
Pall” or Gita in Rajendra Yadav’s “Prateeksha” is the result of an acute dis-
junction between the individual and society.
The proponents and practitioners of the Nai Kahani have not argued for the
alienation of art from the material world. Both idea and emotion were consid-
ered equally important in the context of the Nai Kahani ; “Since no idea is
final and in a rapidly changing context where there is a crisis of values and
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 37

there is a need to constantly re-examine one’ s belief … in such a situation a

writer’s task is very delicate.” 51
For Nirmal Verma, all significant literature carries within it a tension
between experience and ideology . Any attempt to privilege one or the other
destroys the creativity of the work. But his thesis has a particular relevance
for modernist fiction in Hindi and Urdu. Neither totally committed to a rigid
ideological position, nor imbued with pure experience, modernist fiction
inhabits the middle ground that Verma is referring to. Beliefs are subjected to
authentic experience and are frequently found wanting. This also creates the
possibility of the character finding her own uniquely personal code of ethics.
As Verma perceptively observes, a work is seriously impaired when its cre-
ative balance is upset by either letting “beliefs dominate the experiences” or
vice versa.52 One can clearly see that the attempt was not to denude the story
of any ideological content; rather it was to achieve a balance between the idea
and emotion or experience.
The consciousness of the present is apparent in the emphasis that the writers
of the Nai Kahani placed on contemporaneity . The characters of the Nai
Kahani, the representative modernist form of the post-Independence period,
confront their present without any sentimental attachment to the past or a blind
faith in the future. This does not mean that characters do not recall the past at
all. The past is recalled in the context of a dynamic relationship with the pres-
ent. For instance, the central experience in Nirmal Verma’s story “Parinde” is
Latika’s coming to terms with her failed personal relationship.The cold, hidden
recesses of her inner self, evocatively expressed in the image of the snow-clad
mountains, dominate her existence. Unable to or unwilling to break out of her
lonely, isolated self, she nevertheless appreciates Hubert’ s attention and once
refrains from going by the rule book when she chances upon the hostellers hav-
ing a party beyond the permitted hours. The story preserves a delicate balance
between her self-absorption and her repressed desire to establish meaningful
relationships. This ambivalence within her self is related to her past as well as
her present. Her final gesture of handing over the letter of an admirer to Julie,
after having confiscated it earlier , suggests her acknowledgement of another
person’s privacy and freedom, and the transcendence of her own grief.
The progressive-realist story was firmly rooted in its social and historical
context and its universality could only be gleaned in the wider humanist
sense. But modernist fiction consciously calls attention to the wider implica-
tions in the central situation. However , it does so without losing its location
in a specific social context. Namwar Singh has observed, “The echo or figu-
rative expression of a large truth in a small situation is possible in a story too,
not only in poetry, like Nirmal does, like Chekhov did.” 53 The poetic quality
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38 Writing Partition

of modern fiction is the result of precisely this transcendence that it is able to

achieve, even as it remains firmly anchored in the present. Born out of human
experience, it strives to transcend its historical rootedness and acquire a uni-
versal transcendental quality . But it does so not by denying the lived, con-
crete, human experience, as religious mystics do, but by celebrating the pres-
ent, the concrete and the human.
In the context of the wider contemporary significance of the Nai Kahani it
is worthwhile to briefly look at Namwar Singh’ s comments on Nirmal
Verma’s “Parinde”, which he hailed as the first authentic Nai Kahani when it
appeared in the late 1950s. The reason for his appreciation of ‘Parinde’lies in
its disha sanket, a signpost that gives a clue to the larger significance that res-
onates in the story . At one point in the story , Latika, the central character ,
wonders if the birds are all waiting to go elsewhere, like Hubert, Dr Mukherji
and herself. “But waiting to go where? Where shall we all go?” Namwar
Singh sees the last question in the context of a wider human destiny and
relates it to the central question in Chekhov’ s stories specifically and nine-
teenth-century Russian literature generally . And the author ’s “quiet” state-
ment, that follows, “But she did not get any answer…” is seen by him as an
expression of the author’s uniquely personal ‘silence’, suggestive as before of
a universal meaningfulness. 54
The experience represented in the Nai Kahani is at one level extremely pri-
vate, personalized and subjective. But to the extent that it illuminates and
makes available for the reader some aspect of human existence not hitherto
perceived, the story is made objective and may become a shared experience.
However paradoxical this may sound, modernist fiction, despite focussing on
the subjective self, simultaneously attempts to transcend its cultural location
to reach out to the reader and involve her in the experience itself. It compels
the reader to take an individual stance without any pointers from within the
text. Thus, both in the experience rendered in the story as well as in the inter-
face between the story and the reader there is a freedom, an element of per-
sonal involvement without any interference from the author or the story itself:
“The story turned into a ‘journey of experience’. The reader began to pass
through the same experience as that gone through by the writer…” 55
The basic focus of the Nai Kahani was experiential reality. This experien-
tial authenticity did not emer ge from any given truths or beliefs. The entire
complex creative experience bespoke its own validity. It was not as if contem-
porary reality had changed radically . What had altered was the perspective:
“Reality was no longer the artistic ornament of the genre of the story; it
became the vehicle of man’s subjective and objective aspirations…” 56
The details were not new or unique. But they were or ganized in a dif ferent
pattern, they were structured in such a way that a new perspective emerged from
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 39

them. Thus, the structure of the story was integrally related to the meaning itself.
Kamleshwar argues that it was Yashpal who shifted the emphasis from morality-
based relationships to context-related, meaningful, situational ones.
The reader approached the experience or the reality directly and experien-
tially without any mediation by the author. The absence of any authorial inter-
vention was also necessary in view of the fact that orthodox morality was not
relevant in an age where values were rapidly changing.According to Namwar
Singh,
In the context of delicate relationships … in which moral questions are involved, it
is difficult to decide who the enemy is. To make moral judgments can be fatal both
for the creative work and the writer ’s social vision. 57
Namwar Singh’s statement is significant because it argues that the absence of
the authorial point of view is a necessary feature of both the age and the sub-
ject of the Nai Kahani.
The closer relationship between the reader and the story also meant that the
writer could creatively utilize the reader ’s awareness of myths and folktales
and oral narrative forms. The traditional form of storytelling in India was oral
and the katha and dastaan in Hindi and Urdu, respectively , were indigenous
forms of the story . These forms did not rely on probability to establish their
truth. In fact, the Puranic tales used the metaphorical form to establish some
general truth about human existence, the relationship between human beings
and gods, or human beings and nature. The story thus was a complete
metaphor generating conceptual meanings. The modernists’ use of myth and
fable, in which characters are removed from everyday familiar situations, did
not create any major disjunctions in fiction. The ‘once-upon-a-time’ begin-
nings immediately alerted the reader to the metaphorical nature of the narra-
tive, given her familiarity with the traditional forms. But unlike traditional
tales where the intention was usually didactic, in modernist fiction myths and
folklore imparted a suggestiveness, an allusive quality to the theme apart
from universalizing it. The metaphors fractured meaning and the reader could
respond to the story from more than one perspective.

JADEEDIYAT IN PAKISTANI URDU FICTION

The trajectory of jadeediyat (modernism) in Pakistani Urdu fiction, however,

needs to be distinguished from its Hindi and Urdu counterpart in India. While
literature in independent India was not subject to any severe censorship by the
State, which in fact supported civil liberties zealously , the Urdu writer in
Pakistan was severely constrained by the Liaqat Ali Khan and Ayub Khan
regimes. The Pakistan Progressive Writers’ Association and the Communist
Party of Pakistan were banned and the Urdu writers in Pakistan found
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40 Writing Partition

themselves at a dead-end after the Partition. Many of them were progressive

writers and found it extremely dif ficult to accept the critical and unnatural
break. For them, a common cultural North Indian identity , centred to a very
large extent on the Urdu language, was a civilizational identity that had
retained its hold for centuries. In the context of Partition narratives, from both
sides of the border, Aijaz Ahmad has drawn attention to how since Urdu was
identified neither with any region nor with any religious community or polit-
ical persuasion, Urdu writers tended to see themselves and their works as a
“condensation of the civilization as a whole”. 58
But to posit such a civilizational identity went contrary to the very logic of
the creation of Pakistan. In the initial phase immediately after Partition, the
progressive writers in Pakistan continued to write stories on Partition from a
secular humanist perspective. But after the Pakistani S tate came down heavily
on the All Pakistan Progressive Writers’ Association (APPWA) during the
mid-1950s, many of these writers just stopped publishing any of their works.
The disintegration of the Pakistan Progressive Writers’ Forum was also
hastened by internal dissensions. As in the case of the IPWA, the APPWA also
adopted a rigid attitude towards the State and the role of literature in the rev-
olutionary struggle. This predictably led to a split. According to Hafeez
Malik, “The dissidents led by Hasan Askari, and Saádat Hasan Manto turned
in disillusionment to art for the sake of art, and eventually succeeded in win-
ning over a number of young writers to their literary theory.”58 Sajjad Zaheer,
the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Pakistan, and Ahmad
Nadeem Qasmi, the secretary of the APPWA, launched a sharp and vitriolic
attack against the policies of the Pakistan Government. The critique of the
class character of the Muslim League-led government and the call for socialist
literature was evident in progressive journals like Savera, Naqush and Sang-e
Meel. This in fact led to the quick demise of all Left and secular formations.
Both Sajjad Zaheer and Faiz Ahmad Faiz were imprisoned in the Lahore
Conspiracy case in 1951 and the Communist Party of Pakistan was banned in
1954. The APPWA was declared a political party in 1958 and Ayub Khan
forcibly sold off the assets of Progressive Papers Limited, the funding organ-
ization of the Association. Hafeez Malik writes: “Some writers prudently
accepted new positions in the semiprivate or ganizations supported by the
government, while the die-hards continued to eke out an existence through
the sale of their literary works.”60 The progressive, secular stance could not be
countenanced by a newborn Pakistani S tate when Pakistan had been created
on the basis of an exclusive religious cultural and national identity . The new
generation of Urdu writers wrote an alternative script in which at one end of
the spectrum shared traditions were cast in an abstract allusive form, and at
the other end Partition was re-labelled as the birth of Pakistan, a memorable
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 41

and defining moment for which thousands of Muslims had been martyred.
According to Aijaz Ahmad, “This shift in ideological mooring was much
clearer in Pakistan, already by 1957, where the state had played a direct role
in suppressing the Left intelligentsia….” 61
To conclude the term ‘modernism’ has been the subject of much critical
debate in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the context of the Nai Kahani
in Hindi. As an ‘ism’ it carries the connotation of being a fixed system of
belief and thus as prescriptive as its predecessor , Progressivism. In addition,
its need to define itself in contradistinction to Progressivism allowed its
detractors to make the charge that it was a Western importation that had been
uncritically accepted. The initial experimentalist phase initiated by Agyeya,
that produced academically modernist stories and attempted to de-link the
story from the progressive elements within Progressivism, did not help matters
either. The New Story did not initiate a literary movement like Progressivism.
Its themes and forms were varied and did not conform to any set pattern. Its
dissociation from any ism and its protean form ensured that it could not coa-
lesce as a coherent whole with characteristic and identifiable features. What
was ‘new’ could only be described as a perspective or a sensibility. It was not
only reality that had changed. What had also changed was the writer ’s angle
of vision; his focus had shifted. This was the marker of a new sensibility .
Modernity in Hindi and Urdu fiction cannot be identified in terms of any
parameters that confer a distinct identity. It was certainly not a literary cultural
movement like the IPW A; it did not have an or ganized body of writers and
intellectuals that could discuss and make public pronouncements on the
nature and purpose of literature and art. Both ‘non-progressive’ and progres-
sive writers came to be associated with the New Story, and the one common-
ality between them was the emphasis on authenticity of individual experience
and what were regarded as ‘significant’, ‘valid’ and ‘relevant’ aspects of con-
temporary reality. Therefore, it would be both accurate and useful to eschew
the term ‘modernism’ and use the qualifier ‘modernist’ to describe the fiction
of this phase.
One could ask why the term ‘modernism’ is at all a useful category given
that realism seems to strongly influence Hindu and Urdu fiction in the 1950s
and 1960s. The extremely diverse nature of modernist literature in both Hindi
and Urdu, and the overlaps between progressive and modernist writing make
the task of any systematic categorization extremely difficult. Nirmal Verma’s
term aantrik yathaartha is particularly appropriate as a definitional paradigm
for modernist Hindi and Urdu fiction, because it calls attention to a dif ferent
kind of reality that is located within the individual’ s self. The self’s relation-
ship with society is retained even as the focus shifts from class, caste and reli-
gion to the individual experience. One of the major limitations of realist art is
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42 Writing Partition

its premise that objective, living reflections are real, and what is abstract is far
from reality. Modernist literature shifts the terrain of reality, and connects the
reader to the text through a process of self-recognition.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Jurgen Habermas, “Modernity Versus Postmodernity”, translated by Seyla Ben-Habib,

in Victor E. Taylor and Charles E. Winquist (eds), Post Modernism: Critical Concepts
(3 vols) (London and New York: Routledge, 1999) p. 147.
2. Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane (eds), Modernism: 1890–1930 (Sussex: The
Harvester Press Limited, 1978), p. 57.
3. Fredric Jameson, “Foreword to L yotard’s The Postmodern Condition ”, in Taylor and
Winquist (eds), Post Modernism, p. 226.
4. From Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, Modernism, p. 46.
5. Patrick Williams, “‘Simultaneous Uncontemporaneities’: Theorising Modernism and
Empire”, in Howard Booth and Nigel Rigby (eds), Modernism and Empir e
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 18.
6. Socially however, Indians have been out of sync with modernity till very recently . To
be modern in a social sense, i.e. westernized in terms of relationships, lifestyles and
culture, has normally carried with it a certain degree of opprobrium. Intellectually
there has been a much easier acceptance of Western methodologies, ideologies and
institutions, although they have always been interrogated, modified and made compat-
ible before being accepted. It is the disjunction between the social/emotional self and
the intellectual self of the postcolonial Indian that is the focus of modernist writing.
As a society, Indians have not been particularly anti-science or anti-rationality, except
for some fringes.
7. This essay is included in the collection of Nirmal Verma, Word and Memory (Bikaner:
Vagdevi Prakashan, 1989), p. 93.
8. Patrick Williams, “‘Simultaneous Uncontemporaneities’: Theorising Modernism and
Empire”, p. 28.
9. G.N. Devy , After Amnesia: T radition and Change in Indian Literary Criticism
(Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1992), p. 10.
10. From “T raditional Cultural Values: Contemporary Challenges” in Nirmal Verma,
Word and Memory, p. 97. It is needless to add that the privileging and preservation of
tribal culture and its myths is on the agenda of numerous ‘indigenist’ activists and
intellectuals who reject virtually everything ‘modern’ because of its Western origin.
While on the one hand, such a position appeals because it seemingly ar gues for the
preservation of cultural pluralism, on the other , it provides intellectual validity to the
‘swadeshi’ argument of the Hindu right wing which denies that very cultural pluralism
in favour of an orthodox Hindu tradition.
11. Devy, After Amnesia, pp. 17–18.
12. The term ‘anti-secularist’ has been used by Ashis Nandy himself in his article “An
Anti-Secularist Manifesto”, in Seminar 314, October 1985, pp. 14–24. For more on the
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 43

same issue see Ashis Nandy , “The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of
Religious Toleration”, in Rajeev Bhargava (ed.), Secularism and Its Critics (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1999), and T.N. Madan, “Whither Indian Secularism?”
Modern Asian Studies 27, Part 3, July 1993, pp. 667–97.
13. Bradbury and McFarlane, Modernism, p. 46.
14. From Sukrita Paul Kumar , Conversations on Modernism, with Refer ence to English,
Hindi and Ur du Fiction (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study in association
with New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1990), p. 19. Nirmal Verma makes this comment
in the context of his critique of contemporary Indian society , which he considers
‘pseudo-secularized.’
15. Sukrita Paul Kumar has argued that the traumatic experiences of Partition in northern
India, “the context of crisis and rupture matched with the climate of the early twenti-
eth century Europe though the circumstantial determinants here were indeed quite dif-
ferent.” See her The New S tory: A Scrutiny of Modernity in Hindi and Ur du Short
Fiction (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study in association with New Delhi:
Allied Publishers, 1990 ), p. 11.
16. “There are however various types of alienation and there are many qualities of loneli-
ness … the loneliness or the solitariness of an Indian sanyasi living on the mountains
is very different from the loneliness of an individual in Paris, or even the loneliness of
an individual in India living in a big city like Bombay is very different in its entire tex-
ture than a very individuated feeling of anguish and loneliness of a person living in
New York….”16 Nirmal Verma in Sukrita Paul Kumar, Conversations on Modernism,
p. 18.
17. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika (Delhi: Shabdkaar, 1991[1978]), p. 135. All
references to Kamleshwar are from this book and are my translations. Page numbers
follow the quoted passage in the text.
18. Ibid., p. 137.
19. The relationship between a particular form of literary representation and stages of eco-
nomic development has been persuasively argued by Lukacs in his work on European
realism. But a simple transference of his basic thesis in the context of Indian litera-
tures is not enabling. The complex nature of the social, cultural and political transfor-
mation that had taken place in India from the beginning of the colonial contact in the
18th century till the end of colonial rule and beyond seems to have had a relatively
more significant role to play in the evolution of literary forms and modes of represen-
tation than economic (under)development. The modernist element in our literatures
needs to be considered in the context of the major social and political upheavals of the
1940s. One also needs to recall that the transformation from feudalism to capitalism
that took place over at least two hundred years in Europe was an aborted process in
India, introduced and nurtured in its earliest phase in colonial conditions, not more
than a 100 years ago. Remnants of feudal, conservative social structures even at the
turn of the century are a sad reminder of the colonial process of modernization.
20. “I think for a critic it should be very fascinating to make specific distinctions between
say the loneliness in a tradition-ridden society like India where families are breaking
up, and loneliness in a liberated western society .” From Sukrita Paul Kumar ,
Conversations on Modernism, p. 18.
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44 Writing Partition

21. Harish T rivedi, Colonial T ransactions: English Literatur e and India (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1993), p. 189. But like Pragativaad (Progressivism)
Prayogvaad was also an -ism or a vaad. It was a conscious experiment rather than
something that grew naturally from its context.
22. Namwar Singh in conversation with Madan Soni, Udayan Vajpeyi, Jitendra Kumar ,
and Rajendra Dhodapkar , “ Vaastavikta se Jadooi V aastavikta tak ”, in Sameeksha
Thakur (ed.), Kehna na Hoga: Ek Dashak ki Baatcheet, Namwar Singh ke Saath(New
Delhi: Vaani Prakashan, 1994), p. 94. This and subsequent passages in the text are
my translations.
23. Qamar Rais, “Jadeed Urdu Naval: Tashkeel se Tamir Tak”, in Urdu Mein Beesvi Sadi
ka Afsanvi Adab (Delhi: Kitabi Duniya, 2004), p. 245.
24. Ibid., p. 244.
25. Sukrita Kumar, The New Story, p. 98.
26. This is, of course, related to the more fundamental question of the relationship
between history and a literary form. While the concerns and interests of any creative
writer cannot be restricted within any frame, there is normally some intrinsic relation-
ship between a writer and the society he lives in, and the temper of the times he writes
in. As Aijaz Ahmad has ar gued in the context of literary influences from Europe,
“Most other forms came and went, but realism remained, mainly because its ways of
apprehending the world corresponded to that historic moment within Indian society
when it was undergoing its first bourgeois upheavals, obtaining its own class structure
and household arrangements of the capitalist type, forming its own self-consciousness
as a society beset with revolutionary crises, albeit in a colonial setting.” See Aijaz
Ahmad, “Indian Literature: Notes towards the Definition of a Category” in Aijaz
Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatur es (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1994) p. 270. Realism was also a suitable form for literary expression, in a society
which was awakening to a nationalist consciousness, a consciousness which was both
anti-colonial and socially reformist in character.
27. “The sense of tradition is never lost even in the comparatively iconoclastic world of
Jainendra and Agyeya.… even his most existential novel Apne Apne Ajnabi reveals a
consciousness which is deeply imbued with a traditional sense of values.” Ramesh
Chandra Shah in Sukrita Paul Kumar, Conversations on Modernism, p. 95.
28. Ibid., p. 35.
29. Ibid., p. 100.
30. Trivedi, Colonial Transactions, p. 219.
31. Ibid., p. 220.
32. Cited in Sukrita Kumar, The New Story, p. 13.
33. In Hindi the terms are quite easily distinguishable as pragativadi and pragatisheel.
The former refers to writing which looks at progress (as opposed to reaction in the
Marxist sense) as vaad or -ism. The latter term refers to writing which only aspires
towards progress. In this sense the writer accepts a progressive ideological position
without trying to impose it consciously on his creative work. However , within the
IPWA, all writers did not subscribe to a rigid, instrumentalist Marxist approach to both
literature and politics. The presence of socialists, social democrats, nationalists and
writers of different political persuasions indicates this.
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 45

It would be interesting to trace the evolution of political consciousness particu-

larly in Hindi and Urdu creative writers between the 1880s and 1950. Meenakshi
Mukherji has shown how writers like Kishorelal Goswami and Devkinandan Khatri
represented the Muslim characters in their romances and historical fiction as depraved
and lustful. “In any delineation of Rajput–Muslim or Maratha–Mughal conflict their
primary concern was the superior moral values of the Hindus. Muslim characters were
shown to be lecherous and cruel, indulging in a life of luxury , while the Hindu char-
acters generally appeared upright and honest…”(Meenakshi Mukherjee, Realism and
Reality, p. 60) Among Urdu writers, Sharar and others attempted to narrate the glory
of an Islamic past, and its superiority over Christian civilization. “It is interesting to
note that while in Tara and Rajsingha excessive sexual appetite and religious fanati-
cism are seen as the dominant traits of Muslim characters, in Sharar ’s works, especially
in Flora Florinda (1893), the same qualities are attributed to the Christian characters
(p. 63). The present subjugated state of Indian society could explain the construction
of a glorious pre-British past, but the anti-Muslim stance of the Hindu writer indicates
that secular nationalism was yet to find firm roots in society . Meenakshi Mukherjee
has drawn attention to the emotional appeal of religion amongst Hindus reflected in
the slogan ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan’ but one should not for get that the imaginatively
realized glorious Islamic past was equally exclusionary and revived intimations of
medieval Mughal domination.
The disavowal of any such communal or exclusivist tendencies in progressive
writing is fairly obvious. At an ideological level, the consensus on secular nationalism
was forged through the struggle for independence, and was perhaps strongest in the
1920s and the1930s. However , among creative writers a liberal secular humanism
continued to be an expression of faith even after the turbulent 1940s and the Partition.
Indeed, a liberal humanist position was retained even in the modernist fiction which
followed the progressive phase, unlike theWest where modernism was associated with
reaction in the Cold War era. Nevertheless the virtual disappearance of Muslim char-
acters from Hindi fiction by Hindu writers in the 1950s does indicate an unease with
a Muslim cultural milieu. The Hindi writer Shani has even argued that Premchand did
not create any significant Muslim characters even though his stories were situated in
the central U.P. villages. Correspondingly, Muslim writers too tend to focus largely on
Muslim characters in the post-Partition period. Language does not apparently af fect
the religious divide; Shani, a Muslim, writes of the Muslim community in Hindi and
Joginder Paul, a Hindu, too focusses largely on Hindus even though he writes in Urdu.
However the perspective of all these writers is secular . Namvar Singh has suggested
the unfamiliarity of the Hindu with the cultural milieu of the Muslims and while there
may be some truth to it, the issue seems to be more complex.
34. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika, p. 120.
35. Harish Trivedi, Colonial Transactions, p. 221.
36. Aijaz Ahmad, In the Mirror of Urdu, p. 4.
37. Qamar Rais, Jadeed Urdu Naval, p. 265.
38. Aijaz Ahmad, In the Mirror of Urdu, p. 5.
39. Joginder Paul, “The Urdu Short S tory”, in Sukrita Kumar and Sadique (eds), Ismat:
Her Life, Her Times, (New Delhi: Katha, 2000), p. 278.
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46 Writing Partition

40. From Carlo Coppola, “The All-India Progressive Writers’ Association: The Early
Phase” in Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, p. 3. It is quite ironical that
Angare, considered by most progressive critics and writers as the original progressive
text, is cited as being seminal for the modernist fiction that was to come much later .
This can be partly explained by the fact that Linda Wentink is focussing on the influ-
ence of Freud on the Angare group of writers.
41. Qamar Rais, Jadeed Urdu Naval, p. 244.
42. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika, p. 24.
43. Interview with Namwar Singh in Sukrita Kumar, Conversations on Modernism, p. 34.
44. Interview with Ramesh Chandra Shah in Sukrita Kumar , in Conversations on
Modernism, pp. 99–100.
45. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika, p. 42.
46. Ibid., p. 161.
47. Namwar Singh, “Vaastavikta se Jadooi Vaastavikta tak” in Sameeksha Thakur (ed.),
Kehna Na Hoga, p. 93.
48. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika, p. 67.
49. Ibid., p. 63.
50. “Literature and Belief”, in Nirmal Verma, Word and Memory, p. 25.
51. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika, p. 64.
52. Ibid., pp. 27–28.
53. Namwar Singh, “Vaastavikta se Jadooi Vaastavikta tak”, p. 89.
54. From “Nai Kahani ki Pehli Kriti: Parinde” in Namwar Singh, Kahani: Nai Kahani
(Allahabad: Lokbaharti Prakashan, 1994), pp. 62–63. If the relevance of an individual
experience for human society generally is all that a Marxist critic like Namwar Singh
demands, the sharp criticism of the modernist writers is rather misplaced and seems to
be no more than a personality-centred quarrel. The strength of any artistic expression
lies in its ability to transcend its given context and become available to a wider dis-
persed readership. And even a purely individual experience (such a label is itself
debatable) will reach out to a wider readership if it is rendered authentically with
strength of conviction.
A major area of contention between ‘reality centred’ critics like Namwar Singh
and ‘modernist’ critics like Kamleshwar lies in their perception of post-Independence
reality. Are fragmentation, alienation, loneliness, disillusionment the essential and
definitive conditions that prevail in this period? Has the individual given up all hope
and succumbed to a deep pessimism and cynicism? Or , is there hope in the midst of
despair, a larger social awareness in the midst of fragmentation? While Kamleshwar
does indicate that nihilism, cynicism and pessimism are not entirely relevant to our
social reality , he emphasizes the individual’ s personal ethical morality as the new
value. He does not relate it to any wider social paradigm.
55. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika, p. 79.
56. Ibid., p. 78.
57. Nmawar Singh, “Vaastavikta se Jadooi Vaastavikta tak”, pp. 94–95.
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Modernisms, Western and Indian 47

58. Aijaz Ahmad, In the Mirror of Urdu, pp. 26–27.

59. Hafeez Malik, “The Marxist Literary Movement in India and Pakistan”,Modern Asian
Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4, p. 662.
60. Ibid., p. 664. In a footnote to this quotation, Malik cites the example of Faiz Ahmad
Faiz, who was appointed Secretary of the Alhamra Art Gallery in Lahore “by the
Government of West Pakistan on the recommendation of the Ministry of Education,
Government of Pakistan.”
61. Aijaz Ahmad, In the Mirror of Urdu, p. 2.
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Chap03.qxp 10/29/2008 9:38 PM Page 49

3
THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

The relationship between the individual and society has always been an
important strand in literature, and the nature of this relationship determines
the perspective of a work to a lar ge extent. Whether it is the realism of the
early twentieth-century British fiction or the works of socialist realism, or the
more recent twentieth century modernist European texts, or any of the Indian
progressive or modernist texts, each one of them locates the individual strate-
gically with respect to her society . Indeed, the very characterization of the
individual self is determined by this relationship.
This chapter studies a significant process of transition in Hindi and Urdu lit-
erature—a process that marks a shift in sensibility, consciousness and attitude in
both sociological and creative terms. Despite the exposure to a colonial moder-
nity, the individual’s identity was largely rooted in the community, which could
be the village, town or mohalla or even a linguistic or religious group or region.
It was this relationship between the indi vidual and society that developed
numerous cracks as a consequence of Partition. The earlier perspective on the
characterization of the individual and the nature of her relationship with the
external world underwent a qualitative change. Cut loose from the secure
anchor of family and community , the individual is compelled to re-negotiate
her relationship within a radically altered social context. It is in this moment
of transition that one witnesses the emer gence of a distinctly modernist char-
acter and sensibility.
Premchand, generally accepted as the father of the realist movement, was
probably the first to introduce life-like characters in his stories. Prior to him,
with a few exceptions, prose writings largely consisted of didactic and super-
natural stories. It was with the emer gence of Premchand that the problems
and issues of ‘real’ people in their ‘real’ lives became the subject matter of
fiction. The construction of a community from an undifferentiated group can
be seen as the first important stage in the growth of realism in Hindi and Urdu
fiction. Premchand’s most common characters were peasants and zamindars.
Later, he introduced the professional, urban middle classes in his stories.
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50 Writing Partition

These classifications were lar gely the result of the influence of Marxist
thought in India. Classification or categorization of people into different groups,
in this case, classes, meant a specific construction of society, since it was felt that
this facilitated an understanding of social, economic and historical processes.
Premchand and the Progressive writers used this construction extensively in
their works, since for many of them it constituted a social reality. The individual
character therefore became a social type, i.e. a representative of his class, caste
or region. His authenticity was a factor of his typicality . However, it must be
emphasized that the creative writer used this construction because it suited her
aesthetic needs. In other contexts, she could and did construct her own commu-
nity in keeping with the demands of her creative text. Construction thus implied
a particular perspective and this perspective could be determined sociologically,
historically and aesthetically, depending upon a specific context.
Even within Hindi and Urdu realistic fiction, there are varying construc-
tions of the community . The community in Premchand is basically divided
along the lines of caste and class. In the narratives of Partition, however , the
pre-Partition community is essentially depicted as free from any religious or
social conflict. What is emphasized is not the individuals’ conflict with other
groups, as in Premchand, but her cultural connectedness with the larger com-
munity. The communitarian ideal and its intermeshing with the individual is
contrasted with a shattered society completely divided along religious lines in
the post-Partition period, when the individual stands distinctly apart, uprooted
and alienated and in search of a new identity . What is critical in these narra-
tives is perhaps not so much the actual event of Partition, but the impinge-
ment of its consequences on the consciousness of the individual—a defining
moment that forces a recognition of the discontinuity between the past and
the current reality. The need to come to terms with the dichotomy between the
utopian past and the here and now defines the individual’ s present. Deprived
of her identity, which is constituted by the pre-Partition communitarian ideal,
she finds herself rootless and homeless, a refugee who has to strive to relo-
cate her identity in a radically different present, which, paradoxically enough,
is shaped, influenced and conditioned by that very same past that is now
irrecoverable. It is this moment that transforms the individual from the typi-
cal to the unique, and marks the emer gence of a modernist sensibility and per-
spective. It is, however, only the most sensitive of creative writers who have
managed to identify and capture this moment in their works.
While some writers have located their central characters within a specific
moment, a moment that signals an irrevocable break with all that a home
stands for (family, village, land, mohalla, shared existence, etc.), others have
explored the experience of refugees in the aftermath of Partition from varied
perspectives, ranging from the social and historical to the existential.
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The Individual and Society 51

LEAVING HOME

For many writers, the defining moment of Partition was not the attendant vio-
lence and the difficult journey to a new and unfamiliar land, but the traumatic
and painful necessity of leaving behind one’ s home and the entire gamut of
personal, social, familial and cultural memories that were associated with it.
Saadat Hasan Manto in his widely acclaimed work, “Toba Tek Singh” (Urdu,
1953) brilliantly captures the paradox of the individual grappling with both
past and present through his protagonist Bishan Singh. While most of the
action is located in a lunatic asylum, the background is constituted by the par-
tition of the country and the resulting communal massacres and displace-
ments of population. Bishan Singh’s identity is established by his pseudonym,
Toba Tek Singh, the name that alludes to the character more often than to his
village. Using this simple device, Manto collapses the individual and the com-
munitarian identity. Bishan Singh is Toba Tek Singh both literally and
metaphorically. He not only belongs to his village; he becomes his village,
land and home. As news of the Partition filters into the asylum, he begins to
express an obsessive concern for Toba Tek Singh. Toba Tek Singh’s only fear
is that he may be forced to leave his home and village permanently . By jux-
taposing the world of benign, conventional lunacy with the world outside,
which is bent on mindlessly destroying the existing social fabric, Manto rede-
fines the notion of lunacy itself. Viewing partition from the perspective of a
lunatic turns conventional wisdom upside down. Dividing the country and
identifying the inmates as Pakistani and Hindustani lunatics becomes a
bizarre and insane act and the simple, direct questions of the ‘lunatics’under-
line the insanity of the communal leaders. 1
…they could not figure out whether they were in Pakistan or India, and if they were
in Pakistan, then how was it possible that only a short while ago they had been in
India when they had not moved from the asylum at all? (V ol. III, p. 2)
Perhaps what is even more significant in the story is how Partition results
in the arbitrary dissolution of older identities as towns, cities and villages are
mercilessly scattered right or left while the juggernaut of Partition etches its
way across the face of the country. Rumours fly thick and fast and utter con-
fusion prevails.
It had been rumored that Sialkot, which was once Hindustan, was now in Pakistan;
who could say where Lahore, which was in Pakistan today, would be tomorrow, and
was there anyone who could guarantee that both Pakistan and Hindustan would not
disappear someday? (Vol. III, pp. 3–4)
The growing unease of Toba Tek Singh regarding the whereabouts of his vil-
lage expresses his fear of losing a deeply felt and tangible identity. His stubborn
refusal to cross over to the Indian side of the border when he finally realizes
that Toba Tek Singh now lies in Pakistan demonstrates his unwillingness to
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52 Writing Partition

be categorized in the new, official and alien category—Indian ‘lunatic’. That

dividing line, the physical and psychic border has, to be traversed and the
past, i.e. Toba Tek Singh has to be left behind; perhaps the ef fort needed to
accept this inevitability leaves him dead. As Bishan Singh lies stretched out
horizontally in no man’s land, refusing to advance any further and perhaps not
being allowed to retreat either , various meanings suggest themselves—the
loss of his most valuable identity and dignity, indicated by his horizontal posi-
tion at the end (he had remained standing for almost 15 years); the no man’ s
land suggesting how the old identity has been lost, but a new one is yet to be
located, and that he is unwilling to accept the new official identity attached to
him once he is in Indian territory. We are finally left with a powerful and sug-
gestive image of a physically and psychically uprooted individual, standing at
the threshold of a new world, a new context and a new reality. It is an ambiva-
lent movement, suggesting both loss and the total liberation of the self to dis-
cover its limitless potential.
Although not the main focus of the story , the pre-Partition community in
“Toba Tek Singh” is characterized by warm and close ties between Hindus
and Muslims. This is evident in the concern of Fazal Din, a neigbour , for
Bishan Singh and his family . Having done whatever he could have to help
Bishan Singh’s family cross the border safely , Fazal Din visits Bishan Singh
at the asylum to give him the news of his family and bid him farewell. In con-
trast, the syncretic idea is represented in Ashfaq Ahmad’s “Gadariya” (Urdu,
1954) through the character of Dauji. Through Dauji’ s character , Ahmad
examines the relevance of identity in a communalized world. Dauji, a simple
goatherd, was born into a poor Hindu family. Through the tutelage of Hazrat
Ismail Chishti, his Muslim murshid, he is transformed into a man of knowl-
edge. This learning allows him to cross the barriers of religious identity—
Dauji becomes a teacher to the village. Like his murshid whose classes were
open to all, high or low, Hindu or Muslim, in the case of Dauji too,
The gate of munificence was open; everyone was welcome. Religion offered no bar-
rier; difference in creed was of no consequence. (p. 56)
Dauji has far greater insight into Muslim culture than many orthodox
Muslims because of a life-long engagement with Islamic religion, culture and
history. Within the village, Dauji is respected as a man of immense cultural
learning, which gives him relevance and a position in the local society .
In contrast to Dauji is Ranu, an unlettered, aggressive Muslim, who repeat-
edly denies Dauji his position as a cultural mediator. Ahmad constructs Ranu
as a foil to Dauji’ s cultural syncretism. Ranu constantly attempts to define
Dauji as a ‘pandit,’ i.e. a Brahmin: “Whoever sports a bodi on his head has
got to be a pandit.” (p. 62) He cannot go beyond communal stereotypes. For
Dauji, however, neither the external marks of religion nor caste categories
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The Individual and Society 53

make sense. For him, the bodi is not a symbol of his Hindu identity but serves
as a “memento of his deceased mother”—while the word ‘pandit’for him can
be used to designate “a learned man alone.”
In the riots that follow Partition, Dauji loses this symbiotic identity and is
subsumed into the general Hindu community . A rampaging, frenzied mob of
Muslims, bent on eliminating the ‘Hindus’, cuts off his bodi with a sickle and
asks him to recite the kalimah—a purification rite for conversion to Islam.
Seizing Dauji by the chin and lifting his face up, Ranu ordered,
“All right, Pandata, let’s hear you recite the kalimah!”
“Which one?” Dauji asked, softly.
Ranu struck Dauji’s now bare head so hard that he nearly fell down.
He fumed, “Sale, bastard, you make fun of me? You think there are five, six, seven
kalimahs or what?” (p. 85)
The irony of the situation lies in the fact that Dauji’s awareness of Islamic the-
ology goes far beyond the awareness of his ‘Islamic’ aggressors. Turned out
to mind Ranu’s goats, Dauji once again returns to his original occupation. His
relevance for society has ended. His position as a cultural bridge is washed
away in the wake of the communalization of society. Ahmad brings him back
to his origins. The transient nature of the power of knowledge is brilliantly
expressed through the altered relationship between Dauji and Ranu. The
teacher has become a goatherd again.
Ahmad’s construction of this story functions at more than one level—on
the one hand, it is the story of Dauji the individual, and on the other hand, it
is the story of Dauji as a representative of a community . Although Dauji is
stripped of his relevance to the community, as an individual he still retains his
integrity. In many Partition narratives, Partition impacts individual conscious-
ness and transforms identities. Where Dauji is concerned, although his social
position is reduced, and his relevance as a cultural mediator has disappeared,
his individual consciousness cannot be undermined. His knowledge and its
attendant dignity can never be stripped from him. His association with the
Sufi mystic, Baba Farid is a pointer to this. The last image of Dauji walking
away from the scene of his humiliation to mind Ranu’ s goats, “as though he
were Farida, the one with the long flowing hair ,” (p. 86) reinforces the sense
that Dauji will always retain his inner wisdom. It is the fakir in Dauji, his
complete indifference to material possessions coupled with his knowledge,
that will never permit him to go back to being just a goatherd. Partition and
the subsequent communalization of society have empowered Ranu at the
level of the community, but that process of empowerment has not disempow-
ered Dauji as an individual.
While Manto’ s “T oba Tek Singh” and Ashfaq Ahmad’s “Gadariya ”
squarely place their protagonists at the moment of Partition, Mohan Rakesh’s
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54 Writing Partition

“Malbe ka Malik” (Hindi, 1957) locates his protagonists in a post-Partition

world. Yet, the temporal distancing of his characters does not translate into
a psychological and emotional disengagement from the moment of
Partition. What is particularly significant about Rakesh’ s story is how the
individual/society thematic is cast in the form of a confrontation between two
time frames in which the two principal characters, Rakkha and Gani Mian,
seem to be frozen. Gani Mian, who comes to Amritsar after Partition to visit
his mohalla and see his old home, has yet to accept the breakdown of the
brotherhood of the pre-Partition days, which is still a living reality for him.
For Rakkha, the wrestler, reality is located in his proprietorship of Gani Mian’s
home, ironically a heap of rubble, which he had acquired after killing Gani
Mian’s son and his family during the communal riots accompanying Partition.
Time seems to have frozen for Rakkha at that particular moment seven and a
half years ago, and he seems to live in an eternal present, which is expressed in
the aggressive assertion of his ownership of the heap of rubble. The coming
together of these two characters, thus, not only involves a dramatic confrontation
between two individuals, one an aggressor and the other a victim, it also signifies
a confrontation of the past with the present and all the values, beliefs and associ-
ations that they respectively stand for. The moment of confrontation enlarges the
consciousness of the protagonists. Gani Mian has to take cognizance of an altered
mohalla in which people do not recognize him and, in fact, suspect him of being
a kidnapper. He is forced to accept the reality of the death of his son and his fam-
ily in the same mohalla that he had once associated with warmth and security .
Like Toba Tek Singh and Dauji, he has to internalize and engage with a present
that seems to have passed him by for seven and a half years.
For Rakkha, it is a reverse process that begins to enlar ge his field of con-
sciousness. Unlike Gani Mian, Rakkha betrays no awareness of the pre-Partition
mohalla, i.e. the past. Having established his ownership over the debris of
Gani’s house, he jealously guards it, and, as the title suggests, it is his malkiat,
his ownership, which is his identity . His intention to consecrate or purify a
‘Muslim’ house, by performing a havan also indicates perhaps a desire to
wipe out all past memories and associations. His encounter with Gani Mian
and the growing awareness of his guilt, delineated metaphorically, involve the
reader in a powerful psycho-moral drama. Gani Mian does not know that it
was Rakkha who had raped his daughter -in-law, killed his son Chiragh Din,
burnt down his house and is now the owner of the rubble that lay at the site.
His innocent questions to Rakkha leave the latter speechless.
Tell me, Rakkha, how did it happen?... You were friends. You loved each other like
brothers. Couldn’t he have hidden in your house? He was bright enough to have
thought of that!.. (Vol. I, p. 74)
Rakkha’s arrogance vanishes and he is reduced to a helpless, guilt-stricken
state before Gani Mian’s trusting innocence. His guilt gnaws away at his inner
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The Individual and Society 55

self. His character undergoes an attitudinal shift and he begins to seek atone-
ment. He starts talking of his pilgrimage to the Hindu temple ofVaishno Devi
and, for the first time, feels compelled to surrender his right over the heap of
rubble. The deep slumber of his ‘feeling self ’ is disturbed by the past in the
form of Gani Mian’s naive assumption that he is not only a friend but also a
protector. Rakkha’s consciousness, frozen in the present, acquires a mobility
or fluidity when traversed by the memory of the past, forcing him to refashion
his static self. The consciousness of his guilt is but one step in that direction.
Rakesh, like the other writers discussed above, does not develop the process
of the reshaping of identity any further . Prior to Partition, Rakkha’ s self was
defined by the community perception of him as a protector . Although this
community perception changes in the post-Partition mohalla, Rakkha remains
immune to this new perception. It is only when the past in the form of Gani
Mian comes to haunt him that Rakkha’ s armour is pierced. Rakkha, as an
alienated individual, living by a personal, self-serving ethic, acquires a far
greater significance with his awareness of the community and how it defined
him in the past. This new, redefined perspective of Rakkha is an important
marker of a modernist sensibility , which privileges not just the present but
also the presence of the past in the present.
While “Toba Tek Singh”, “Gadariya” and “Malbe ka Malik” take up the
issue of the impact of the Partition on the human consciousness, Bedi’ s
Lajwanti (Urdu, 1951?) deals with its consequences for the relationship
between a husband and wife.2 The trauma of Partition forces the characters to
reassess both themselves and their relationship. This story records the subtle
but significant evolution of the consciousness of the protagonist, Lajwanti,
a traditional Hindu housewife who is abducted and later recovered and
returned to her husband, Sundar Lal. Sundar Lal is the chief or ganizer of a
rehabilitation committee, which tries to persuade families to accept abducted
women back into their “homes and hearts”. The individual’s interface with
the community is represented in the relationship between Lajwanti and her hus-
band. The conventional, status quoist nature of their relationship before her
abduction reflects the traditional moorings of the community. Her reconcilia-
tion with her husband is marked not just by a search for a redefinition of the
terms of the relationship but also marks the emer gence of a unique individ-
ual—Lajwanti is now capable of reassessing both herself and her relationship
with her husband, which reflected in many ways the conventional communi-
ty she has long been a member of. The relationship can never be the same
again because the two individuals can never go back to being what they were
prior to the Partition.
Narratives of Partition that deal with women emphasize, among other
issues, the transformed nature of their relationships with men, from being
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56 Writing Partition

‘respectable’ mothers, wives, sisters and daughters to becoming scarred and

‘sullied’ victims. The changes in Lajwanti’ s inner self when she is humiliated
and abused is brilliantly brought out by Bedi through the altered nature of the
relationship between Sundar Lal and Lajwanti, after she is ‘recovered’ and
comes home. Sundar Lal’s response to Lajwanti, when she returns, is a sen-
sitive study of the subtle impact that a communalized atmosphere produces in
a well-meaning individual. Sundar Lal, for all his solicitude, is a part of a con-
ventional community and has internalized many of its prejudices—within
him he carries both progressive and conservative strains. It is this contradic-
tion that creates the complexity in his character . In actively working against
these prejudices, he over -compensates his wife. Both his regarding her as a
devi and his refusal to let her talk about her traumatic experience considerably
reduces the possibility of the re-emergence of an intimacy in their relationship.
Lajwanti wants to go back to the pre-Partition intimacy that she shared with
Sundar Lal through an honest acceptance of whatever has happened to her .
Sundar Lal’s unwillingness to listen to her tale of sorrow implies his fear of
any intimacy with a ‘sullied’ woman. She desperately wants to “tell him what
she has been through”, to clear any misapprehensions he might have, but
Sundarlal “deftly avoided listening to her”. (p. 27)
Her abduction has robbed her of an identity; “her body … was no longer
hers but that of a goddess”. Her happiness at Sundar Lal’s quiet acceptance of
her into his house is ‘marred by a nagging doubt, a misgiving’. Like Sita after
her abduction by Ravana, she has come back to Ayodhya with Rama.
It seemed that after a protracted moral exile, the Ramchander and Sita of an age
long past were entering Ayodhya… (p. 27)
But like Sita, she also realizes that she has been rejected by Rama for her
alleged impurity. Sundar Lal’s solicitude for her, in sharp contrast to his earlier
rough treatment, is galling for Lajwanti who longs to for get her humiliating
experience. His regarding her as a ‘devi’ and putting her on a pedestal as
someone to be worshipped, is a constant reminder to her of her changed status.
As a victim, she wishes to obliterate her past but her benefactor , ironically,
refuses to allow it.
Sundar Lal had convinced her that she was in fact a lajwanti, a glass object too frag-
ile to withstand the barest touch. Laju would look at herself in the mirror , and after
thinking long and hard would feel that she could be many things, but could never
hope to be the old Laju ever again. Yes, she had been rehabilitated, but she had also
been ruined. (p. 29)
Kamleshwar’s evocative comment on the impact of Partition—“Partition
became internalized and made us refugees in our own minds and hearts.” 3 —
could well apply to Lajwanti. Her desire to revert to her earlier relationship
and assume her earlier identity only serves to painfully remind her of its
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The Individual and Society 57

impossibility. Her experience has altered her irrevocably , her relationship

with her husband has changed and what we are left with is a sense of entrap-
ment. Given the essentially conservative nature of the society that Lajwanti
lives in, she knows that she cannot dictate the terms of her relationship with
her husband. While she now recognizes the unequal nature of her relationship
with her husband, she can do nothing to change it. She has become empow-
ered with the knowledge of what she wants, but she has to rest content with
the reconciliation that Sundar Lal permits. To exorcise her immediate past she
must return to an older past where she was Laju; Sundar Lal to reconcile him-
self to a ‘sullied’ wife must keep her as a devi.
Krishna Baldev Vaid’s Guzra Hua Zamana (Hindi, 1981) as the name sug-
gests represents a bygone era and the pain of its loss from the perspective of
an adolescent protagonist, Beero. Beero’ s adolescent existence in pre-
Partitioned Punjab and his growth to adulthood as communal riots rage can be
studied as yet another variation of the relationship between the individual and
society. Unlike the texts examined so far , Vaid’s novel is considerably
inwardly oriented in that the narrative’s point of view is to a very large extent
that of its protagonist. What we have is his apprehension of the external real-
ity, both during his adolescent years, as well as at that moment when he
“grows old”. There is a stability in his pre-Partition life evident in his rela-
tionships with his friends as well as from a couple of third-person, objective,
‘secular’ statements. Beero’s train journey to Lahore and the peace commit-
tee meeting in his home town, reflect a society on the ver ge of a breakdown.
The mutual distrust between Hindus and Muslims, especially the diverse
opinions on the question of Pakistan, are obvious examples of this. External
‘reality’ in the form of communal riots is registered in Beero’ s reverie at the
end through images that lack any coherence, and indicate an indeterminate
state of ‘reality’.
As a self-confessed coward from a small town, Beero has no pretensions
of being an active agent in his community’ s, or even his own destiny . The
novel records his sexual awakening and entry into adulthood against the
backdrop of a small town in Punjab, overcome by the communal violence of
Partition. Unlike other creative writers, Vaid does not represent the past as
either idyllic or harmonious. Beero lives in a small town of Punjab with a
mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs; among temples, mosques
and gurdwaras. There is interaction between communities, but it is not as if
there is complete harmony. Hindu and Muslim mohallas are separate; people
are caught up in their own domestic problems. Beero comes from a lower
middle-class family, and the tension between its members is palpable. In fact,
Beero harbours violent feelings towards his parents and has attempted suicide
during his childhood after a major quarrel with his parents. However, Beero’s
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58 Writing Partition

camaraderie with Aslam, Jeeta, Keshav and Hardayal is free from any feel-
ings of distrust or hatred. Their escapades and sexual fantasies are merely
games as they go about caricaturing characters in their fantasies.At a psycho-
logical level, their unstated, hidden, adolescent sexual desires are linked to their
sexual awakening.
Beero’s reverie as he hides with his family in Bakka’s house, while a violent
orgy of rape, murder and looting continues outside, is the thematic centre of the
novel—a cauldron of conflicting emotions, fantasies and memories. Sudhir
Kakar, in his study of communal violence, provides psychological pointers to
the impact of a communal riot on our inner selves.
In undermining our familiar control over mental life, a riot is often experienced as a
midwife for unfamiliar, disturbing fantasies and complex emotions, such as both dis-
gust and overwhelming sexual attraction for a member of the enemy community .4
Kakar cites the “terrified Beero’s thoughts,” as he hides in Bakka’s house,
as a brilliant, fictional encapsulation of “the complex flow of subjectivity”.
While Beero’s instinctual drives are undoubtedly manifested in violent images
during the riot, his reverie is far more complex than Kakar ’s analysis would
permit. Beero reflects on how he will recall the bygone era in the future.In the
dark room, where he symbolically attains adulthood—“I really grew old just
sitting in that shed.” 5 (p. 336)—he lives out his past and future in a fantasy ,
which now includes not just his sexual hunger but also the desire to preserve
the memory of the past.
My diary is in there. I want to take it with me as a souvenir . So I won’ t forget. So
I’ll keep some connection with this town… (p. 339)
The culmination of his adolescence is expressed both by the death of his
friends, as well as by the absolute state of flux he encounters in his reverie or
trance, in the wake of Partition-related violence.A basic lack of sureness about
identities (individuals appear to be not themselves but disguised as others),
confusion about whether people have died or are still alive, or perhaps sus-
pended somewhere between life and death, whether they are in heaven or
hell—images of destruction, cynicism and indif ference characterize the long
sequence of Beero’s dream towards the end of the novel. This dissolution of
certainties, as well as the vicarious fulfilment of his sexual fantasies as a con-
sequence of Partition suggests Beero’s entry into adulthood. As a coming-of-
age Partition novel, it helps the reader recall another well known work in
English, Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy Man (1988). In Sidhwa’s novel, Lenny, the
young Parsi girl, watches with growing dismay the forcible abduction of her
ayah and her traumatized condition when she subsequently visits her along
with her grandmother in Lahore’ s red light district. Just as Lenny watches,
uncomprehendingly at first and then with greater understanding, the violence
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The Individual and Society 59

that shatters her innocent world, Beero too painfully recognizes his own
inescapable journey to adulthood. The fun, games and innocence of his earlier
existence give way to an almost philosophical reflection on the movement of
time and the paradoxical nature of one’s relationship with one’s past. Situated
in a sense at the intersection of his past, present and future, Beero reflects on
the role of his memories of a guzra hua zamana (a bygone era) in the future.
At one level, memories are painful for many of his community, especially
those who recollect their losses and nurse a desire for revenge. For them,
silence, or even erasure of memory, could become an important strategy for sur-
vival. The bitterness of one’s past needed to be erased, to begin life anew. But
for Beero, this is clearly not a viable option for two reasons. Firstly, as he says,
he never actually saw the corpses on the streets as he walked with his eyes
glued to the ground from Bakka’s house to the refugee camp. The absence of
any desire for revenge, together with his cowardice, means that, unlike the
others, his memories will bring more desire than pain as he recalls his past.
Secondly, he clearly sees the memory of the past as a critical aspect of the
totality of one’s self.
Why do you give so little importance to memory—it’ s a nuisance, but necessary .
Without it you’re dangerous even if not crazy, to yourself as well as others, because
you’d be free from all restraints… (p. 335)
The restraints pertain not so much to the awareness of one’ s social responsi-
bilities so much as to an integrated self, that recognizes the presence of the past
in itself. The eagerness with which the other refugees are looking forward to
their future shocks him. As he says, “I haven’t even started to mourn the loss
of my life on this side yet…” (p. 335) Unlike the other refugees, who start
walling of f their domestic spaces with their luggage in the refugee camp
itself, Beero carries within himself the memories of his bygone era, conscious
of their value in the future and pained at his adolescence coming to an end.
The final image expresses the idea evocatively . As Beero searches for the
child whose wail he hears, he comes across him lying in a pool of blood short-
ly before he dies. His face-to-face confrontation with his earlier self juxtaposes
his regret at the culmination of a phase in his life with his passage on the next
stage, into the future. The novel thus ends at a moment of transition, symbol-
ized by the refugee camp, when Beero moves backwards into his past and for-
ward into his future. The future, however, is still distant and what we are left
with is an acute sense of loss, realized through the narrative of his memory .
Interweaving both the realistic and symbolic modes, the narrative focusses on
the evolving conscious and subconscious self of the narrator . The paradoxical
nature of the narrator ’s relationship with his past, his growth from adolescence
to adulthood, from certitudes to a state where reality becomes indeterminate,
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60 Writing Partition

and the deeply felt pain at the violent end of his adolescence, give the novel
a typically modernist flavour . Authorial silence and the primacy of the indi-
vidual’s inner life, his fantasies and imagination, are further inputs in a mod-
ernist text in which Partition signifies the end of an era at both the individual
level and the social level.
The definition of the self in both sociological and imaginative terms under-
goes a qualitative change in the post-Partition era. Basically, the self is defined
in communitarian terms, when it is contextualized in the pre-Partition era. Its
cohesiveness and harmony not only characterizes the individual; they become
the individual. In other words, the community itself becomes the character .
One of the major consequences of Partition is that the self/individual can
no longer be defined within the traditional context of the community .
Partition marks a breakdown of precisely that community which had defined
the individual, his self and his identity. Isolated and alienated, the individual may
nostalgically hearken back towards the now idyllically constructed, harmonious,
syncretic past (i.e. reject the transformation) or attempt to confront this new
context. The confrontation itself may result in a fragmented self (with the
possibility of death) or open up the possibility of relocating the self within
this new reality. Very frequently, of course, these processes are simultaneous
or at least partially overlapping, and cannot be distinguished in this manner .
However, one can clearly visualize the possibilities of newer definitions of
the self—a freeing of the character from the traditional definitions and an
opening up of new vistas in relationships.

THE AFTERMATH

The previous section discussed Partition narratives that leave their protago-
nists poised at the threshold of a new world. Cut of f from their social, regional
and cultural moorings, the characters are left at a critical moment of transition.
As noted, the narratives end with the protagonists entering a phase of explo-
ration and searching for self-definitions in newer contexts—a phase marked
by an increasing sensitivity to their inner selves.
In the present section, the story continues further to deal with the narra-
tives that focus on the refugees’ predicament in the post-Partition period.
These texts, written by a later generation of writers such as Manzoor Ehtasham,
Joginder Paul, Surendra Prakash and Intizar Husain, locate their protagonists
in the communities emerging in the aftermath of Partition. The memory of the
pre-Partition past or its erasure plays a seminal role in the emergence of these
new identities. This need to either embrace one’ s past, selectively or wholly,
or to deny it completely arose from the specific socio-historical context within
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The Individual and Society 61

which the refugees found themselves. This led to the creation of a whole range
of new identities. It is tempting to categorize the stories dealing with the after-
math as modernist stories, given that all of them were written after the 1950s.
However, this would be an oversimplification of a complex literary situation that
followed the Nai Kahani movement. The progressive realist trend was not com-
pletely jettisoned, particularly by Hindi writers. Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas, written
in the early 1970s, is an obvious example of a realist text. Manzoor Ehtesham’ s
Sookha Bargad, a Hindi novel first published in 1983, also belongs to the realist
tradition with a few modernist markers. However, Krishan Baldev Vaid’s Guzra
Hua Zamana (Hindi, 1981), a modernist text is located in the pre-Partition times
and ends with the migration of the protagonist, Beero.
Manzoor Ehtasham’s novel Sookha Bargad explores the contradictions in
the lives of Indian Muslims after Partition. While the novel does not focus on
the Partition directly, the consequences of the event for the social interaction
between the communities are revealed with a rare sensitivity . Primarily the
story of a nationalist Muslim family, in which the father is firmly committed
to secular and liberal values, the author traces the erosion of the same values
in his son. The complex web of inter -community relations highlights the
terrible costs of Partition for Indian Muslims. While many short stories and
novels trace the trajectory of the alienated individual from the community as
a consequence of dislocation, Sookha Bargad looks at how the secular humanist
and nationalist Indian Muslim is progressively driven to make a common cause
with Muslim communal groups to define cultural and religious identity. The shift
then is not from the secure environs of a stable community in the pre-Partition
days to the dislocated, alienated self of the post-Partition times, but from one
kind of community to another , from a lar ger, more inclusive, notion of the
community to a more insular, sectarian and communal social formation. In this
process, the individual is strung along the trajectories of two different kinds of
communities, and rendered helpless, frustrated and a misfit.
Abdul Wahid Khan, the normative centre of the novel, is a small-time
lawyer in Bhopal. A liberal humanist to the core, he tries to infuse the same
values in his children, Sohail and Rashida. Wahid Khan’s atheism sticks out
like a sore thumb among the local Muslim community. As the narrator Rashida
observes:
From the days of my childhood, I had never seen Abbu offering the namaz or going
to a masjid, whereas Ammi was very regular with her namaz. Distinct from the entire
extended family, Abbu normally wore Western clothes instead of a sherwani …
even on Id I never saw him going to of fer namaz…6 (p. 14)
While some members of the extended family migrate to Pakistan for economi c
and professional reasons, Wahid Khan’s reasons for staying back are simple.
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62 Writing Partition

As he tells his children:

And I did not stay back in this country because of any compulsion.… But why
would I have gone to stay among strangers and what would I have done there?
(p. 70)
He even accepts that his ancestors may have come as invaders.
Our ancestors may have come to this land with weapons to fight wars and kill or be
killed. The victorious ones went back with their loot, the ones who were defeated
became prisoners of this land… (pp. 70–71)
He firmly believes that he has an inalienable right to his home and birthplace,
despite Partition and the venomous propaganda of Hindu and Muslim com-
munalists. He refutes several kinds of allegations regarding discrimination
against Muslims by ascribing responsibility to the community itself for its
prejudices and narrow-mindedness.
To a large extent, his son Sohail and his daughter Rashida are deeply influ-
enced by him, although his wife feels somewhat frustrated at the distance
their liberalism creates from the extended family . On many occasions, Sohail
raises the hackles of several family members by ar guing against their belief
that the Hindus resent Muslims, holding them responsible for the Partition
and considering them disloyal to the nation. This alienation from the extended
family and the larger Muslim community is complemented by their closeness
to Vijay, the son of Punjabi refugee parents. A childhood friend of Sohail,
Vijay is virtually a member of Wahid Khan’s family.
However, the uneasy relationship between the secular individual and a
communalized society begins to acquire a sinister tone particularly after the
two Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971. These events are further compounded
by Sohail’s failed relationship with Gita Sharma, a Hindu girl, and Rashida’s
inhibitions about a relationship with Vijay when her brother becomes increas-
ingly anti-Hindu. The novel is able to thread together three distinct relation-
ships, between India and Pakistan at the political level, between Hindus and
Muslims at the social level, and between Vijay and Sohail and Rashida at the
personal level. The connections reveal how the staunchly secular and inde-
pendent-minded Sohail rationalizes his personal crisis by taking refuge in the
company of communal-minded individuals like Rajab Ali. The communal-
minded Muslim’ s belief in discrimination against the community for its
alleged partiality towards Pakistan acquires some credibility in Sohail’s mind.
Smarting from Gita’s marriage to a Hindu boy chosen by her parents, he puts
Gita and the entire Hindu community in the dock. Sohail’ s angst recalls that
of Zakir ’s in Intizar Husain’ s Basti. Like Zakir he feels extremely disillu-
sioned with the general deterioration of values among the political classes.
Rajab Ali, the Congress candidate to whom Wahid Khan had shown the door
when he came to enlist his support, begins to impress Sohail with his
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The Individual and Society 63

commitment to the cause of Muslims. Gradually, Sohail becomes a supporter

and campaigns for him, even as he attempts to become a ‘good’ Muslim, much
to the approval of his mother . However, Rajab Ali’s joining the right wing
Bhartiya Janta Party after his defeat in the elections makes Sohail cynical.
Finding no common ground with the self-proclaimed messiahs of the Muslim
community, nor able to trust the credentials of the secular formations, he drifts
into an aimless, embittered existence. Sohail’s helplessness and frustration by
the end, when he contemplates asking his cousin Parvez for help in migrating
to America, is the result of his ultimate failure to either live by his father ’s
ideals or become an orthodox Muslim and bemoan the victimization of
Muslims by the majority community . The dream that he writes about in his
diary captures his restlessness and frustration. In the dream which pursues
him relentlessly, he imagines a dark cloudy sky in which he is floating before
his attention is drawn to a bright twinkling star and he instinctively calls out,
‘Abbu!’ But almost instantly , a storm starts brewing and he loses the star .
Searching for water under a blazing sun, he sees the old banyan tree under
which he had played with his childhood friend Vijay. In his own words:
With some effort I somehow reach the peak of the incline, from where far below I
can see my school bus and the rest house near the banyan tree, where years ago we
had gone for a school picnic. From a distance I recognize my friends who are play-
ing different games under the banyan tree. And because I cannot shout, I wave my
hand vigorously to attract their attention, but inexplicably nobody looks at me. It
seems as if in the shade of the banyan tree, secure from the blazing sun they have
forgotten me… (p. 198)
And when he does manage to reach the tree, his friends have all vanished.
What comes as an even greater shock is that in the shade of this huge spread
out tree, he feels even hotter than in the sun. Sitting uncomfortably under the
tree, he sees that all its branches, roots, leaves and buds have dried up. When
he tries to recite the kalimah, he fails to remember it before he suddenly
wakes up crying. The symbol of the withered banyan tree (the title of the
novel Sookha Bargad literally means a withered banyan tree) suggests the
shrivelling of the hope and promise of the liberal, progressive dream of his
father. More generally , it can also be interpreted as an image of the secular
community that has been denied any nourishment to grow and prosper . His
inability to remember the kalimah similarly suggests how in spite of all his
efforts he ultimately remains alienated from the orthodox religious beliefs of
his community and can find no solace in them either. The conflict ridden and
anguished psyche of Sohail also finds its expression in his erratic and com-
pletely inconsistent life style.
One day he would bathe, put on a white linen cap and open the Quran before him.
Another morning he would be lying down prostrate and begging for giveness but
would return home completely drunk at night… (p. 201)
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64 Writing Partition

Sohail’s transformation from a successful and optimistic student to a disillu-

sioned, anchorless and frustrated ‘Muslim’is both similar to and distinct from
the change in Vijay. Vijay’s uncertain relationship with Rashida comes to an
end with the demise of her father . The more orthodox relatives of the family
congregate and Vijay’s unannounced entry into the house is rebuffed by Hanif
Chacha. In the ensuing ar gument, when Vijay claims his rights as a family
member, Sohail takes his uncle’s side. Rashida opposes her uncle initially but
when the situation takes an ugly turn she advises Vijay to desist from exacer-
bating it. Vijay’s unreasonable demand that Rashida choose between him or
“them” can hardly be fulfilled given Rashida’ s uncertainty about the future of
any serious relationship with Vijay as well as the virtual absence of any sup-
port from either her mother or her brother . However, in spite of all the pres-
sure, it is Rashida who remains faithful to her father ’s beliefs and values, refus-
ing the proposal of marriage to a well-of f Pakistani, even as communal riots
claim increasingly more Muslim lives. By the end of the novel, Vijay too
gives up any hope of a future with Rashida, though he continues to maintain
his relationship with the family, albeit at a formal level.
Sookha Bargad offers an important variation of the relationship between
the individual and society from a nationalist Muslim perspective after
Independence. The feeling of alienation among the Muslims and the fear and
insecurity of the Hindus as the former seek the well-being of their families in
Pakistan reveals the complex, contradictory Muslim identity that Partition has
fashioned. Holding on to secular values can at best be a nostalgic act for a
Muslim like Rashida, as she finds herself alone, distanced from her brother and
extended family, and alienated like her father. She finds it increasingly difficult
to defend her stand in the face of a rapidly communalized society , unlike her
father who could not only hold his own but also dream of a future when the
wound of Partition would heal. This alienation does not grow out of any phys-
ical dislocation. It is the tragic consequence of a communal mentality that
pervades sections of both Hindus and Muslims in India. And the crisis of
identity for the secular nationalist Muslim, who finds herself neither com-
pletely accepted by communal or semi-communal Hindus nor by the majority
of the Muslims who assert their cultural identities through the metaphors of
religion, creates an alienated self, which turns in upon itself. Both Sohail and
Rashida find themselves alone and isolated, and while the latter may resist the
pressure to conform to her mother ’s and extended family’ s expectations, the
former becomes self- destructive. Sohail’s inner self becomes a battleground
for contested identities, and he is left attempting to ef face all his beliefs and
values temporarily through alcohol. His nightmares and his angst, located
against the backdrop of a society that is progressively getting fragmented,
suggests a modernist conclusion, though the primary narrative is within the
realistic framework.
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The Individual and Society 65

But far more striking examples of the modernist approach are Joginder
Paul’s Khwabrau (Urdu, 1990), and “Daryaon Pyas” (Urdu, 1978) and
“Fakhtayen” (Urdu, 1994), Surendra Prakash’ s “Khayal Surat” (Urdu, 1990)
and Intizar Husain’ s Basti (Urdu, 1979) and “Ek bin-likhi Razmiya” (Urdu,
1952), which focus specifically on the aftermath of Partition. How refugees
come to terms with the new context, the impact of dislocation and a new
national identity, and the role the past plays in their self-perception are issues
that are represented through this new per spective. This new modernist sensi-
bility and perspective is characterized by a marked focus on the processes of
the individual’s consciousness, her alienation from a new social reality , the
continuities and discontinuities between her past and her present, the use of
the symbolic and metaphoric modes for delineating a state of flux and an
authorial silence. While this signals a break from older ‘realistic’ modes, it
simultaneously establishes a new and vital relationship with the past at the
thematic level.
The interface between the individual and society acquires complex dimen-
sions in the context of the mohajir experience. The Urdu-speaking Muslim
migrants from U.P . who went and settled down in Karachi had to come to
terms with a new Pakistani identity . Being a mohajir was a complex and dif fi-
cult experience, not only because of the inevitable problems of economic
insecurity and shelter; it was also a problematic cultural identity . Most moha-
jirs carried strong memories of their birthplaces and attempted to re-create
Lucknows, Malihabads and Amrohas in Pakistan. Joginder Paul’s Khwabrau
is a story of mohajirs in Karachi who keep recalling the ‘homes’ they have
left behind. ‘Home’, in their particular case Lucknow, becomes an overarching
symbol of their multi-layered identity, which is defined by language, customs,
kinship and, interestingly , even the flavour of Malihabadi mangoes. As
Maulvi Sahab, the chief protagonist of the novel, is told by his son Ishaq,
“Don’t you find it strange that we eat the mangoes grown here but our hearts
can be satisfied only by the clay imitations of Malihabadi mangoes.” (p. 25) 7
Maulvi Sahab himself lives in this make-believe world of the ‘real’Lucknow,
which exists wherever he is temporally and spatially located.The author blurs
the distinction between the real and the imagined by investing the world of
the imagination with a concreteness and immediacy normally associated with
a real world. Maulvi Sahab’ s eccentricity (the Urdu word is diwangi, for
which no English equivalent exists) comes to acquire an authenticity and
integrity which is absent in the real world. The vivid and poetic realization of
his imagined Lucknow is contrasted with the prosaic mundane world of the
real Karachi. Through this literary device, the author represents the intensity
of the mohajirs attachment to the home he has left behind.
Although Deewane Maulvi Sahab is the central character of the novel, it is
in fact the city of Lucknow that is thepivot around which the story is structured.
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66 Writing Partition

Different characters define themselves in relation to Lucknow, which becomes

the focal point and central motif. Paul juxtaposes the realistic and symbolic,
magical realistic mode to weave an intricate pattern of dreams and reality .
The creative process facilitates an internal critique of and appreciation or
sympathy for the “Sleepwalkers” (the English translation of Khwabrau, the
title of the novel, and a reference to the main character) and also highlights
the extremely complex nature of the mohajir reality.
The characters in Khwabrau can be broadly divided into two categories:
those who dream and those who do not. On the one hand, Maulvi Sahab
believes that he continues to live in Lucknow and this illusion of his is care-
fully preserved by his wife and indulged by his sons and nephews. On the
other hand, Ishaq Mirza, Maulvi Sahab’s son, believes in the absolute imme-
diacy of existence and constantly bemoans the continued mohajariat of the
community. He concedes that the older generation has been uprooted and has
suffered, but believes that they must get on with the business of living in the
present. Between these two opposed positions represented by Maulvi Sahab
and Ishaq, Joginder Paul introduces other characters like Hakim Sahab who
have elements of both. Hakim Sahab’ s dream of re-creating an exact replica
of his ancestral house in Malihabad and the orchard of Malihabadi mangoes
is a conscious attempt to graft the past on to the present. Similarly , Maulvi
Sahab’s grandson, who feels confused on being asked to get ready to return to
‘their’ Lucknow (since the only Lucknow he knows is the one in Karachi
where he has been brought up), is an example of the possibility of an integra-
tion between the dream and the reality.
Deewane Maulvi Sahab’s deewangi has an essential core of truth, which is
recognized even by those who do not suf fer from his malady . Even after
“re-creating a whole Lucknow”, they still experience a “sense of being
strangers in our [their] own homes.” (p. 17)
Quite clearly , the mere physical re-creation of Lucknow cannot satisfy
people who are conscious of it being merely an imitation. Any attempt to
replicate can only produce a copy , never the original. For Deewane Maulvi
Sahab, no such paradox exists, simply because he believes that he has not
been physically displaced. For him there has been no break with the past, his
life is a continuum, and there is total integration between the inner experien-
tial reality and the outer , material one. As he tells his wife, who is worried
about his literally losing his way in Karachi:
Where does the question of getting lost arise, Achhi Begum? … No matter where I
go, I can never go out of my own self. (p. 69)
However, while on the one hand the text does tend to privilege Deewane
Maulvi Sahab’s perspective—his dream state—by marking out its experiential
integrity and authenticity, on the other it also brings out the shortcomings of
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The Individual and Society 67

both the above maintained perspectives. The characters who broadly sub-
scribe to the concrete per spective, like Ishaq Mirza, may be in touch with the
present, but they fail to connect their past with the present. Ishaq Mirza sees
little value in the family tree of their last twenty generations, which had been
carefully preserved by his uncle Hakim Sahab.
Relationships for him are transient; they exist “in a given moment only”
and “changes in beliefs and actions due to changes in time and place are pri-
mary and fundamental.” (p. 45) He bemoans the isolated existence, both
emotional and mental, of the mohajirs and suggests a complete and immedi-
ate integration of the ‘aliens’ with the ‘natives’.
If we want to breathe freely , there is no other way but to immediately become the
natives of the new place—so native that the natives who hate us should feel that in
hating us they are in fact hating themselves. (p. 49)
By virtually shutting out the past, Ishaq Mirza is implying a process of ‘de-
culturation,’ a new beginning for his community . Such a process denies the
role of historical memory in the creation of self-perceived identities and is
particularly untenable in the context of mohajirs from U.P., who considered
themselves to be culturally superior to others, even in pre-partitioned India.
Hakim Sahab’s Malihabadi mangoes are a conscious attempt to superim-
pose his past on to the present. After “scores of chemical experiments” he has
finally managed to grow Malihabadi mangoes in “the soil of Karachi”. But
however much the image of Malihabadi mangoes growing in Karachi may
appeal to the mohajirs, the fact remains that they are artificial grafts, which
are possible only through chemical experiments. An organic relationship has yet
to develop; a Sindhi Malihabadi mango or, better still, a Pakistani Malihabadi
mango has yet to evolve.
Despite the economic progress made by the mohajirs, their distinctive
identity still remains locked in their past. Nawab Mirza’ s wife Chand Bibi
worries ceaselessly because her husband has to work in ‘Pakistan’, outside
‘their’ Lucknow, in imminent danger from the Sindhis and Pathans. A patron-
izing attitude towards the Sindhi language and a deep suspicion of Sindhi
sains are further areas of discordance. It is obvious that the dynamism of the
mohajirs in public life and their economic progress has only served to sharpen
their differences with the local people. The roots of the mohajirs and their dis-
tinct culture makes them close in on themselves, inhabiting a separate mental
and emotional plane from which they do not deign to descend. While most of
the characters remain frozen in their perspective, Deewane Maulvi Sahab is
the only character who under goes a change in his worldview , a change that
ironically robs him of his certainties and pushes him unambiguously towards
an as yet uncharted territory , in which he needs to redefine his own self and
identity.
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68 Writing Partition

Wazir Agha has rightly pointed out that while archetypal stories of migra-
tion narrate a period of exile followed by a desire to retrieve the lost paradise,
the process is reversed in Khwabrau.8 Deewane Maulvi Sahab migrates to
Karachi, but opens his eyes in a flourishing paradise, i.e. his Lucknow . The
loss of his paradise and consequent exile occurs only at the end of the novel.
Deewane Maulvi Sahab is caught in a spatial and temporal warp, a Lucknow
frozen in time and space, which he has physically left behind but retained in
the world of his imagination. The architectural re-creation of Lucknow and its
suburbs by the other mohajirs and the indulgence of his family have further
nourished his state of somnambulism to a degree where his inner, private world
of dreams acquires the status of the ‘real’for him. Agha observes that Deewane
Maulvi Sahab is not “insane” but an “eccentric” who is “well-integrated into his
surroundings and has his vision focussed on a beloved, an ideal or some other
definite goal, which saves him from being aimless”. 9
Nevertheless, Deewane Maulvi Sahab’ s ‘eccentricity’ has important con-
sequences in terms of the overall thrust of the text. At a personal level,
Deewane Maulvi Sahab retains his old Lucknowi identity, which is static and
totally unrelated to the context in which he is situated. There can be little
cause for any friction between him and the Sindhis because he does not even
concede their existence in ‘his’ Lucknow. This insular Lucknowi identity
denies the validity of newer identities emer ging from a dif ferent historical
context. It rejects those elements that lie outside the image of a golden, lar gely
imaginary, Lucknowi past and is similar to the self-justificatory Pakistani
identity that Ishaq Mirza attempts to impress upon his family: “Every Pakistani,
whoever and whatever he may be, is actually one of us.” (p. 33) and “Girls,
we are all Pakistanis, because we are all inhabitants of the ideology of
Pakistan.” (p. 34)
Although outer, material reality does not register in Maulvi Sahab’ s con-
scious existence, it slowly casts an impression upon his unconscious, sublim-
inal self. The bomb attack launched by some Sindhis rocks Nawab Mahal,
Maulvi Sahab’s house, killing his wife, son and daughter-in-law and destroy-
ing his dream-reality. This forced shift in Maulvi Sahab’s perception of reality
is made apparent in Manwa chowkidar’s two dreams, in which he encounters
Deewane Maulvi Sahab. The first one, right at the start of the novel, represents
the latter as an easy-going, patronizing, genial Lucknowi nawab, bound to
Munwa chowkidar in a feudal relationship. The second dream, towards the
end, has a rabid, screaming Deewane Maulvi Sahab participating wholeheart-
edly in a procession demanding the creation of Pakistan. Through these
images, the author establishes the contradictions between the fantasy world of
Maulvi Sahab and the material reality of Karachi—the discordance between
the local Sindhis and the alienated mohajirs. The blast restores Deewane
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The Individual and Society 69

Maulvi Sahab’s ‘sanity’ and he finally accepts that he is in Karachi. The two
encounters with Deewane Maulvi Sahab in Munwa’s dreams suggest a move-
ment (not necessarily a progression) from an older , benign frame of reference
to a recognition of an uglier, harsher present, marked by severe friction
between the Sindhis and the mohajirs. This ‘outer ’ disharmony has finally
forced its way into the ‘inner ’ dream world of Deewane Maulvi Sahab and
destroyed it. The or ganic and frictionless relationship that existed between
him and his Lucknow suf fers a setback. The undeniable fact of Partition and
migration involves at least the recognition of one’ s historical situation.
However, even after the bomb blast, Deewane Maulvi Sahab, in a struggle
reminiscent of Toba Tek Singh, attempts to retain his older Lucknowi identity,
erroneously believing that he has merely come to Karachi for a visit, and that
his family is awaiting his return in Lucknow .
But the novel does not end with a single image of Deewane Maulvi Sahab
as a character incapable of accepting the present and attempting to escape into
the past. The open-ended and multi-layered theme and structure also suggest
the possibility of the emergence of a new identity, an identity which “can tune
Nawab Asifuddaula’s thumri to Sain Bulleshah’ s kafi on the chimta …
through a sympathetic blending.” (p. 20) In keeping with the novel’s creative
dynamic, this movement is suggested through a series of contrasting images
and perceptions. According to his wife, after migrating to Karachi, a sobbing
Deewane Maulvi Sahab clung to his memory of a destroyed Lucknow and
nursed it back to health with tacit, overt support from his family and other
mohajirs. By the end of the novel, after his family is killed in the blast, he
rushes to embrace the Sindhi cook.
And instead of his own people it was an alien—his cook, whose kinsmen had caused
this havoc—who was reaching out to him to comfort him. (p. 104)
It is interesting that the person whom he reaches out to in this moment of
grievous loss is the same Sindhi cook whom he had initially regarded as an
‘alien’ in ‘his’ Lucknow. The final exchange between Deewane Maulvi Sahab
and his grandson Salim is even more unambiguous in terms of the path along
which this new identity has to be located. To Deewane Maulvi Sahab’s sug-
gestion that they must now return to ‘our Lucknow’, Salim replies, “But this is
Lucknow, Bade Abbu!” (p. 110)
Joginder Paul is perhaps the only creative writer who has not only imagi-
natively constructed the dilemma of the mohajir but has also taken up the
experiences of the older generation of sharnarthis (refugees who migrated to
India) who had carried away vivid and living memories of their past. It would
be interesting to contrast Paul’ s relative position on these two groups of
migrants—do mohajirs carry their cultural baggage closer to their chests, are
they unwilling to jettison their cultural identity and integrate with the local
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70 Writing Partition

people? Sharnarthis, especially the younger lot, were typically engaged in the
process of rebuilding their lives. While their self-perception was almost uni-
formly that of victims, their energy was harnessed for creating secure and stable
homes. But the older generation of sharnarthis, like the mohajirs, found it dif-
ficult to make the transition as easily. If the mohajirs mourned the loss of their
ancestral graveyards, the sharnarthis lamented the loss of their havelis—the
symbol of a secure, integrated, joint family , in which the elders were accord-
ed positions of respect and power—or their mohalla—the symbol of a lar ger
community with its network of close personal relationships. The new order
also saw the breakup of the joint family , both literally and metaphorically .
While this meant the freeing of individual potential, especially for the
younger generation, it simultaneously saw a corresponding deterioration of
traditional values pertaining to relationships, kinship ties and moral values. 10
Characters like Kanak or Tara (Yashpal’s Jhoota Such ) who combine their
newfound personal vitality and independent lives with a consideration for
older kinship ties and even family ties, where possible, are rare in Partition
narratives. Jaidev Puri, with his insatiable hungerfor power and wealth, would
be more representative of the younger generation of refugees. As for the older
generation, most of them attempt to keep alive family and wider community
ties. When death or total dislocation does not allow such ties, they carry the
warmth of those relationships in their memories. Moral values and relationships
of an older traditional society , however, encounter a sharp resistance from the
younger generation, which operates in the pursuit of sheer self-interest.
Joginder Paul’s “Fakhtayen” (Urdu, 1994) and “Daryaon Pyaas” (Urdu,
1978) present characters who lovingly cherish and nurture the memory of their
closest relationships in the past. Both Lobhsingh and Bebe (the central char-
acters of the two stories respectively) attempt to imaginatively construct a
future for their past or integrate the present with the past as the younger gen-
eration observes them, uncomprehending.
In “Fakhtayen”, Lobhsingh, a Sikh refugee from the village of Chawinda,
repeatedly attempts to complete his letter to his Muslim friend, Fazaldeen, from
whom he has been separated as a consequence of Partition. While Lobhsingh’s
present reality is rather uninteresting, the memory of his past makes him
ecstatic. The letter brings back this memory; he gets so immersed in it that he
inevitably never completes the letter . Written in the form of a dramatic mono-
logue, the story represents Lobhsingh’ s past through a living memory of his
relationship with Fazaldeen, which speaks of an ease and warmth, clearly
absent in his present. “ Yahan khairiyyet hai !” (“Everything is fine here!”) is
the constant refrain of his letter , but that is only a conventional form, which
belies the emptiness of his present: “the fact of the matter is that it is very dif-
ficult to pass time.” (p. 107) 11
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The Individual and Society 71

After the deaths of his wife and elder son, Lobhsingh leads a lonely exis-
tence. His younger son Jaswinder is tolerant of, but not very sympathetic to,
what he considers his father ’s eccentric behaviour. However, in Lobhsingh’s
imagination, the past pulsates with life and is imbued with a sense of commu-
nity. Unlike Deewane Maulvi Sahib’ s Lucknow, Lobhsingh’s Chawinda is
infused with vitality as he imagines its present and the future. Although his
friend Fazaldeen has been dead for a long time (this is revealed to the reader
at the end of the story but it is not clear whether Lobhsingh is aware of this
material fact) he lives on happily in Lobhsingh’s dream world. This shows in
his repeated attempts to write a letter to his friend. For him, the pre-Partition
camaraderie between him and Fazaldeen is a reality as he flies backwards and
forwards on the wings of his imagination.
…he collected all his grandsons and granddaughters and heaped them into the car and
dashed back to Delhi—Look there, that’ s Qutab—that’s Lat Sahib’ s house! There,
that’s Lal Quila … yes bhai, give all of them a kulfi each … take it, eat it puttro.…
(p. 105)
Similarly, Lobhsingh does not consider the death of his wife, shortly after
Partition, to be the end of his relationship with her. As he mourns her loss, he
requests God to keep her safely till he too can join her .
However, his attempt to construct an attractive future for his drab present
is not as successful. Momentarily he reaches out to his imagined grandson
Motbarsingha, who even “responds to him, bubbling in glee”. (p. 108) But
this leap of imagination is dif ficult to sustain.
Lobhsingh, disappointed, returns to his letter. Unlike the past which he can
view through rose-tinted glasses, the present needs something more tangible
to be realized. The future of people who are dead and gone but who belong to
the world of his memories can be fashioned and moulded according to his
desires, but how can he shape his present to his heart’s desire? As the narrator
in Intizar Husain’s “Ek bin-likhi Razmiya” says, ‘living’ reality, with its con-
creteness and objectivity, is an unsuitable subject for the creative imagination,
since it is not malleable.
While Manto plays on the ironical contrast between sanity and insanity in
his story Toba Tek Singh, Joginder Paul juxtaposes eccentricity with the cre-
ative imagination and invests it with richly suggestive and compelling images.
Recalling the ‘mad’passenger who had wanted to travel backwards in the taxi
and whom he had advised to “descend step by step into your [his] own mind”,
Lobhsingh reflects on his own ‘madness’.
“Chawinda?” He thinks of himself as crazy and laughs. “There’ s only one way for
that side—through the skies, become a dove and fly away , sardaro!” (p. 109)
To his brother -in-law, who had migrated to Saharanpur , and wondered what
was left in Chawinda, Lobhsingh explained that it is hispanahgah—a refugee,
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72 Writing Partition

suffused with warmth and security . The authorial voice provides a further
complexity to the idea of the ‘dead’ past which remains alive in those ‘living’
in the present. The letter that Lobhsingh sent to his ‘dead’ brother-in-law returns
to the sender; perhaps
... it reached the right address, because if we address someone dead, we’ve got to
listen to our own selves on behalf of the dead. (p. 1 10)
Lobhsingh’s identity is created through a pre-Partition relationship with a
Muslim friend. This harmonious identity has no relevance in the present. But
Lobhsingh’s creative imagination provides him an escape—he can preserve
his identity without any threat from the present and create the world that he
desires. In a similar vein, Bebe of “Dariyaon Pyas”, too, inhabits her hus-
band’s ancestral haveli, whose keys she constantly carries on her person. 12
The keys symbolically keep on unlocking her past, of which she is an intrin-
sic part. The constant rubbing of the keys against her body has made them an
extension of herself and the warmth, peace and security of this haveli infuses
her inner being with a quiet contentment. Like Lobhsingh, she attempts to
integrate her present—son’ s marriage, daughter -in-law and even her grand-
child, all ‘real’, not ‘imagined’—with her past, as she lovingly welcomes her
daughter-in-law into the haveli and introduces her to her ‘dead’ husband. For
her, the past is as living, real and immediate as the present.
However, unlike “Fakhtayen”, there is a greater emphasis on the divide
between Bebe and her son in “Dariyaon Pyas”. Jaswinder is tolerant towards
his father’s eccentricities, while Bebe’s son is relatively more impatient. Having
little use for the past, he inhabits a modern present, lacks any imagination and
considers her reverie a sign of dementia. Bebe carries her past within herself
and her vibrant haveli is alive and throbbing with vitality in her imagination.
The bunch of keys is an appropriate symbol for the mistress of the haveli.
“It is as if Bebe, clutching the bunch of keys in her hand, has clasped the
old haveli close to her heart.” 13 (p. 81). Indeed, so closely does she identify
with the keys that they “had grown rounded and fleshy from the weight of the
soft abrasion of her fingers for the last fifty years”. (p. 80) Her entire life with
all its joys and sorrows, since she came to the haveli after her marriage, is
played out in her imagination. She recalls her dying husband forbidding her
to leave the haveli as he, like his ancestors, will continue to reside there. “If
you stay here, then wherever I may be, I’ll be with you…” (p. 82) And para-
doxically it is her dead husband who coaxes her to leave the haveli, when the
threat of violence looms large.
“Go, Munna’s Bebe! Conditions here have deteriorated so much that it has become
necessary for you to leave … But as soon as things get better , come back…” (p. 82)
But Bebe’s consciousness is interrupted by her ‘sane’ son, Munna, who con-
tinuously tries to inject ‘reality’ into her and make her sane. His insistence
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The Individual and Society 73

that she call him by his formal name since he is now a father himself, and her
inability to do so suggests a hiatus in their relationship.
…I long for you to talk to me.
How can one speak to a crazy person, Bebe?
No, Munna! I’m not mad.
I’m not Munna. Call me by my proper name.
What is your proper name, Munna? Aji, are you listening?
What is our Munna’s proper name?…
I have told you umpteen times that I’m not Munna.
If you aren’t Munna, then whose Ma am I?
The way you keep pestering us with your craziness, Bebe, I’ve started doubting
whether you are my real mother. (pp. 84–85)
On the one hand, Bebe’s identity as mother and wife is questioned by her son
who perhaps just does not have the “keys” that can unlock her world for him.
As he tells her,
I often resolve to try each one of your keys and somehow unlock you. (p. 84)
On the other hand, in a revealing image at the end of the story , Bebe tries to
unlock her son’s new bungalow and enter his world, but in this case, her keys
do not fit. Her mode of apprehending reality is incompatible with a new order,
which has no space or time for her memories.
The complex relationship between the past and the present, its separate-
ness as well as its co-mingling, is explored through the perspectives of two
generations in Surendra Prakash’s “Khayal Surat” (Urdu, 1990) 14 The narra-
tor, a Partition refugee, situates his experiences against the backdrop of an
imminent war between India and Pakistan and his own mundane existence.
The journey into his past begins abruptly as he drifts into slumber and finds
himself travelling with his wife and children in a Chevrolet car in places that
clearly belong to his past life. There is a freshness and innocence associated
with the past that stands in contrast to a present threatened by a possible war.
A shared Hindu–Muslim way of life is suggested by images of Babaji’ s tem-
ple with the sadhus smoking their chillums and of the shrines of Sufi saints like
Baba Kaudi Shah and Shah Dauley and his ‘rat-disciples’. 15 The alienation of
the narrator from his present and the familiarity and comfort that obtains from
his intense involvement with his past questions notions of home and home-
lessness. In his present geographical home, he is really an exile, but his ‘real’
home does not have a geographical location as it exists only in his memories.
The sense of reality that marks his past is nevertheless qualified by the nar-
rator’s awareness of its insubstantiality . The past can, after all, only exist in
the form of “memories and shadows”. The episodic and fragmentary nature
of memory through which the past is constructed is brought out by the air of
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74 Writing Partition

uncertainty that prevails throughout the journey . For instance, even though
the narrator feels completely at home in the unnamed city of his earlier life,
he cannot remember the names of his mohalla or the market nearby . Unlike
Joginder Paul’s Maulvi Sahab, whose Lucknow remains as it was and where
it was, in the narrator’s town, time has moved on. New houses have come up
on vacant plots in his mohalla. Even more significantly, in the second half of
the story, the narrator and his wife get completely lost and separated from
their children in what is clearly unfamiliar territory. The images of daily life,
rich with the associations of a shared Hindu–Muslim existence, come to an
abrupt halt with the narrator ’s daughter posing a basic question: “Why have
we come here?” (p. 58) The question resonates with a lar ger significance—
what is the purpose of living in the past? The new generation can be tem-
porarily fascinated with the “rat-disciples” of Shah Dauley , swaying their
heads in an ecstatic trance, but they belong to a world not of “Hindu
dharamshalas” or “Muslim musafirkhanas”, but of “five-star hotels”. The narra-
tor’s reflections indicate his discomfort and sense of alienation:
I wondered whether we are really like the heir to the shrine, dressed in black, look-
ing at the dome in the graveyard of our past, and when we feel shamed by the mean-
ingless of this whole exercise, we sit on our haunches with bowed heads. (p. 58)
The past, as the past, makes the narrator and his wife feel secure and wel-
comed, but the eruption of the present in that past destroys everything.Asking
his children to wait while he goes of f to find out “why we [they] have come
here”, the narrator gets utterly confused and lost in unnamed “broad and nar-
row streets”. In desperation, his wife tries to call up contemporary Pakistani
writers like “Anwar Sajjad or Intizar Husain or Kishwar Nahid or Khalida
Husain”, in an attempt to recover their bearings through a recognition of a
cross-border literary fraternity . But her attempt ends in failure as she keeps
dialling wrong numbers, suggesting perhaps that this literary fraternity too
has broken up. Without any addresses or phone numbers, the couple feels
extremely nervous and scared in what has now become an alien setting. When
the butcher to whom the narrator’s wife gives an Indian currency note identi-
fies them as Indians, she panics.
To make matters worse, they have now for gotten the way back to their chil-
dren. The loss of their children recalls a recurrent motif of early Partitionstories,
but here it is recast as the loss entailed by the process of reverse migration.
This intertextual suggestion is reinforced by the fictional self-consciousness
with which the story ends.
Praise be to Allah that no one has come to hear of this sad story . (p. 61)
The story reveals an interplay of the past and the present, between two gen-
erations and between an earlier realist form and a modernist, anti-realist one that
frames the narrative. While the past is rendered in a rapid and uninterrupted
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The Individual and Society 75

narrative pace as the places flit by outside the window of the moving car , the
present is marked by a stasis in which telephone calls do not materi alize, roads
and streets are unfamiliar and children get lost. Like Joginder Paul’ s Bebe
(“Dariyaon Pyas”), the narrator too is left fumbling at the end. His dream
world is an integral part of his self, and is constituted by his past and a shared
Hindu–Muslim existence before Partition. But even as the narrator attempts
to record and secure this world, the narrative reveals an awareness of its frag-
ile and ephemeral nature.
Joginder Paul and Surendra Prakash’s representation of the past is primarily
centred on the emotional and imaginative world of the older migrants. For
Intizar Husain, the past encompasses not just an individual and his relationships
but the community’s entire historical and mythical memory . While Joginder
Paul and Surendra Prakash regard human relationships and the idea of home
as vital and enduring images of the past, for Husain it is the civilization’s past,
with its hoary traditions, myths and folklore, which locate the individual in
the march of time. All three, however, stress the continuities of the past into
the present and even into the future.
Intizar Husain’s Basti (Urdu, 1979), like Joginder Paul’ s Khwabrau, is a
novel about the mohajirs in Pakistan. But its emphasis is completely different.
Instead of highlighting the mohajir–non-mohajir conflict of identity and its
relationship with the larger Pakistani identity, Basti deals with the angst-ridden
experience of a new generation, from the perspective of Zakir, the protagonist.
Zakir spends his childhood in Rupnagar in pre-Partitioned India and comes to
Pakistan as a college student. His adulthood is characterized by ennui and a
general lack of direction, an acute sense of loss as he recalls his past, and his
unsuccessful attempt to somehow establish a meaningful connection between
his past and his bleak present. Unlike earlier representations of Partition, which
clearly articulate a secular ideological perspective, Husain steers clear of all
political and ideological controversies that dogged the creation of Pakistan. He
accepts the reality of Pakistan and in fact, invests its creation with a purity of
purpose, only to be belied by subsequent developments. History , for Husain,
is not a dialectical process; historical processes cannot be understood in terms
of causes. History, in fact, is a process of time, which follows a cyclical move-
ment of crests and troughs. Each upheaval in time is followed by a displace-
ment, a hijrat to a new land. Thus, while the Partition of the subcontinent is
perceived as a breakup of an older order of stability, innocence and purity, the
migration of the Muslims to the newly created pure land of Pakistan holds out
the promise of a potentially realizable golden future.
Husain is not interested in the specific details of the period that Zakir lives
through. All the reader comes to know is that the city is subjected to numer-
ous disruptions by various politically motivated groups. The opponents and
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76 Writing Partition

sympathizers of the Pakistani establishment keep clashing, strikes andhartals

are routine disruptions, and the novel finally ends with the dismemberment of
Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.
Broadly, the novel can be divided into two parts. The first half focusses on
Zakir’s memories of his childhood and adolescence in Rupnagar. The second
part, which is written mainly in the form of diary entries, reflects on the com-
munity’s past, which goes back to mythical times. Zakir recalls the Revolt of
1857, the Partition of 1947, the exodus of Muslims from Jerusalem and myths
from the Mahabharata, the Buddhist tradition and Islamic theology. The narra-
tive is characterized by images from nature, seasonal rhythms, images of
innocence, continuity and harmony in the first half. In the second, the over-
whelming effect is one of loss, desolation, waste, meaninglessness and a gen-
eral lack of direction. The narrative broadly follows a stream of consciousness
structure, in which events and ages are recorded through a principle of asso-
ciation, rather than chronology. There are abrupt shifts in perspective; the nar-
rator rapidly moves between numerous pasts and the present. Even his diary
entries, which are recorded chronologically, merely serve to highlight the non-
chronological order of his meanderings in the ‘jungle’ of his memories. What
unites the two halves or strands (the individual’s past and the community’s past)
is the overarching symbol of a basti. Literally translated as a settlement, nei-
ther completely urbanized nor completely detached from its rural origins,
basti acquires different connotations in the context of the individual and the
community. The basti of Zakir’s past is Rupnagar, in undivided India, where
he spent his childhood. The bastis of his community’s past are associated with
historical epochs—Jerusalem, Shahjahanabad and Lucknow . Pakistan too, is
a basti, the promised utopia of his community’ s dreams. However, all these
bastis are alive only in his reconstruction of them in his memory.Unlike Deewane
Maulvi Sahib of Joginder Paul’ s Khwabrau, Zakir simultaneously inhabits
the worlds of both his past and present.
Rupnagar and this city have mer ged together inside me and become one town.
(p. 167)16
The novel may be seen as the narrator ’s attempt to record and communi-
cate a fictionalized reality , a reality that embraces his personal and his
community’s past. While the narrator attempts to use a narrative structure
which is linear—i.e. trace his life from childhood in Rupnagar to adulthood
in Pakistan—a series of progressing movements from the past up to the pres-
ent—he is constantly thwarted by the logic of his consciousness and the
nature of reality . Since his consciousness works on the principle of associa-
tion, what he records are a series of overlapping movements between the past
and the present. Zakir is repeatedly frustrated in his attempt to perceive time
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The Individual and Society 77

as an evolutionary process, simply because the past reveals a series of repet-

itive patterns of exile, loss and sorrow . The central or ganizing principle or
idea in the novel becomes the community’s consciousness of its past (reflect-
ed through Zakir) and Zakir ’s awareness of its continuity in the present.
Crisscrossing the history of the community is Zakir ’s personal history ,
which is placed roughly at the beginning of the novel. The innocence and
charm of his childhood and the adolescent yearnings of his Rupnagar days is
in sharp contrast to the directionless and meaningless existence of his present.
Frequent strikes, violence and political processions disrupt his teaching. His
generation’s aimlessness and lack of faith characterize life in a Pakistan shorn
of its new gloss. This contrast is achieved through dif ferent sets of images
and idioms.
Rupnagar follows, like any rural community, a natural rhythm of life. The
setting of the sun and the lighting of the lamps signal the end of activity for
the day. For Zakir, the memory of Vasanti recalls a whole ethos: clattering of
small pots and pans, the sound of the temple bells and the familiar voice,
“You there, Vasanti, it is dusk, light the lamp.” (p. 15) His relationship with
Sabirah, full of childlike innocence and love, the games he plays with her and
their gradual awareness of themselves as sexual beings is captured by Husain
against the picturesque rural background of U.P., with images of rain and the
sound of folk songs. The songs, primarily in khari boli , deal with the love
story of Laila–Majnu, a Persian tale, the numerous escapades of Krishna and
his gopis, together with more down to earth, rustic songs, which express the
bride’s unwillingness to leave her father’s home. On the night of Janamashtami,
(the day on which Lord Krishna is born) as it rains steadily , women joyfully
sing the songs of Radha and Krishna late into the night, even as Zakir ’s mother
complains about how long it was taking to get “Krishanji’ s diapers washed”
(p. 28). Rupnagar acquires a fictional quality; it seems to belong to a “remote,
mythic era” of his life.
At one level, this world of stories recalls the numerous Hindu and Islamic
myths that Zakir heard with a childlike sense of wonder . At another level,
they are related to the world of Zakir ’s imagination, underlining the primacy
of his consciousness in the creation of his reality . The past lives within him
and his retreat into the “forest” of his memories ( aranyavaas—the Hindu
ascetic’s withdrawal into the forest, in search of the ‘self ’) is an exploration
of his own self.
My memories are my forest. So where does the forest begin? No, where do I begin?
… as if he was searching for his own beginning … the moment when his conscious-
ness had first opened its eyes. But he couldn’ t grasp the moment… (pp. 8–9)
Zakir’s self and its beginning are located in the past, but where does the past
begin? Husain suggests that Zakir ’s past not only encompasses his life from
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78 Writing Partition

his biological birth, but includes a civilizational past which extends far back
in time and space: “Inside me times and places are topsy turvy. Sometimes, I
have absolutely no idea where I am, in what place.” (p. 170) Zakir ’s occasional
apprehension about his own self originates from the same perspective. Walking
along a deserted road, he suddenly gets the feeling that his gait is not his own,
as if someone else, not he, is walking. Forcing himself to walk consciously and
be aware of his own physical movement, he tries to circumscribe his identity
in the present. But his self denies such limits and keeps eluding his grasp.
It’s a strange thing. I am walking along here and the sound of my footsteps is coming
from over there—from where? Or perhaps, I’m here, and I’m walking somewhere
else? (pp. 132–33)
The fictionalizing of his life, his diary entries during and after the 1971
war (which led to long reveries about historical and mythical events) are
attempts to perceive reality through a linear, progressive grid. This linear pro-
gression is, however, constantly thwarted by what may be seen as a repetitive
pattern of a fall from ‘grace’or ‘innocence’. Exile follows the Revolt of 1857,
the creation of Pakistan, the conflict in Jerusalem and the conflict in the
Mahabharata, and in the various Buddhist and Islamic mythological tales.
The overlaps of the objective and subjective selves, the personal and civiliza-
tional histories and the motif of the journey, both outward, i.e. migration and
into the inner self, invest Zakir ’s search with a richness and complexity that
locates the displacement of the Indian Muslim not merely in the context of
the history of modern India but also within the context of the community’ s
larger history.
But my own history? I am on the run from my own history, and catching my breath
in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our
history. (pp. 83–84)
Migration to Pakistan marks an important stage in his life, almost the
beginning of a new era, when “the sky of Pakistan was fresh like the sky of
Rupnagar”. But this new beginning also comes at the end of a long and tragic
dislocation; long arduous journeys of refugees who had left behind both those
who “had clung to the earth, refusing to leave their homes and their ancestors’
graves” and the ones whom they had left “on unknown roads, unshrouded and
unburied”. (p. 90) Zakir has mixed memories of his first day in Pakistan.
Ecstatic in the new homeland, he walks on “a fresh earth under a fresh sky”,
but by night he begins to weep for what he has lost. Lying in a large, well-lit,
new room, he wonders
…who might have lived here before. That thought reminded him of his own room,
a small room with discoloured walls, a cot, a table full of books, and among the
books a lamp that shed a dim light by which he studied far into the night. My room
must be empty tonight. (p. 88)
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The Individual and Society 79

Pakistan might share the freshness and purity of his beloved Rupnagar, but it
also carries within it the birth pangs of dislocation, exile and loss.
Further, the dream of Pakistan too has soured. Poised on the eve of the
1971 Indo-Pak War and the secession of East Pakistan, the novel reveals a
society in shambles. The conversation at the restaurant Shiraz, where Zakir
and his friends conver ge almost daily, exudes dejection, anger and confusion.
In fact, the general mood of doubt leads Zakir to even wonder momentarily
about whether “it [was] good that Pakistan was created”. However, Irfan
peremptorily cuts him short by ar guing that, “In the hands of wrong people
even that which is right [the creation of Pakistan] becomes wrong.” (p. 130)
Zakir and his friends can see the rot that has set in, although they , like the
author, refuse to entertain any doubts regarding the rationale for the creation
of Pakistan.
The memory of the past constantly haunts Zakir, his parents and his friend,
Afzal. This is made apparent not only by recalling the peaceful co-existence
of Hindus and Muslims before Partition, but significantly through the images
of the koel and the neem, mango and jamun trees. For Zakir ’s friend, Afzal,
the one way to make Pakistan ‘beautiful’ is to plant acres of roses and more
importantly, two acres of mango trees, so that he can hear the sound of the
koel again.
Zakir’s mother weeps when she hears the sound of the koel for the first
time in Pakistan, for it takes her back to Rupnagar and painfully reminds her
of the loss of her home.
When Ammi heard the koel’ s voice, she was extraordinarily moved: “Ai hai! The
koel is calling.” Then she fell absolutely silent, with her ears alert for the koel’ s
voice. And then I saw that her eyes were wet. (p. 98)
Zakir goes looking for neem trees and is disappointed when his friend
Afzal can only come up with a Persian lilac. To Afzal’s assurance that they
would find the neem tree if they looked carefully, Zakir reminds him that back
home, before Partition, they “never had to search for neem trees”. For Zakir,
the neem tree brings back memories of all his lost trees and his childhood
friend, Sabirah.
I was remembering my lost trees. Lost trees, lost birds, lost faces. The swing sus-
pended from the thick branch of the neem, Sabirah, the long, swings back and
forth … (p. 97)
The image of the neem tree and Sabirah sets him of f on a journey that leads
him into the past, a journey that suggests a reverse migration. But the journey
ultimately ends in a cul de sac, given Zakir’s inability to write to Sabirah even
after being reminded twice by Surendar . Zakir’s relationship with Sabirah is
concretely and vividly etched out in the early part of the book. But like
numerous other events and places, this relationship too becomes a memory to
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80 Writing Partition

be forever cherished, but never brought to fruition. Intizar Husain never clar-
ifies why Zakir and Sabirah cannot come together. One does not fully under-
stand what keeps Sabirah from migrating to Dacca with her mother and sister
or coming to Lahore to stay with her aunt, Zakir ’s mother. But what is more
critical is how both Zakir and Sabirah continue to live in their past and nour-
ish it even to the point of denying their own desires. Sabirah, the only member
of the family to whom Rupnagar is easily accessible, does not ever revisit it
after moving to Delhi, even though her aunt requests her to at least light a few
lamps there on Mohurram and raise the standards. For her, the memory of her
childhood relationship with Zakir would be shattered were she to return to a
deserted Rupnagar. What is remarkable is her alienation from a past that can
exist only in her memory but have no substance in reality given that Zakir has
left for Pakistan. Zakir ’s friend, Surendar, is struck by the irony.
How meaningful [for Zakir] the journey to Pakistan made Rupnagar! And how
severely Sabirah was punished for staying in India, that for her Rupnagar became
meaningless. (p. 143)
Zakir’s connection with his past is obviously inscribed by his relationship
with Sabirah. While he is not able to establish any meaningful relations with
any of the women he is attracted to, it is equally true that he is unwilling to
take the initiative with Sabirah even though she remains central to his mem-
ory of the past. It is Surendar’s letter just on the eve of the 1971 Indo-PakWar
that once again forces him to confront the present in which she leads a lonely
single existence. Surendar’s suggestion that he come and meet her “before silver
fills the parting in her hair , and your [Zakir ’s] head becomes a drift of snow ,
and [their] lives are [become] merely a story…” (p. 144) impel him to recog-
nize that his memory is grounded in reality too.
She kept silent, as though she didn’ t exist, or as though I didn’ t exist. And now it’s
suddenly revealed that she exists, and I do too… (p. 145)
Zakir determines to re-establish contact with her, and this is the only point in
the novel when he actually resolves to take the initiative. But it remains a
mere resolution. On his mother’s insistence that he write to find out about the
fate of her sister in Dacca, Zakir writes a few letters to Surendar, but can only
grieve on hearing from his friend that Sabirah had burst into tears on learning
of his letters. Basically Zakir is incapable of acting, things happen to him and
like a true Shiite he laments and mourns the loss.What he values and nurtures
are his memories.
For Husain, the past is valuable because it is an inescapable part of our
self. And while he is not interested in an ideological critique of communal-
ism, he does see the relationship with one’s inheritance as a critical feature of
our identity. The denial of a link with that period of history which saw the
creation of the Taj Mahal is ironically re-created by the bombing of Agra
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The Individual and Society 81

during the 1971 war . As rumours abound that the luminous glow of the Taj
Mahal’s marble made Agra visible to the Pakistani pilots in the darkness, Zakir
wryly comments,
With this news, a fallen reputation was suddenly restored; otherwise, we had
already decided that the Taj Mahal, and the history that gave birth to the Taj Mahal,
had no connection with Pakistan. (p. 165)
The deep attachment to their ancestral graves left behind in India is of a piece
with the above-mentioned relationship with the past. Hakim Ji from the big
house in Vyaspur, stays back even though his entire family migrates to
Pakistan because of the thick, leafy trees in his family graveyard. He asks,
“How could my grave have such shade in Pakistan?” (p. 139)
Interestingly, it is Zakir ’s Hindu friend, Surendar , with his stereotyped
notions of Muslims, who, perhaps unwittingly , makes an extremely percep-
tive comment on the complex identity of the Indo-Muslim.
Yar, you Muslims are wonderful! You’re always looking towards the deserts of
Arabia, but for your graves you prefer the shade of India. (p. 139)
Surendar’s letter reminds both Zakir and his mother of their mansion in
Rupnagar and after a long time “mother and son sat together , floating in the
same wave of memory”. But this voyage makes the present suddenly become
unfamiliar.
The tremendous care with which Zakir ’s parents retain the keys to the
locked storeroom in Rupnagar and hand them over to Zakir just before his
father dies are highly suggestive gestures. Even though a quarter century has
passed since the family left Rupnagar, Zakir’s mother continues to fret about the
safety o f the family heirlooms that were left behind in the store. The store
contains his mother’s dowry and his father ’s shroud, which was specially
brought from Mecca. The keys are Zakir’s viraasat, his spiritual inheritance and
his father passes them over to him, i.e. the next generation for safekeeping:
These keys are a trust. Guard this trust and remember the kindness shown by the
earth we left, and this will be your greatest act of dutiful behaviour . (p. 231–32)
Zakir’s father subscribes to an almost fatalist philosophy of life. It is rooted
in Shia theology and is constituted by an unflagging belief in the inevitability
of suf fering till the ‘divine Appearance’ or basharat. In this belief system,
Partition and the attendant suffering are not unique. They are merely one more
instance of suffering that is destined and needs no further explanation. As he
hands over “Genealogies, crumbling manuscripts, termite-eaten books with
yellowed pages, old notes and papers” to Zakir before his death, he recalls the
tragic story of the massacre of Imam Husain and his family at Kerbala, which
encapsulates the central dictum of his philosophy.
A questioner asked, Oh best of those who of fer prayer! In what state did the morn-
ing find you? He replied, I swear by the Provider , the morning found me tormented
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82 Writing Partition

by the Umayyids. As he spoke, Abba Jan grew sad, and said, Son, from then to now,
that morning has continued. He fell silent, and then said, And it will continue until
the Appearance. (p. 230)
His father’s only regret as he dies is that he cannot be buried in his family
graveyard. There, back home in Rupnagar, he had made all the arrangements
for his burial down to the last details:
“The shroud was ready, and I’d chosen a place for my grave too…” (p. 149)
For Zakir, his father’s grave in Pakistan is the new ancestral graveyard. The
room in Shamnagar where he had spent his first night after coming to Pakistan
is an equally important marker for Zakir and he feels concerned about a bomb
falling on it and destroying it.
The house ought to stay safe, the whole house and the room that holds in trust the
tears of my first night in Pakistan.” (pp. 162–63)
Both places signify value because they link him to his past.
What Basti suggests, through highly evocative images, myths, folk tales
from Hindu, Islamic and Buddhist traditions and historical events, is a cycli-
cal pattern of time. Each moment in time is constituted by all moments in the
past as well as the future. Time thus is both cyclical and simultaneous. Each
upheaval in time is followed by a displacement, a hijrat to a new land. The
past and the present are related through the central motif of migration and loss
that followed the highpoints in history . Thus, while the Partition of the sub-
continent is perceived as a breakup of an older order of stability , innocence
and purity , the migration of Muslims to the newly created pure land of
Pakistan holds out the possibility of a just Islamic society . The novel ends
with Zakir and his friends wondering whether there will be a basharat, a
divine revelation, signifying the end of this phase of gloom, defeat and loss
and the beginning of a new one of hope, creativity and happiness.This perspec-
tive on the movement of time is provided by Zakir ’s consciousness, which is
paradoxically both imbricated in the process and yet is capable of visualizing
it from an objective point outside.
In sharp distinction to early Partition stories, which featured graphic represen-
tations of violence, Husain explores what is significant and valuable in human
action. As a modernist writer, he devotes little space to the violence of Partition.
Instead, he focusses on the migration of Indian Muslims to Pakistan, a conse-
quence of Partition, which he then imbues with a wider significance in the con-
text of the history of Islam. As Memon has argued, for Husain, the migration to
a new country unlocked the memory of a recurring pattern of migration, the
hijrat, for the community. Since the community’s memory transcends historical
time, the creation of Pakistan provided, at least mythologically speaking, the
possibility of a new beginning and hope for the future.17
If Intizar Husain’ s Basti revisits the past prior to Partition, Mohammad
Salim-ur-Rahman’s “The Thaw” recalls the moment of Partition itself, replete
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The Individual and Society 83

with blood and violence18. But this recollection does not merely involve doc-
umenting a tragic moment in the protagonist’ s life. It unlocks his petrified
memory and initiates a process whereby he can come to terms with a very
painful event. The story explores the trance-like state of Major Murad, a
refugee, who has settled in Pakistan after losing his entire family in the
Partition riots. As he lies wounded along the Line of Control between India
and Pakistan in a state of shock, suspended between wakefulness and dreams,
he sees “shoals of people”, including his dead family , walking past him with
their eyes focussed in the direction of Pakistan. It is when he tries to address
his mother in strains reminiscent of Homer ’s Odysseus, “To come now! Isn’ t
it rather late, Mother?” that the central idea of the story is revealed. As she
slips out of his arms, “like a wisp of smoke”, Murad observes “that her face
was perfectly tranquil, bathed in a soft green glow , as though someone
walked ahead of her carrying a light. In fact, they all had serene faces, suf-
fused in the same gentle green glow.” (p. 232) Murad experiences a basharat,
a divine revelation, which allows him to comprehend the significance of the
‘idea’, which lay behind the creation of Pakistan. As he says,
…it was for the first time they sensed a glimmer of the truth, the idea for which they
had died. (p. 222)
‘They’ includes Murad himself, since it is his awareness, which is being
literally expressed. Although Salim-ur-Rahman, true to his modernist sensibil-
ity, never spells out the “idea”, he does suggest it through certain traditional
associations and intertextual references. The “green glow” that suf fuses the
faces of the migrants is associated with purity, the pak, as in Pakistan, the land
of the pure. Migration to the new and pure land of Pakistan, thus may be con-
ceived of as hijrat, a movement that suggests hope and a great potential in the
future. This suggestion is supported by a second image from Murad’ s
dream—“a very shabby looking tonga” with “a green lantern” is yoked to a
horse with a pair of wings; the impatient tongawalla is eager to reach Pakistan
but cannot do so till the women finish sewing “a flag with flames and flowers”,
something that looks like “a wedding wreath”. The angelic wings of the
horse, the buds bursting into bloom on the flag, and its conception as a wedding
wreath are all celebratory images of Pakistan—the hope, joy and the fulfil-
ment of a cherished belief are suggested through them.
For Murad, this “truth” or the significance of this “idea” dwells in a realm
somewhere between the “real” and the “unreal”: “because of those wings, the
tonga appeared to me quite unreal and, at the same time, because of the tonga,
the horse so palpably real; as if all of us were part of some wondrous puzzle.”
(p. 227) Both “real” and “wondrous”, the “idea” is neither a pure flight of
fancy, nor a “shabby” “reality”; it derives its sustenance from both worlds and,
appropriately enough, its apprehension is possible only in a wakeful dream.
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84 Writing Partition

The second aspect of this “idea” (hijrat, Pakistan, purity, sacredness) is its
location in time. Salim-ur -Rahman sees time as a continuum—past, present
and future are integrated through a repetitive pattern of loss and recovery, even
as loss carries within it the seeds of regeneration and vice versa. He renders
this process of recovery poetically through Lieutenant Nazir’s reminiscence of
an event from his childhood. A colleague of Major Murad, Nazir is a keen lis-
tener and a perceptive commentator . He recalls that as a young boy he had
helped a holy man by diligently picking up moth wings (“souvenirs”, as the
holy man describes them), collecting them on an ochre sheet and “put[ting]
them to rest in the river”. While Nazir has never tried to comprehend the
meaning of that experience, “reliving it provides its own justification”. The
sense of wonder that he experienced then and now is what connects that
childhood experience to Murad’s basharat.
This story of yours has now become part of me forever, the way that scene from my
childhood has. It feels as though they are the two farthest ends of a single con-
tinuum, between which my consciousness—or blood if you will—will go on cir-
culating forever… (p. 224)
Recognizing the tradition, inheritance and the sacred in one’s past and relat-
ing it integrally to the present and the future takes the creation of Pakistan out
of its historical specificity and places it within a civilizational framework,
thereby freeing the self from the restrictions of time and space. As Lieutenant
Nazir says of Murad, time started to thaw for him during the war , “like a seed
in a field left fallow”, which begins to sprout when the rains come.
If Basti and “The Thaw” broadly deal with the retrieval of the past through
the remembrance of a community’s spiritual inheritance, Intizar Husain’s “Ek
bin-likhi Razmiya” deals with the moral degeneration of man and the death
of the creative self. First published in 1952 in Gali Kuche, a collection of
short stories, it explores the complex relationship between society , the
writer–narrator and the aesthetic project, and is an early intimation of
Husain’s modernist vision. The frustration, dejection and betrayal experi-
enced by the sup porters of Pakistan after its creation, the failure of their
expectations and dreams and the absolute waste of those creative possibilities
that Pakistan had come to symbolize is suggested both by Pichwa’ s ultimate
inability to realize his epic potential, as well as the narrator–writer’s final abne-
gation of his creative project.
The story proper is divided into two parts. The first part is a third-person
narrative about the heroic deeds of Pichwa in Qadirpur , who disdains any
‘purposeful’ activity and derives pure ‘aesthetic’ pleasure from the pursuit of
club-wielding. The second part, consisting of several diary entries, reflects on
a wide variety of literary, aesthetic issues, like the creative writer’s relation-
ship with material reality , politics, artistic form, literature’ s relationship
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The Individual and Society 85

with human values, the past, etc. Significant generalizations are made by
the fictionalized writer in the context of his own epic, which is never concluded.
These are also related to Intizar Husain’s own aesthetic practice.
The story skilfully weaves together the individual trajectory of Pichwa’ s
epic existence and the grand and pure conception of Pakistan in the first half
of the story. Pichwa’s degeneration and the writer ’s descent to a state where
he has “to treat the lives of insignificant people in worthless two penny sto-
ries” coincide interestingly with the migration to Pakistan in the second half.
Pakistan and Pichwa are both subjects of this epic, but in the failure of Pichwa
are intimations of the failure of Pakistan, as well as the failure of the creative
self. The conscious intertextuality makes “Ek bin-likhi Razmiya ” by far the
most complex representation of Husain’s aesthetic concerns.
The battle between the Muslims and the Hindu Jats of Qadirpur is conceived
in appropriate epic terms. The Muslims “put on their shrouds”, “committed
their wives to God” and marched into battle “with such majesty and valour”
that they revived memories of wars from the ancient period. (p. 153) 18 The Jats
come mounted on caparisoned elephants and the setting resembles a medieval
battlefield. With his well-known prowess in club fighting and his total absence
of fear in the presence of the enemy (because of the divine power he is
believed to possess by the grace of Maula Ali), Pichwa is a major player in
this battle. The epic tone and the heroic imagery in which the battle is conceived
are however soon deflated by the characters conversing in the vernacular after
the ‘battle’.
Rahmat laughed and said, “Miyan, you have disgraced the name of Aligarh
College.” (p. 154)
The reader is immediately alerted to the real nature of this inter -village rivalry.
Ian Bedford makes a distinction between the narrator who aspires to write an
epic and the villagers for whom “the imagery furnishes the ideal dimension
in which these brawls are conducted”. 19 But the free-for-all inter-village rivalry
does not imply that the villagers and Pichwa particularly do not take the threat
of the Hindu Jats seriously.
The communal riots that break out as a result of the demand for Pakistan
are perceived by Pichwa primarily as a God-sent opportunity to display the
perfection of his art, which is an end in itself, untainted by any purposiveness.
This suggests the modernist position of art for art’s sake. For Pichwa is noth-
ing if not an artist in club-wielding; it is “essentially a personal Pakistan”21 that
he fights for in his battle with the Jats. The association of the idea of Pakistan
with perfection, grandeur and creativity and the opportunity Pakistan affords
for the realization of Pichwa and his creator ’s creative potential ef fectively
de-historicizes the political idea that Pakistan represents. In a sense, it is the
physical reality of Pakistan—its historical and political specificity, its defined
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86 Writing Partition

contours—which undercut and eventually pull down the picturesque, aesthet-

ically satisfying, epic construct of Pichwa. This process and the attendant dis-
illusionment of the writer and the death of his creative self is presented in the
form of a dialogue between the writer and the imagined reader . Although it is
a fictionalized writer who is discussing his relationship with his text, the sim-
ilarities between his views and what Husain attempts in most of his stories are
too obvious to be missed. The past, for the writer , in this case Pichwa in
Qadirpur, represents an idea, the germ of an epic. This idea with its grandeur,
nobility and perfection forms the underlying basis of both Pichwa’s epic char-
acter and the idea of Pakistan. The living reality—Pichwa in Pakistan and the
ugliness of self-interest that characterizes the migrants—is what makes the
fruition of the epic impossible. The epic proper meanders into diary entries,
which go into a consideration of why the project has failed for both Pichwa
and the creative writer . The original conception of Pichwa as a modern day
Arjuna can no longer be sustained because what he experiences now is not
“unrequited love” but “an unrequited desire for employment.”
The writer’s perception of Pichwa in Pakistan is also related to the latter ’s
transformation from a “genuine fictional character” to “an important political
issue”. Politics for the fictional writer is the death-knell for his creative aes-
thetic conception—his epic hero. It is important to note that for the writer ,
politics and literature are almost a binary opposition:
... politics brings the same doomsday for the writer as the butcher does for the cow.
(p. 172)
For the writer, politics sharpens the outlines of reality and makes cardboard
characters out of men. Their freedom is compromised by dogma, whereas a cre-
ative artist is interested in an exploration of the shadows, the hidden corners, the
fluid aspects of reality, identity or the self.
Pichwa’s involvement in ‘political’ issues—refugee rehabilitation,
employment, claims, etc.—thus reduces his stature since he is not only involved
in petty material concerns, but is also defined by them. Unlike the Pichwa of
yore, for whom club-wielding yielded aesthetic pleasure and was an end in
itself, the Pichwa of the present pursues his material interest. This dichotomy
between literature and politics rests on the notion of politics as an ugly, petty
system that diminishes individual freedom and potential and the premise that
the artist can be totally apolitical. Here, one may recall that Intizar Husain him-
self totally ignores the political controversies that surrounded the creation of
Pakistan and concentrates on its implications from a civilizational paradigm.
Unlike the author, Pichwa is able to recover some of his past glory. Fed up
of being humiliated in Pakistan, he goes back to Qadirpur to reclaim his honour.
Ironically, Qadirpur too merely offers him an inglorious death, as he is beheaded
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The Individual and Society 87

and strung from the same peepul tree on which he had earlier hoistedthe Islamic
flag to celebrate the creation of Pakistan. But for the writer , no such redeem-
ing grace is available. He finds it dif ficult to mourn Pichwa’s death in a hos-
tile and insensitive environment. More significantly, self-interest, which comes
to characterize the new Pakistani nation, strikes its roots in the creative writer
himself.
As long as I was stuck in the web of literature, I felt cut off from my nation…. Now,
however, I consider myself a responsible citizen; a dutiful member of a rising
nation. (p. 178)
“Ek bin-likhi Razmiya ” represents the souring of the Pakistani dream. For
Husain, the failure to fully realize the creative possibilities that Pakistan pro-
vided was by implication the failure of the whole nation. The sense of loss,
the elegiac mode and the innumerable images of tragic waste that characterize
the entire gamut of Husain’ s fiction are represented in “Ek bin-likhi
Razmiya” in the form of a dialogue. The self-conscious nature of the story ,
its emphasis on its fictionality and the larger generalizations about the nature
of art and its contradiction with living reality and purposefulness, make “Ek
bin-likhi Razmiya” a truly representative modernist story.
The foregoing analysis of Partition narratives has attempted to trace the
evolution of the individual’s identity in relation to her external world. Stories
written in the late 1940s and 1950s largely employed a realistic mode, and the
individual’s identity was realized through a close relationship with land, com-
munity or region. The impact of Partition on this relationship created a situa-
tion in which the individual had to relocate herself in a new context.The older
frames of reference had to be reconsidered, as the individual, separated and
isolated, was also free to refashion her relationship with the external world.
As we have seen, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Mohan Rakesh,
Ashfaq Ahmad and Krishan Baldev Vaid end their narratives at this critical,
transitory, liberatory stage in the lives of their protagonists. A process of look-
ing inwards into one’ s psychic self is suggested, if not overtly set in motion,
towards the end of these texts. This suggestion anticipates the modernist rep-
resentations of Joginder Paul, Surendra Prakash and Intizar Husain in the later
decades of the seventies, eighties and nineties. Broadly , the aftermath of
Partition is what these writers have considered in most of their stories—the
impact of displacement, uprootedness and alienation on the inner selves of
individuals and the re-negotiation of their identity within a vastly altered con-
text. The critical role of memory and its varying manifestations are integrally
related to the issue of time, the inner self and fluid identities. The flux in the self,
the shadow of reality and the vitality of the imagination become critical com-
ponents in the post-Partition individual’ s sense of her identity . A plethora of
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88 Writing Partition

modernist devices—symbolism, stream-of-consciousness technique, achrono-

logical narratives and authorial silences—c omplement the expression of this
new sensibility. The individual’s identity is imaginatively reconstructed as the
past and the present and even the future come together to mutually redefine
themselves. Pain and loss, together with the celebration of the creative poten-
tial of the individual’ s imagination, are typical features of narratives of the
aftermath.
The modernist mode of representing the individual in these texts, however ,
must be distinguished from its Western models. The absolute alienation of the
individual from society and an autonomous self that provides its own justifica-
tion, have little in common with the protagonists of the aftermath. Society or
external reality remains an important component of the representation, though its
relationship with the individual undergoes complex changes.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. All references to Saadat Hasan Manto’ s “T oba Tek Singh” and Mohan Rakesh’ s
“Malbe ka Malik” are from Alok Bhalla (ed.), Stories About the Partition of India,
3 vols. (New Delhi: Indus, HarperCollins, 1994). All references to Ashfaq Ahmad’s
“Gadariya” and Rajinder Singh Bedi’s “Lajwanti” are from Muhammad Umar Memon
(ed. and trans.), An Epic Unwritten, The Penguin Book of Partition Stories from Urdu
(New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998).
Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh” was first published in 1953 in Savera, a journal for
progressive writing. Ashfaq Ahmad’s “Gadariya” was first published in 1954 in the
special Afsana number of Nuqush. “Lajwanti” is available in the collection Apne Dukh
Mujhe De Do (Delhi: Maktaba Jamia, 1965), though it was probably published in the
early 1950s. Mohan Rakesh’ s “Malbe ka Malik” was first published in a collection,
Naye Badal in 1957.
English translations of primary texts, both novels and short stories have been
quoted. Where English translations are not available, or the available ones are greatly
abridged (for instance, Khushwant Singh’ s translation of Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar), I
have used the versions available in the Devnagari script.
2. The large-scale abductions and rapes of women that accompanied Partition created a
severe strain in social and personal relations. While numerous complaints regarding
missing women were lodged, families were reluctant to accept ‘impure’ sisters, mothers
and wives. Many abducted women ‘chose’to stay on for fear of ostracism, many com-
mitted ‘suicide’ before the inevitable abduction and many others charted out an inde-
pendent course of life, completely cut of f from their homes and families. See for
instance, interviews with or diaries and memoirs of Ganda Singh, Khushdeva Singh,
Amrik Singh, Begum Anis Kidwai and Kamlabehn Patel, who worked under Mridula
Sarabhai on the committee for the relief and rehabilitation of women, in Mushirul
Hasan (ed.), India Partitioned, The Other Face of Fr eedom, Vol. II (New Delhi: Roli
Books, 1995).
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The Individual and Society 89

3. Kamleshwar, Nai Kahani ki Bhumika , 2nd edition (Delhi: Shebdkaar , 1991 [1998]),
p. 10.
4. Sudhir Kakar, The Colours of Violence (New Delhi: Viking, Penguin Books, 1995),
p. 45.
5. All references to Guzara Hua Zamana are from Krishan Baldev Vaid, The Broken
Mirror, translated from the Hindi by Charles Sparrow in collaboration with the author
(New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1994).
6. All references to the novel are from Manzoor Ehtesham, Sookha Bargad (New Delhi:
Rajkamal Paperbacks, 1989, first published in 1983). All translations are mine and
page numbers follow the quoted passage in the text.
7. All references to Khwabrau are from Joginder Paul, Sleepwalkers, edited by Keerti
Ramchandra, translated into English by Sunil Trivedi and Sukrita Paul Kumar (New
Delhi: Katha, 1998).
8. Wazir Agha, “On Sleepwalkers” in Joginder Paul, Sleepwalkers, pp. 120–26.
9. Ibid., p. 122.
10. The tele-serial Buniyaad brought out this aspect quite graphically. The world of Masterji
the principal character, falls apart, even as he struggles to keep the family and his moral
values intact.
11. All references to “Fakhtayen” (first published in Khodu Baba ka Makhbara , New
Delhi: Modern Publishing House, 1994) are from Sukrita Paul Kumar and Naghma
Zafir (trans.), Stories of Joginder Paul (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 2003, reprint
2005). Page numbers follow the quoted passage in the text.
12. Interestingly, the man’ s world in “Fakhtayen” revolves around his relationship with
his friend but Bebe’s world is her haveli and her husband.
13. All references to “Dariyaon Pyas” (first published in a collection of short stories Bay
Muhawara [Aurangabad: Kailash Publications, 1978]) are from Joginder Paul, “Thirst
of Rivers”, translated by Atanu Bhatacharya, in Ravikant and Tarun Saint (eds),
Translating Partition (New Delhi: Katha, 2001) pp. 80–86.
14. All references to “Khayal Surat” (first published in Zehn-e-Jadeed, September–
November, 1990) are from Surendra Prakash, “Dream Images”, translated by M.
Asaduddin in Ravikant and Tarun K. Saint (eds), Translating Partition, pp. 54–61.
15. The shrine of Shah Daula has a large rodent population. Childless couples seeking the
saint’s blessings pledge to of fer their first born child in the service of the saint.
According to popular belief these children are born with a head resembling that of a
rat. Hence the name ‘rat disciples’.
16. All references to Basti are from Intizar Husain, Basti, translated by Frances W.
Pritchett (New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 1995).
17. One should distinguish Husain’ s perception from that of Muslims who believed that
Pakistan was destined to re-create the glorious Mughal Sultanate of medieval times.
Husain was not myopic in his conception of the past. For him, the past included Hindu,
Islamic and Buddhist traditions, as is evident in his novel, Basti.
18. All references to “The Thaw” are from Muhammad Umar Memon, An Epic Unwritten.
Page numbers follow the quoted passage in the text. The Urdu title and first date of
publication are not stated.
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90 Writing Partition

19. All references to “Ek bin-likhi Razmiya”, first published in Gali Kuche (Lahore:
Maktaba-e-Karwan, 1952) are from Muhammad Umar Memon, An Epic Unwritten.
20. Ian Bedford, “Intizar Husain’ s ‘An Unwritten Epic’ and the ‘Matter of Pakistan’”,
Journal of Commonwealth Literature 29, no. 1, 1993, p. 18.
21. Muhammad Umar Memon, “Partition Literature: A Study of Intizar Husain”, Modern
Asian Studies 14, no. 3, 1980, p. 404.
Chap04.qxp 10/29/2008 9:38 PM Page 91

4
THE WOMAN PROTAGONIST

Feminist politics and feminist theory have engaged with the expansion of the
position for women in the public sphere and across disciplines. The silencing
of women in patriarchal societies across the world, their relegation to second-
ary positions, and the carefully constructed essentialist myths of feminine
nature have been some of the areas that feminists have engaged with in a sus-
tained manner . In feminist literary theory , Elaine Showalter distinguished
between the “feminist critique ”, which is concerned with the woman as a
reader—how a woman’ s reading of a male-produced literature probes ideo-
logical assumptions, misconceptions and omissions about women—and
“gynocritique”, which is about the woman as a writer—how the woman pro-
duces textual meaning, the psychodynamics of female creativity and lan-
guage, literary history and studies of writers and their works. While the for-
mer is relevant in actualizing perceptive, holistic reading practices and a
sharper understanding of the nature of patriarchy, gynocritique is important in
recognizing the woman’s experience as authentic and underlines her right to
make existential choices on the basis of that experience. Writing on the dom-
inance of Marxism and S tructuralism in theoretical discourse and their rela-
tionship with feminism, Showalter notes: “While scientific criticism struggles
to purge itself of the subjective, feminist criticism is willing to assert (in the
title of a recent anthology) The Authority of Experience.”1
Showalter’s views on women’s writing, though perceptive, tend to gener-
alize more about women’s writing in the Western world. As Susie Tharu and
K. Lalita have ar gued with regard to two seminal works on feminist theory
(Gilbert and Gaubar ’s The Mad Woman in the Attic and Elaine Showalter ’s
A Literature of Their Own), “the present-day concerns of Western feminists are
writ large to encompass the world, and the world collapses into the West.”2
The middle-class European or American woman and her situation then
becomes “an adequate metaphor for all women’s worlds”.3 It is important to
recognize that the woman’s experience is socially, historically and ideologically
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92 Writing Partition

constituted, and that apart from gender , other identities such as class, caste,
religion and even race intersect it in a variety of ways.
The place of the woman protagonist in the literature on Partition is best
understood when it is situated in the context of the debates about the position
of women within the hierarchical Indian society during the colonial period.
Indians in the nineteenth century had reacted in an extremely complex way to
the imposition of imperial hegemony. It was increasingly evident that the new
political dispensation had clearly settled down to play a long innings and hence
an engagement with it was necessary . This engagement took many forms,
from the Revolt of 1857 to the formation of the Indian National Congress in
1885, from social reform movements like the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya
Samaj, to public debates about the nature of Western influences. The stirrings
of an incipient nationalist consciousness were combined with a liberal atti-
tude that was receptive to the new ideas of theWest and a belief that India had
much to learn from a modern, scientific civilization. Macaulay’ s Minute on
education and the consequent introduction of English education in India trig-
gered a significant and sometimes contentious debate about the position of
women in Indian society.
In the nineteenth century , social reformers like Raja Ram Mohun Roy ,
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Dayanand Saraswati advocated the education
of women, though they dif fered on its quantum and nature. The Arya Samaj
promoted both English education and education for women, though the latter
had to be attenuated within the bounds of patriarchy.4 While practices like sati
were lar gely condemned by the urban English-educated intellectuals who
called for abolition of such practices through legislation, a Western lifestyle
for women was rejected. Later reformers argued that while Indian society did
encourage terrible practices like sati, these had to be addressed by Indians
themselves and could not be solved through legislation by an alien ruler .
Reform for them was an internal, personal matter to be considered and debat-
ed by society itself and not subject to the laws of a foreign power . According
to Partha Chatterjee, questions of female emancipation did not occupy a polit-
ical space in the nationalist ideological framework since they had already
been resolved within the dichotomies of material–spiritual, home–world and
inner–outer realities. Women, being symbolically linked to the inner , spiritual
core of the nation, could not be the subject of a debate between the colonial
state and the nationalist bourgeoisie. Formal education became a requirement
for the bhadramahila (respectable woman) “when it was demonstrated that it
was possible for a woman to acquire the cultural refinements af forded by
modern education without jeopardizing her place at home, that is, without
becoming a memsaheb.”5
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The Woman Protagonist 93

However, according to Meenakshi Mukherjee, the very fact that “women’s

education was very much a part of the agenda of nineteenth-century enlight-
enment in Bengal” meant that the so-called “inner private space of culture”
was no longer free from the “onslaught of alien values”.6 Many of the English-
educated men were engaged in the public debates regarding the education of
women and were also in favour of attempting to change social customs
through legislation. Further, as Malvika Karlekar has argued, “the categorisa-
tion of domains as material, spiritual, inner , outer and so on is somewhat
restricting. It also tends to foreclose the range of various responses and of the
search for solutions and options.” 7 Moreover, can one equate Bengal with
India, as Chatterjee does?
In a recent essay, Jasodhara Bagchi, after arguing that the nationalists like
the colonizers had their own controlling interpretation of the woman’ s body
and mind, adds the following proviso:
However, one needs to remember that there was a democratic part of the anti-colo-
nial resistance that emphasised equal rights and opportunities for women in order to
strengthen the democratic fabric of our society.8
She identifies a second avatar of nationalism that disregarded women as equal
partners in the anti-colonial struggle: a “culturalist nationalist ideology” that
essentialized Indianness “through a rigid stereotyping of womanhood to but-
tress this objectified image of the Indian nation”. Reliant on an identity based
on religious community alone, this particular variant of nationalism has “perpe-
trated what Partha Chatterjee has called the ‘resolution of the woman’s ques-
tion’”. Bagchi goes on to critique Chatterjee for essentializing “all Nationalisms
into a homogenous category and not [making] the distinction that needs to be
made”.9
In North India, the representation of women in Hindi and Urdu prose lit-
erature of the nineteenth century underscored the age-old myths of femi-
ninity—the woman was the nurturer of the family , her place was in the
home, her destiny and achievements were to be seen in how she managed
home and family. The prescriptive literature of the nineteenth century in both
Hindi and Urdu—for instance, Nazir Ahmad’s novel, Mirat-ul-Arus (Urdu,
1869), Gauri Dutt’s Devrani Jethani ki Kahani (Hindi, 1870) or Kishorelal
Goswami’s Hriday Harni (Hindi, 1890)—ar gued essentially conservative
positions. They rejected Western liberal attitudes and education for women,
and idealized the woman’ s traditional place in her home and family .
Although there were significant exceptions like Mirza Mohammad Hadi
Ruswa’s Umrao Jan Ada, (Urdu, 1899) the idealization of women as nurtur-
ers and preservers of an indigenous culture was common in many prescrip-
tive narratives.
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94 Writing Partition

From being an ideal in the prescriptive literature of the nineteenth century,

women in the realistic literature of Premchand and other writers gradually
acquired an identity of their own. Premchand’s women characters still played
domestic roles, but the writer sensitively unveiled their suppressed feelings,
dilemmas, thoughts and contradictions. Novels like Sevasadan and
Karmabhumi depict women who are conscious of the inequality in their rela-
tionships with men and, more specifically , their exploitation by the latter .
Given that patriarchy was a dominant ideology, some of the earliest represen-
tations of women in literature conformed to the stereotypes that emphasized
their frailties and their subordinate status. In Premchand and social realist
writing of the period, one comes across a more nuanced representation, where
women raise questions about the sexual hypocrisy and double standards of
men. During the first three decades of the twentieth century , feminists and
reformist writers like Nazar Sajjad Hyder, Sughra Humayun Mirza, Mahadevi
Varma, Sudha and Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, Homvati Devi, and Kamla
Choudhary published numerous essays, short stories and poems on the
exploitation of women in a male-dominated society , and were actively
involved in the cause of women’ s education. Issues of women’ s education
had been debated mainly by Bengali male intellectuals of the late nineteenth
century, but it was only in the 1930s and 1940s that women writers like Ismat
Chughtai, Qurratulain Hyder and Subhadra Kumari Chauhan began to be
acknowledged as important creative voices. Ismat was sharp and trenchant in
her critique of male hypocrisy , and she protested against the arrogance of a
male-dominated world that callously crushed all female aspirations and
desires. At around the same time, Hindi and Urdu fiction also witnessed the
emergence of psychological realism. Writers like Jainendra, Ismat Chughtai
and Agyeya, who experimented with psychological realism during the 1930s
and 1940s, attempted to represent the repressed self of the woman in a tradi-
tional, patriarchal society. The woman’s role and status were issues that inter-
ested the creative writer, especially in the context of the national movement,
in which innumerable women from different classes and regions participated.
Here again, the political participation of women did not necessarily preclude
their domestic roles. Yet, a slow , imperceptible shift of the power equation
between men and women was inevitable. 10
The partition of the subcontinent in 1947 caused a sharp and sudden
upheaval in society. The large-scale displacement of people, the loss of home
and family, and total isolation pushed many women into situations they were
ill-equipped to handle. While no of ficial figures for the exact number of
women abducted in northern India exist, “it is safe to assume that there would
have been well over 10,00,000 or more ... In all, approximately 30,000
women—12,000 Muslims and 18,000 non-Muslims—were recovered by the
police and social workers of both countries between 1947 and 1952.” 11
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The Woman Protagonist 95

Physically and emotionally brutalized, raped, converted, forced to leave their

homes and totally at the mercy of rapacious males from both communities,
and sometimes even rejected by their own families after being rescued—how
did these women respond? Imbued with deeply ingrained notions of sexual
purity and honour , many of them chose death. But many also survived the
carnage. Was their survival arbitrary or the triumph of will and determination?
What were the factors that strengthened their resolve to pick up the threads of
their life? Was their self-perception that of a victim or that of an agent? Was
there a discernible shift in their consciousness of themselves as women? Did
they emerge stronger, more self-reliant and independent, or did they revert to
their earlier roles of dependence? There are no simple answers to these ques-
tions. What is certain is that Partition touched and altered the lives of women—
its worst sufferers—irrevocably, and in a manner rarely witnessed in twentieth-
century India.
Recently, numerous scholars such as Urvashi Butalia, Ritu Menon, Kamla
Bhasin, Gyanendra Pandey and Shail Mayaram have initiated a serious and
lively debate on the silence of the subaltern in the historiography of Partition.12
They argue that the victim’s perspective is absent in traditional scholarship on
Partition, and demand the inclusion of oral testimonies, representation of the
subaltern’s perspective, and a sharp focus on the mass violence that accom-
panied Partition in the writing of history. But creative writing about Partition
also constitutes an important archive for an understanding of this terrible
catastrophe. Admittedly, one cannot consider a creative work an objective source
for history. The writer creates from her own experience, but this experience
gets transformed as it is creatively reconstructed. In this process, it tends to
acquire a significance beyond its immediate context. But these works are an
important source for an exploration of the complex dynamic of this traumatic
event. They provide glimpses into the subjectivities of both victims and aggres-
sors. Additionally, unlike real victims and aggressors who might be consciously
or unconsciously limited in their understanding, or restricted in the expression of
their experiences, the artist’ s unique sensibility enables her to explore the
uncharted areas of human consciousness.
Creative writing on Partition has focussed on individuals—men, women
and children—who were forced to suf fer pain, humiliation and even death.
Many of these stories, especially those centred on women, incorporate actual
events that were widely reported in 1946 and 1947. The much discussed inci-
dent of the women of Thoa Khalsa, who committed mass suicide by drowning
themselves in a well when faced with the imminent threat of sexual violation,
is represented in the second half of Bhisham Sahni’ s Tamas. S tories about
reunions with families, elopements across religious barriers, and subsequent
‘recovery’ of such young girls by state agencies are represented extensively
in fiction, autobiographies and memoirs. 13 These accounts bring out the
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96 Writing Partition

dilemmas faced by women who were victimized: their predilections, their

choices (or the absence of choices), their multiple identities in a moment of crisis,
their strategies for survival, the complexity of their motivations and the subtle
impact on their consciousness. Their experiences force them to rethink their
earlier, secure self-images as mother , wife and daughter , to grapple with an
agonized and conflicted sense of self. Their exploration of alternative self-
definitions constitutes a positive advance in their consciousness as women.
While Partition narratives naturally typify women as the worst sufferers, it
is important to consider whether they are uniformly represented as victims of
violence and dislocation, or whether creative writers have explored their sub-
jectivities, and, in the process, relocated them from their peripheral status as
victims to the central focus, particularly in the period after their dislocation.
That women and children were the worst victims of Partition violence and
dislocation is obvious. Practically all the literature on Partition—memoirs,
autobiographies and oral narratives—talk about how the event was cata-
clysmic for women in terms of the violence and brutality that they were sub-
jected to, and the breaking asunder of their families—mothers from children,
wives from husbands, daughters from fathers, and sisters from brothers.
There are certain recognizable images that are routinely found in the early
stories on Partition, like the woman separated from the family and repeatedly
raped by her captors, or the mother grieving for her children who are lost or
killed, or the recovered woman rejected by her family and committing suicide,
or the woman committing suicide before falling into the hands of the crazed
mob. For instance, Hyatullah Ansari’s Shukrguzar Ankhein or Lahoo ke
Phool, or Krishan Chander ’s collection Hum V ahshi Hain or Ramanand
Sagar’s novel Aur Insaan Mar Gaya would be good examples of this kind of
representation. However, later writers moved away from such naturalist writ-
ing to engage with women in radically altered situations from a dif ferent and
fresh perspective. These writers focussed on women attempting to rebuild
their lives after losing family , home and property , or women attempting to
make some sense of what their loss entailed in psychological, emotional,
social or gender-related terms, and trying to create new identites in def ferent
physical and mental landscapes. In the process they interrogated many of the
existing stereotypes. The type of the woman as merely the helpless victim of
a patriarchal society was clearly inadequate and unsuitable for the issues that
the woman was confronted with in the aftermath of Partition.A greater degree
of self-consciousness or awareness of one’s gendered identity and its possible
re-structuring in an altered context could not be contained within some of the
older frames of reference. The subjectivities of women as victims and in their
opposition to their victimization were the focus of modernist writing on this
subject. While some writers employed different modernist, narrative forms and
techniques (for instance, first-person or stream-of-consciousness narratives)
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The Woman Protagonist 97

to represent a new approach and sensibility to the woman’ s question, even

progressive realist writers produced women-centred narratives from a self-
consciously feminist sensibility . This is not to ar gue that progressive realist
writers were not feminist in their approach in their earlier phase, but to indi-
cate a greater and more nuanced awareness of the issue in their representations
in this phase. Yashpal in Jhoota Such and Rajinder Singh Bedi in “Lajwanti”
obviously transcend the simple contextualization of women as victims of
patriarchy and as limited by their class identities. This elaboration and explo-
ration of women’ s experiences and her own rendering of them constitute a
feminist awareness that one associates with the modernist narrative mode.
This chapter examines five short stories and four novels from Hindi and
Urdu fiction 14 to trace the trajectory of a woman’ s uncertain and dif ficult
journey towards selfhood: Jamila Hashmi’ s “Banished”, Rajinder Singh
Bedi’s “Lajwanti”, Suraiya Qasim’s “Where Did She Belong?”, Saadat Hasan
Manto’s “Mozel”, Bhisham Sahni’s “Pali” and Tamas, Yashpal’s Jhoota Such,
Altaf Fatima’s Dastak Naa Do and Khadija Mastoor’s Aangan. The first sec-
tion explores representions of women in Partition narratives from their own
perspectives. Are they merely represented as victims of a violent patriarchal
order in which they exercise no volition, i.e. are they completely devoid of
any agency? Or, can one perceive them as carrying within and quietly asserting
humanitarian values in an inhuman environment, accepting the burden of wom-
anhood from a new and perhaps enlightened consciousness, emer ging from the
traumatic experience with a greater degree of self-awareness? The focus in
this section is on the self-awareness of the victimized woman and the variety
of ways in which it enables or disables her .
The second section takes up stories that are concerned with a more sub-
stantial empowerment of women victims. In the novels ofYashpal, Altaf Fatima
and Khadija Mastoor, Partition opens up a space for women to exercise a certain
amount of volition with regard to their personal lives. Circumstantial factors
like the loss of home and family and the compulsion of bringing up young
children in unfamiliar places enable them to break out of the given patriarchal
structures, instead of making them dependent on other men.

RESISTANT SELF-AWARENESS

Rapes and abductions figure prominently in many narratives of Partition.

From a feminist perspective, it is important to look at how literary conventions,
patriarchy, and inter- and intra-gender relations influence and shape the rep-
resentation of rape. Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan has argued that unlike texts that
make rape the central event and focus on its hows and whys, ‘feminist’ or
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98 Writing Partition

woman-centred texts concentrate on the aftermath of rape from the perspec-

tive of the victim. The actual event of rape is positioned at the beginning and
pre-empts expectation of its later occurrence. It serves a purely functional
purpose and interest is centred on what follows as a consequence. “In both
Alice W alker’s The Color Purple and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings, the development of the female subject ‘self ’ begins after
the rape and occupies the entire length of the narrative.” 15 In Partition narra-
tives, one observes at least two kinds of representations—in one, rape is a part
of large-scale rioting, arson, loot and abduction, and in the other rape is an
event of the past and the focus is on what happens to the victim subsequently .
In the former , the victims are generally identified; the gory and horrifying
details follow a naturalist tradition and the dehumanization of people is pre-
sented with a view to both shock and sensitize the reader. In the latter, which
are mainly narratives of abduction, rape is obliquely suggested or assumed.
Both Lajwanti (the eponymous protagonist of Rajinder Singh Bedi’ s short
story) and the narrator of “Banished” are victims of abduc tions and rape, but
the latter is merely assumed. By shifting the focus away from the materiality of
the event to the consciousness of the victim, such stories move away from
issues like how or why such events occurred, i.e. they move away from the
area of historical and rational explanations to an examination of their impact
on the inner self or consciousness of individuals.
Jamila Hashmi’s “Banished” is an unusual Partition story, as it is narrated
from the point of view of a woman who is also the protagonist. It is the story
of an abducted Muslim girl caught between a happy childhood in the past (a
past which has been completely destroyed by the violence of partition) and a
bleak and painful present, with no hope of redemption in the future.The story
uses the image of a permanently exiled Sita who remains with Ravana, her
abductor, with no hope of Rama coming to rescue her.16 The contrast between
the ‘pure’ Sita of yore who was rescued by Rama and the present day Sita
who is ‘defiled’ and lives in a permanent state of exile, provides the narrator
with a more comprehensive awareness of her situation as a woman. The use
of the Sita myth reveals how mythology, the cultural storehouse of a society,
is critical in making sense of a gross, brutal and socially disruptive act.
The story contains two strands, the past, i.e. the narrator ’s childhood, in
which she yearningly recalls her family , especially her brother , who left for
England and never returned to rescue her, and the cruelly ironic present where
she has become the unwed ‘bahu’ of Gurpal, the mother of his three children,
and a domestic servant cursed and beaten by Gurpal’ s mother.17 Both these
strands come together in the narrator ’s consciousness and while the past is
clearly more desirable, there is also an acute consciousness that it is irrecov-
erable. Her ‘despoiled’ state, the absence of her brother and the death of her
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The Woman Protagonist 99

parents have shattered that world. But even though the present carries a lot of
humiliation, she derives some consolation from her children, especially
Munni, of whom she is particularly fond. While she may have been separat-
ed from her earlier roots, the narrator now has sprung new roots “every year
since Munni was born”. It is her daughter who has created the great distance
“that separates me from my own family”. (p. 95) 18
Her status in Gurpal’ s home has also under gone a change over the years.
When he first brought her home after abducting her , she was little more than
a slave, a domestic help. As he tells his reluctant mother:
Here, I’ve brought you a bahu. She is your maid. She will do whatever you tell her
to do—grind grain, fetch water, anything you want… (p. 89)
While she still feels that ‘bahu’is a term of abuse, since she was abducted and
kept without any legal, religious or social sanction, she has managed to impress
Bari Ma with her submissive, uncomplaining nature.
With time, Bari Ma grew fond of me. Our bonds became stronger and deeper as I
severed my last remaining links with my past. I’m her prized daughter -in-law now,
her Lakshmi. (p. 104)
Jasbir Jain has ar gued that the narrator ’s realization that she is now perma-
nently severed from her roots, and her entrapment in the ‘goddess image’ of
Lakshmi fashioned by Bari Ma, indicates that her “self-alienation is now
complete: the body has been violated, dreams turned into disillusionment and
kinships snapped…” 19 However, this needs to be considered alongside the
dichotomy that exists between her public and private self, and its implications
for her agency. Inwardly, the self revealed to the reader through the monologue
does not lack agency; she is aware and conscious of her status and identity,and
occasionally protests against its erasure. When Gurpal suggests that she
should ‘bring [herself] to for get that incident’, she wonders how to convince
him of its impossibility.
How can I make him understand that time never changes. Man suffers because man
cannot forget. That time lives on in my memory just as it was… (p. 99)
She attempts to make sense of her present by recalling the past, if only to some-
how transcend it. The very act of narrating or recalling the past has a therapeutic
effect on her.
Rosalind Coward has noted among other features of feminist novels the
“frequency of the[ir] quasi-autobiographical structure”. “The Woman’s Room,
Fear of Flying, Kinflicks, Sita, all foreground the writer struggling to turn her
experience into literature...” 20 Similarly, the recording of her life story by
Hashmi’s narrator is an act of resistance. The silence of women survivors that
Butalia bemoans is resoundingly broken by the creative writer–narrator in this
story. The social compulsions that make Gurpal and his mother attempt to
efface her real identity (an abducted, raped and kept woman) and substitute
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100 Writing Partition

a false identity (‘bahu’) are resisted by the narrator in her consciousness, by

her act of recalling, remembering and recording the past. 21
Her self-consciousness as a victim pervades the narrative even though she
actually does exercise a choice through her commitment to her children. Of
course, the other alternative of a return is perhaps bleaker. But her awareness
of her predicament and her deliberate choice sets the story apart from others
like “Peshawar Express”, which end in rape and murder . She recalls the past
not only to resist but also to “reorder herself in the new context … to connect
with the new reality , and perhaps to find new roots”. 22 Her resistance then
enables her to make a choice in favour of her children and this becomes an
empowering act. While her choices are limited, she chooses not to return, not
out of a sense of resignation but from a deep sense of commitment to her chil-
dren, particularly her daughter Munni.
In a dif ferent context Butalia ar gues how abducted women who chose to
stay back were forced to return to the country of their co-religionists, with the
state playing the role of the patriarch. “These abducted women were in a
sense in a ‘no-man’ s land’, and thus when they acted or attempted to resist
being restored to their original families, they were exercising a different kind
of agency .”23 Butalia distinguishes this agency on their own behalf from
agency as “members of their community”, the example of the latter being the
women of Thoa Khalsa who sought to protect the racial purity of the Sikh com-
munity by committing mass suicide. The underlying assumption is that the
recovery of women without any reference to their wishes by the state, which,
despite its professed secularism, equated religion with nationality (Hindu
women belonged to India and Muslim women belonged to Pakistan), was a
patriarchal gesture, any resistance to such a recovery automatically becomes
a feminist gesture, the women acting “on their own behalf” (emphasis mine).
Such a generalization, however , is fraught with many dif ficulties. Firstly,
the S tate was forced to act in response to numerous complaints by family
members of missing women. It had to take cognizance of an unlawful and
inhuman act and attempt to rectify it or at least ameliorate the suffering of the
people involved. Andrew Major has pointed out that public indignation “that
was aroused by abductions demanded prompt and decisive action by the
new—and already overburdened—governments of India and Pakistan”. 24

Butalia concedes as much when she writes that “the S tate could hardly have
acted differently, given the considerable pressure families brought to bear on
it”.25 Secondly, the abducted woman’s resistance to recovery was not neces-
sarily an act of volition. Several complex factors played a role in such situa-
tions. The abductor could threaten her physically or blackmail the woman
emotionally and morally.26 At the Inter-Dominion Conference in Lahore on
6 December 1947, various social workers and government officers from India
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The Woman Protagonist 101

and Pakistan debated on whether abducted women should be allowed to stay

on if they declined to leave their abductors. However , the conference decided
to evacuate these women to the country where their relatives had migrated.
According to Aparna Basu, it was dif ficult to determine whether the women
did not want to return because “they were afraid of saying so in front of their
abductors” or because “of the fear that they would not be accepted by their
families” or because they had by then settled down in their new situations and
“did not wish to be uprooted again”. 27 Some of the women had been sold so
many times that they no longer had any faith even in rescuers from their own
religion.28 As the process of the recovery of abducted women continued over
several years, by 1952–53 there were many women who had settled into
domesticity and had children by their abductors. In many such cases, the
woman’s commitment to the children born out of rape also became a signifi-
cant factor in their decision to stay on.
In her memoir Azadi ki Chhaon Mein (Urdu, 1974), Begum Anis Kidwai,
one of the prominent co-workers of Mridula Sarabhai, involved in looking
after Muslim women refugees in Delhi and its suburbs, draws attention to
how the self-perception of many abducted women as ‘impure’ made them
unwilling to return to their families even when it became possible. For others,
the reluctance to return stemmed from their anger and sense of betrayal at
their male family members, who ran away to save their lives. For them, it
would have been far better if their husbands or brothers or fathers had either
died trying to save them from the mobs or killed them if there was no other
alternative left. It is interesting to note that it is literary texts that come clos-
est to Kidwai’s own understanding of the issues involved in the abduction and
recovery of women in Delhi and its suburban villages. Kidwai narrates a wide
variety of events that suggest how complex the problem of abducted women
was. For instance, she records the story of some Muslim women who were
unwilling to return to husbands who had abandoned them to save their own
lives. For them, the men had acted in an ‘unmanly’ manner and thus were not
worthy of them. Here, quite obviously, patriarchal stereotypes ingrained in the
women acted as obstacles in their willingness to return. In another case, some
young Muslim girls who belonged to extremely impoverished backgrounds
were reluctant to return to their families given that they were now being pro-
vided the bare necessities of existence. Given the extremely dif ficult choices
many women victims had to make in those times, the return of abducted
women need not necessarily be perceived as patriarchal subjugation. For
most women, their abductors were rapists and their willingness to return to
their ‘patriarchal’ fold may surely be excused on this count alone, if for no
other reason. One also needs to consider the question of the abducted women’s
volition in such situations. Interestingly, Butalia accepts that women could be
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102 Writing Partition

pressurized to make statements by their abductor -husbands, even as she

rejects their significance, given that women are rarely free to express them-
selves without any constraints: “But the obverse was also true: that even in
their own families women are seldom in situations where they can freely
voice their opinions or make a choice”. 29
The argument that since women generally live in patriarchal societies one
might disregard or minimize the importance of the abductor ’s pressure in the
context of her volition is specious. Even if one accepts that a woman has
limited volition generally, on what basis does one decide that the abducted
woman’s stated wish to continue to live with her abductor is ipso facto a truer
one than her desire to go back to her parents or husband? Such subtle distinc-
tions might be the subject of learned and feminist tomes several decades after
the event, but they must have been rather dif ficult to apprehend in the midst
of relief work being carried out by the administration on a massive scale.
Abducted women were driven by numerous factors, which grew out of
their multiple identities as Muslims, Hindus, loyal wives, loving mothers,
dutiful daughters and women and these factors very frequently functioned
simultaneously. This is, of course, not to deny abducted women any agency
at all, but to raise the question of how and where their agency is to be locat-
ed.30 As Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan has ar gued in the context of Ramanan’ s
short story “Prison”, “Clearly, the exercise of choice cannot be sufficient con-
dition of a woman’s freedom when her choices are both limited an d severely
determined.”31
What one has argued in the context of “Banished” is that an incipient fem-
inist gesture can be perceived in the consciousness of the abducted woman in
the way she evaluates and perceives herself, her victimhood, and the unjust
patriarchal order , but without necessarily bringing about a radical change
through protest. As Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan notes, “When a woman’ s con-
sciousness of individualistic identity is forced into existence through social iso-
lation brought on by the stigma of sexual impropriety ... it stands in contrast to
the politics of feminism”. 32 Ramanan’s Bhagirathi, like Hashmi’ s narrator, has
to chalk out strategies of survival after her rape. As destitute women, both
need protectors. Yet, as Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan argued, “a tenuous individual-
ism shapes the female subject’ s resistance. Ideally, this selfhood constitutes
for the female subject existential freedom, space for growth and change, a full
‘inner’ life, and some access to power...”33
Two novels by women writers from Bengal and Punjab are important
reminders of how the issue of women’ s victimization is multi-layered and
involves questions of not only gender, but also religious and cultural identities.
Jyotirmoyee Debi’s Epar Ganga, Opar Ganga (Bangla, 1968) is the story of
Sutara, a young girl who is ostracized by her family after being sheltered by a
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The Woman Protagonist 103

Muslim neighbour during the riots. The daughter of a school teacher in a vil-
lage on the banks of the Padma river, Sutara grows up freely mixing with her
Muslim neighbours. During the riots, she loses her parents and her elder sis-
ter and is given shelter by Tamijuddin, her father ’s colleague and very close
family friend. Later, she is escorted back to Calcutta by the family and begins
to live with her brother and his in-laws’ family. Here, she is treated as an
untouchable, not allowed to enter the kitchen or touch the utensils because of her
polluted status. Sent off to a hostel, she is constantly reminded of her ‘fallen’
status by being made to feel unwelcome on auspicious occasions like mar-
riages in the family . Later, when she has settled down in Delhi as a teacher ,
she gets a marriage proposal from Tamijuddin’s family for their son Aziz.
Tamijuddin’s wife feels sympathetic to Sutara and knowing that her brother
will not be able to organize her marriage because of her ‘pollution’, she asks
her daughter Sakina to find out if Sutara would be willing to become a part of
their family. Sutara’s response reveals how intricately knotted identities are.
When Sakina spells out her mother ’s proposal clearly , she is shocked and
merely says, “My dear, how can I forget what happened to Ma and Didi…?”34
(p. 98) It is left to Sakina to rationalize her response:
She couldn’t possibly think of us as her own people. It’ s not a question of being
fond of a friend, that friend stands for a community , a community that humiliated
her community, her kith and kin… (p. 98)
Sakina and her mother’s expectation that Sutara would be willing to accept
their proposal is understandable given that her brother’s family has ostracized
her. Tamijuddin’s family after all is the one who looked after her and has done
more for her than her own brother . As an educated woman of independent
means, there is little that holds her back from accepting the proposal. Her
refusal thus suggests that the security and love of a home and a husband is not
necessarily an ideal for a woman victim of Partition. The memory of her
father’s murder and mother ’s suicide, the possible abduction and rape of her
sister, and the possibility of her own rape (she was found unconscious and her
memory of the events is blurred) by the ‘other ’ community gnaws her from
within and while the rejection by her own close relatives is painful, it still
does not motivate her suf ficiently to accept the alliance. Sutara’ s response
thus raises questions that cannot be adequately addressed within the currently
popular feminist discourse of woman and the nation. Quite significantly ,
Jasodara Bagchi makes no mention of Sutara’ s refusal in her introduction to
the English translation of the novel. She brilliantly elucidates how Sutara is
hit by patriarchy twice:
...first by the male of one community who establishes his own ‘identity’ by exercis-
ing his territoriality over her body , [and] second by her ‘own’ community, which
invokes the compulsions of rit ual, purity to exclude her from the ritually pure
domains of hearth and marriage and drinking water.
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104 Writing Partition

But Sutara’s independent life and, more importantly , her crucial rejection of
the marriage proposal are glossed over.
Amrita Pritam’s novel Pinjar (Punjabi, 1950) traces the story of an abducted
Hindu woman, Pooro, who was kidnapped before the Partition riots on account
of family enmity. However, the novel does raise the issue of woman’ s agency
when her brother and former fiancé come to take back her abducted sister-in-
law, whom she and her husband Rashid have rescued against the backdrop of
Partition. Pooro is abducted by Rashid, whose family wants to take revenge
for a similar offence committed by her family a couple of generations earlier.
The abduction is followed by Pooro’ s unsuccessful attempt to return to her
family. Her father pleads with the abductors initially , but by the time Pooro
escapes and returns home, the news of her abduction is common knowledge,
and she is forced to go back to her abductor . Even though the parents realize
that their daughter is blameless, they are unable to resist the ensuing social
ostracism, and reject her . Patriarchy operates at several levels in the novel.
Pooro’s father is the one who refuses to take her back and her grieving moth-
er acquiesces. Pooro’s abduction is the revenge taken by Rashid’ s uncles for
the dishonouring of a woman in their family a few generations earlier. Pooro
and the woman from Rashid’s family are thus mere pawns in the violent male
game of honour and dishonour. Their lives can easily be sacrificed at the altar
of a male-determined and practised notion of honour . Pooro thus lacks any
agency up to this point; she functions mainly as a victim.
The second half of the novel builds up Rashid as a positive character ini-
tially by endorsing his helplessness in the face of family pressure and later by
his concern and love for Pooro, whom he offers to marry. What is of extreme
relevance in the characterization of Rashid is that like Pooro, he too is a victim
of patriarchy. As he tells her, he was pressurized by his uncles to abduct her .
And certainly, his expression of guilt and helplessness does attest to his sub-
jugation. Far from being the typically aggressive and violent rapist, Rashid is
a gentle, sensitive and concerned abductor. The novel thus gives adequate and
sufficient reasons for the two ‘victims’ to finally support each other.
However, the flowering of this relationship, which is fundamental to the
denouement of the novel, is made possible through some relevant omissions.
The minor detail that Pooro has little option at this stage is glossed over .
Further details relating to her conversion, such as the nikah and discomfort
among Rashid’s relatives, are also given short shrift. Rashid does try to ame-
liorate her suffering by shifting to another village where people do not know
her. Over a period of time, a son is born and Pooro begins to take pleasure in
the child. The second part of the novel basically relates her resourcefulness in
locating her abducted sister -in-law and planning a daring escape with
Rashid’s help. Finally, Pooro’s brother and former fiancé meet up in Lahore
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The Woman Protagonist 105

to take back the abducted sister-in-law. And it is at this point that a very griev-
ing brother wants to take Pooro back with him to India. Pooro refuses because
now her entire life is anchored in her new family. Like the narrator of Jamila
Hashmi’s “Banished”, Pooro too has sprouted roots in her new situation and
refuses to return when the situation allows it. But the comparison with
Hashmi’s story also reveals significant differences. While both Hashmi’s nar-
rator and Pooro have settled into domesticity with their respective abductors,
the former expresses an inability to for get the past. Pooro’ s attestation of her
abductor–husband is, however , almost completely unqualified. His of fer of
marriage and his participation in the recovery of her sister -in-law enable her to
erase the memory of his original guilt. While Pooro’s decision to stay back is
as valid and genuine as that of Hashmi’ s narrator , it is made possible by ,
among other factors, an act of for getting, by a process of erasure.
Significantly, Pooro’ s advice to her brother is to never mistreat his wife
because she was abducted. Her own rejection by her parents when she had
been abducted is obviously an uncomfortable memory , something that she
has not been able to get over . In her refusal to return to her family , one sees
her commitment to Rashid and her child. But her earlier rejection by her par-
ents too plays a role. In a recent film, Khamosh Paani, the central character
is a Sikh woman who ran away from forcible suicide planned by her family ,
married a Muslim and settled into domesticity in Pakistan. She faces a tough
choice when her brother comes looking for her after several years, but like
Pooro, she refuses to return with her brother . When he tries to put emotional
pressure on her by telling her that her father is desperate to see her one last
time, she reacts angrily. After all, it was her own family that had wanted her
to commit suicide to preserve the community’ s honour during the Partition
riots. This rejection of a patriarchal mindset, a clearly feminist gesture, is
what drives both women into situations that are not the preferred choice.
Admittedly, over a period of time, abductors may become loving husbands and
caring fathers. But this does not take anything away from the initial basic vio-
lation of the woman by her abductor , on account of which she is rejected by
her family.
While Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas unveils a vast canvas of situations and char-
acters consumed by the raging fire of communal feeling and violence, most
of the women characters exhibit an amazing capacity to retain their basic
human values in spite of the upheaval around them. Their own experience of
suffering in a patriarchal society predisposes them towards a natural empathy
for the victim even when it involves resistance towards males in their own
family. Rajo, the Muslim woman, who insists on giving shelter to Harnam
Singh and his wife against her daughter-in-law’s more practical advice to turn
them away, carries within her the humanitarian values that her son has almost
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106 Writing Partition

completely abandoned in his communalistic frenzy . Her natural and instinc-

tive sympathy for the old and defenceless couple, her acute embarrassment at
her daughter-in-law’s greed, and her severe reaction to her son’s murderous
intent mark her out as a strong, independent woman. An urgent, totally new
and risk-fraught situation brings out reserves within her that perhaps even she
had not dreamt of. The situation cries aloud for a saviour, and she finds her-
self unwittingly implicated in it. While it must be conceded that circum-
stances do work in her favour (her husband is an old acquaintance of Harnam
Singh, and her son recognizes Harnam Singh just when he is about to strike
the fatal blow), her independent initiative in the matter cannot be denied. The
patriarchal system of which she is clearly a part has not desensitized or devi-
talized her. Her moral responsibility for the defenceless couple who beseech
her for shelter is in sharp contrast to her daughter -in-law’s indifference and,
indeed, the fear of the males in her family . Rajo is an outstanding example
of a woman who retains and exercises her humanitarian agency against
tremendous odds.
While one has so far been discussing women characters from the two main
religious communities, Hindu and Muslim, it would be useful to consider
women from other communities or groups too. Does the absence of a direct
involvement in the communal conflict condition the response of women from
such communities? Do they respond indifferently or do they take sides depend-
ing upon their perceived interests in the long run?
In Tamas both Nathu’s wife and Liza, the wife of the deputy commissioner ,
Richard, share a concern for the victims of communal violence. Neither one
belongs to the warring communities—Hindu or Muslim—nor are they affected
directly by the violence. Yet, both feel a deep sense of responsibility . In the
case of Nathu’s wife, her guilt can be attributed to her husband’s killing of the pig,
which, when thrown in front of the mosque, initiates the riot.Though she tries
to justify her husband’s action by insisting that he was ignorant about the con-
sequences of his action, she cannot bring herself to touch the money he g ot
for killing the pig. She starts sweeping her house to drive out the evil spirit that
has entered their house. Chamars by caste, Nathu and his wife are neither Hindu
nor Muslim, their identity resides on the mar gins of respectable society ,35 and
yet they embody human values that are clearly absent elsewhere.
Liza is a significant contrast to her husband Richard, who has a bureaucrat-
ic and theoretical attitude towards the violence and loss of lives. Richard rep-
resents the male-centred and imperialist point of view . A typical colonial
administrator, he carries out his duties with unswerving loyalty to his mother
country, with little regard for the people he governs. His interest in Indian civ-
ilization and the ruins of Takshila, and his awareness of a common racial
identity amongst Indians are merely paraded to impress his wife or win
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The Woman Protagonist 107

acclaim as an ‘orientalist’ author; they are never used as input in his gover-
nance. It is Liza, his bored, restless, frustrated wife, who refuses to occupy
the ‘inner’ space of the Anglo-Indian wife and brings out the contradiction in
Richard’s life. Caught in the trap that Forster ’s Adela ran away from (in A
Passage to India ), Liza nevertheless rebels against her mar ginalization as a
wife and a woman. Her desire to establish and live out a meaningful relation-
ship with Richard is constantly thwarted, since he persists in segregating his
public and private life. For him, the Hindu–Muslim conflict is a source of
assurance of colonial power , but for her , it is a denial of human values.
Initially impressed with Richard’s knowledge of the origins of civilization in
the Indian subcontinent, she innocently asks him:
Why can’ t you stop them from fighting? Originally , they [Hindus and Muslims]
belonged to the same stock, didn’ t they?36
Later, bored and frustrated, she takes to alcohol and in her drunken stupor
ironically reminds Richard when violent riots have broken out in the city:
Richard, you said you were going to write books about these men, books about their
origin.37
Liza is the victim of a lar ger patriarchal imperialist framework that sees
self-interest as its prime objective, compartmentalizes spheres of life, and
sanctions violence if it is not directed towards oneself. Liza cannot sleep since
she constantly hears the clanging of the alarm bell signalling the beginning of
the riot. Her instinctive sympathy for the victims of violence brings to the fore
the total incompatibility in the relationship, for Richard, as she observes, is a
strange man who can hear a lark singing in the midst of such bloodshed
and violence.
Liza’s perspective is holistic and sympathetic. Though she is not directly
involved in the communal riot, she voices a concern, which grows out of—
but goes beyond—her personal predicament. Like Lenny’ s grandmother in
Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Ice-Candy Man (also titled Cracking India), who feels
sufficiently concerned to rescue an abducted and victimized ayah from the
clutches of her abductor, Liza feels extremely horrified at her husband’s apa-
thy to the violence and bloodshed. Restricted and mar ginalized in her role as
an Anglo-Indian wife, she nevertheless vainly attempts to make Richard less
egocentric and insensitive in his public life.
In Urdu fiction, the best example of a woman character from a community
not involved in the communal confrontation is Manto’s Mozel. A Westernized
Bohemian, she is a Jew only in name. She openly ridicules Tirlochan’s rather
hypocritical respect for Sikh religious markers, especially in the face of
impending danger when they attempt to rescue his trapped fiancée from a
Muslim mohalla. A strong, independent woman, Mozel refuses to be dominated
by any man, and all her relationships are short-lived precisely because she
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108 Writing Partition

refuses to be slotted in any “womanly” role, i.e. wife, mother or sister. Equally
evident is her complete rejection of any religious pressures. Impulsive and
totally guided by her instincts, she sympathizes with the weak and defence-
less victims of communal violence, and sacrifices her life to save Tirlochan’s
fiancée. Mozel’s attitude to the communal animosity is one of exasperation
and incomprehension. She regrets the loss of lives over a religious issue and
seems to reflect the secular perspective of the author in this regard. 38 She
derives her strength primarily from the absence of any attachment to religion
or family in her life. And yet, she is willing to sacrifice her life to ensure that
Tirlochan and his fiancée Kirpal Kaur are saved from the mob. It is her neu-
trality, her non-involvement in any religious grouping, that makes her strong
and capable, and as Sukrita Kumar writes, “her portrayal is a testimony to the
power of an unattached woman.” 39
Rajinder Singh Bedi’ s “Lajwanti” must surely rank among the best that
Partition literature has produced. Lajo, the non-heroic protagonist, an aver-
age, typical male-dominated woman and wife, forcibly abducted and then res-
cued and returned to her idealistic husband (who is on the committee for the
rehabilitation of abducted women), is a powerless person with little control
over what happens to her. Nobody asks her whether she wishes to go back to
her husband and worse, her husband does not wish to listen to her account of
what she went through. Her apprehension that she may not be accepted in her
home also dissolves, for her husband Sundar Lal practises what he preaches
with a vengeance. And yet, ironically enough, a yawning abyss separates the
two of them. Her abduction has altered, indeed undermined, in a subtle and
radical manner the very basis of her relationship with her husband, a relation-
ship that constitutes her entire world. Used to a conventional patriarchal hus-
band, Lajwanti is confronted with a respectful, worshipping one on her return.
Sundar Lal publicly and perhaps even privately argues for accepting abducted
women into homes and hearts, but when he is faced with the situation in his
own life he does not have the apparatus to cope with it. Elevating her to the
status of a “devi” he distances himself at an emotional level. This gesture,
however, means a complete breakdown of Laju’ s world. Her desire to revert
to the earlier unequal relationship in place of this new unequal one is futile;
she can never “be the old Laju ever again”. 40 (p. 29)
To Sundar Lal, in spite of all his professions, she is an impure woman with
whom he cannot have a real emotional relationship. He abstracts her into a
devi, distances himself and continues with his public activities. Jasbir Jain has
rightly observed that “even as [the story] critiques the moral framework of the
puranas and the shastras, it provides a psycho-study of the nature of masculin-
ity”. The devi that Sundar Lal abstracts Laju into is the Sita of the Ramayana.
Just as Sita was abducted by Ravana in the Ramayana, so too Laju is abducted
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The Woman Protagonist 109

during the Partition riots. Sita and Lajwanti “coalesce into one identity”, 41
and like Rama, Sundar Lal has to confront the issue of her sexual ‘defile-
ment.’ He may believe that she is chaste at heart if not in body, but like Rama,
he has to regrettably ‘reject’ her. While Jain’s focus is on Sundar Lal’ s mas-
culinity, the story also explores the subtle way in which Lajwanti’ s self-per-
ception has been transformed.
What does this change mean for Lajwanti? Bedi does not answer this ques-
tion at any length, but the logic of the narrative seems to impel Laju towards
a further exploration of her marital relationship and of her own identity .
Paradoxically, the same humiliating experience that has broken up her rela-
tionship with her husband has also enabled her to recognize its weakness.
Bedi leaves his heroine at a point from which she can and probably will realize
her own lack of agency. This by itself marks the beginning of the process of
empowerment, as we have noted in the story “Banished”.
The woman’s body as the site of contestation between warring communi-
ties is given an interesting and important variation in Suraiya Qasim’ s
“Where Did She Belong?” Abduction and rape of women was a principal
mode of assertion of power by a community because it grew out of ingrained
patriarchal notions. Power over a woman’ s body was extended to the other
community’s women in situations of hatred and frenzy . Ideas of sexual and
racial purity were shared by both aggressor and victim alike—the ‘virtuous’
woman from a ‘respectable’family was the target, and once she had been vio-
lated physically, she was socially ostracized by her own community. But what
about women who did not belong to ‘respectable’society—women who lived
on its mar gins or belonged to a dif ferent faith, i.e. prostitutes, Jews and
Christians. The indeterminacy of the prostitute’ s faith and her humanity (the
‘heart of gold’ stereotype) are devices that enable the author to comment on
and expose the pretensions of a ‘civilized, respectable’ society. In Qasim’ s
story, Munni Bai’s two clients, one a Hindu and the other a Muslim, ironically
attempt to identify with her by foisting on her a religious and communitarian
identity which she has been hitherto denied.A foundling, she was found aban-
doned at a spot equidistant between a temple and a mosque and given a name
common to both communities. In a communalized atmosphere, both Raj
Kumar and Rab Nawaz ascribe their ‘love’ for her to her community identity .
“A beauty like you can only be a Hindu,...” (V ol. II, p. 1 13) or “I have been
making love to you, Munni Bai, because you are a fairy, a hourie from behisht
and a hourie can only be a Muslim...” (Vol. II, p. 116) Their false promises of
marriage and eternal faithfulness are expressions and make-believe resolu-
tions of their own anxieties in a rapidly changing political and communal sit-
uation. But why should they want to foist a religious identity on her? One can
understand that a woman must be possessed, since possession is a sign of
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110 Writing Partition

power over the ‘other ’. But here, the ‘other ’ is paradoxically visualized in
terms of one’s own community.
Munni Bai, unlike the weak, vulnerable victim, has some agency—her
power to attract. She is a prize to be won, notionally by the handsome, virile
suitor (in reality, by the richest one). In a rapidly changing and insecure envi-
ronment, she has no traditional male protectors, but these suitors aspire to
become her protectors if she would let them, i.e. if she ‘falls in love’with one
of them. Thus, Munni must be made a Hindu or a Muslim first, as men will
only protect women from their own community.
These stories by Qasim and Bedi validate the idea that the woman’s body
is a highly contested site in any patriarchal society. During a social crisis, such
beliefs and assumptions become even more obvious. The distinction that is
drawn between the woman’ s body and her self is crucial in this framework.
The body is an object that belongs to the male and the woman has little or no
control over it. Lajwanti’ s recognition of this essential truth regarding her
body and self makes Bedi’ s story powerful. The idealization and idolization
of the routinely abused and ordinary Laju as ‘ devi’ is a transformation that
objectifies and demeans her even more. The difference between the prostitute
Munni Bai and the respectable Lajwanti dissolves at this level.

THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE ‘VICTIM’

The sagas of Partition generally highlight the victimization of women and

children. Their sexual humiliation and brutalization is graphically illustrated
in numerous short stories like “Peshawar Express” and “ Amritsar Aa Gaya”.
Two major reasons account for this: Firstly, women and children were the
worst sufferers of partition. Secondly, creative writers draw our attention to the
inherently unequal relationship between men and women in a patriarchal society.
For feminist critics, Partition narratives are an extremely rich source. Patriarchy
cuts across the the religious divide, women are first abducted by the other and
then rejected by their own families.
But there are also other narratives that bring out the slow , relentless and
unnoticed struggle that countless women refugees underwent to create a
space for themselves and their children in the post-Partition period. As Ritu
Menon and Kamla Bhasin have persuasively ar gued,
Very large numbers of women who had never before stepped out of their homes
joined the workforce after Partition.… There were thousands who rehabilitated
themselves, so to speak, enabled to do so by the breakdown of traditional constraints
on their mobility.42
Left to fend for themselves and their children (some the result of rape), reject-
ed by their families, some of these women charted out independent lives and
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The Woman Protagonist 111

created new homes, refusing to submit to the force of circumstances and com-
promise their selfhood. 43
Yashpal’s Jhoota Such is one of the foremost fictional works on Partition,
which sensitively records the struggle of at least two such women victims.
Unlike many other texts, which end with violence, brutality , vengeance and
the destruction of a social order, Jhoota Such takes up the lives of refugees in
the post-Partition period, especially from the point of view of women. While
Hashmi’s protagonist was an abducted Muslim girl, whose inner self resisted
a patriarchal order that first brutalized her and then attempted to assimilate
her, Jhoota Such’s two principal characters are women whose lives under go
a radical progressive transformation as a result of Partition itself. While Tara
is a victim in the typical sense of having been violated sexually and subse-
quently rejected by her family, Kanak and her family are uprooted and virtually
destitute after crossing the border. But both of them, together with numerous
other displaced homeless and ostracised minor women characters, renegotiate
their relationship with a patriarchal society in the aftermath of Partition.
Partition not only uprooted and destroyed people financially and otherwise, it
created a new situation in which work became a matter of necessity rather
than choice. Destitute, shattered, and deprived of hearth and home, numerous
refugees had to begin life all over again in a new place among alien and some-
times hostile people. For women in particular, it was a radically new situation.
While those who had lost their families had no choice, even women in
refugee families would be expected to contribute financially in some way or
the other. Economic independence had major implications in the context of
the man–woman relationship. Issues like the woman’ s personal choice in
marriage or dual standards of sexual morality for men and women cropped up
in the refugee community. While these issues were not necessarily resolved in
a radical manner, the new situation did enable women (particularly those who
were educated) to establish a more equitable relationship with men. It was
natural that women who were irrevocably distanced from their families or had
lost them were the most likely to establish independent homes and lives.
The action of Yashpal’s novel spans pre-Partition Lahore and a few north
Indian cities and refugee towns, roughly between 1945 and 1955. While both
protagonists, Tara and Kanak, broadly start of f from a stifling, coercive and
patriarchal environment in Lahore and end up as personally satisfied and
mature women, financially secure and married to men of their choice, the tra-
jectory of their flight is strikingly different. Kanak, the daughter of a publisher,
fights her family successfully to get married to Puri, a lower middle-class
communist student leader (this is at least partly made possible because of the
uncertain times), while Tara, Puri’s sister, is married off to Somraj against her
clearly articulated opposition.44 But Yashpal sees both as reflective of a larger
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112 Writing Partition

patriarchal structure that cuts across class and religion. Tara’s physical and
moral humiliation on the night of her wedding is preceded by the emotional
violence inflicted by her family, and merges into the sexual violation that fol-
lows her running away from her in-laws’ house when the mob attacks the
Hindu houses. Her rape by Nabbu and the attempt by her ‘protector’ Hafiz to
convert her to Islam are both extensions of the patriarchal violence that is
rampant in society. By juxtaposing Somraj’s inhuman treatment of Tara with
her abduction and rape, Yashpal blurs the distinction between socially sanc-
tioned patriarchal violence and illegitimate communal violence directed
against women. Both aggressors see Tara as ‘property’; Somraj wants to domes-
ticate her, Nabbu wants to violate her sexually and then sell her of f. Further,
domestic violence directed against the woman cuts across the religious divide,
as is clearly evident from Nabbu’s treatment of his wife. What marks Tara out
from scores of other women in similar situations is her access to education
and exposure to a progressive ideology at college. She constantly attempts to
transform her ideas about freedom and equality into practice in her own life.45
The violence of Partition ironically provides Tara with a clean slate to
begin life anew. Deserted by her family (she is conveniently presumed to be
dead) and stripped of any identity, humiliated but not destroyed, with her self-
respect and dignity still intact, Tara successfully carves out a career for herself.
She realizes her potential as an independent, self-reliant woman once the
situation permits it. 46
Two aspects of Tara’s evolution to selfhood need to be emphasized. Firstly,
her alienation from her family, a consequence of her abduction and rape, pro-
vides her the opportunity to realize her potential. Like Bankim’ s Indira,
whose abduction becomes an enabling device, Tara too is freed from the taboos
of a patriarchal family that controls her destiny . But, unlike Indira, Tara’s
abduction and rape are occasioned by the historical accident of Partition.
Further, her emancipation is made possible by her need for survival in a
refugee camp after crossing the border . Secondly, one must emphasize that
Tara’s karmabhumi, the society in which she realizes her potential, is no less
patriarchal or more progressive than the one she has left behind. In fact, it is
her friend Banto’s rejection by her family and her suicide that harden Tara’s
resolve to never seek or return to her family .
What is the nature and extent of Tara’s emancipation? Does it mean a real-
ization of her self, a full recognition of her potential as a woman? Or , does
this process remain confined to the public sphere? While the novel does not
suggest any absolute answers, there are a few clear markers. First and fore-
most, Tara displays a very strong desire to become financially independent.
Unlike other refugee women at the camp who continue to demand and expect
State support, Tara’s sense of self-respect and dignity, which she has retained
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The Woman Protagonist 113

despite the indignities heaped upon her , quickly asserts itself. She is able to
get a reasonably senior position on account of her education and enterprise,
and this gives her not only financial independence but also social prestige and
power. Her social position puts her beyond the range of direct and overt crit-
icism from her friends and colleagues. Her sensitivity to gossip mongering
suggests that patriarchy and conservative notions continue to exercise some
hold on her . Nevertheless, her closest friends are people who are relatively
liberal and her first independent home is a flat she shares with Mercy ,a
Christian nurse engaged to a communist.
Secondly, Tara relates to her work not merely as a job, but in a larger sense
as a vocation. A victim of Partition herself, she empathizes with other victims
who continue to be exploited even after the bloodbath. She goes out of her
way to resettle widows and abducted women. She helps her childhood friend
and cousin Sheelo break out of a loveless arranged marriage of pre-Partition
days and get back to the person she loves. Additionally, she steadfastly refuses
to accept the demand made by unions to indefinitely extend the duration of
refugee camps. She does not get cowed into withdrawing the charges that she
has made against corrupt government functionaries, even though she is risk-
ing her job by doing so. An honest, upright and conscientious of ficer, she is
firmly committed to her work and realizes her potential as an independent
woman to a very large extent.
However, Tara’s social and economic emancipation is not matched by a cor-
responding intellectual and emotional maturity in her relationships with men.
Her refusal to return to her husband Somraj is motivated both by her fear of
rejection and the brutality with which he had treated her on the first day of her
marriage. Given the independent status that she has acquired on account of her
efforts, she recognizes the fundamentally irresolvable issues in her relationship
with Somraj. Predictably, her traumatic experiences do not incline her to any
proposals for marriage initially . But when she does accept her colleague and
mentor’s proposal of marriage, she reverts to her adolescent self, the Tara who
first dreamt of eloping withAssad and then expectantly waited for Somraj with
romantic notions of love and marriage. Dr Pran Nath is a former teacher from
her Lahore days and was a concerned family friend even then. An unexpected
meeting with him in Delhi paves the way for a relationship based on mutual
trust, faith and concern and, more importantly, a healthy respect for each other.
However, the image of Tara washing his clothes and cleaning his house, which
precedes his proposal, suggests that her perception of her role as a wife does
not transcend traditional stereotypes.
Unlike Tara, Kanak is not a typical woman victim of Partition in that she
is not raped or abducted, but only dislocated. The crises in Kanak’s life have
to do with her relationship with Jaidev Puri. The circumstances of Partition
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114 Writing Partition

aid her in the realization of the basic lacuna in this relationship.This is a slow
and painful process for her , since rejecting Puri also means dismantling the
idealized picture of Puri that she has conjured up and strongly believed in.
Like Jane Austen’s typical heroine, who begins with adolescent romantic
notions of life, Kanak too starts of f with an idealized notion of love. But
unlike her English counterpart, her mature decision is motivated by consider-
ations of self-respect, moral convictions and individual choice. Far from
being prudent, her divorce actually takes her away from financial and social
security. That she takes her daughter away with her and subsequently marries
Gill, a refugee from Lahore who stands by her through a very difficult phase,
indicates her self-sufficiency and initiative.
What does Partition have to do with Kanak’ s transformation? How do the
peripheral circumstances of dislocation and loss of wealth become enabling
factors in the maturation of Kanak? Nayyar, Kanak’s brother-in-law, comes to
Nainital to set up his legal practice on the eve of Partition. Apprehensive and
unsure of how the political scenario will unfold, Kanak’ s father sends her
along with Nayyar to Nainital. The temporary absence of Puri, who goes to
Jullunder and Amritsar looking for his parents, and her desire not to be
dependent on her brother-in-law financially, take her to Lucknow in search of
a job that she eventually gets. It is the uncertainty of the times that is respon-
sible for Kanak’s dislocation from Lahore. The relative impoverishment of her
family and her independent spirit motivate her to take the first steps towards
a self-reliant identity. From being the pampered daughter of a well-to-do pub-
lisher whose acts of transgression are treated with indulgence, she becomes
an active agent in her own life, making significant decisions about her mar-
riage and financial independence.
Her decision to marry Puri even after seeing him in bed with another
woman stems from her gullibility in the initial phase of her independence.
Her father ’s opposition to Puri on grounds of his class has hardened her
resolve, and like anyone asserting oneself for the first time, she becomes
blind to the obvious shortcomings of her choice. However, Puri’s intolerance
and his duplicity in both personal and public life soon make the limitations of
her marriage obvious. She walks out on him when he demands his conjugal
rights in a perverse attempt to subjugate her. The novel draws attention to the
underlying similarities between the patriarchal assumptions of the uneducated
Somraj and the self-confessed, progressive Puri. For Yashpal, patriarchy is
not restricted to any class or religious community . Its pervasive and strong
influence spreads its tentacles everywhere. Yet, as both Tara’s and Kanak’ s
examples show, it is possible to reformulate the dynamics of the man–woman
relationship in fluid contexts like the aftermath of Partition.
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The Woman Protagonist 115

Two other novels by Pakistani women writers provide interesting points of

comparison with Yashpal’s Jhoota Such and the characters of Tara and Kanak.
Altaf Fatima’s novel, Dastak Naa Do , is centred on the character of Gaythi,
the daughter of a well-to-do professional father with a reasonable amount of
inherited property, and an aristocratic, feudal mother.47 As in the case of Kanak,
Partition impoverishes her family and forces her to migrate. An educated
Gaythi, when forced to fend for herself and her mother in Pakistan, confi-
dently and competently addresses the situation. But this is where the similar-
ities with Kanak end. The return of her younger brother Bakhtiar signals the
end of this phase of independence. Gaythi’s growth is seriously compromised
by her willingness to accede to the wishes of her family in matters relating to
her life and marriage. In contrast, Aaliya, the central character of Khadija
Mastoor’s novel, Aangan, is comparable to Tara. Like Tara, she comes from a
lower middle-class family, and though she does not under go the harrowing
experience of abduction and rape, she does get displaced and is forced to take
up the responsibility for her mother in Pakistan. UnlikeTara, she does not even-
tually get married and asserts her single independent status despite pressure
from her mother to conform.
Altaf Fatima’s Dastak Naa Do 47 is a rather unique example of a woman-
centred Partition novel. One aspect of the novel that is immediately apparent
is that the Hindu–Muslim conflict remains at the mar gins. Politics and the
violence of Partition are deliberately distanced, even though violent episodes,
like Gaythi and her mother’s escape before the mob loots their house, the ser-
vant Shareef’s death and the migration to Pakistan, are part of the story. There
are several reasons for and consequences of this manoeuvre. Firstly , it draws
attention to the woman-centred nature of the narrative. Public action, ideology
and politics remain a distant echo in a work that is essentially organized around
the domestic, private spaces dominated by women. Comparing Fatima’s novel
with Mastur’s Aangan, Rukhsana Ahmad writes,
Fatima’s strategy is adopted by other women writers in the subcontinent. In Khadija
Mastoor’s Aangan, the focus remains primarily on the interior world of women, as
it does here, indirectly but realistically reflecting their distance from the political
process.48
However, the private and the public are not entirely unrelated. There are
instances of the one impacting on the other. For instance, it is Gaythi’s father
who takes the decision to allow her to go and study in Lahore at a time when
she is going through a particularly bad phase in her relationship with her
mother. And the world of politics is responsible for the forced migration and
the break-up of the family, as well as the reason for Gaythi taking on the role
of the breadwinner. But the issue here is one of what is foregrounded. It is the
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116 Writing Partition

domestic spaces that dominate the novel, the world of marriages, births,
deaths, relationships and the management of the home, a world that is ruled
by her imperious mother till the Partition and migration, after which Gaythi
takes over temporarily . Secondly , the class divide overrides the religious
divide, and this is important given that class is a critical thematic strand. The
only Hindus present in the novel are servants who are beholden to their Muslim
employers. Murali, the Hindu gardener, rejoices when Pakistan is created, not
because of any personal political belief, but because he knows that his master,
Gaythi’s father and her two brothers would have been pleased. In fact, when
reminded that Pakistan had been made for Muslims, he gets confused:
His happiness had never been separate or dif ferent from his lord and master ’s, for
him not to be happy today.… So what was so new about today that he should have
sat with a grumpy face? 49
Religious identity or political beliefs are relevant only inasmuch as they
break up the family and force some members to migrate. While Asif Jah,
Gaythi’s sister’s husband, is an army officer and has the wherewithal to con-
tinue to stay in India, Gaythi and her mother are defenceless in the face of a
mob attack and are forced to migrate. And if Partition pauperizes Gaythi’ s
mother, it also provides Masood, who had been ridiculed for daring to imagine
marriage with Gaythi, the opportunity to become a chief engineer in the
Pakistani army.
The central relationship in the novel is between Gaythi and Safdar Liu
Chu, the Chinese Muslim peddler, i.e. between two individuals who share the
same religion but are racially dif ferent. It is perhaps inevitable that such a
relationship has little possibility of succeeding in a society that is divided by
religion, race and even more importantly in this novel, by class. In the intro-
duction referred to above, Ahmad observes: “The novel proposes that there is
something germane to these cultures [i.e. Indian and Chinese] which militates
against confluence, insists upon the ‘otherness’ of foreigners.”50 That ‘some-
thing’ is an imperative related to class as an aspect of “language, religion [or]
manners”51 as well as gender . While the notion that there is something given
in Asian cultures that “militates against confluence” is debatable, the novel
does represent a community that is divided along class and race as well as
gender.52 Gaythi and her sisters are expected to live up to an almost Victorian
ideal of womanhood. This code of behaviour is integrally related to the upper
classes, and among its various aspects are the restrictions imposed on unmar-
ried girls, particularly those pertaining to interaction outside the family .
While Saulat, the elder sister , frees herself from these restrictions by marry-
ing, with her family’s consent, someone much older than herself even though
she does not love him, and Arjumand has little problem in living her life
according to the family’s expectations, it is Gaythi the rebel who is the cause
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The Woman Protagonist 117

of much friction in the family. Totally unlike her twin, the pretty, well-behaved
and obedient Arjumand, Gaythi is constantly being scolded and punished by
her mother for climbing trees, dirtying herself, picking berries, associating
with the servants’ children, and sundry other transgressions against the code of
conduct laid down by her authoritarian mother for her upper -class daughters.
The basic issue is one of class andstatus: while her arrogant mother insists that
she hold herself aloof from everyone who is not their equal in wealth and status,
including her poorer cousins, Gaythi has a natural sympathy for the poorer , less
privileged maids and relatives. She feels completely at home in the l arge ram-
bling house of her grandmother , with its numerous poor relatives, retainers
and even the children of her former retainers. Uninhibited and innocent, she
acknowledges her af fection for her cousin Masood, much to his shock. The
relationship with Masood ends prematurely when Saulat viciously insults his
mother and him for his daring to imagine a possible alliance with a family of
their status. For similar reasons of class and status, and the fear of disgrace,
her mother thrashes her soundly on account of her innocent and completely
coincidental meeting with Safdar Liu Chu in a public park. But while the
novel narrates much that is hollow and pretentious about the upper classes, it
does not endorse the individual’s rebellion and breaking away from the fam-
ily. It locates the ideal within the same, class-ridden society by romanticizing
the past. As Rukhsana Ahmad points out, “Wealth is associated with evil and
traditional values—even the worst of the feudal kind—assume elegance and
graciousness, softened by a rosy glow, as, for instance, embodied in Gaythi’s
father.”53 Commitment to family above all is the ultimate goal. Gaythi’s final
capitulation is graphically conveyed through the image of the taming of a
wild mare. When her brother, Bakhtiar, comes looking for her in Lahore and
rather abruptly decides that she would leave her job, get admitted to college
again and stop associating with persons of an inferior class, she accepts his
superior wisdom. Guilt-stricken about the pain she has caused her mother by
running away, she responds quite willingly to the role of the father that he has
assumed. And yet, the image that comes to her mind (of the untamed mare
which had broken free and escaped only to return a couple of days later to be
willingly led back to the stable, and cleaned and fed by Gaythi’s father) as she
thinks about the change within herself is indicative of the inherent irony .
Symbolically, it is Bakhtiar , in the role of the father , who is ‘taming’ her,
not through harsh discipline like her mother, but by appealing to her sense of
moral responsibility to the family. But her father is constantly linked to feudal
values and a feudal lifestyle with its intricate systems of patronage, which
constitute the bedrock of class distinctions. Individual action has little worth;
it is the life of the collective to which one has to be committed. This however
does not mean that Gaythi the individual is completely devalued. Some
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118 Writing Partition

positives, though muted, do emerge by the end. She decides to get married to
Sajjad of her own accord, without any intervention by her mother, although it
must be noted that he comes from the same class and her family’ s finances
are considerably strained after Partition. Gaythi’ s turning away quite callously
from Safdar Liu Chu and the drying up of what Ahmad calls her ‘humanist
aspirations’ towards the end, must also be seen in the context of her individ-
ual decision to marry Sajjad. Her mother refrains from raising any objection
partly because her intervention in the marriage of her elder daughter has had
disastrous consequences, and partly because she has lost the will to fight a
determined Gaythi.
A comparison of Gaythi with Kanak of Yashpal’s novel Jhoota Such illus-
trates the variety of ways in which women re-negotiate their relationships
with their families in the aftermath of Partition. While both these characters
come from affluent backgrounds, the path taken by both at the end is different.
Kanak extricates herself from a humiliating marriage with Jaidev Puri and
establishes a more meaningful relationship with Gill, who has befriended her
during a difficult phase. And Kanak’s father, who had staunchly opposed her
marriage to Puri on account of his class, does not object to her relationship
with Gill in altered circumstances. The important distinction between Kanak
and Gaythi concerns their relationships with their respective families. While
the former is able to chalk out an independent course by getting a job, divorc-
ing Puri, taking away her daughter and marrying Gill, Gaythi gives up her job
and marries Sajjad, whom the family approves of. Perhaps, this is related to
the fact that Kanak is already married and feels responsible for her tragic deci-
sion to marry Puri in spite of her family’s opposition. In contrast, Gaythi as a
daughter feels that while she should look after her mother in an emer gency,
this is just a temporary phase before her brother comes back and takes over
the responsibility for the family and her marriage.
However, in both cases, the issue of class becomes considerably muted by
the end. Sajjad may be a senior army of ficer, but Masood, who was rejected
by Gaythi’s mother, also travels on the same road in his jeep to Nathia Galli.
The social mobility that Partition has made possible and the decline in the
family’s fortunes means that Gaythi’ s mother can no longer maintain her
snobbish and patronizing ways. It is thus possible to hypothesize that Partition
contributes indirectly towards allowing Gaythi to make her own decision about
marriage, even though the person she chooses belongs to the same class and
meets her mother’s and brother’s approval.
In Khadija Mastoor ’s Aangan or The Inner Courtyar d, the perspective
throughout is that of Aaliya, the central character, and the other women in her
family. The principal action is located within the domestic private space of home
and family. The novel traces the adverse impact of the political involvement of
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The Woman Protagonist 119

the males on the fortunes of the family . Aaliya’s father and his brother are
Congress activists, while her cousin Jamil is a Muslim League supporter. Their
political involvement drives the family to penury . Poverty drives a wedge
between characters like Zafar, Chammi’s father, who has decided to make his
fortune in the princely state of Hyderabad; Aaliya’s maternal uncle, who is a
civil servant and grudgingly spares some money for her education; and Barre
Chacha, Jamil’s father, who is idealistic and committed to the cause of Indian
freedom. While Barri Chachi accepts her poverty-stricken life with some
amount of resignation, Shakil, her younger son, runs away from home, and
her sister -in-law, Aaliya’s mother , constantly criticizes Barre Chacha and
holds him responsible for the state of af fairs in the family. Aaliya is the only
person who sympathizes with and cares deeply for her uncle and aunt, as well
as for Israr Mian, her uncle’ s illegitimate brother . Her strong disapproval of
her mother ’s taunts and ungrateful behaviour is, however , qualified by an
ambivalent attitude towards her father’s and uncle’s political activities. While
she does not actively disapprove of their politics, she does wish that it did not
lead to strife in the family . Rather surprisingly , despite being an educated
woman, she seems to have no political views at all. Even the relatively unso-
phisticated Chammi is a supporter of the Muslim League, though it must be
said that the older women do not espouse any cause at all. This is the second
aspect of the novel that draws attention to its women-centred character. Women
do not participate in the public world of political struggle directly or indirectly,
even though their lives are directly influenced by it. As Jasbir Jain notes,
“Women’s stories move away from power politics.”53 At one level, women are
the dominant players in the private sphere of the aangan, the inner courtyard.
Decisions about marriages, family affairs and relationships are all made with-
in this inner space. And yet, what Mastur is able to brilliantly capture is how
the same women are also victims of the public world; the family gets divided,
and relationships break up as Partition uproots many of the families. After
Aaliya has clearly told her mother that she has no intention of marrying Jamil,
or in collaborating with her in grabbing Barre Chacha’ s haveli, the mother
jumps at the chance offered by her brother of migrating to Pakistan. Aaliya’s
mother resents the influence of Barre Chacha on her husband and blames him
for his death. After her husband’s imprisonment, she becomes dependent on
her brother-in-law’s family. Although her brother sends her a mere pittance,
she thinks very highly of him, lar gely on account of his well-paid job in the
government. Thus, when he decides to migrate to Pakistan, she willingly follows
him with a very reluctant Aaliya.
Although Partition has numerous negative consequences for both of them,
paradoxically it also provides Aaliya with opportunities for self-realization
that were not available in the restricted environment of her pre-Partition life.
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120 Writing Partition

Aaliya’s role in the family is limited. Buf feted between her mother ’s lack of
civility and gratitude, and her father ’s and uncle’ s political life (which puts
the family in serious financial dif ficulties), she can only be a helpless onlooker .
She reluctantly agrees to complete her graduate course and teacher ’s training
course, the funds for which are given by her uncle. Although she displays
tremendous emotional strength in resisting the advances of her cousin Jamil,
she can do nothing to prevent Chammi’ s marriage to an unlettered peasant.
But her major frustration emer ges from her inability to shield her uncle and
Israr Mian from the taunts and abuses of her mother and Kariman, the servant.
Unlike Chammi, who is given to outbursts of eccentric behaviour , Aaliya is
the well-behaved, polite daughter of the house who restrains her own feelings
to maintain peace at any cost. She has little option but to go along with her
mother to Pakistan even though it causes her deep distress. As she tells
Barre Chacha,
Barre Chacha, I am my mother ’s only support. How can I desert her? She is deter-
mined to go, but you don’ t know what torment I will under go when I leave this
house…”54 (p. 222–23)
But her motivation for this decision is quite complex. Staying behind, even if
she could have persuaded her mother , would probably mean marriage to
Jamil, the very idea of which is anathema to her. She spurns Jamil’s repeated
advances for at least two discernible reasons: one, because she does not love
him, and two, because despite her sympathy and respect for Barre Chacha, she
does not wish to share the fate of her aunt. Jamil’s commitment to politics nec-
essarily implies a rejection of family responsibility. Gone ostensibly to earn a
living, “his main aim was not his family’ s well being, but the desire to fight
fascism”. (p. 185) On the one hand, she sincerely regrets that she has to leave
her uncle and aunt, who have always been her family and become possibly
dependent on her uncle in Pakistan. On the other hand, she also wishes to free
herself from the imprisonment that living with Jamil entails.
Paradoxically, Aaliya acquires genuine control over her own destiny as a
result of her mother ’s decision. Forced to go with her mother , and resentful
of their dependence on her uncle, she takes up a schoolteacher’s job and does
voluntary work at a refugee camp. Having accepted the sole responsibility f or
her mother, she successfully creates an independent space for herself. Her
uncle and his wife have already distanced themselves after making it clear
that living together is not a feasible proposition; a rejection that hurts her
mother more than herself. She turns down proposals of marriage from both
the doctor at the camp as well as Safdar, her elder sister’s widowed husband,
because both of them aspire for material well-being and are devoid of any
idealism. In a way , she inherits the commitment to selfless service from her
father and uncle, despite ruing that both died as a consequence of their political
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The Woman Protagonist 121

affiliations. By the end of the novel, Aaliya has managed to free herself from
the pressures of conformity demanded by the family . She is financially and
emotionally independent, and is her own person.And unlike Tara, who decides
to marry Pran Nath, Aaliya remains single. However regrettable the break up
of the family might seem from Aaliya’s perspective, it is a personal assertion
of her self. Hampered by her respect for her uncle and aunt, she plays the role
of a dutiful and obedient daughter and does not violate any of the traditional
norms of the family. But when she migrates to Pakistan with her mother , she
does not feel the need to keep up pretences and assertively makes her own
decisions. Although she always felt that her father ’s and uncle’ s public
involvement prevented them from fulfilling family obligations, she neverthe-
less takes up public service. It is her voluntary work at the refugee camp that
gives her peace. She does fulfil her responsibility towards her mother by taking
up a teaching job, but beyond that shows little sympathy for her mother . Her
mother becomes increasingly mar ginalized as Aaliya continues to take her
own decisions. Partition then becomes an enabling and empowering event for
Aaliya. Like Tara of Yashpal’s novel, Aaliya’s forced migration frees her from
social and familial expectations.
The other important woman character in the novel is Chammi, her cousin
and Zafar ’s daughter. While Tehmina, Aaliya’s elder sister, commits suicide
when her husband leaves her, Chammi is far more resilient. Rejected by Jamil,
she agrees to marry a peasant on the family’ s insistence. The irony is that
though Chammi has been a supporter of the Muslim League and its demand
for Pakistan, she stubbornly refuses to accompany her husband’s family when
they decide to migrate to Pakistan after Partition, and agrees to a divorce
instead. As she explains to Aaliya in her letter, they wanted to take her away
from Jamil. Finally united with Jamil in marriage, Chammi realizes a personal
ideal of love.
Aaliya’s story lacks the tragic ener gy of stories that involve rape, abduc-
tions and murders. One has already noted that both novels, Aangan and
Dastak Naa Do, consciously eschew such tragic elements. But the questions
raised by them in the context of women’ s empowerment are not only
extremely relevant but also finely nuanced and complex. Partition and its var-
ious consequences affect women characters in dif ferent ways. In novels like
Dastak Naa Do, class distinctions are narrowed, thereby providing some space
for individual choice and action. As has been ar gued in the case of several
other works, some middle or upper class educated women characters utilize
the relative freedom that Partition af fords to rework the terms of their own
lives. However, the nature and scope of this transformation has to be evaluated
within the varied contexts that these characters are located.
While Partition narratives unfold a whole canvas of male characters
indulging in rape, looting and arson, women are usually represented as victims
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122 Writing Partition

of these mindless brutalities. Some of them, as we have seen, actively and

through their own initiative attempt to successfully realize their selfhood in
new contexts. But one also comes across women from aggressor groups who
provide yet another dimension to the varied representations discussed above.
Although none of them indulge in any physical violence, perhaps because of
their acculturation and orientation in a patriarchal society, they are not neces-
sarily unaf fected by communal ideology . In Jamila Hashmi’ s story ,
“Banished”, Gurpal’s mother does acquiesce in her son’ s abduction of the
Muslim narrator. Even the women in Hafiz’ s family (Yashpal’s Jhoota Such),
who are loving and caring towards Tara after she has been freed from the
clutches of her rapist Nabbu, merely see in her an opportunity for conversion.
The great sympathy of Hafiz and his family is motivated by their desire to
earn the blessings of Allah by converting a defenceless girl to Islam. And
when Tara resists their pressure, they easily for get her and unwittingly allow
her to be physically brutalized again. Further , the rejection of abducted
women by their families was often a decision made by both the men and
women of the family , as the case of Banto in Yashpal’s novel shows. In
Qasmi’s short story “Parmeshar Singh” (Urdu, 1955) bothAmar Kaur and her
mother reveal a strong intolerance towards the young and defenceless Akhtar.
Grieving for the loss of her own son, Parmeshar ’s wife perceives Akhtar as
the aggressor, the ‘other’ who is indirectly responsible for her own loss. In con-
trast, Parmeshar Singh sees his own son in Akhtar and nurtures him with great
love and refuses to convert him to Sikhism despite tremendous social pres-
sure.55 Qasmi’s story thus overturns the normal stereotype of the aggressive
and violent communal male and the defenceless and weak woman. Although
women are victims of communal violence, this does not make them immune
to communal ideology. Both patriarchal and communal mindsets exist equally
among men and women. While a case can be made out for women’s exclusion
from violence, there is little evidence to suggest that women as women resist
patriarchal and communal ideology . “Feminist convictions are not given or
inherent in women, after all.” 56
From our preceding examination of a fairly representative range of women
characters in Partition narratives, one can make certain broad generalizations.
Partition displaced numerous men and women, broke families and led to loss
of lives and property. However, the impact of Partition on women was different
from that on men. Those who were abducted or raped and separated from
their families had to confront a radically new situation in which they found
themselves alone and left to rebuild their lives without any social or familial
intervention. Some of them seized this opportunity to create a new life and
identity for themselves while others succumbed to the pressure either by com-
mitting suicide or by becoming dependent on any man who of fered to help
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The Woman Protagonist 123

them. Secondly, it was the educated middle-class women who could and did
make the most of this opportunity . While education may not have led to any
real empowerment before, Partition created a situation in which education
played a vital role in their emancipation. Thirdly, the victimization of women
pushed them into situations that could, at one end of the spectrum, raise disturb-
ing questions in their own consciousness regarding their identities as women,
and at the other, completely alter the balance of their relationships with men.
In short, empowerment cannot be measured only by one set of parameters and
needs to be understood contextually . S trategies of resistance to patriarchal
exploitation varied, depending on individual contexts. And not all women
resisted. But those who do, begin a journey towards self-definition that
attempts to shed generations of patriarchal orientation. Frightened and violated
to begin with, they go on to condemn the barbarity of violence, sympathize
with other victims and become aware of their own selves as women and as
victims. The exercise of their agency results in the construction of the female
subject’s self. In her work on refugee women in Bengal, Gar gi Chakravartty
notes that the victimhood, violence and oppression of women have been
excessively emphasized often at the cost of other equally relevant areas of
experience: “These relate to the ways in which uprooted women have faced the
enormous challenge of rebuilding and reshaping their lives in alien conditions
and how some of their concerns evolved into a new women’ s movement.”57
Although Chakravartty writes this in the context of Bengali women refugees,
the generalization is equally valid in the north Indian context. Unlike some
feminist studies of women as victims, literary narratives reveal women as
both victims as well as agents.
The woman’s voice and her experience have traditionally been disregarded in
patriarchal societies. Notions about her weak and helpless nature have been
constructed and reconstructed over a long period of time. Her nurturing, caring,
gentle nature, her predominantly emotional make-up, her secondary and depend-
ent status when compared with men—these are myths that have been imbibed
by both men and women. While feminism as a political movement attempts to
demolish many of these myths and empower women through an assertion of
their fundamental equality with men, creative literature explores the woman’ s
experience itself. This exploration exposes the gap between the self and its
patriarchal construction. Secondly , it also locates the woman’ s agency within
her specific individual and existential context and not as something that corre-
sponds to a theoretical feminist paradigm. Creative works thus operate as con-
sciousness-raising and sensitizing projects, deriving their strength from the
woman’s experience. By providing the reader with a perspective from within her
self, the text highlights the existential dilemma of a woman in a society that
expects her to conform to a certain pre-determined patriarchal image.
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124 Writing Partition

As regards generalizations about women as victims, one must locate them

within their own specific cultural coordinates to arrive at any understanding.
Class, caste, religion determine the approach and self-perception of the victims.
The sense of loss that afflicts Gaythi has more to do with the values of decorum
and form, so crucial for the aristocratic classes and so completely absent in the
opportunistic asylum seekers going to Pakistan. As has been discussed above,
she does finally accede to the wishes of her family by choosing to marry a man
of an equal stature, even though some concession is made regarding her personal
preference in the matter . But characters like Aaliya or Kanak or Tara, coming
from middle class or lower middle class backgrounds, freed from the over-
whelming burden of familial and societal expectations, in the aftermath of
Partition, fight against the odds to carve out a personal destiny and identity .
As distinct from educated middle class or upper class characters, uneducated
victimized women rarely manage to extricate themselves. Lajwanti may become
conscious of the true nature of her loss, and Hashmi’ s narrator may recognize
and dwell persistently on the gross injustice of her ‘husband’ Gurpal, but they
are unable to go beyond this consciousness. Yet, this consciousness too needs to
be recognized as an important stage in their empowerment.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Elaine Showalter, “Towards a Feminist Poetics”, in Elaine Showalter (ed.), The New
Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1985), p. 141.
2. From Introduction to Susie Tharu and K. Lalita (eds), Women Writing in India: 600 B.C.
to the Early Twentieth Century (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 23.
3. Ibid., p. 26.
4. Karuna Chanana, Interrogating W omen’s Education: Bounded V ision, Expanding
Horizons (Jaipur: Rawat, 2001).
5. Partha Chatterjee, “The Nation and Its Women” in The Nation and Its Fragments:
Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 128.
Chatterjee does tend to equate Bengal with India, but practices like sati and the ban on
widow remarriage were prevalent in many parts of India. However, since the first uni-
versities and colleges were set up in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, access to English
education was not uniform till a few decades later .
6. Meenakshi Mukherjee, “Story, History and Her Story”, Studies in History 9, no. 1, n.s.,
1993, pp. 72–73.
7. Malvika Karlekar, Voices From Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Women
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993[1991]), pp. 72 and 74.
8. Jasodhra Bagchi, “Porous Boundaries and Divided Selves”, in Jasbir Jain (ed),.
Reading Partition/Living Partition (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2007), p. 107.
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The Woman Protagonist 125

9. But Bagchi falls into the same trap all too easily. After arguing how the control of the
woman’s sexuality and the preservation of her chastity was made possible through
religion-centred identity politics, and even observing its close af finities with “identity-
based fundamentalist onslaughts in various sub-nationalist struggles in dif ferent parts
of the world” (p. 108), she goes on to make a direct link between women and borders
and the necessity of patriarchal border guards who control, define and guard the body
of the mother as nation. “On the Indian subcontinent, much of it [woman as national
iconic signifier] was defined by religious communities”.
Bagchi is absolutely correct in making the link between patriarchy and what she
calls the second avatar of nationalism. But she does not elucidate the first one, which
surely must have contested many of the patriarchal notions generated by the second.
Secondly, the correct term for this nationalism is communalism. Once one identifies it
with the correct term the issue becomes clearer . Both Hindu and Muslim communal-
ists have always tried to create monolithic communities in which women carry the
burden of cultural and spiritual values, and their sexuality has to be controlled by
defining it in terms of their roles as nurturers and reproducers.To use the term ‘nation-
alism’ obfuscates the issue and taints the progressive egalitarian and democratic
aspects of Indian nationalism.
10. For more on how participation in the national movement was an empowering experi-
ence for women, see Visalakshi Menon, Indian Women and Nationalism: The U.P .
Story (New Delhi: Har -Anand, 2003) and Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert, Women in the
Indian National Movement: Unseen Faces and Unheard Voices, 1930–42 (New Delhi:
Sage, 2006).
11. From “Oranges and Apples”, interview of Kamlabehn Patel by Ritu Menon and Kamla
Bhasin, in Mushirul Hasan (ed.), India Partitioned, Vol. II, (New Delhi: Roli Books,
1995) p. 122. Family members of abducted women put tremendous pressure on the
Governments of India and Pakistan for their recovery . More then 25,000 enquiries
about abducted women in Pakistan were received by the Ministry of Relief and
Rehabilitation. As a consequence, the Inter -Dominion Treaty was signed between the
two Governments, for the recovering of these women.
12. See, for instance, Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India
(New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1998); Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders
and Boundaries: W omen in India’ s Partition (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998);
Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories,
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997) and Shail Mayaram, Resisting Regimes: Myth,
Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
13. See, for instance, interviews with or diaries and memoirs of Ganda Singh, Khushdewa
Singh, Amrik Singh, and especially Begum Anees Kidwai and Kamlabehn Patel, who
worked under Mridula Sarabhai on the committee for the relief and rehabilitation of
women, in Mushirul Hasan (ed), India Partitioned, Vol. II.
14. References to the stories “Banished” and “Lajwanti” are from Muhammad Umar
Memon (ed. and trans.), An Epic Unwritten. References to “Where Did She Belong?”,
“Pali” and “Mozel” are from Alok Bhalla (ed.), Stories About the Partition of India .
Volume and page numbers follow the quoted passage in the text.
According to Memon, Jamila Hashmi’ s “Banished” was first published in her
collection of stories Aap-biti, jag-biti . According to the editors of Saadat Hasan
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126 Writing Partition

Manto: Dastavez, “Mozel” was one of the 161 short stories that Manto wrote between
1948 and 1955. See Bibliography , Saadat Hasan Manto: Dastavez , Vol. II (New
Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, 1993), pp. 454–56. Manto first read out the story “Mozel”
at a meeting of the Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq (literally ‘a circle of people with good
taste’, this was the group of writers disenchanted with the rigid approach of the IPWA
after 1948) on 2 March 1952. See Dastavez Vol. 2, p. 452. For publication details of
“Lajwanti”, see endnote 1 of Chapter 3. Despite my best ef forts, I have not been able
to locate Urdu titles and first dates of publication of the other stories.
15. Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan, “Life After Rape: Narrative, Rape and Feminism” in her
Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Post-Colonialism (London and New
York: Routledge, 1993 ), p. 73.
16. The use of the Sita myth in an altered context by a Muslim writer shows how mythic
consciousness transcends religious creed. It also underlies the point made elsewhere
in this book that both Indian and Pakistani writers formed a part of a broader consen-
sual framework for many years after Partition.
17. In two translations of Jamila Hashmi’ s story by Alok Bhalla and Mohammad Umar
Memon, Gurpal is referred to as both son and grandson of Bari Ma (cf. Memon, An
Epic Unwritten, pp. 88–89, and Bhalla, Stories About the Partition of India , Vol. I,
pp. 40–41). This inconsistency could be the result of a lapse on the translators’ part.
18. This story shares interesting similarities with the account of a ‘victimizer ’ in the
Mewat region, “W omen do not have any religion ... Any man who did not have a
woman took her and kept her , even if he was fifty years old ... Marriage? There was
no question of marriage with a barat (bridal procession). After children are born it is
like marriage...” For more details see Shail Mayaram, “Speech, Silence and the
Making of Partition Violence in Mewat,” in Subaltern Studies, Vol. 9 (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1996), pp. 148–149.
19. Jasbir Jain, “Daughters of Mother India in Search of a Nation: Women’s Narratives
about the Nation” Economic and Political Weekly, (29 April 2006): 1656.
20. Rosalind Coward, “Are Women’s Novels Feminist Novels?” in Elaine Showalter (ed.),
The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on W omen, Literature, and Theory (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1985), p. 231.
21. In the context of totalitarian regimes, Milan Kundera makes a similar comment on the
importance of memory: “It is 1971, and Mirek says that the struggle of man against
power is the struggle of memory against for getting”. Milan Kundera, The Book of
Laughter and Forgetting, translated from Czech (Calcutta: Rupa and Co., 1992 [1978]),
p. 3.
22. Sukrita Paul Kumar , Narrating Partition: T exts, Interpretations, Ideas (New Delhi:
Indialog Publications, 2004), p. 100.
23. Urvashi Butalia, “Community , S tate and Gender: On Women’s Agency During
Partition” Economic and Political Weekly, 28, no. 17, (24 April 1993): WS–19.
24. Andrew Major, “The Chief Sufferers: Abduction of Women During the Partition of the
Punjab”, South Asia 18, Special Issue, 1995: 57–72.
25. Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence, p. 191. But Butalia also wonders why the
Indian State continued with the recovery operation even when “many women did not
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The Woman Protagonist 127

want to leave because they had children” and “conditions of recovery became more
and more difficult”. In this context it is worth noting that according to the decision of
the India and Pakistan governments in 1954, abducted women could not be forced to
go against their wishes. The recovery operations had slowed down considerably by
then partly because of the issue of children of abducted women.
26. In her interview cited in Mushirul Hasan (ed.), India Partitioned, Vol. 2. Kamlabehn
Patel recalls the case of a girl named Meera who was sacrificed by her family for the
safe escort of the others to India. The girl was left with an already married police
inspector, together with 30 tolas of gold and a house. In return he escorted the rest of
the family to an Indian cantonment. When produced before the tribunal she expressed
her wish to go to India, though not to her parents. Quite unfairly , the police inspector
was produced as a witness before the tribunal, where he proceeded to badger Meera:
“ What do you think you are saying? I saved your parents, I have spent so much money
on you. Even the bangles you are wearing are mine,...”
27. Aparna Basu, Mridula Sarabhai: Rebel with a Cause (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1996), p. 126.
28. Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Khol Do” poignantly describes how a young woman is rescued
and repeatedly raped by her rescuers. Ibid., p. 143.
29. Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence, p. 192.
30. In the context of women victims of Partition, Menon and Bhasin ar gue that woman’s
agency has no clear markers. Further, they also feel that agency cannot be understood
except in its own specific context. See Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and
Boundaries.
31. Sunder Rajan, Real and Imagined Women, p. 71.
32. Ibid. Ramanan’s Tamil story “Prison” is the story of Bhagirathi, a Brahmin priest’ s
wife who is raped by a Christian landlord. Ostracized by her husband and society, she
confronts her rapist and lives in his house without any intercourse with him, insisting
on her caste purity. Over the years he begins to feel guilty and leaves her a substantial
portion of his property when he dies. On his death, however , Bhagirathi mourns for
him as his widow.
33. Ibid.
34. All references to Epar Ganga, Opar Ganga , are from Jyotirmoyee Debi, The River
Churning: A Partition Novel, translated by Enakshi Chatterjee (New Delhi: Kali for
Women, 1995). Page numbers follow the quoted passage in the text.
35. Chamars are tanners by profession and since their work involves dead animals they
are considered untouchable by the intermediate and upper castes of Hindus. In some
quarters, they are even equated with the mlechhas, i.e. Muslims.
36. All references are to Bhisham Sahni, Kites Will Fly—A Novel, translated from Hindi
by Jai Ratan (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1981[1974]), p. 42.
37. Ibid., p. 231.
38. The complete rejection of religion or markers of religio-cultural identity in Manto’ s
story is reminiscent of the early position of Indian communists in this regard. The
communists believed that religion was basically a false and irrational consciousness
used by social elites to hoodwink and keep the masses in submission. It was Gandhiji
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128 Writing Partition

who, far from rejecting religion, insisted on greater sensitivity to the religious beliefs
of people and, in particular, a healthy respect for visible religious and cultural markers
of identity.
39. Sukrita Paul Kumar, Narrating Partition, p. 96.
40. All references to Rajinder Singh Bedi’ s “Lajwanti” are to Mohammad Umar Memon
(ed.), An Epic Unwritten, p. 29.
41. Jasbir Jain, “Daughters of Mother India”, p. 1655.
42. Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries, p. 205.
43. It is worth considering why such women do not evoke the historian’ s interest. One
possible reason for their relative erasure could be that their tales do not possess the
dramatic tragic potential which victims’ stories are imbued with. Their stories reveal
a slow process of gradually establishing their economic independence, fighting dis-
crimination by using their wits—ordinary characters who can find little space in the
grand sagas of victimization. In this context, Menon and Bhasin’ s Borders and
Boundaries is a pioneering work inasmuch as it devotes a full chapter to survivors who
were able to free themselves from patriarchal domination to some extent. The authors
concede, although with some qualifications, “the liberatory potential of the disruption
caused by Partition…” Based on their interviews of women survivors of Partition,
they argue that “survival and strategies for survival can also be instrumental in women
finding their feet…” (p. 222).
44. The difference here arises partly because of class. Kanak’ s father, a prosperous pub-
lisher, and interestingly, a believer in women’s education, opposes Puri on grounds of
class and economic inequality . Tara, on the other hand, comes from a lower middle-
class family for whom education is desirable as long as it does not create hurdles in a
girl’s marriage. Clearly , Kanak’ s father ’s economic status allows a choice when it
comes to deciding a match for her. For Tara, the lack of a substantial dowry means that
even a disreputable character and widower like Somraj is acceptable.
45. Yashpal relates Tara’s helplessness to her class too. Unlike Kanak, who has at least
some control over her choice of a marriage partner , Tara has none. But this does not
mean that Kanak’ s father is necessarily less patriarchal. He may encourage Kanak’ s
education and appreciate her independent spirit, but he vehemently opposes her
marriage to Puri.
46. The one person who comes closest to Tara in real life is Bibi Inder Kaur . An unedu-
cated woman, she studied and successfully passed her high school, undergraduate and
Master’s exams at the age of forty after her husband failed to set up his medical prac-
tice in Delhi after Partition. Despite his strong objections and subsequent desertion,
she taught Punjabi in school and college before retiring from a senior administrative
position, all the while educating and bringing up her children. In her own words,
“Partition provided me with the opportunity to get out of the four walls of my house.
I had the will power, the intelligence, Partition gave me the chance. In Karachi I would
have remained a housewife. Personally I feel Partition forced many people into taking
the initiative and finding their own feet.” See Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders
and Boundaries, p. 215.
47. Despite many efforts it has not been possible to determine the year this novel was first
published.
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The Woman Protagonist 129

48. Rukhsana Ahmad, Introduction, in Altaf Fatima, The One Who Did Not Ask (Oxford:
Heinemann Educational Books, 1993), p. x.
49. Altaf Fatima, The One Who Did Not Ask, p. 274.
50. Rukhsana Ahmad, Introduction, in Altaf Fatima, The One Who Did Not Ask, p. ix.
51. Asia, particularly South Asia, has a very long history of migrations in the ancient and
medieval periods. Trading communities are known to have migrated from West Asia
and settled down in the Indian subcontinent over many centuries. Similarly , Central
Asian rulers not only invaded, they also came and settled down to make India their
home in the medieval period. In fact, Asian societies have rarely been hostile to people
from other races and cultures. The intolerance and hostility to other communities is an
aspect of the modern period to a lar ge extent.
52. Rukhsana Ahmad, “Introduction to The One Who Did Not Ask” in Altaf Fatima, The
One Who Did Not Ask, p. ix.
53. Ibid., p. xi.
54. Jasbir Jain, “Daughters Mother India in Search of a Nation”, p. 1655.
55. All references to the novel are from Khadija Mastoor, Inner Courtyard, or, Aangan: A
Novel, translated by Neelam Husain (Lahore: Simorgh Women’s Resource Publication
Centre, 2000). Page numbers follow the quoted passage in the text.
56. Parmeshar Singh merely allows Akhtar to grow his hair and tie it like a Sikh, in order
to avoid public discrimination; he does not admit him to the faith formally .
57. From Tanika Sarkar and Urvashi Butalia eds., Women and the Hindu Right: A
Collection of Essays (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1995), p. 4.
58. Gargi Chakravartty, Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal (New Delhi
and Calcutta: Srishti Publishers, 2005), p. xi.
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5
IDEOLOGY AND AESTHETICS

The relationship between ideology and literature has been the subject of crit-
ical debates the world over , particularly in the modern era, which has been
witness to colonial and imperial expansion, anti-colonial national movements
in Asia and Africa, the rise of fascism and the World Wars. The issue of com-
mitment in literature in the high phase of European modernism, particularly
the period between the two world wars, has been raised in dif ferent contexts
and has elicited varying responses, accounting partly for the multiplicity of
modernist forms in Europe during this period. There is an obvious difference
in the terms of this debate in the West and in postcolonial societies, given the
vastly different social and historical conditions. While in the developed Western
world the revolutionary potential of radical ideology has been somewhat
blunted, in postcolonial societies still struggling with issues of poverty, social
discrimination and oppression, the transformative power of progressive ide-
ology continues to be important. An imaginative construction of the ideal in
literature, or a vision of this ideal is imbricated in the very texture of Hindi
and Urdu fiction. It may appear hazy at times, but its consistent presence in
the form of a humanist outlook is a far cry from the detached and sometimes
cynical irony of Western existentialist texts. Any attempt to study the nature
of this relationship between ideology and fiction has to take into account the
critical, aesthetic and ideological influences from the West, their reception in the
non-Western countries and their negotiations with local history.
The chapter on modernism has considered the various factors that went
into the fashioning of new literary movements and trends in Hindi and Urdu
fiction in the period between the 1930s and the 1950s. The changing histori-
cal circumstances, the exposure to the literary currents in theWest, the chang-
ing urban landscape and the displacement of people due to Partition, have all
played a critical role in the reorientation of fictional modes of representation
during these decades. The anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and non-violent
freedom struggle, the societal conservatism that led to many kinds of oppres-
sion (caste and gender in particular), the recognition of class inequalities and
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132 Writing Partition

the need for social reform, were important issues in Hindi and Urdu fiction
during the 1930s. While Marxism and anti-fascist movements in Europe were
important influences in this realist phase, they were selectively appropriated
to make them relevant to social and political conditions that prevailed in
India. The ideological orientation of fiction in this period, however , was not
strictly uniform, though it was broadly radical and consistently opposed to all
kinds of oppression, local or foreign.
With the coming of Independence and Partition, the orthodox Left writers
of the IPWA focussed on the class limitations of what they perceived to be a
bourgeois Congress and an illusory independence. In their zeal they upset the
socially progressive consensus of the earlier phase and alienated many writers
who were not as dismissive of the newly emer gent nation state. The altered
social situation in the wake of Partition, the tensions generated by the mass
displacement of people, and the changed landscape of urban centres drew the
attention of many Hindi and Urdu writers during the 1950s.As we have already
seen, a new kind of writing, particularly the Nai Kahani in both languages, was
the outcome of the altered perspective. This chapter attempts to examine
closely whether the secular , humanist outlook of the progressive realist rep-
resentations of Partition underwent a shift in the modernist phase of writing.
Modernist writers have explored different facets of oppression from a variety
of perspectives, even though their concern with the tortured and anguished
individual may sometimes render it less apparent. But do modernist represen-
tations of Partition involve ideological re-orientations, given the opposition to
a ‘Progressivist’ agenda of the IPWA after Independence?
The currently fashionable opposition to the totalizing and homogenizing
aspects of modern ideologies like nationalism and secularism and the search
for alternative ‘histories’ has led to a study of creative writings on Partition by
historians, social scientists, feminists and activists of dif ferent kinds. They
have tended to see these narratives as an interrogation into the communal,
patriarchal and homogenizing character of the nation state and nationalism in
South Asia.1 Does a close reading of these texts bear out these assumptions?
Do progressive and modernist writings endorse an anti-modern position with
regard to nationalism and secularism, or do they critique the homogenizing
nature and divisive impact of communalism?
A related question pertains to the modernist writing by Pakistani creative
writers like Intizar Husain and Muhammad Salim-ur -Rahman. While pro-
gressive Urdu writers who were in Pakistan did not deviate from the secular
consensus, does the need for a non-Indian Pakistani identity exercise an influ-
ence on Partition narratives by the second generation Pakistani authors? Put
differently, can a distinction be made between Indian modernist and Pakistani
modernist writing?
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Ideology and Aesthetics 133

The first section, “Partition in India”, begins by briefly looking at some of

the essential features of the relationship between ideology and aesthetics in
Marxist thought and modernist literature before examining in some detail how
a secular and humanist perspective underpins Hindi and Urdu narratives of
Partition. The second section, “Partition, or the Birth of Pakistan”, looks at
how the secular humanist perspective is subverted by some modernist texts by
Pakistani writers and its implications for critical approaches to this literature.

PARTITION IN INDIA

For the Marxist critic Terry Eagleton, while the aesthetic is projected as non-
ideological, it is actually a part of ideology: “Their [literary aesthetics] ideo-
logical efficacy remains an aesthetic one, and in this, indeed, lies their power.”2
Eagleton is critical of Lukács for considering ideology as a false conscious-
ness, as a kind of screen that conceals historical truth or reality. Within Marxist
debates Lukács has argued that it is possible for art and ideology to exist in a
contestatory relationship in spite of the author ’s class and ideological deter-
minants. In his Studies in European Realism, Lukács outlines how Balzac is
able to transcend “his reactionary ideology” and “perceive the real historical
issues”: Ideology, here, clearly signifies a ‘false consciousness’ which blocks
true historical perception, a screen interposed between men and their histo-
ry.”3 Eagleton goes on to show the limitations of this generalization: “As
such, it is a simplistic notion: it fails to grasp ideology as an inherently com-
plex formation which, by inserting individuals into history in a variety of
ways, allows of multiple kinds and degrees of access to that history .”4
Eagleton’s point seems to be that the aesthetic is imbricated in ideology like
politics, economics or religion. “Thus even though the aesthetic project can
proffer itself as ideologically innocent”, it is in fact “a peculiarly ef fective
ideological medium.”5
Eagleton’s model of the aesthetic as a region of general ideology does not
posit a simple instrumentalist idea of the aesthetic. The two are not always
homologous, and its character is determined by numerous other factors like
authorial ideology , literary mode of production and the specific historical
moment in which the work is produced. For Eagleton, while Jane Austen’s
novels are basically rooted in the social and historical process of the transfor-
mation from feudalism to capitalism, Dickens articulates an ambiguous posi-
tion in relation to capitalism. While a writer like George Eliot suggests a pas-
toral ideal as a counterpoint to the materialistic drive of the new age, socialist
writers may look forward to the potential of a revolutionary future.
The limitation of the Marxist perspective, even in its relatively less determin-
istic variant, lies however in the way it identifies the individual as a completely
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134 Writing Partition

material being and the aesthetic as a functional and substantive part of ideology.
It does not provide any space to literature as an autonomous sphere that can
go beyond the ideological determinants of a society . Literature or any other
aesthetic form is thus denuded of its transforming, visionary characteristic. In
our view, literature, as indeed other aspects of culture, are not merely com-
plex formulations of a general ideology. Literature occupies a space that may
question many of these ideological assumptions and even transcend ideolog-
ical determination. Eagleton’s arguments allow no space for the artist’s ability
to make connections: reveal existing reality in a dif ferent light, or non-material
aspects of reality that are not apparent, or the truth that lies behind the super-
ficial appearance of reality.
The Marxist understanding of the relation between ideology and aesthetics
is, of course, completely contrary to the modernist framework that empha-
sizes the autonomy of both literature and the creative writer . Many Western
modernist writers reveal a marked aversion to any ideology , value system, or
social, moral and ethical norms. The aversion to ideologies of any sort, par-
ticularly during the first four decades of the twentieth century , was a conse-
quence of the utter disillusionment in European society during this period. The
overthrow of feudal monarchies and the tremendous strides in science and tech-
nology during the Industrial Revolution had generated a general optimism in
Western society. The future was pregnant with immense possibilities, and it
seemed that for the first time in human history , society could finally leave
behind the trail of bloodshed and exploitation of the medieval ages. However,
the vaulting ambitions of the capitalists, the race between nations for economic
and political control in Europe, and the ever increasing exploitation of the
poor in the industrialized world, put paid to all these hopes.With the outbreak
of the First World War, the dream of a new world came crashing down.
Socialist and nationalist ideologies that had been acclaimed as the blueprints
of a new egalitarian social order meant little to a disillusioned generation of
people. This loss of faith in political ideologies was complemented by a loss
of faith in God, something that rationality and science had already prepared a
ground for by the end of the nineteenth century . The isolation of the modern
individual, her withdrawal into the inner self and a sustained engagement with
that self, together with a rejection of social or political philosophies, were
characteristic of modern European literature. The existentialist texts of Sartre
and Camus during the early 1940s and the phenomenological approach of
philosophers like Heidegger and Husserl, with their focus on individual con-
sciousness and perception, became the representative expressions of modern
European society.6 Individual experience and its autonomy , its relationship
with the present, the role of the imagination, and a disjointed perception of
time were critical aspects of European modernist texts, which had little use for
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Ideology and Aesthetics 135

any ideological musing. Socialist realism, the narrative form practised by

Russian writers after the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, was obviously firmly
anchored in a socialist vision that beckoned workers and peasants along a rev-
olutionary path. But it did not gain a wide acceptance in Western Europe at
least within the first three decades of the twentieth century. Ideology came to
the fore once again in the 1930s withthe growth of fascism and the Depression,
but by then the high phase of European modernism was already over .
Given that many Hindi and Urdu writers were exposed to Western litera-
ture, either in English or translation, it was perhaps inevitable that Marxist lit-
erature and aesthetic theory would also draw their attention. Its anti-imperialist
and anti-colonial content made it particularly relevant to a colonized society
like India. Many of the founding members of the IPW A had participated in
the anti-fascist forums during the early 1930s and felt that there was a need
to organize a cultural front of writers and artists against the British colonial
state. It was in this context that the idea of progressive literature became pop-
ular. Not entirely coincidentally , by the 1930s, Hindi and Urdu fiction had
begun to move away from didactic and magical tales towards socially realis-
tic stories, even though they had not completely rid themselves of idealistic
tendencies. While social realism tinged with some residue of idealism and
progressive writing have been considered almost coterminus if not actually
conflated in the context of Indian literature (terms like pragatisheel yatharth-
wad, literally ‘progressive realism’ or adarshunmukh yatharthwad, i.e. ‘ideal-
istically inclined realism’ are evidence of this approach) it is important to
make at least two distinctions about Urdu and Hindi fiction. Ralph Russell in
The Pursuit of Urdu Literature: A Short History has questioned the normally
accepted view regarding Premchand’ s sole contribution to the initiation and
evolution of social realism in Urdu fiction. Although David Rubin in the pref-
ace to his translation of Premchand’s stories (The World of Premchand) points
out that he lifted Hindi and Urdu fiction “from the quagmire of aimless
romantic chronicles to a high level of realistic narrative”,7 Russell argues that
with Ruswa’s Umrao Jaan Ada (1896),
Urdu prose fiction had already produced realistic writing of a high order … a height
of perfection which … Premchand never attained. Premchand’ s achievement was
something else—to bring into the pages of literature the ordinary people of
India,…8
That Premchand’s contribution to realism consisted principally in expand-
ing the social base of literary prose may be debatable, but in itself it was very
important. Unlike the early realist British fiction of the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, which focussed largely on the world of the feudal elites,
realistic fiction in Urdu took up the stories of ordinary individuals across the
social spectrum, right from its inception. The poor peasants, the lower castes
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136 Writing Partition

and other underprivileged sections in society like women and Dalits were
Premchand’s initial focus of attention, though he later went on to include the
urban middle classes and professionals in novels like Gaban. Secondly, the
progressive element in Hindi and Urdu literature needs to be distinguished
from progressivism. The latter had a political genesis, unlike the former, which
was less tied to a particular ideological creed. In a colonized country like
India, which was awakening to a nationalist consciousness a critique of colo-
nial rule was accompanied by a critique of Indian society itself. Ahmad Ali,
the well-known writer, critic and founding member of the IPWA, has summed
up the situation insightfully:
…the progressive writers’ movement was essentially an intellectual revolt against
the outmoded past, vitiated tendencies in contemporary thought and literature, the
indifference of people to their human condition, against acquiescence to foreign
rule, enslavements to practices and beliefs…. 9
He has also considered the Angare group of writers as the first progressives
and argued that their political ideological orientation was a later development.
Angare, a collection of ten short stories by four Urdu writers who were to
become prominent members of the IPW A—Sajjad Zaheer , Ahmad Ali,
Mahmuduzzafar and Rashid Jahan—was published in 1932. It unsparingly
attacked the mores and morals of upper class north Indian Muslims, a class to
which all the four writers themselves belonged. The book was viciously
attacked on the grounds of being anti-Islamic, and the writers were lambasted
for their Westernized orientation. Finally, the uproar culminated in an official
ban on the book less than a year after its publication.The radical stance of the
stories was to crystallize in the founding principles of the IPWA in 1936. The
progressive writers shared a strong anti-colonial sentiment and a dif ferentiated
radical approach to the problems confronting Indian society. Ahmad Ali, one
of the founding members of the or ganization, wrote: “Whereas we were
ardent[ly] national and anti-British, Marxism was not a ruling passion, though
a progressive outlook was inherent in the revolt…” 10
Even though ‘leftist leanings’ did manifest themselves in one way or the
other, the period between the 1930s and the 1940s was pregnant with numerous
social and political possibilities. The anti-colonial struggle was of course the
most visible movement of those times, but it is equally important to recognize
that the task of social transformation was no less critical. More so than in any
other period, an engagement with political and social transformation, an imag-
ining of the nation, was perhaps inescapable. The radical element in the liter-
ature of this time needs to be understood and appreciated in this context instead
of being rejected as merely dogmatic or programmatic. Even when the writ-
ers did not engage with political issues directly, they were deeply involved in
debating and articulating the contours of the new society that was emer ging.
Gender, caste and class were crucial determinants in the process of identity
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Ideology and Aesthetics 137

formation, as a recent work on pro gressive writing has also brought out. 11
Older perspectives vied with modern ideas in a variety of contexts that
inscribed the terrain of nation formation. Writers like Rashid Jahan or Ismat
Chughtai produced texts that did not merely represent women through the
earlier tropes as patriarchal victims, but as active agents engaging decisively
with modernity, appropriating or rejecting it from their specific middle-class
locations. This gendered reflexivity too was a contest for space within the
emerging modern nation. Neither modernity nor the nation was a derivative
discourse, as Chatterjee has argued.12 They were contested and reconstructed
in the local Indian context before they could be accommodated.
The IPWA that Premchand formally inaugurated in 1936 had its genesis in
similar literary fora in Europe that had sprung up in the wake of the fascist
threat of the 1930s. The organization was the brainchild of Indians like Mulk
Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer and other Indian students who came into contact
with writers and intellectuals who were opposed to fascism in Europe. While
fascism was the obvious enemy in the Europe of the 1930s, poverty, colonial-
ism and oppression of different kinds were the central problems for most writ-
ers and intellectuals in India in the 1930s. The widening exposure to the West
also meant that contemporary political currents like socialism and Marxism
found their way to India. What emerged as a result of this peculiar conver-
gence of circumstances was a belief in socially committed writing in the
1930s. The term ‘progressive’ which had gained currency at this time, was
also debated, given that ideologically oriented works, particularly of the post-
Revolution Soviet variety, had charted a course that was quite distinct from
the modern European literature of the first four decades of the twentieth cen-
tury. Premchand was quite aware of the pitfalls of literature degenerating into
propaganda, but at the same time he saw the social vision of the Indian writer
as critical. Within the IPW A there were considerable dif ferences between
those who shared an instrumentalist idea of literature and those who endorsed
a humanist progressive vision in it, between Progressivist ( Pragativadi) and
progressive (pragatisheel) writing, the two trends that co-existed within the
IPWA. If Krishan Chander represented the former, Saadat Hasan Manto came
to be associated with a fierce individualism and an opposition to the instru-
mentalist idea. However, there was a basic consensus on the anti-imperialist
and anti-feudal approach of all its members. As a note in Indian Literature
stated, “The [IPWA] is a patriotic movement of all Indian writers belonging
to various patriotic groups, classes and outlooks of life. What is common
among all these writers is … their opposition to feudalism and imperialism.”13
Subscribing to Marxism or socialism did not necessarily mean an accept-
ance of the Marxist theory of literature. For most progressive writers, Marxism
was a political philosophy of social transformation that was considered relevant
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138 Writing Partition

for a colonized, underdeveloped country like India. Its egalitarian vision of a

classless society in which people as a whole would contribute to the social
good found a strong resonance in the struggle to be free from the foreign
yoke. On the one hand, the ideology influenced the construction of identity in
literature in the sense that it added the dimension of class to caste, occupa-
tion, or other identities. On the other hand, it resulted in the elaboration or
strengthening of the tendency towards social or political reform along a
revolutionary path.
Premchand’s views on the social purpose of literature are an important
source for understanding the relationship between ideology and aesthetics in
progressive and Progressivist writing, particularly because most progressive
writers built upon what Premchand called the purpose of literature. In his
essay “Upanyas” he put forward his position quite unambiguously:
There is no doubt that when literature is created for the propagation of a social,
political or religious belief, then it falls from its pedestal. But today situations are
changing so fast, so many new ideas are being born that perhaps no writer can keep
the ideal of literature (“Art for Art’s Sake”) in mind.… This ideal can function in a sit-
uation of happiness and prosperity. Where ever we look we see that we are restricted
by a variety of social and political bonds, we come face to face with terrible images
of sorrow and poverty .… In such a situation how is it possible that any thinking
person will not be deeply affected? But the novelist must make the ef fort to ensure
that his ideas are expressed covertly, the naturalness of a novel should not be af fected
by the inclusion of the idea, otherwise the novel will become boring. 14
Marxism did exercise an influence on progressive writing throughout the
1930s and the 1940s. But its relationship with the aesthetic form was not a
constant one; it was negotiated in a variety of ways depending upon the extent
to which the author allowed the ideology to dominate the aesthetic form. An
obvious distinction between those works in which the authorial ideology
plays a pivotal role in the shaping of the entire form, the characters, the point
of view and the resolution (broadly Progressivist), and those in which its
influence is minimal and the aesthetic form is allowed to live and evolve by its
own logic, and yet carries within it a liberal, humanist outlook (progressive),
emerged in the literature of this period.
And it was within the context of the dif ferences between the progressives
and the Progressivists that modernism emer ged in Hindi and Urdu literature.
The mutual accommodation of the 1930s and the early 1940s between pro-
gressive and Progressivist writers finally ended when the left ideologues gained
ascendancy in the aftermath of Independence and Manto was attacked by
prominent members of the IPW A. In his own words: “I was furious at their
[members of the IPW A] statements inspired by material exported from the
Kremlin to Bombay’ s Khatwari and from there to Lahore’ s Mcleod
Road…”15
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Ideology and Aesthetics 139

The split between the so-called modernists and the Progressivists initially
grew out of the rigidity of the radical ideologues. By insisting on a Progressivist
agenda for literature, these ideologues alienated many writers who shared a
progressive vision. Thus, writers like Kamleshwar , Mohan Rakesh, Manto
and others who broke away from the IPW A were actually anti-Progressivist
and not necessarily anti-progressive. Premchand’ s ar gument that all creative
writers are by nature progressive was also an early attempt to resolve this
dichotomy that became increasingly apparent in the early 1950s. In his
Presidential Address to the inaugural session of the IPW A in 1936, he had
said: “The ‘Progressive Writers’ Association’—this name sounds wrong to
me. A writer or artist is naturally progressive. Were this not his nature, he
would probably not be an artist.”16 However, within a decade of Premchand’s
statement the IPWA fell into precisely the kind of trap that he was implicitly
trying to avoid.
The ideological belief of the creative writer and its impingement on the text
were an important influence in the evolution of realism and progressive writing
in India during the 1930s and the 1940s. From social realism to socialist realism,
the entire range of realisms co-existed in the brief period between the 1920s and
the early 1950s. In a colonial context,where the writers were opposed to oppres-
sions of all kinds, this produced a wide range of realistic narratives.
Given the variety of ways in which ideology found its space in progressive
fiction, it would be useful to distinguish between two notions of ideology in
the context of both Marxism and progressive writing. Ideology as a political
programme for social, political and economic transformation (henceforth
referred to as Ideology, with a capital I) is a part of the author’s own political
commitment and beliefs. In some cases, it exercises an important and overt
influence on the creative work. The subservience of the creative work to
Ideology may transform the former in the worst cases to little more than pieces
of propaganda. However, the influence of authorial Ideology on creative texts
is not a given and even the nature of its influence may vary considerably from
one author to the next. This is evident if one compares the works of a writer
like Krishan Chander with Saadat Hasan Manto or Rajinder Singh Bedi.
Ideology as an aspect of society in the sense that Eagleton characterizes it
(henceforth referred to as ideology with a small i), is of course, present every-
where in covert and overt forms. It is in this sense that the personal (some-
thing that literature is almost always concerned with) is the political. Gender,
class, caste and numerous other ideological determinants are an integral part
of any personal or social interaction.This notion of ideology is inherent in our
analysis of Partition narratives.
What is the role of Ideology in Partition narratives? What is meant by the
term in the context of secular nationalism? How does it influence the aesthetic
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140 Writing Partition

framework of the text? Does this Ideology—stated or otherwise—of the author

have a bearing on the text? Does the nationality of the author , whether he is
Indian or Pakistani, whether he is writing in the 1940s or the 1990s have a
role to play in the representations? Are we talking of only ideological
predilections or ideological positions that can be deduced from the texts or
the dissemination of the ideology in the text?
The roots of a secular humanism in Indian society predated the coming of
the British. Examples of a peaceful negotiation of dif ferences both secular
and religious can be found in Indian society since ancient times. Disgusted by
the violence and bloodshed after his victory over Kalinga, the Mauryan emperor
Ashoka was drawn towards the non-violent tenets of Buddhism. More rele-
vant is the example of the Mughal emperor Akbar who found a new religion,
the Din-i-Ilahi, by extensively borrowing ideas from all the existing religions—
Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. Sufi
and Bhakti saints rejected formal orthodox religious practices and encouraged
people from all faiths to seek a personal path to God. Gandhiji carried for-
ward this tradition of non-violence and peaceful co-existence of several faiths
by making it an integral part of political practice during the struggle for
Independence. Although internecine violence had also been witnessed, there
were few instances of religious intolerance or conflict in pre-colonial India.
Thus, if one were to interpret the term ‘secular ’ as the peaceful co-existence
of different religious communities, Indian society was quite clearly secular in
the pre-colonial period. The more modern and Western sense of the term as
the separation of the Church from the S tate was a later addition and interest-
ingly both senses came to influence the formal and informal practice of secu-
larism in independent India. Creative writers too shifted between these two
ideas in their representations of Partition, though it was the pre-colonial idea
that dominated.
Since Marxism was the dominant ideology that progressive writers sub-
scribed to, it would be relevant to briefly examine the position of the Indian
left on the issue of Partition and secular nationalism and communalism dur-
ing the 1940s. The left understanding of communalism took some time to
develop. In his study of Hindi short stories published in Hans (a progressive
journal, though not the official organ of the IPWA), between 1944 and 1948,
Alok Rai 17 has traced a distinction between the pre-Partition narratives and
the post-Partition ones dealing with communalism:
In Hans, prior to the holocaust of 1946–47, the preferred attitude with respect to
communalism is rational and patiently dismissive. Communal feeling is unneces-
sary, communalism is a mystification engendered by malign colonial forces, … a
rationalization of comprehensible forms of economic conflict. 18
In the immediate aftermath of Partition this gave way to what Rai has called
a “pornography of violence”. The incomprehensibility of the horror finally
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Ideology and Aesthetics 141

affected both rational understanding and the aesthetic imagination, and graphic
representations of violence in the naturalist form are the result.
A significant feature, common in all such stories is the evenhanded attitude
towards both communities. Krishan Chander ’s volume of short stories, Hum
Vahshi Hain,19 published in 1948, epitomizes both the singular confusion that
prevailed in the progressive ranks, and the “elegant, even-handed parallelism
which is obligatory for ‘non-communal’ accounts of communal violence”. 20
In the story “Andhe”, the fanatical Muslim protagonist returns home after
murdering and plundering from Hindus to find the corpses of his wife and
children, killed by communal Hindus. In another story, “A Prostitute’s Letter”,
in the same collection, two girls, Bela, a Hindu, and Batul, a Muslim, are
orphaned and sold to a brothel. The madam of the brothel then writes a letter
addressed to both Pandit Nehru and Jinnah, and suggests that Jinnah adopt the
Hindu, Bela and Nehru the Muslim, Batul. The more detailed class analysis
of communalism took time perhaps because within orthodox Marxist doctrine
there was little analysis of religious fanaticism and separatism. Religion was
merely considered the ‘opium of the masses’, a false ideology that was used
by the ruling classes to exploit the poor and oppressed.This is evident in many
of the texts that are dismissive of religious identity . Krishan Chander ’s col-
lection Hum Vahshi Hain included stories like “Andhe” and “A Prostitute’s
Letter”, in which the author ’s prescriptive voice was clearly audible.
Another aspect of the left understanding was that communal violence was
engineered by the ruling classes in order to exploit the weak and oppressed
sections of society. On the whole, left writers and ideologues tended to dismiss
what they considered religious fanaticism and believed that ultimately class
interests would override it. Although the Communist Party did support Partition
on the ground of the right of self-determination of nationalities, it clearly con-
demned the violence that accompanied it.
The communalists attempted to break up the secular consensus that had
existed in society for many generations by their emphasis on an assertive reli-
gious identity. This is what all secular ideological formations opposed. For
progressive writers, a secular humanist outlook that included the lived prac-
tice of secularism in society—the non-confrontationist co-existence of people
from different religions—was what needed to be highlighted in those dif fi-
cult and traumatic times. The secular humanist perspective on Partition s aw
the event as unnatural and against the pluralist syncretic culture of society . All
progressive writers shared this perspective, but the Progressivist writers also
brought their class analysis of communalism into their works. But here again,
this analysis or understanding was sometimes accompanied by subtler
nuances in the works of some writers like Bhisham Sahni or Ahmad Nadeem
Qasmi. For instance stories like Sahni’s “Pali”21 or Qasmi’s “Parmeshar Singh”22
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142 Writing Partition

explore the issue of religious conversion with a sensitivity rarely found among
Progressivist writers, as we shall discuss in detail in a later section.
Ideology in Partition narratives is really the left understanding of commu-
nalism that gets expressed through particular kinds of characters and authorial
points of view. But more generally and in a wider sense it is the secular , humanist
approach to communal violence that is apparent in most progressive narra-
tives. Normally secularism, in its formal sense of the separation of state from
institutionalized religion, is not an issue in most Partition narratives.The only
exception to this occurs when communalism gets linked to the idea of the
nation. The concept of the Indian nation as a multi-cultural, multi-religious
and multi-linguistic community of people uniting to overthrow the colonial
state is diametrically opposite to the idea of the Pakistani nation that owes its
existence to denominational nationalism, namely a nation of people united
through religion. A text that privileges the birth of Pakistan, or narrates a his-
tory/metahistory in which the migration of Indian Muslims to Pakistan was
the unfolding of a pattern in the history of Islam obviously cannot be called
secular. However, it is rare to come across the idea of the nation as constitut-
ing a modern identity in any text, whether by an Indian or by a Pakistani writer .
Hindustani words like ‘ watan’ or ‘ mulk’ do not carry the association of a
modern nation. The word ‘desh’ comes closest and is always contrasted with
earlier traditional definitions of identity as in the subtitle of Yashpal’s novel
Watan Aur Desh. Home for the characters is their village, town or mohalla.
The relationship of Hindustan or even Pakistan to a geographical area is never
quite understood by them. Indeed, the pre-Partition community is bound by
ties of kinship, caste, class, language, region, etc., and is not really affected by
ideas of a lar ger unity like nation. What is critical is the non-confrontational
existence of people from different faiths and its sudden traumatic break up.
In the narratives written in the period immediately after Partition one can
discern the presence of a secular imperative, in the sense that the creative
writer felt compelled to take a stand against communal violence and discrim-
ination. To a lar ge extent the early narratives tended to be formulaic: Hindu
violence and communal frenzy had to be evenly balanced with its Muslim
counterpart. Several stories in Krishan Chander’s collection Hum Vahshi Hain
and Agyeya’s “Sharnarthi” neatly balance the atrocities by Hindus and Muslims.
Today these narratives have little literary value; they seem to be pieces of
propaganda. It was almost as if the writers were writing with the express
intention of promoting harmony , sensitizing the readers to an awareness
about the bestiality within society. But can we really distance the writings on
Partition in the late 1940s and early 1950s from their historical context?
Indeed, can we do so even today? What are the compulsions of the writers in
India, where communalism remains a bedevilled issue even so many years
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Ideology and Aesthetics 143

after Partition? Films are repeatedly attacked for falsifying the role of one
community or the other and the judiciary has constantly intervened to ensure
that the religious sentiments of both communities are protected. Bhisham
Sahni’s Tamas did not attract the attention of the communalists when it was
published but became the subject of a major controversy when it was serial-
ized on national television. The Hindu communal or ganizations char ged
Sahni with being one-sided, by ignoring the role of the Muslim communalists
and only representing the planning and training imparted by the Hindu
Mahasabha to its cadres. Fundamentalists attacked Taslima Nasreen’s Lajja
in Bangladesh, because it attempted to show the cruel and inhuman way in
which Hindus were treated in Bangladesh in the aftermath of the Babri
Masjid demolition. As a Muslim woman writer taking up the theme of the
predicament and insecurity of a Hindu family in Bangladesh in the wake of
the riots sparked off by the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Nasreen became
a pariah and an outcaste in her home. Issues like who is responsible for initi-
ating communal riots and violence or which community is intolerant belong
to the public domain but frequently enter the realm of artistic representation.
Even after sixty years of Independence, literature and other forms of artistic
expression are subjected to societal mores and to intervention by the state or
religious institutions.
I would like to argue that the obvious and rather simplistic representation’s
of secularism (“Hindu–Muslim bhai-bhai”, or “religion does not teach us to
bear ill-will towards others”) belonged to a phase of writing in the immediate
aftermath of Partition. Antagonism between the two communities was seen as
unnatural, and true religion as something that taught tolerance. The immediate
aftermath of Partition was a time when communal tensions were running very
high and even a perceived partiality for one community over the other could
have created problems. However, this was also the time that the IPWA was in
the grip of committed left ideologues who saw literature as an important
instrument in the fight against communalism.
In the first phase of Partition narratives, which lasts roughly up to the early
1950s, the secular humanist principle is all too evident. The wave of commu-
nal violence and hatred that sweeps across society is represented as some-
thing inexplicable and larger than life. Most of the characters find it difficult,
if not impossible, to make any sense of this upheaval. The protagonists in
these stories are ordinary individuals who recognize their moral and ethical
responsibility for their threatened and insecure friends, neighbours and acquain-
tances. In Agyeya’s story, “The Refuge”, Devendarlal is initially protected by
his friend Rafiquddin and later given shelter by Sheikh Ataullah, only to be
betrayed by the latter. What saves him is the warning note sent by Ataullah’s
daughter Zebunissa hidden in the poisoned food meant for Devenderlal. For
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144 Writing Partition

Zebunissa, he is merely an acquaintance who has been given refuge in her

home, but unlike her father she fulfils her moral and ethical responsibility .
These individuals do not counter communalism because they comprehend it
intellectually. For them protecting people whom they have lived with all their
lives is a natural and instinctive act. Even the creation of Pakistan is not suf-
ficient ground to account for the hatred and violence that is engulfing society .
For many of them Pakistan merely stands for a geographical and administra-
tive reorganization. They cannot contemplate that they may be forced to migrate.
To the Sikh’s question in Bhisham Sahni’s story “Amritsar Aa Gaya”, whether
“Jinnah Sahib would continue to live in Bombay or move to Pakistan”, the nar-
rator’s response reveals the confusion in the minds of ordinary people. “Why
should he leave Bombay? What would be the point? He can always go to
Pakistan and come back.” And a little later the narrator recalls, “A few people
had abandoned their homes and run away , while those who had chosen to stay
back had merely laughed at them.” 23 (Vol. I, pp. 147–48)
The secular idea becomes evident through various devices and particular
kinds of characterization. Very broadly, such stories revolve around a funda-
mental contrast between secular humanism and communalism. The objective
seems to be to represent communally minded individuals, both Hindu and
Muslim, as objects of disgust and derision, and secular individuals as human-
ists following the true dictates of religion. Characters tend to be types with-
out any complexity about them. In Krishan Chander ’s “Peshawar Express”
one comes across several nameless aggressors and victims, both Hindus and
Muslims. When the train carrying Hindu and Sikh refugees reaches Lahore
the people are pulled out and killed to compensate for the 400 Muslim men
killed and 50 Muslim women abducted on the other side of the border:
So to square up the loss, 50 Hindu women were hand-picked from my train and
forced down onto the platform. To complete the tally , 400 Hindus were also
butchered on the platform. (Vol. III, p. 212)
In Qudrat Ullah Shahab’ s “Y a Khuda” (“O God”), the main character
Dilshad, who has been repeatedly raped by the Sikhs of her village, is sent off
to the refugee camp when she becomes pregnant. On reaching Lahore with
hopes of a better life in a Muslim nation, she is subjected to similar humiliation:
In this city, a new Rahim Khan came into being for Dilshad every day, a new grand-
father for Zubeida. There were new fathers here for daughters, new brothers for
sisters, bodies meeting bodies, blood mingling with blood… 24
In Bhisham Sahni’ s “Amritsar Aa Gaya” the Babu feels humiliated by
Pathan taunts that he is a weakling and not really a ‘man’ because he is a
‘dalkhor’ (a vegetarian), and takes his revenge on a defenseless Muslim cou-
ple trying to get into the train by killing the man. In Amrit Rai’s “Filth” the
four ‘cultured and civilized’men derive vicarious pleasure from regaling each
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Ideology and Aesthetics 145

other with stories of sexual debauchery during Partition riots. Each one of
them takes pride in claiming to have participated in the sexual humiliation of
Muslim women and girls and the murder of Muslim men. ForAmrit Rai these
individuals have filthy immoral minds and do not even deserve to be called
human beings. The story concludes: “It’ s being rumoured, that there will be a
new animal in the Calcutta zoo next year .” (Vol. III, p. 118)
In Vatsayan’s “Getting Even” the Sikh refugee and his son find refuge on
a train going to Aligarh on which they meet two frightened Muslim women.
When other Hindus start recounting the atrocities committed on Muslims in
Delhi the older Sikh admonishes them and assures the women of their safety .
Even though they are refugees themselves they do not for get their responsi-
bility as moral beings. While communal individuals largely subscribe to religio-
cultural stereotypes, the secular ones deny such stereotypes through their
actions and beliefs. In K. A. Abbas’ Urdu story “The Death of Sheikh
Burhanuddin” the Sikh neighbour about whom he harbours the worst senti-
ments saves Sheikh Burhanuddin from certain death. Right from his Aligarh
days Sheikh Burhanuddin has firmly believed in the image of the Sikh as
“stupid” and “incredibly filthy”, and in the communal atmosphere of the
times he believes that his Sikh neighbour’s kirpan is meant for him alone. But
all his misconceptions dissolve when the Sikh dies protecting him from the
murderous mob that has gathered at his door . The recurrent pattern in these
stories is one of secular Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims assisting the victims in the
midst of communal frenzy and outrage.
In their introduction to Orphans of the Storm, Cowasjee and Duggal state
that many Indian and Pakistani writers did show “Hindus and Muslims as one
people”: “Ennobling as the subject seemed, its execution often ended in a
stereotyped plot in which a Hindu or a Muslim rises defiantly above commu-
nal feelings to embrace his opposite number in everlasting brotherhood.” 25
Hindu–Muslim togetherness in pre-Partition times is a constant theme. At
times this seems to be a device employed for the purpose of contrast but it
tends to romanticize the past. Typically, women and children are the innocent
victims of communal frenzy, and this very innocence enhances the pathos of
the event.
The politics of religion-specific identity, the need to label people as either
‘us’ or ‘them’ and the construction of the ‘self ’ and the ‘other ’ are important
and recurrent patterns in many of the early narratives. Krishna Sobti’s “Where
is my Mother?” is a good example of the dilemmas of both victims and
oppressors. Yunus Khan’ s innate humanity is suddenly revealed when he
comes across an injured Hindu girl who reminds him of his dead sister
Nooran. The inner conflict between his aversion to kafirs and sympathy for a
Hindu girl is complemented by her inability to distinguish between the
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146 Writing Partition

Muslim assassins of her family and her Muslim saviour. The association of a
religious identity with a national one is sometimes made explicit, but it is
always ironically contrasted with a non-confrontationist, peaceful co-existence
prior to Partition. Notions of a natural and age-old Hindu–Muslim animosity
are undercut by memories of a vibrant and composite pre-Partition communi-
ty. In “The Bridge and the River” by Maheep Singh, the narrator and his
mother are greeted with great affection at the village his mother had left after
Partition. Even though their train stops at the Sarai station in the early hours
of the morning, the villagers have all gathered to see if they can meet anyone
who had migrated:
As they inquired after our family, many people thrust small bundles into our hands.
They were full of almonds, walnuts, raisins. Overcome with emotion, we couldn’ t
utter a word. (Vol. III, p. 82)
In “The Land of Memories” byAsif Aslam Farruqi, the narrator’s father and
his closest childhood friend Bhupendar fondly recall their life before Partition.
As Bhupendar reveals to the bigoted Muslim narrator:
The relations between the Hindus and the Muslims of this town were so harmonious
that even your certificate would not have suf ficed.… (Vol. III, p. 51)
Religious identity is rarely if ever given any importance. These stories almost
uniformly privilege a idea of secular love and compassion that transcends
religious barriers. Love, respect and af fection are accepted as natural while
religious fervour and political engagement are considered unnatural and divi-
sive. The underlying cultural norm is that of humanism. Characters are evalu-
ated with reference to the yardstick of humanism, fellow feeling, love, kindness
and charity.
Given that many of these early stories were written by the progressive
writers,26 it is not surprising that communalism is given a class dimension.
Fazzey in Yashpal’s “A Holy War” sees the riots as an opportunity to acquire
wealth. He kills the old woman as she tries to run away with her stone idol,
believing mistakenly that she was running away with her hoard of wealth.
Suraiya Qasim’s “Where Did She Belong?” also brings out the class aspect at
the end when the rich clients who have been unaf fected by the Partition visit
Munni Bai, the prostitute who has relocated from Lahore’ s Hira Mandi to
Delhi’s G.B. Road. As she ironically observes:
Ma, Pakistan has been formed, but the nawabs in India are as rich as they ever were
… they have enough money to spend for one night’ s pleasure. Who lost and who
died in the Partition? (Vol. II, p. 117)
The left understanding of communalism in terms of class influenced many
of these stories. In them, while the rhetoric of Islam and Pakistan or Hindu
and Hindustan is restricted to sloganeering, the people are innocent victims
of the machinations of the imperialists and the bour geois Congress leaders.
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Ideology and Aesthetics 147

The worst that people can do is indulge in an orgy of violence, but that too is
motivated by a desire for personal revenge or class anger. The way out of the
morass is rarely given a direct expression but in “Peshawar Express”,
worker–peasant unity and prosperity is visualized as a symbol of hope.
I will carry coal, oil and iron-ore to the mills, and ploughs and fertilisers to the
farmers. I will carry groups of prosperous peasants and happy workers in my car-
riages. …Then there will be no Hindus and no Muslims. There will only be work-
ers and human beings. (Vol. III, p. 215)
These stories reveal a simplistic understanding of social and historical
processes and the role of individuals. But their limitations are related to the
left understanding of communalism in the 1940s. The responsibility of the
British and the class dimension of the riots were given primacy in some of the
early narratives. Yogendra Malik writes that in novels like Rangey Raghav’ s
Hazur or Amrit Rai’s Hathi ke Dant, apart from the mandatory anti-Congress
stance, it was also argued that it was “the capitalist class which tries to foment
inter-communal tensions for the continuation of economic exploitation of the
working classes”. 27 British culpability in fomenting communal hatred, a key
element in the left analysis of communalism in the 1940s, continues to make
its presence felt even in a much later work by Bhisham Sahni. For instance,
in his Tamas (1973), the British administrator Richard, refrains from taking
any action in the initial phase of the riots; he deliberately abnegates his
responsibility and allows the situation to take an ugly turn.
Broadly, in the initial phase (roughly between 1947 and 1955) progressive
writers produced numerous short stories. The major novels by Yashpal,
Qurratulain Hyder and Bhisham Sahni came out in the decades after 1950.
But even in the initial phase it is possible to make a distinction between for-
mulaic stories with straightforward reformist tendencies and those that inter-
rogated simplistic assumptions by exploring the complex motivations of
individuals as colonized subjects. The former used stock characters—Hindus
and Muslims, aggressors and victims, secular and communal men and women,
etc.—to promote the vision of the peaceful co-existence of the two commu-
nities and appeal to their intrinsic human compassion. The latter attempted a
more nuanced approach to human behaviour by locating it within a cultural
context wider than the political and the historical. However , the latter works
were not completely devoid of the reformist vision. That was always implied,
but its negotiation was not a simple path, for it involved an honest and sensi-
tive engagement with several cultural and colonial determinants of identity. The
second kind of stories were characterized by the recog nition of the limitations
of the self and an attempt to overcome them.
A sensitive and sympathetic rendering, from a humanist perspective, of the
pulls and pressure on individuals in those difficult and trying times produced
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148 Writing Partition

works that rejected the earlier schematic models. In Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi’s
story “Parmeshar Singh”, the eponymous protagonist’s sympathy for Akhtar,
the abandoned Muslim child, his unease regarding the boy’ s conversion and
his painful decision to restore him to his parents combine to create a complex
portrait of an individual who is caught in a situation where succumbing to the
communal frenzy would be natural. The strength of the story does not lie in
any simple practice of secularism, but in the struggle that his sense of human-
ism has to wage against the seductions of his environment. Alok Bhalla has
argued that the story is “communally char ged” as it invests the abducted
Muslim child, Akhtar, with an aura of victimhood whereas the Sikh abductors
as represented as “hysterical representatives of their tribe”, and “Qasmi not
only wants to evoke sublime pathos for the Muslims but he also wants to con-
ceal facts. Qasmi refuses to acknowledge that in the 1930s and 1940s inhu-
manity wasn’t the exclusive right of any one community .” (Vol. I, p. xxi)
Bhalla misses an essential aspect of the story that pertains to Parmeshar
Singh’s commitment to the child’s religious identity. The hysterical phobia of
his wife and daughter towards “ muslas” (a derogatry term for Muslims) in
general and Akhtar in particular is the result of their own victimization at the
hands of Muslim communalists as well as the loss of Kartara, Parmeshar ’s
son, in the riots. In contrast to his wife, Parmeshar Singh desires to adopt the
child and shower him with love and af fection because he sees in Akhtar an
image of his own son, Kartara. He regards the conversion of Akhtar, a Muslim,
into Kartara, a Sikh, a terrible cruelty.
How can you be so cruel, yaroon? You want to make Akhtar, Kartara, but suppos-
ing someone were to make Kartara, Akhtar? (Vol. I, p. 166)
Even though he quietly accepts the demand of the granthi that Akhtar wear
the external symbols of the Sikh faith, and Akhtar gradually forgets his own
mother and gets accustomed to the Sikh community, Parmeshar does not con-
vert him. “But as I promised, Waheguruji, you’ll not become a Sikh.” (Vol. I,
p. 167) It is not the innocence of a victimized innocent Muslim child that is
set off against the murderous and brutal Sikhs, as Bhalla would have it. Far
from being a caricature, Parmeshar Singh’s refusal to convert the child suggests
how a sensitive and true Sikh (he believes that all human beings are God’s cre-
ation and should be treated equally) transcends the narrow and sectarian sen-
timents that have engulfed society in the wake of communal violence. His
decision to finally send Akhtar to Pakistan is prompted both by the insensitiv-
ity of his community and his realization that he was guilty of abducting a child
to compensate for the loss of his own son. He empathizes with Akhtar’s mother
and her pain and recognizes that his need of Akhtar does not justify the grave
injustice to the mother and child. Indeed, there is a recognizable growth in
Parmeshar in that he comes to acknowledge his selfishness in keepingAkhtar.
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Ideology and Aesthetics 149

Qasmi’s story is a complex rendering of the process of self-recognition. It

also deals with the issue of cultural identity sensitively , unlike other texts by
progressive writers that did not go beyond class identities. Forcible religious
conversion is a particularly sensitive issue in South Asia, and it is possible
that many writers may have shied away from the subject for this reason.
Additionally, the importance of religion and religious symbols has rarely been
conceded by Progressivist writers. However , Qasmi’s story moves beyond a
simple recognition of the dictum that all religions preach love among all
human beings. It ar gues for the sanctity of an individual’ s religious identity
and opposes the proselytizing drive of the aggressor to appropriate the same
identity through conversion.
Bhisham Sahni’s Pali takes up the extremely complex and dif ficult issue of
the relocation of an abducted child after he has found a new home and family
in Pakistan. Unlike Parmeshar Singh in Qasmi’ s story , Pali’ s new parents
Shakur and Zanab convert the child to Islam merely to retain the custody of
the child. They succumb to the pressure of the maulvi who insists on Pali’ s
conversion. Similarly, the Hindu neighbours of the biological parents insist
on the re-conversion of Pali to his original faith, after he is recovered. The
innocent defenceless child becomes the contested site on which communal
people from both communities wish to inscribe their respective religious
markers. It is almost as if the religious identity of the child is more important
than his human identity. But what the story narrates is the triumph of compas-
sion and empathy which cuts across religious and national divisions. Zanab
finally agrees to return Pali to Manoharlal, his biological father, when the lat-
ter appeals to her maternal feelings for the child. She empathizes with the suf-
fering of Kaushalya, Pali’ s mother and restores the child to his father even
though she can easily retain his custody. The resolution of the story hinges on
the willingness of Zanab to empathetically identify with Kaushalya by deny-
ing the artificial religious identity that has been forced upon the child by a
patriarchal, communal mindset. The assertion of her primary identity as a
mother in opposition to the patriarchal communal configuration represented
by the maulvi and the policeman suggests not only the triumph of humanism,
but also the need for a gender -sensitive reconstruction of society.
But there is yet another dimension to the story which merits attention.
Although Pali is restored to his biological mother , his forcible re-conversion
to Hinduism and the trauma that the relocation involves also raises the issue
of the child’s victimization. Even though Zanab’s sacrifice might be heroic, it
is principally an agreement between consenting adults. Even as individuals
who love the child immensely , they lack the much greater sensitivity that
would be required to ascertain what would be psychologically less damaging for
the child. Completely overwhelmed by their love for the child, both Manoharlal
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150 Writing Partition

and Zanab are blind to the terrible emotional and psychological costs for Pali
as he is dislocated a second time and suddenly , inexplicably, asked to accept
a new family, a new home and a new religion. Pali does not remain a mere
figure of pathos; he becomes the innocent victim of an adult world that is both
communalized and insensitive to his needs.
Progressive writers continued to write Partition novels till as late as the
1960s and 1970s. Bhisham Sahni’ s Tamas came out in the early 1970s,
Yashpal’s two-volume novel Jhoota Such was published between 1958 and
1960, Rahi Masoom Reza’s Adha Gaon was published in 1966 and Qurratulain
Hyder’s Aag ka Darya in 1958. Thus, even though a dif ferent kind of narra-
tive ( Nai Kahani/Jadeed Afsana) had emer ged by the mid-1950s, some
Progressive writers seemed to be relatively untouched by these new trends.
This suggests that literary cultures are inherently incapable of being tied
down neatly in specific periods of time. In the case of Hindi fiction in partic-
ular the progressive realist trend has co-existed with the modernist. Manzoor
Ehtesham’s Sookha Bargad, a Hindi novel in the progressive realist tradition,
on the trials and tribulations of a middle-class Muslim family in India after
Partition, was published in 1983. Thus, a strictly chronological approach that
decides a cut-off date for progressive writing is bound to be futile. However ,
in the main, the ar gument that the high phase of Progressive literature came
to a close by the mid-1950s holds good.
Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas and Yashpal’s Jhoota Such are obvious examples
of texts that have been written by left-inclined authors in the 1960s and the
1970s. The representation of the Congress workers as petty minded, selfish
and cowardly in the face of communal riots, and laudatory mentions of com-
munist workers in similar times are the most obvious indicator of this bias.
Another indicator of their left orientation is the link that is drawn between
communalism and class interests. The poor and deprived sections of society
are normally seen as victims, relatively unaf fected by communal madness,
whereas the petty bour geoisie, the traders, the shopkeepers, etc., are seen as
more likely to be communalized.
As we have seen, one of the ways Progressivist texts work is by relying on
typical characters to represent certain ideas or tendencies. In the narratives of
the earliest phase the characters are normally typecast—communal and secu-
lar, Hindu and Muslim, the secular neighbour , the communal outsider , the
avenging victim and the mindless, rampaging Sikh and Pathan. While it could
be argued that character types are needed for cultural visibility or that in the
1940s the understanding of communal formations was limited, it cannot b e
denied that these early texts are aesthetically limited in their appeal. However, it
is equally noteworthy that while some short stories suffer from this limitation,
progressive novels like Jhoota Such and Tamas are able to go beyond these
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Ideology and Aesthetics 151

typologies. With their lar ger canvas of characters from dif ferent sections of
society, the novelists are able to represent the spread of the communal canker.
Bhisham Sahni’ s Tamas, published in 1973, represents a nuanced and
sophisticated approach to the growth of communal sentiments, something that
was perhaps missing in the progressive writing of the 1940s. Characters like
Harnam Singh, Shahnawaz, Nathu, Rajo or her husband and son, who indulge
in an orgy of looting and murder, cannot be easily classified as communal or
secular. These are ordinary human beings who have shared their lives with
people from the other community , but who have now been engulfed in an
unnatural conflagration. Some of them get swayed, others remain true to their
selves, but all go through periods of immense agony and despair , a crisis of
identity in testing times. As a Muslim woman in a male-dominated family ,
Rajo listens to her conscience and calls back Harnam Singh and his wife
after initially refusing them shelter . Shahnawaz, the closest friend of Lala
Lakshminarayan, seems to be totally immune to the communalistic environ-
ment, till he sees the dead body of a Muslim killed in the riots. In a fit of rage
he then kicks Milkhy, the Lala’s servant, to his death. Perhaps there is a class
angle to this, in that the servant is dispensable, while his middle-class friends
are not.
The issue of responsibility that the Progressives had shied away from, by
blaming both communities equally or by simply never representing the origins
of a communal riot, is treated quite dif ferently here. Murad Ali, a contractor,
is the one who asks Nathu, a character from the lowest caste, to kill a pig,
which is subsequently thrown in front of the mosque and triggers the riots.All
communalists always hold the ‘other ’ community responsible for initiating
the violence. But this easy and convenient assumption of communalists is
questioned by the novel. It is after all a Muslim, Murad Ali, who commits an
act of sacrilege against the religious sensitivities of his own community. What
is suggested by the text is that the communalist is not really committed to any
religion, including his own, or that his concern for the religious community
is merely a sham.
In her book, The Divided Legacy,28 the Bangladeshi scholar Niaz Zaman,
while acknowledging that for the “Progressives, Partition was a mistake” and
that “they went to great lengths to portray each side as guilty of crimes”, 29
nevertheless considers Bhisham Sahni, one of the greatest of progressive
writers, to be biased against the Muslims. According to her , “Tamas is not
completely unbiased … Whether it is in cold calculated villainy , in sadistic
cruelty, or even in mindless killing, it always seems to be the Muslim who is
singled out.”30
Such a reading betrays an inability to appreciate the complexity of com-
munal ideology. As noted above, Shahnawaz, one of the Muslim characters in
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152 Writing Partition

Sahni’s novel, is torn between his sense of loyalty to his Hindu friend, Lala
Lakshminarayan (for whose family he would be willing to risk death) and his
evolving consciousness as a member of a religious community that has been
victimized by the Hindus. Shahnawaz is not unequivocally the evil Muslim;
he heroically protects his friend and his family , but in a char ged atmosphere
he is not immune to the influence of communal thinking. Similarly , it would
be a travesty to call Murad Ali a Muslim. Sahni’ s point is that it is the self-
proclaimed defender of the faith who is the worst enemy of the community .
Chameleon-like, he can change his role according to the need of the moment.
The withdrawal into one’s self in a situation of insecurity, the need to re-enact
situations from the community’ s memory of the past, all these are rendered
sensitively in the last few scenes of the novel when the Sikhs who are gathered
in a gurudwara are killed even as the women and children jump into the well.
The cry of “ Turk aa gaya ” (“The Turk has come”), which echoes in the
gurudwara to infuse fresh spirit as the Sikhs face an inevitable and ignomin-
ious end at the hands of the Muslim mob, is a throwback to the medieval inva-
sions from West and Central Asia. The attempt to recall a heroic past of
courage and sacrifice for the community is invoked to revive the flagging
spirit of the besieged Sikhs.
Characters are not black or white in Sahni, they are all too human, with
weaknesses and strengths; and the perspective is not judgemental, but com-
passionate. This shift from character types to individuals in Progressive writ-
ing on Partition is more evident in works that were written a decade or two
after 1947. A certain distance from the event perhaps helped these writers to
evolve a more complex approach in both aesthetic and ideological terms.
Yashpal’s Jhoota Such , like Tamas, takes a firm anti-Congress stand.
Published more than a decade before Tamas, between 1958 and 1960, this
two-volume magnum opus on the Partition is fully committed to an anti-
establishment, left radical position. The very title indicates the scorn of the
author towards the Independence of India in 1947 and recalls the term jhooti
azadi used by the Communist Party for Indian Independence. Jaidev Puri, one
of the major characters, is a radical young student from a lower middle-class
family in Lahore. His desperation after his dislocation to Jullundur drives him
to become an underling of the corrupt Congressman, Sood. Puri gradually
gets enmeshed in a web of dishonesty and exploitation, pursuing his desire for
power in these chaotic times. His idealism of pre-Partition days is soon
effaced as he relentlessly pursues power and money, throwing all ethical norms
to the wind. In his personal life he cheats on Kanak, to whom he has been
committed for a very long time. This degeneration of Puri is coterminus with
his entry into the world of the Congressman. Quite clearly for Yashpal, the
political leadership of the Congress Party after Independence is unprincipled,
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Ideology and Aesthetics 153

and hungry for wealth and power . In contrast, Assad, Puri’ s Communist
friend from Lahore remains committed to his radical beliefs. Although his
relationship with Tara before Partition comes to a premature end when she is
pressurized by her family into marrying Somnath (a decision which has the
concurrence of her brother Puri), he does not shy away from offering to marry
her when he meets her again as part of a team that rescues her .
The corruption in the bureaucracy and political classes after Independence
and the venality of the Congress workers who made up a major part of the
State and political apparatus are highlighted in the text. At this level the novel
functions as a powerful critique of the bureaucratic and ruling political class
in the years after Independence. Yet, the novel also comes across as an
insightful exposition of a woman’s quest for her identity in the post-Partition
period. It is probably the only novel that takes up the story of the Hindu
refugees and, more specifically , an abducted, educated middle-class Hindu
girl who strives to successfully , create a space for herself in a patriarchal
world. Quite appropriately, Corinne Friend has called Jhoota Such, Yashpal’s
greatest novel, “in part at least because the writer as artist was allowed to tri-
umph over the political advocate”. 31
Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’s book The Heart Divided 32 can be fruitfully com-
pared with Yashpal’s Jhoota Such in the context of the influence of ideology
on a literary text. Yashpal’s novel is written from a radical left point of view;
it is critical of the Congress, and its critique of the Congress is along commu-
nist lines. But despite this restrictive frame, the novel is able to narrate the
story of Tara and Kanak from a gendered perspective. The struggle of these
two women against a hostile, patriarchal society and the transformation of
their lives through personal initiative steer clear of any ideological pro-
gramme. Their contest with a patriarchal mindset to create a space for them-
selves within public and private spheres is an agonized struggle not only with
the world but also with their own selves. They voluntarily take the initiative
to leave behind the deadwood of their past and live life on their own terms
with dignity and self-respect. O n the other hand, in Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’ s
novel (which is a thinly disguised autobiography) the characters and story are
structured primarily around the Muslim League’s point of view. The principal
character Zohra, to begin with, is an ardent nationalist and socialist. She
believes that a united India can be achieved through Congress–Muslim League
unity, and that it is the workers and peasants of India who have made the anti-
colonial movement successful. Her family, particularly her sister Sughra, are
staunch supporters of the Muslim League. But by the end of the novel Zohra
is finally persuaded to accept the necessity of Partition and Pakistan. The
argument for Pakistan, as given by her friend Ahmad Hussain is an interest-
ing mix of left and Muslim League positions. In a rather longwinded lecture
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154 Writing Partition

he spells out the League position that basically the Congress served the inter-
ests of the Hindus. According to him, the Congress awakened the people and
since the majority were Hindus it was ‘natural’that it was a Hindu culture that
developed and came into prominence.
As a reaction, he argues, the Muslims began to support the Muslim League
which they felt would safeguard and preserve their culture and way of life.
The clash between the Muslim League and the Congress thus arises from the
resentment of the Muslims against the Hindus. Ahmad follows this up with
the classic left position about the Congress being a party of the bour geoisie,
and incapable of bringing about unity between Hindus and Muslims on the
basis of “a great social ideal”, or a system “that would have at last reduced
the glaring inequalities and made the rich less rich and the poor less poor”.
(p. 421) In contrast the ‘national’ credentials and openness of the Muslim
League to all kinds of political ideologies are unquestioningly accepted.
When Zohra expresses her reluctance to the idea of joining the League because
she would not quite fit in (given her closeness to the Congress) her sister Sughra
rubbishes her char ge. She describes the League as a ‘national’ organization
which was open to people of dif ferent beliefs and ideologies, like socialists,
democrats, communists, maulvis and modern men.
And in the last chapter, Zohra dutifully repeats this argument to justify her
decision to join the Muslim League. She states that it was no longer an organ-
ization of landlords and nawabs, but a people’s organization fighting for the
Muslims’ right to self-determination. When the decision to divide the country
finally comes through and is announced by an extremely dejected communist,
Vijay, Sughra’s response sums up the underlying idea of the whole novel:
…she came and looked out upon the Western sky to see high up on the horizon the
crescent moon with its accompanying star sailing in a sea of pale green, and she
drew a breath of gladness and she whispered ‘The herald of Pakistan?’ (p. 480)
And immediately afterwards, she goes back to her estranged husband
Mansur and expresses her desire to have another child by him.The novel ends
with the final statements: “Henceforth we shall go forward together hand in
hand, towards our goal.” “Towards Pakistan!” he said triumphantly.” (p. 481)
Even the fiercely independent spirit of Zohra is gradually but surely moulded
in a particular direction. The egalitarian and women-friendly spirit of Islam is
highlighted and educated women like Sughra are projected as politically active
feminists who can easily integrate a liberal interpretation of Islam with Muslim
League politics. It is particularly interesting that the authorial normative voice
combines Islam, feminism, nationalism and the Muslim League ideology of
communalism.
Rahi Masoom Reza’s Adha Gaon (Hindi, 1966)33 shares the anti-Congress
feelings of Sahni and Yashpal. The portrayal of Parusaram, the disempowered,
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Ideology and Aesthetics 155

lower caste Congressman, is a caricature. With the abolition of zamindari and

the coming of the Congress to power he clearly sees political power as his per-
sonal route to empowerment. Completely oblivious to Gandhiji’ s political phi-
losophy, he merely recognizes that the Gandhi cap that he wears strikes fear in
government officials and brings him social status as well as additional income.
The Hindu communalist orientation of the Congress is evident in the speech
by Balmukund Varma at the Qasimabad Police S tation to commemorate the
martyrs of the 1942 Quit India Movement. Varma heaps lavish praise on the
martyrs Haripal and Gobardhan (both Hindus) for their commitment to the
national cause. Meanwhile, Phunnan Miyan, who has gone especially to hear
his dead son being recognized publicly , interrupts Varma and ironically
reminds him:
Eh, sahib! A son of mine was killed here too. It looks like no one told you his name.
His name was Muntaz! (p. 288)
Though few, there are occasions in the novel when the narrative begins to
sound like the earliest naturalist accounts by Progressive writers. The deper-
sonalized account of the communal violence and the even-handed approach
so typical of the early narratives is evident in the following passage:
Now Anar Kali was named Saghir Fatima, or Rajni Kaur, or Nalini Banerjee—Anar
Kali’s corpse was in the fields, on the streets, in mosques and temples, and on her
naked body were the marks of nails and teeth…” (p. 283)
But this indulgence in violence is almost immediately followed by the marsia,
the verses lamenting the tragedy of Imam Husain at Kerbala. Being a part of
the progressive tradition, Raza could not completely escape its influence.Yet,
these are mere remnants in a novel that, on all other counts, is quite distinct
both in its thematic content and aesthetic rendering.
Neither Raza’ s anti-Congress outlook nor his progressive antecedents
influence in any significant way his very sensitive rendering of the passing of
an age with the coming of Independence and Partition. Despite the author ’s
communist commitment, the novel does not take a one-sided, radical or simple
stand on social and historical processes. The entire action is located in Gangauli,
a village in U.P., and the author captures the complex web of social relation-
ships with keenly observed details that provide an immediacy and evocative-
ness to the entire representation. The abolition of zamindari in the immediate
aftermath of Independence is the critical concern of many in the village. But
the novel does not pass any judgement on the dissolution ofzamindari. In fact,
the complete breakdown of the caste equations and the decline of the Sayyids,
both in social, political and economic terms, is clearly related to the coming
of a new social and political order. Some of the women characters see the abo-
lition of zamindari as a punishment for the creation of Pakistan that is meted
out to the Miyans. The Sayyids lose their homes not because of Partition but
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156 Writing Partition

because of the abolition of zamindari. Partition by itself and the creation of

Pakistan is seen as something that has had a cataclysmic ef fect on the caste-
bound social fabric. It has broken up families, pauperized former zamindars
and empowered the lower castes. On all counts the text seems to see these
changes as a tragedy . The empowerment of people like Sukhram does not
necessarily lead to a fairer and egalitarian society. In fact, the loyalty of differ-
ent castes gets divided and the lower castes begin to patronize their former
landlords. For the Shia Sayyids, Partition and Independence are a double
blow. On the one hand, their young sons leave for Pakistan without their
wives and children, further impoverishing the family . Hakim Sahib’ s son
Saddan leaves behind his father and wife and children to go to Pakistan. For
Hakim Sahib then, Pakistan, which was meant to separate Hindus from Muslims,
actually separated father from son, brother from sister and husband from
wife. On the other hand, the abolition of zamindari means that they lose their
lands in one stroke.
There is, of course, something quintessentially innocent and authentic
about the eccentric Shia landlords of Gangauli. Their attachment to the land,
the observance of the rituals at Mohurram, and the shared life of the people
in spite of restrictions of caste are evocatively rendered. Even the rivalries of
the Uttar and Dakhin Pattis, virtually the fiefdoms of two groups of promi-
nent families, regarding the size and grandeur of the tazias are a deeply felt
and keenly observed detail. The novel does not conceal the exploitative
nature of the relations between the peasants and the zamindars. Like other
left-inclined writers, Raza recognizes that the Sayyid landlords exploit the
lower castes directly or indirectly. But his landowning class is also paternal-
istic and looks after the well-being of its tenants. Raza imbues the strong loy-
alties between the dif ferent castes and classes with an almost romantic aura.
Thus, while social and economic inequalities exist, they are not terrible
tragedies. Peasants are routinely abused and beaten up, but their daughters
and wives are not raped and they do not starve to death. Gaya Ahir and
Chikuria Chamar are loyal supporters of their masters and feudal loyalties cut
across caste and religion. The old rivalry between Khan Sahib of Salimpur
and Thakur Prithvipal of Barikhpur does not result from their dif ferent faiths
but because of their feudal notions of honour.
The conflicts in Gangauli are local and their solutions are found within the
existing framework. Even when communalist individuals attempt to incite
both Hindus and Muslims, the community initially resists their incursion on
the basis of their lived experience. When the Hindu fakir calls for revenge
against the Muslims for the rapes and killing of Hindu women in Noakhali,
the villagers fail to understand how they could be expected to assault their
own Muslim brethren. The illiterate peasants wonder why their ‘own’ Muslims
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Ideology and Aesthetics 157

should be punished for what has happened in Calcutta. How could they
murder people with whom they had been living for centuries, or rape Muslim
girls who had played in their laps during infancy?
One could argue that the roots of Gangauli’ s tragedy lie in the infiltration
of the external world. Initially, the Aligarh students who come to seek support
for the Muslim League and Pakistan create a division among the community.
Later, the abolition of zamindari by the government takes away the social
stature and financial security of the Shia landlords in a single stroke. It is per-
haps a measure of Raza’ s perceptive understanding that his sympathy for the
Sayyid landlords who people his fictional world does not blind him to the pro-
gressive nature of the land reforms. And even though he may romanticize the
feudal Sayyids and their secular (though exploitative) relationships with the
lower caste Hindus, since he is a politically progressive writer he refrains
from criticizing the abolition of zamindari.
Both the creation of Pakistan and the abolition of zamindari are events that
are alien to Gangauli—they happen to the village, without any volition on the
part of the characters. The village is in a sense a microcosm of the nation and
its caste-bound feudal structure, challenged with the coming of Independence
and Partition. It is a traditional community, living with all its social and eco-
nomic structures intact, and the authorial preference for that age and that life
is apparent. It is not as if all the characters are completely immune to the
tremendous changes that are taking place in the other parts of the country .
Tannu has been to the War and is considerably disillusioned. As he tells the
“black sherwani” (a euphemism for the Aligarh University student seeking
support for the Muslim League and Pakistan) those who die in war “die a very
helpless death” and “those who kill become very ugly” (p. 248) because to save
their own lives they are forced to hate the enemy .
Similarly, Phunnun Miyan’s son Mumtaz was shot dead in the Quit India
Movement. However, the even tenor of life in the village is rarely disturbed.
Inter-village or inter-caste rivalries do flare up sometimes and some blood is
occasionally shed. But these do not alter anything drastically . The Aligarh
Muslim University students, who come to canvas for the Muslim League in
the 1946 elections, are given short shrift. Kammo, who is rather disturbed at
the rumours of Aligarh ‘going’ to Pakistan along with its people, flatly tells
them that there is no question of his parents voting for the League in such an
eventuality. He scof fs at the Aligarh students’ dire warning about how the
eighty million Muslims in India would become “untouchables” if Pakistan
was not created:
Eh bhai, it looks to me as if it’ s been a waste of time educating you. What else? If
you people don’t even know that Bhangis and Chamars are the untouchables. What
sort of Bhangis and Chamars do you think we are? And how can anyone who’s not
an untouchable be turned into one, sahib? Go on, tell me! I’m listening. (p. 238)
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158 Writing Partition

On several occasions the centuries-old bonds between dif ferent communities

in the village and their attachment to Gangauli act as firm deterrents to Muslim
League propaganda. But even though Gangauli is hardly influenced by commu-
nal ideology and Partition violence, the creation of Pakistan and its allure for
some of the younger males breaks up several families and disrupts the earlier
social structures.
Most of the major characters in the novel regret the desertion of the younger
males who go to Pakistan. The latter are morally condemned for deserting the
graves of their ancestors and the village. In fact, the novel is primarily about
the Shia community , and the marsias and the nohas of Mohurram have a
peculiar resonance after the migrations take place. The loneliness of those left
behind, their sorrows and their pain are echoed in the soul-stirring composi-
tions of the tragedy of Imam Husain, his daughter Sakina and the bloodshed
of innocents at Kerbala. The nohas acquire a personal relevance for the Shias
in the violence and mayhem of Partition. For Javad Miyan, Pakistan is like
the martyrdom of Imam Husain, bringing immense grief in its wake. Unlike
Intizar Husain’ s Basti, which is also told from a Shia perspective, Aadha
Gaon considers the Partition squarely as a tragedy . It does not seek to repre-
sent the migration as hijrat and the Partition as an ameliorating event for
the Muslims.
The perception of Partition in terms of the martyrdom of Imam Husain,
and especially the tragic slaughter of innocent victims, provides a cultural
metaphor which helps the Miyans make sense of their loss. This is quite unlike
the way in which Intizar Husain employs the metaphor of hijrat, according to
Memon. Memon claims that for Intizar Husain the idea of Partition as hijrat
enabled the refugees to contextualize their migration as a welcome event. By
placing it alongside the hijrat of Prophet Mohammad from Mecca to Medina
for a temporary period before he acquired political leadership, the migrants
could imaginatively identify with a moment in the community’ s cultural
memory. In this frame migration became a welcome event which would lead
to the establishment of an Islamic society. Quite obviously such a reading would
completely subvert the secular paradigm of Progressive Partition texts that
considered Partition primarily as a tragedy.
The temporal and spatial rootedness of Gangauli is emphatically stated in
the relationship between the young Masoom and the village. The main thrust
of the argument against the creation of Pakistan is to be found in the simple
fact of the village not becoming a part of the new Islamic nation. The novel
does not relocate the action after Partition in Pakistan, but sticks to Gangauli.
The disintegration of the old order and the yearning for it takes place within
the village itself. The Kaaba and the Kerbala of the Muslim landlords and
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Ideology and Aesthetics 159

peasants are in Gangauli itself. And the migration to Pakistan is seen as a

desertion of one’s ancestors and their lands. The migrants exist in a state of
exile and homelessness, something they share with the characters in Basti.
They become acutely conscious of it when they return to visit Gangauli. But
unlike Zakir in Basti who waits for a basharat (divine revelation) in Lahore,
there is a gradual re-ordering of the social world in Gangauli as a conse-
quence of the shift in the power equations. Sayyid girls are forced to enter
into marriages with lower castes and even illegitimate young men because of
poverty and the paucity of eligible males after the migration.
In his work on Partition violence, Gyanendra Pandey has drawn attention
to the “subtle, but direct, challenge to the claims of nationalism and national-
ist historiography”34 in Aadha Gaon. As evidence he cites the intervention of
an ‘introduction’ that appears towards the end of the novel, and “subverts the
rules of the writing of novels, and of nationalist thought,...” 35 Raza’s own
explanation—that the new age that is to begin in the novel requires an intro-
duction—is perhaps more relevant than the causal correlation that Pandey
establishes between nationalist thought and the writing of novels. The new
age is a reference to the life of the Sayyids in Gangauli after Partition, the loss
of their power and prestige with the abolition of zamindari, and the desertion
of their homes by many ambitious young men who migrate to Pakistan. The
author then introduces a personal note of opposition against the Jan Sangh’ s
claim that Muslims are outsiders.
My bonds with Gangauli are unbreakable.… And I give no one the right to say to
me, ‘Rahi! You don’t belong to Gangauli, and so get out and go, say, to Rai Bareli’.
It is, of course, important to note that this peroration is not directly related
to the story of Gangauli. However, it is relevant to the sense of home for Indian
Muslims after Partition, and the author is unquestionably challenging a Hindu
communal position that Pandey is mistaking for nationalism. Raza’s question
to the Jan Sanghis is in its essence no dif ferent from the question that
Phunnan Miyan asks the Muslim League sympathizers:
If there’s no question [of getting Gangauli included in Pakistan], then what is it to
me if Pakistan is made or not.… Eh, bhai, our forefathers’graves are here, our tazia
platforms are here, our fields and homes are here. I’m not an idiot to be taken in by
your “Long live Pakistan!” (p. 149)
What the text is questioning are notions of exclusive nationalism that link
religion with nation, and not nationalism per se. Pandey, in his desire to critique
nationalism as a statist ideology , deliberately denies the legitimacy of a plu-
ralist, secular nationalism that is implicit in Raza’ s critique. One needs to
recall the pride that Phunnan Miyan takes in his son Mumtaz’s sacrifice during
the Quit India Movement, an event that clearly underlines the participation of
the community in the national movement for independence.
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160 Writing Partition

Pandey’s argument is also extended backward in time to contend that the

Congress had a Hindu communalist orientation despite its secular professions
even before 1947.36 At this level, this argument squares with the Muslim League
position taken by writers like Mumtaz Shah Nawaz, whose novel squarely
blames the Congress for Partition. On the basis of the assumption that the
Congress basically represented the interests, political, economic and cultural
of the Hindus, it becomes quite easy to dub the Indian nation state as commu-
nalist, prejudiced or worse and the people as its victims. In this scheme, the
birth of Pakistan becomes inevitable given that the Congress refused to accept
the League’s demand for the principle of self-determination.
If Raza’s Gangauli is a microcosm of the nation, Qurratulain Hyder ’s Aag
ka Darya, (Urdu, 1958) engages with the macrocosm. Located within a north
Indian upper-class milieu, the novel is divided into four chronological parts.
The first one, which is the longest, begins with the Mauryan dynasty and
traces the entire history of the area between the North and Bengal right up to
1940. Through her three principal characters, Gautam Neelambar, Champak/
Champa and Hari Shankar , who are reincarnated in many ages, and other
characters who join them along the way like Kamaluddin from the Sultanate
period and Cyril from the time of the East India Company , Hyder traces a
breathtakingly expansive story in time and space. The second part deals with
the lives of the main characters in their modern incarnations in upper class
Lucknowi society during the seven years before Partition.The third part takes
up the story of the characters in England where they go for their education
and the fourth revolves principally around the question of which country should
Kamal and Champa Ahmad now return to—India or Pakistan? The actual
event of Partition is left almost untouched, but the main theme of the novel is
integrally related to it. The composite culture as it existed in India is revealed
in the details of a vibrant interaction and an uninhibited intermixing of
communities, races, philosophies and languages from the ancient to the
medieval t o the modern times. The novel clearly states that “The ancient
Hindu–Buddhist–Jain, the intermediary Turco–Mughal–Iranian and the latter-
day British features of Indian civilization were so intermingled that it was
impossible to separate the warp and woof of the rich fabric.” 37 Written from
a squarely secular nationalist position, the novel also employs an evolving
linguistic framework to reinforce its central idea. While the novel uses sever-
al Sanskrit words in the part dealing with the annexation by Chandragupta
Maurya and in the debates on Hinduism and Buddhism, Persian and English
terms are gradually introduced during the medieval and modern periods,
respectively. By the time the novel moves into the post-Independence period,
the Cambridge-educated Kemal and Champa speak in a mixture of modern
Hindi, Urdu and English. For other characters too the hybrid linguistic and
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Ideology and Aesthetics 161

cultural variations are a norm that they are quite comfortable with. Both Talat
and Nirmala had been brought up in the Indo–British culture of the upper
classes, but they were equally comfortable in the “Hindustani–Oudhi” atmos-
phere of the “Master Saheb’s school”.
More particularly, the coming of Islam in the medieval period is perceived
as a natural process that did not lead to any fissures in society . The different
sects within Islam, the Shia and the Sunni, the Wahabis, the Sufis and the
Kabir panthis provide a dazzling variety that co-exists without conflict. The
division of the country, then, is considered as a violation of and antithetical to
the entire historical process of the first part. The novel does not take up the
politics of the Partition, or the ensuing riots that displaced millions. In an
interesting variation from other Partition texts, the action shifts to England
during the eventful years between 1945 and the early 1950s. ChampaAhmad,
Kamal, Gautam, Nirmala, Talat, Amir Raza and Tehmina all come together in
London and Cambridge. All of them carry memories of their Lucknow stu-
dent days even as Partition divides a country and its people. In spite of the fact
that Amir Raza becomes an officer in the Pakistani army and Gautam a member
of the Indian Foreign Service, the novel continues to render the secular ideal,
albeit in a nostalgic mode, through the camaraderie of the friends from
Lucknow. As Kamal and Champa attempt to acquaint Cyril with their cultural
moorings in the midst of their bohemian life in England, both recall with great
fondness the common culture shared by Hindus and Muslims in Lucknow .
Nirmala is not well at all—in Lucknow, her mother must have gone to the Hanuman
temple in Aligunj and then proceeded to some Imambara and prayed to Imam
Hussain for her speedy recovery .… And during winter, at the time of weddings in
our joint family,… the mirasins crooned, May the shadow of Ali fall on my Shyam
Sunder Banra… (p. 308)
Hyder’s novel endorses the secular ideal without actually dealing with the
event of Partition. It does so by recourse to a secular historical account of the
last thousand years, and very briefly touches upon the impact of Partition on
the main characters. At one level, Kamal’ s dilemma was also Hyder ’s—to
which country does one belong? Hyder came to Pakistan after a brief stay in
England shortly after the division of the country , but then opted to settle in
India after a few years. Kamal returns from England, only to find that his
ancestral property have been declared evacuee property. He also finds prefer-
ence being given to Hindus in jobs and decides to go to Pakistan. Champa
Ahmed, on the contrary , refuses to leave her secure and rooted middle-class
existence in Moradabad, in spite of its limitations. Kamal makes a choice that
is not dictated by any great belief but born out of frustration. In fact his father,
who had been an active supporter of the Muslim League, refuses to migrate to
Pakistan and “run away from …[his] own country”. Jobless and homeless after
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162 Writing Partition

the court refuses to honour their title to the ancestral property , Kamal finally
decides to leave for Karachi with his parents.
Coincidentally, the novel was first published in the year that Pakistan saw
the first military coup by Ayub Khan, i.e. 1958. Though it is a dif ferent kind
of Partition novel, the perspective throughout is progressive. Daughter of the
Urdu writer, Sajjad Hyder Yildrum, Qurratulain Hyder came from a nationalist
upper class family. She had studied in Lucknow and her first novel Mere bhi
Sanam Khane was an evocative recollection of a cosmopolitan society in
which Hindus and Muslims were a part of the age-old composite culture. For
her, the choice between India and Pakistan was a difficult one, given that she
had never imagined a world which would split along religious af filiations.
The consolidation of Hindu communal forces has been a challenge to the
secular ideal particularly since the late 1970s. If one were to closely look at
the trajectory of progressive realist works in India dealing with the aftermath
of Partition, it is possible to discern an optimistic phase during the 1950s and
1960s and perhaps even the early 1970s, if one takes Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas
into account. But Manzoor Ehtesham’s Sookha Bargad (Hindi, 1983) signals
the end of this optimistic faith in secularism. The novel is a sensitive render-
ing of the secular , nationalist Indian Muslim’ s dilemma in the period not
immediately after Partition but during and after the two Indo-Pak Wars of
1965 and 1971. Several issues pertaining to identity , politics, religious and
national affinities are considered from the perspective of a liberal and secular
Indian Muslim. Quite clearly the question of a national identity and the mani-
fold ways in which religion, politics and communalism intersect it has its ori-
gins in the Partition of 1947. While Joginder Paul’s works have explored the
experiences of mohajirs in Pakistan and refugees in India, Manzoor Ehtasham’s
novel is perhaps the only one that attempts to unveil the contradictory pulls
and pressures on Indian Muslims who opted to stay behind.
The novel takes a hard, critical look at the consequences of Partition for
Indian Muslims, particularly after the two wars with Pakistan. It interrogates
the idea of secularism from both the secular nationalist Muslim’s perspective
and the communal Muslim’s perspective. While the author does not privilege
either of the two perspectives, he does show how the practice and belief in
secularism has become difficult even for liberal, secular Indian Muslims. The
central image in the novel of a massive banyan tree clearly symbolizes the
multi-cultural and secular Indian nation. Equally apparent in its withering
away is the suggestion of how the sources which nourished this idea have
dried up. The growth of communalism from the 1980s onwards has posed
questions which re-work many of the debates regarding identity and politics
that were employed to rationalize the need for a separate nation for Muslims
in 1947. The manipulation of the Muslim community by cynical self-serving
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Ideology and Aesthetics 163

politicians and the insecurity of Indian Muslims, particularly during and after
the two Indo-Pak Wars of 1965 and 1971, initiate a heightened concern for
cultural af finities and identities among them. Unlike many other Partition
texts that either grieve for the breakdown of a secular consensus or others that
celebrate the creation of a new Islamic identity and nation, Sookha Bargad
traces the evolution of an ideological contest between two dif ferent kinds of
communities, the secular nationalist and the communal.
For Abdul Wahid Khan, a secular nationalist Muslim who refused to migrate
to Pakistan, questions related to the link between cultural identity and politics
need not be answered at all, given their illogicality . But for his children they
are a difficult challenge in spite of their commitment to their father ’s values.
Wahid Khan, a small-time lawyer in Bhopal, is a liberal humanist to the core.
A rationalist and an atheist, he strongly believes in providing a modern edu-
cation for both his son Sohail and his daughter Rashida.As a consequence, he
and the family are ostracized by the orthodox extended family and the com-
munity. Firstly, the issue of divided loyalties haunts Indian Muslims both pri-
vately and publicly. With close family members in Pakistan who have migrated
either in search of better opportunities or because of marriage, a war between
India and Pakistan creates tremendous anxiety among them. Rashida wonders
about the fate of her paternal aunt (who lives in Karachi) and several relatives
of her mother (in Lahore) even though, as she herself acknowledges, she has
never met them. But she is also troubled by why she is interested in the fate
of the people who belong to an enemy nation. The overall atmosphere of dis-
trust of Muslims during war time, occasioned at least partly by some of them
listening in to Radio Pakistan for news of the war, their alleged admiration of
the Pakistani General Ayub Khan and criticism of the Indian Prime Minister
Lal Bahadur Shastri, together with the belief among some Hindus that
Muslims were spying for Pakistan, reveal a heightened sensitivity among
both communities. While two of the main characters, Sohail and Vijay, may
argue with each other and support their own communities, they do so not from
communal positions, but out of self-defence. Eventually both also recognize
that their own communities are also at fault. As Sohail says,
How does one explain to them [the Muslims] that this is your country and your fate
is tied to it. You are first a human being, then a Hindustani and after that a Muslim.
Vijay responds in a similar vein by accepting that to some extent “it is
also the fault of the majority community . If people feel that they are being
treated as equals or somebody explains things to them sympathetically , will
they not understand…” (pp. 82–83) Interestingly , he follows it up by recall-
ing his parents’ life before Partition and how they managed to escape only
because of the help rendered by their Muslim friends. The secular humanist
approach, lauded by the Progressive writers earlier , had seen the creation of
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164 Writing Partition

Pakistan and the resultant violence as an aberration. But it is clearly limited

in a new and different context. Sohail’s father may have voluntarily decided,
like many nationalist Muslims, that he would not exchange his home for an
alien Muslim ‘homeland’, but this does not exempt Muslims like him from
the distrustful gaze of communal and fervently nationalistic Hindus. In fact,
the novel clearly brings out the double alienation such Muslims have to put up
with. While Wahid Khan’s liberal views about the education of his daughter
and his atheism evokes the anger of the more orthodox Muslim relatives and
leads to the boycott of his family, it does not endear him any more to the com-
munal Hindus. Rashida recalls how in the days of the 1965 War, no matter
how distanced they were from the orthodox and communal Muslims, “I was
still counted among them…” (p. 85) The situation gets even worse for the
family after the major argument Sohail has with older relatives at an extended
family gathering. While most of the relatives assert that the police had targeted
someone only because he was a Muslim, Sohail initially logically points out
that the man was picked up because he was a known drug smuggler. But very
soon the difference degenerates into a major fight and ends with Sohail abus-
ing the others for their fanatical and blinkered opinions. The consequences
are immediate.
…but there was little doubt that in no time we were completely banished from the
extended family. But this was not a case of switching political parties, that some
other people would have welcomed us or made speeches in praise of our courage.
Everything happened quietly and at that time we could not understand it fully…
(p. 94)
Another related and equally important issue is marriage between individ-
uals from the two communities. While both Sohail and Vijay initially believe
that such alliances would strengthen the secular ethos, the failures of their
personal relationships puts a question mark over this possibility. Sohail’s rela-
tionship with the Hindu girl, Gita Sharma, comes to a premature end when her
parents get her married to a socially acceptable Hindu boy . And while both
Rashida and Vijay are committed to each other and firmly believe in secular
values, the former finds it dif ficult to completely ignore the pressure of her
community’s expectations. Rashida’ s identity has its roots not only in her
ideological beliefs, but also in the lar ger cultural framework of the Muslim
community. Vijay’s demand that she unequivocally distance herself publicly
from orthodox family members like Hanif Chacha, who object to Vijay’s unre-
stricted access to private family spaces, creates a dilemma that she cannot
resolve. The family’s financial dependence on Vijay for Wahid Khan’s medical
treatment and Sohail’ s pocket money become a further cause for resentment.
Vijay’s willingness to pay the social and personal cost for his relationship with
Rashida is less dif ficult given that he is a male. But his dogmatic adherence
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Ideology and Aesthetics 165

to the secular principle does not allow any space for mediation with any
oppositional positions that Rashida needs to contend with.
Social opposition to a Hindu–Muslim relationship originates in racist and
patriarchal ideas. In such a framework, just as a victory for Islamic Pakistan
is considered a victory of all Muslims, so too is a Muslim boy marrying a
Hindu girl seen as a masculine, racist assertion and vice-versa. And what is
perhaps even more significant is that these beliefs are not restricted to the
uneducated, communalized masses, but taint the educated and liberal Rashida,
and perhaps her father too. Her first moment of physical intimacy with Vijay
is followed by a recognition of the insurmountable distance between the two
communities. In her sober moments she recalls her cousin Parvez, a firm
atheist and believer in gender equality , who had, nevertheless, voluntarily
married a much younger, less educated girl chosen by his mother. She remem-
bers how Saleem, a distant relative, had married a Hindu girl but only after
her formal conversion to Islam and also how Vinay had initially converted to
Islam to pacify Rahat’ s parents before marrying her , but after marriage both
became Hindus.
That feeling of a victory , when a Muslim boy converts a Hindu girl after marriage
is experienced not only by fanatics but also by well educated, sensible Muslims. In
spite of all my ef forts, even I have experienced it. And that shock and disappoint-
ment when a Muslim girl decides to marry a Hindu boy… (p. 108)
The liberal ideal of a modern secular identity faces its ultimate test in this
extremely complex issue of Hindu–Muslim marriages and the novel does
express the educated Muslim’ s reservations about it. Rashida’ s commitment
to her father ’s secular values does not allow her to accept the of fer of mar-
riage to Parvez’s Pakistani friend, the educated, well-off Hamid. But the same
commitment has not as yet strengthened her enough to oppose the extended
family and community, and assert her own commitment to Vijay.
It is possible to argue that the early progressive representations of Partition
were related to the immediate concerns of the writers and their rather limited
understanding of communalism. The progressive belief that literature could
and should play a role in social transformation also influenced the kind of
stories that were written in this phase. However, as we have seen, progressive
narratives varied considerably in terms of their artistic execution and scope.
Some of the later progressive writers are able to transcend the limitations of
their ideological beliefs. Complex rather than stereotypical characters, and a
sensitivity to religious identity quite unlike what is found in the works of
some of the more orthodox left writers preclude any simple generalizations
about these progressive narratives. But on the whole both sets of representa-
tions contested two fundamental underlying ideas. One was the link between
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166 Writing Partition

religion and national identity , and the other was the predominance of the
exclusive national identity, over other less coherent, looser and heterogeneous
identities. But the nature of the questions raised, the areas they pertained to
as indeed the paradigm they questioned, were to a very lar ge extent deter-
mined by the ideological predilections of the authors.
The transition from the progressive to the modernist narratives in Hindi
and Urdu during the mid-1950s, particularly in the form of the short story was
marked by a muting of the rather overt ideologically analytical tone of earlier
mainstream progressive works. However, in the transitional phase this break,
though visible, was not radical or complete. Ashfaq Ahmad’ s “Gadariya”,
Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh” and Mohan Rakesh’s “Malbe ka “Malik” (which we
have discussed in detail in an earlier chapter on individual and society), mark
a significant break with progressive representations, without completely
breaking out of the progressive mould. It is not entirely a coincidence that
none of these authors was a mainstream progressive writer . Manto’s break
with the IPWA in the period leading up to Partition is well-known, and Mohan
Rakesh became one of the initiators of the Nai Kahani movement in Hindi.
All three stories trace an initial movement away from the historically centred
stories of the progressive phase towards a serious engagement with the indi-
vidual’s inner self. The protagonists in these three stories—Dauji, Bishan
Singh and Rakkha—are all involved in a reappraisal of their identities in the
wake of a physical and psychic dislocation. This search for a new identity
takes dif ferent forms and its contours may vary from the existential to the
political. For Bishan Singh in Manto’s story, the issue is one of home, its loca-
tion and the alienation of the individual from that home on the basis of his
religion. It is the incompatibility between the personal, individual identity and
the official, political one that is the cause of his anguish and deep despair. But
whereas for Bishan Singh the crisis is life denying and destroys him com-
pletely, for Dauji and Rakkha it initiates an inner turmoil or self-examination
that is not conclusive. Dauji the victim and Rakkha the aggressor are both
irrevocably altered by their experiences of Partition violence, but their sub-
jectivities are related to moral, existential questions rather than political ones.
Unlike Bishan Singh, who articulates a clear though unsuccessful challenge
to the forces that unsettle his entire sense of ‘being’, Dauji and Rakkha start
on a process of ‘becoming’ from ‘being’. This process involves a tortuous
acceptance of the past and the present, and carries with it the suggestion of
their integration in the movement towards a different future. The stories, how-
ever, do not break out of the conventional norms of realism. The characters
are situated spatially and temporally throughout. Even though Manto’ s story
uses the unconventional metaphor of insanity to suggest the utter illogicality
and unintelligibility of the division, the principal character , Bishan Singh, is
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Ideology and Aesthetics 167

firmly rooted in his village and home, Toba Tek Singh. Dauji is visualized as
the product of a Hindu and Islamic amalgam, a symbol of cultural plurality
that invests him with societal prestige and power . Rakkha is the Hindu com-
munalist whose earlier image as a protector of the mohalla takes a beating
when he murders Chirag Din and his family, burns down their home and takes
possession of the property. He is forced to recognize his terrible inhumanity
when Chiragh Din’s father innocently asks him why his son had not sought
Rakkha’s shelter and protection during the riots. The encounter with Chirag
Din’s father some years after Partition re-enacts the memory of a shared
mohalla existence and its destruction because of the communalist sentiment
that poisoned people like Rakkha. Like Mohan Rakesh’ s “Malbe ka Malik”,
Manto’s “Thanda Gosht” 38 takes a compassionate look at the murderer and
rapist without absolving him of his guilt. Both stories deal with aggressors for
whom the act of aggression becomes a defining moment as it completely
undoes their notions of themselves as normative males and human beings.
Manto’s protagonist Ishar Singh is an aggressive and ruthless killer who
actively participates in the violent orgy of the communal riots. But his attempted
sexual intercourse with a girl he has abducted after killing her family completely
unhinges him when he realizes that she is already dead. S tricken with extreme
self-disgust and guilt, he breaks down when his wife inquires into the cause
for his apparently agitated state.
The significant dif ference between these writers and their Progressivist
predecessors lies in a less obvious and obtrusive secular perspective. These
writers are far less dogmatic, and their emphasis is on the terrible cost that
human beings as individuals have to pay for their inhuman acts. The emphasis
in both stories is on the individual and his confrontation with the ugliness of
his own self, whereas in the earlier stories the focus was on the collective vio-
lence of the mob. Yet, the stories quite clearly function within a moral frame-
work which emerges from the secular humanist perspective.
As we have seen, some progressive writers were able to transcend their
political ideological commitment by not merely representing the individual as
a political and economic unit but by locating her within a larger cultural, reli-
gious and psychological context. The modernist writers further enlar ged the
cultural and psychological dimensions of characters. The emphasis in Hindi
and Urdu modernist fiction on the inner self of the individual, the private
world of the imagination, and the spiritual and moral dimensions of existence
shifted the focus to a new terrain without abandoning the secular humanist
outlook. It would be more accurate to say that the characterization of the
individual in modernist fiction includes another dimension that is not neces-
sarily at odds with the earlier paradigms. Unlike European modernist texts
that dissolve the typicality of characters, modernist Hindi and Urdu Partition
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168 Writing Partition

narratives hold on to the spatial and temporal location of the characters, even
as the focus shifts to the inner self of the individual. There is certainly a more
focussed engagement with the present (rather than the past or the future); the
experience also becomes available to readers across cultures and time. Yet,
this effect is not achieved by dislocating the individual from her specific loca-
tion. The focus on the individual consciousness, the turning inward, does not
reject the existence and importance of an external world. The individual self
with all its existential, spiritual and moral ramifications is located in relation
to a past and a present and even a future that is constituted by a whole society
and its experiences. Indeed, the turning inward has been a process of expan-
sion and liberation rather than isolation and contraction as in some European
modernist literature. Even more significantly modernist writing in Hindi and
Urdu has not acquired ‘reactionary’ overtones. In its overall thrust it remains
sympathetic to the oppressed individual, its vision remains egalitarian and
secular and the process of individuation creates not self-centred, cynical,
ironic beings but characters who creatively engage with a changing and com-
plex present.

PARTITION AND THE BIRTH OF PAKISTAN

In the newly created S tate of Pakistan, the religious rationale for the new
nation produced its own peculiar fall-out in Urdu creative writing. Many of
the Urdu writers, who became Pakistani nationals either voluntarily or invol-
untarily, had been a part of the IPWA in the preceding two decades. Like other
progressive writers on the other side of the border , they continued to write
within the progressive framework. The works of Ashfaq Ahmad, Ahmad
Nadeem Qasmi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Jamila Hashmi and some others in the
late 1940s and the early 1950s were no different in tone, tenor or content from
those written by Bhisham Sahni, Krishna Sobti and Ismat Chugtai. Aijaz
Ahmad has pointed out that among all the short stories, poems and novels
written in Urdu between the Pakistan Resolution of 1940 and the first Indo-
Pak War of 1965 “there is not even one which has, by any critical standards
whatever, any sort of literary merit and which celebrates the idea of Pakistan”.39
(Ahmad perhaps does not consider that Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’ s The Heart
Divided, a fictionalized autobiography, has ‘any sort of literary merit’.) This
was but inevitable given that the very idea of a Pakistani identity and nationhood
was an artificial creation that had little basis in culture and society. Progressive
writers of all hues, without any exception, believed in the secular notion of a
composite culture that was shared by both Hindus and Muslims. For the cre-
ative writer, Partition could not be anything but a tragedy of monumental pro-
portions and, as we have seen, the narratives indicate this consensus.
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Ideology and Aesthetics 169

However, it could be ar gued that the dynamic within Pakistani polity ,

which led to the climaxing of a narrower , constricted and anti-Indian senti-
ment in the 1965 Indo-Pak War, began with the ban imposed on the All
Pakistan Progressive Writers’ Association (APPWA), the overthrow of an
elected government and the declaration of martial law byAyub Khan in 1958.
Its impact on Urdu literature was that the pre-Partition generation of writers
ceased writing altogether or slowly drifted into other professions. According
to Faruq Hassan, literary critic and poet, “In the late 40s and 50s, in true
McCarthyite fashion, writers af filiated with the Movement, were … system-
atically hounded by the authorities.… Some committed intellectual suicide by
joining the film industry. Some stopped writing altogether”. 40
The emergence of the second generation of Pakistani Urdu writers in the
1960s was a new phase. It was initiated by writers like Intizar Husain,
Masood Azhar, Hasan Manzar, Khalida Husain and some others who came to
be associated with the modernist movement in Urdu fiction. With the single
exception of Hasan Manzar’s short story, “Kanha Devi ka Gharana”, the sec-
ular consensus as represented in progressive fiction was pushed into the back-
ground, if not altogether dispensed with. While Manzar’s story does not con-
form to a modernist aesthetic mode, and even endorses the secular humanist
idea, it nevertheless does mark a break with earlier Progressive writing by
appropriating the secular ideal for the Pakistani nation. Unlike his contempo-
raries like Intizar Husain or Masood Azhar, Hasan Manzar takes up the issue
of a pluralist and shared existence directly and unambiguously in his story
“Kanha Devi ka Gharana”,41 written in the realist mode. It locates this harmo-
nious co-existence within the Sindhi community in Pakistan and then con-
trasts it with the intolerant and communal Indian Hindu community . Kanha
Devi and her brother -in-law Persumal, unlike many other Hindus, have not
migrated to Bharat even thirty years after independence. The life of the family
proceeds unhindered and unhampered in spite of Partition and the communal
violence against Muslims. In any case communal riots take place in the ‘bad’
and intolerant land of Bharat. Here in Pakistan, the Hindus and Muslims live
in complete harmony , each community pursuing their religious practices,
drinking and eating from common utensils, the Hindus having overcome their
caste and religious prejudices in “the refreshing open space” “where the son
of the Brahmin Sri Ram is about to marry the daughter of the wanya
42
Dhumi”. (pp. 210–11)
Into this pristine, innocent and insular Garden of Eden comes the serpent
in the form of the bride from ‘Bharat’to whom Kishan Chand, the son of Kanha
Devi is married. Having lived all her life in intolerant, anti-Muslim, casteist,
Hindu Bharat, Damyanti naturally feels suffocated and extremely uncomfort-
able in the free and easy atmosphere of Pakistan. While she still could not
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170 Writing Partition

bring herself to drink tea from a cup used by a Muslim, she felt that absence
of hatred for Muslims among local Hindus suggested that they lacked true
‘dharm’ and had gone slack in their faith.
In her frustration, she earnestly implores her husband to go back to Bharat
with her , since it was ‘their ’ country. Krishan Chand’ s response is a clear
indictment of Bharat for its intolerance. Rebuffing her he tells her that she has
had the misfortune of growing up in the intolerant land of Bharat, where people
are constantly stoking the fires of communalism and casteism.
The final words of wisdom are however reserved for the somewhat eccen-
tric Persumal, who cryptically points out to Damyanti that the pigeons that he
so religiously feeds roost in the minaret of the neighbouring masjid.
Manzar’s story is unique in the sense that it lauds the secular humanist
consensus in Pakistan, a nation whose raison d’etre was the incompatibility
between communities. However, he does it by demonizing Hindustan (Bharat
is a later appellation) in terms that are similar to, if not identical with, those
that characterize communal elements and their rationale for Pakistan in the
progressive, secular and liberal discourse. Apart from the disingenuousness
that this involves, Indian Hindus are all uniformly typed as intolerant and
communal. This is, of course, the basic premise on which the Muslim League
demanded Pakistan. The significance of this story lies in the way that ‘Indian’
Hindus are uniformly represented. Progressive narratives of Partition that
endorse the secular perspective do not make a distinction between Hindus or
Muslims from India or Pakistan. Members from both the communities are
secular or communal, victims or aggressors. The relationship between Pakistan
and a communal, intolerant way of thinking is established not by showing that
Muslims in Pakistan are communal, but by exposing the claims of those who
believe that the interests of all Muslims are best served by the creation of
Pakistan. Indeed, in progressive texts, the physical location of the characters
does not ever determine their attitude towards the other community . This is
true not just of texts that deal with the pre-Partition community but also those
that deal with the aftermath.
Not only is Hasan Manzar ’s story located “thirty-odd years since
Independence” (p. 210), but the author also belongs to the second generation of
Pakistani Urdu writers who were not under the sway of progressive, realist
literature. For many of them the secular perspective that progressive narra-
tives of Partition endorsed was “mealy mouthed Gandhian nationalism”43 that
had no basis in reality given the communal and intolerant nature of the
Hindus. The need to construct a Pakistani identity in terms that combined the
exclusivist Islamic contours of society with a liberal, humanist and pluralist
outlook led to peculiar transformations in Pakistani Urdu narratives of
Partition. Hasan Manzar ’s story shows how the secular liberal perspective
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Ideology and Aesthetics 171

could be employed to run down the image o f a Hindu communal India. The
modernist Partition narratives of Intizar Husain and Muhammad Salim-ur -
Rahman reveal a complex and subtle engagement with the secular , humanist
idea which is contextualized within the broader framework of Pakistani
Islamic nationalism.
In his Introduction to a collection of Hasan Manzar ’s stories, A Requiem
for the Earth , Memon has ar gued that “Kanha Devi ka Gharana” highlights
the humane aspects of religion and the idea of a larger community that shuns
all divisions of religion and caste. “In their own ways both Kamla Devi and
Persumal represent the finest spirit of religion and exude the ensuing power
of religious belief”.44 But as one has shown there is the larger issue of nation-
ality that is also involved. It is the Indian Hindus who are shown as communal,
casteist and intolerant, whereas Pakistanis, both Hindus and Muslims, live in
peace and harmony. The problem thus is not really that Hinduism or Hindus
are fanatical, but that Bharat is constituted by intolerant and anti-Muslim
Hindus, whereas Pakistani society is a harmonious amalgam of peace-loving
Hindus and Muslims. Such an essentialist approach reveals how the terrain of
nation formation is a contested space in Partition narratives.
More generally, however, the new generation of Pakistani modernist Urdu
writers engaged with issues that were somewhat different from their progres-
sive predecessors and distanced themselves from the earlier phase much more
consciously than their Indian counterparts, given the need to create a distinct
Pakistani identity. This involved the construction of a continuous Islamic his-
tory that somehow reduced the centrality of the shared centuries of
Hindu–Muslim co-existence. The foregrounding of an essentialist Islam that
could flow seamlessly into feminist and egalitarian discourses (as, for
instance, Mumtaz Shahnawaz’ s The Heart Divided ) was one of the ways in
which this change was brought about. In Hasan Manzar ’s story discussed
above, the secular , humanist perspective was simply made the exclusive
domain of Pakistani society and Indian Hindus were projected as communal
and intolerant. Unlike modernist writers in India who had, at least initially ,
reacted primarily to Progressivist writing, in Pakistan the entire progressive
movement was denied its centrality in Urdu fiction by most of the second
generation writers.
While the shift from the progressive to the modernist mode did not involve
a rejection or a radical refashioning of the secular humanist perspective
among Indian modernist writers like Joginder Paul or even Krishan Baldev
Vaid, the Pakistani modernist writers remolded this perspective gradually in
an Islamic direction. 44 The extensive hounding of left or secular oriented
writers and the public endorsement of the Islamic character of the Pakistani
society and state initiated an ideological shift among both writers and critics.
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172 Writing Partition

Initially this shift can be sensed in a muted and barely perceptible movement
away from secular ideological concerns, as for instance in Abdullah Husain’s
Udas Naslein (Urdu, 1963). In a writer like Intizar Husain this could take the
form of an unresolved tension between a harmonious past and a disjointed
present wherein the secular co-existence of the two communities was nostal-
gically recalled, if only to suggest its irrelevance in contemporary Pakistani
society on the brink of a break up in 1971. Later, this shift away from the sec-
ular humanist ideal became even more pronounced as the Islamic contours of
a newly independent Pakistani nation were etched out by a rejection of the
idea of Partition as a tragedy and its replacement by the representation of the
birth of Pakistan as a welcome and auspicious event in ‘Muslim’ history.
While the left progressive writers had lar gely drawn attention to the class
limitations of the anti-colonial struggle in terms of its bour geois character,
Abdullah Hussein’ s Udas Naslein looks at the freedom struggle from a
nationalist Muslim’ s perspective and its limitations thereon. If for the left
writers, Independence (the outcome of the anti-colonial struggle) was no
independence at all since the bour geoisie remained in power , for Abdullah
Hussein the Partition is the last nail in the cof fin for his nationalist Muslim
protagonist, Naim. In fact, the very title of the novel (Hussein translates it as
The Weary Generations) indicates the weariness of Naim’s long struggle, first
as a loyalist in the British Indian army , then as a revolutionary terrorist and
finally as a Congress worker , before suddenly being overtaken by the events
of Partition and finding himself swept along in the caravan of refugees migrat-
ing to Pakistan. It is, of course, apt that Naim is lost or dies just before reach-
ing the border. A failure in both personal and public life, his commitment to
any particular ideology is hardly warranted at the end. Where then does the
text stand in relation to the question of pluralism and nationalism? It can, of
course, be inferred that Naim’s participation in the national movement is evi-
dence of his belief in anti-colonialism and since he harbours no anti-Hindu or
pro-Pakistan sentiments, one could conclude that his outlook is liberal and
secular. His silence, when asked by Roshan Agha’s family about his opinion
regarding migration to Pakistan, may also be seen as an indicator of his
unwillingness to migrate. At the same time, Naim’s entire life is invested with
an existential angst that arises in lar ge measure from his fragmented identity
as a colonial subject. His early English education, his family’ s relationship
with the loyalist, feudal patron, Roshan Agha, and his marriage to the latter’s
daughter, are all clearly at odds with his relationship with his rustic, fiercely
independent father, his strong aversion to feudal and colonial exploitation and
his participation in the anti-colonial national movement. The novel traces his
unsuccessful search for an elusive, stable identity, which receives its final set-
back with the Partition violence. The author, who has himself translated the
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Ideology and Aesthetics 173

text from Urdu to English, deploys the metaphor of weariness to represent the
central experience of the book. This would seem to suggest that the entire
struggle in Naim’s life is to be considered a failure. As a landlord whose land
is confiscated by the colonial state, and also one who is sympathetic to the
cause of the peasants, Naim seems to strike a radical note. But it is not clearly
spelt out. The novel does not offer any easy or even consistent analysis in terms
of either characterization or ideological perspective. Udas Naslein is an inter-
esting example of a work that locates the individual’ s search for his identity
within the larger social and historical matrix, without any clear markers of an
ideological commitment.
Among more recent writings on the Partition by Pakistani Urdu writers,
Intizar Husain’s fiction has been widely acclaimed by critics from both sides
of the border. In his introduction to Leaves and other Stories, a collection of
stories by Intizar Husain, Alok Bhalla states that his stories do not permit easy
analysis, as there is a sense that experience is “knotted up”. Unlike the progres-
sives, Husain “has never been able to presuppose the existence of a rationally
comprehensible or a metaphysically coherent world view which can enable
him to make sense of the human tragedy which confronted him when India
was partitioned”.45 Bhalla further argues that for Husain, Partition was a fail-
ure of our social, religious and moral imagination. And his stories attempt to
retrieve all that was good and pure in our lives, to view the world again with
all our imaginative empathy.
Intizar Husain’s Basti46 begins on the eve of the liberation of Bangladesh,
an impending disaster for most Pakistanis, including Zakir , the protagonist.
The gloomy and uncertain atmosphere that pervades Pakistani society at a
historically and politically significant moment is then reinforced by refer-
ences to numerous disasters in the history of the subcontinent, in particular
the Partition, the martyrdom of Imam Husain, the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh
and the 1857 Revolt. The interconnecting web of references is an attempt to
create a pattern that blends into a whole unlike the fragmented existence that
Zakir leads. The past acquires a mythical aura as the adult Zakir seeks to
retrieve it through his recollections. This past of his life comes to an abrupt
end with the Partition and the displacement of the family .
The narrator includes historical events and religious mythical figures as
correlates for the present. The historical events from the modern colonial period,
particularly the Khilafat movement, the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy , etc., and
the myths from Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic sources elaborate the diverse
pluralist inheritance of Zakir as a counterpoint to the exclusive nationalism
that is contextualized in the contemporary crisis. It is important to recognize
this thematic function of the narrative meanderings. However , the mode of
expression certainly raises the issue of the juxtaposition of the real and
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174 Writing Partition

mythical events and people. In a sense both are a part of the experiences of a
people and their culture. Krishna and colonial rule are both real, but obvious-
ly not in the same way. One belongs to history, the other to the lar ger sphere
of culture and religion. Both are equally important without being identical or
merging into each other. Zakir’s memories of his childhood appear mythical
perhaps because they belong to a different period of his life that is distant and
gone forever. As an adult, his childhood world would acquire a mythical aura
in his memory, particularly favourite objects and places associated with expe-
riences that have left a lasting ef fect on him, as for instance, the relationship
with Sabirah.
Zakir’s father , an orthodox Shia, sees the Partition, the civil unrest in
Pakistan and the breaking away of East Pakistan as a part of a continuous
cyclical pattern of a fall from grace and regeneration that has always existed
in human history. Zakir’s lamentation in the graveyard at the end of the novel,
when Bangladesh has been created, and his waiting for the mahdi is his final
acceptance of his father ’s Shia beliefs. So far Zakir has felt frustrated and
lamented for what he has lost and left behind in Rupnagar, Vyaspur and even
on his first night in Pakistan in Shamnagar he recalled his small room in
Vyaspur and cried. Coincidentally enough his father entrusts the keys of the
storeroom in their ancestral house in Rupnagar to Zakir before he dies. But
the other part of his inheritance, the Shia vision of human history as a cycli-
cal process of a fall and then a regeneration, is something he inherits only by
the end.
One can clearly see that Zakir’s fundamental contradiction arises from the
incompatibility between a pre-Partition harmonious society and a fragmented,
isolated present. How does Husain reconcile his great love for the Indo-Muslim
culture and history with the sense of crisis and angst that have beset Pakistani
society in the wake of the creation of Bangladesh? While on the one hand,
Zakir’s father ’s constant and ready answer to any catastrophic event is the
need for patience and submission to the will of God, on the other , Zakir is
constantly involved in the process of an imaginative reconstruction of the
past. The past that he desperately and ultimately unsuccessfully tries to some-
how connect to the present is symbolized by Rupnagar and Sabirah. The
desire to write to Sabirah ‘now’, when East Pakistan has been lost, when
letters can’t get through to India, after so many years, and his repeated inabil-
ity to do so, are also indicative of the same problem. And the past and the
present in fact cannot connect precisely because the continuum of Indo-
Muslim history has been interrupted. The need to fabricate a new continuity
between the past and the present can lead to dif ferent responses. On the one
hand, a unique Muslim history can be isolated, an Islamic meta-history that
traces its origins from the time of Prophet Mohammad and ends with the
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Ideology and Aesthetics 175

present, without any regard for the other histories that have impinged on and
decisively changed the nature and even the content and lived practice of Islam
in the subcontinent. On the other hand, the resolution that is offered in the text
at the end is a unique and personal vision of faith and optimism that cannot
and does not purport to be a solution for the contemporary social and his-
torical crisis. Memon suggests that, “Zakir, the historian, whose name means
‘one who remembers’, walks through his time and space with the graphic
memory of Shiite suffering”.47 As the world around him gets fragmented, he
withdraws into himself seeking personal salvation through the Shiite belief in
private suffering. Since Memon reduces the structure of the entire novel into
a pattern of creation (of Pakistan and the unlimited possibilities it creates),
immorality of human conduct (corruption and selfishness in the new nation,
violence prior to 1971) and destruction (the secession of Bangladesh), he
finds “the so-called basharat (propitious sign) ... at odds with the overpower-
ingly gloomy vision of the novel”. 48 But Zakir does not isolate and construct
this exclusive unity . He attempts to live out the contradiction between past
and present till the coming of the basharat. It is an individual act of faith assert-
ed in the face of a dilemma that emerges from his inability to connect the past
with the present. And while it may finally establish a connection between his
father and him in the context of Shiite suf fering and the basharat that he
seeks, one must also note that before his father dies, his father hands over the
keys of their ancestral home that had been left behind in India.
To look at the Partition violence as a part of a pattern of fratricide that
began with Abel and Cain, may serve the authorial aesthetic sensibility and
purpose, but it also projects a specific perspective. It allows the text to dis-
miss all questions regarding the local, historical factors that came into play
during the 1940s and provides, however indirect and muted, a rationale for
the creation of Pakistan. It invests the birth of Pakistan with an inevitability
that originates not in the local, specific factors, but in a meta-historical para-
digm that is fixed in its cyclical pattern of creation followed by death, despair
and migration. However, the past with its plurality and its disjunction with a
unitary present (earlier Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic myths of origin co-existed,
now the wait for the basharat alone is relevant) creates its own resonance.
Unlike Basti, Intizar Husain’ s short story “Ek bin-likhi Razmiya” 49 is
notably different from other modernist texts in its fictional self-consciousness
and the critique of ‘constructive’ literature. The story is first and foremost a
highly satirical attack on the entire tradition of progressive literature. The
social function of literature is called into question and made the subject of
artistic treatment. Husain casts his satire in the form of a self-reflexive meta-
fiction in which the narrator takes on the role of an author who is writing an
epic of his times. The epic remains unwritten because ‘reality’ keeps intruding
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176 Writing Partition

and the narrator confesses that literature cannot be created out of reality , clearly
marking out his distinction from the social realism of the earlier phase.
More specifically, the story mocks at progressive representations of parti-
tion, particularly for their ‘constructive’ intentions (reformation of a commu-
nal society). It categorically denies the link between politics and literature by
showing how politics essentially involves questions of a material, mundane
nature that have no place in an epic. The failure of the epic is also related to
the unheroic times that we live in. The epic’s protagonist, Pichwa’s aesthetic
standards of perfection are meant to be a critique of the secular heroes who
die protecting the victims of the other community . The narrator deliberately
eschews dwelling on aspects that constructed the secular , humanist perspec-
tive—the shared pre-Partition existence of the two communities, the trauma
of dislocation, the victims and aggressors, etc. He chooses a Muslim wrestler
with virtually no contact with Hindus as his epic hero. Pichwa’s epic status is
situated within his ‘non-purposive’ acts of bravery in the defense of Qadirpur.
In his essay on “Ek bin-likhi Razmiya”, Ian Bedford af firms that the story
is “deeply imbricated with an experience, not only of the events that made
Pakistan, but of misgiving reflection and no doubt of animated discussion of
those events”. 50 For Bedford, this “misgiving reflection” is evidenced by
Husain “devoting half the story to a reverie, a chimerical vision of what were,
or are, or might have been inter -village communal relations in a not-wholly-
imaginary district of India”. 51 In a relatively more recent work, Alok Bhalla
has attempted to bring out the secular credentials of Pichwa. He writes,
“Neither society’s expectations of Pichwa nor his sense of belonging to an
abiding community, are derived from any notion of Islamic selfhood, but are
examples of the common ways in which religious dif ferences were negotiat-
ed….”52 Both Bedford and Bhalla, in different ways, exaggerate the relatively
less violent methods of negotiating religious dif ferences, with Bedford
euphemistically referring to these dif ferences as “inter -village communal
relations”. An alert reader will however realize that it is a little difficult to dis-
sociate Pichwa from the Muslim community of Qadirpur and its antagonism
against the Jats. Jafar, one of the residents of Qadirpur lauds Pichwa’s courage
in fighting the “bloody Hindus” who wanted to bring down the “W eavers’
mosque”. He is not a secular hero in communal times, he does not save
people who belong to the other community in the fight against inhumanity .
Indeed he fights for the community , as a protector of a minority community
that is threatened by the Jats. When the news that Pakistan has been created
comes to Qadirpur, Pichwa is initially disappointed that he did not have a role
to play in its creation. But very soon he wants to celebrate the occasion by
planting the Pakistani flag or at least the Islamic flag on the peepul tree near
the Eidgah. Bhalla’ s reading does not seem to be supported by the text. He
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Ideology and Aesthetics 177

writes, “To help us understand that the interaction between the Hindus and the
Muslims had a long and sustained history, Intizar Husain deliberately locates
an old Peepul tree, sacred to the Hindus, next to a Muslim shrine at the out-
skirts of Qadirpur .”53 Although it is a little dif ficult to ascertain whether
Husain located this tree near the Eidgah to make the reader aware of
Hindu–Muslim interaction, in the story there are enough clues to decipher
Pichwa’s desire to plant the Pakistani or the Islamic flag on the tree as an
assertion of a certain kind of victory over the other community . This reading
ties up with the brutal murder of Pichwa at the end of the story . Disgusted
with the situation in Pakistan where he has to go around looking for work to
survive he returns to Qadirpur, only to discover that it has been taken over by
the Jats and renamed Jatunagar. He is killed and his head is stuck on the same
peepul tree on which he wanted to plant the flag of Pakistan.
However, it would be equally incorrect to ar gue that the narrative offers a
justification of the exclusive nationalism which saw the birth of Pakistan.The
narrator contests any characterization of Pichwa as either secular or commu-
nal by stressing his purely aesthetic relationship with club wielding. His role
as both a club wielding artist and the vanquished hero is a complex represen-
tation that does not permit an easy categorization within Partition narratives.
There is also the obvious overlap between the non-purposive narrator–artist
and Pichwa—the latter who fights for the sake of his art (club wielding) and
the former who ridicules the idea of “constructive literature” 55 and tries to
complete his epic in vain.
At the formal aesthetic level the narrator keeps commenting ironically on
the practices of his progressive predecessors while at the thematic level, the
failure of the epic project is related to the diminution of Pichwa because of
his involvement in contemporary politics. Pichwa exists simultaneously as an
individual in his own right and as the creative subject for the narrator ’s fic-
tion. While the narrator constantly keeps trying to mould him into a hero for
his epic, the individual keeps eluding his grasp because of his underlying rela-
tionship with reality.
You can write reportage or political poetry about living things, but not short stories
or lyric poetry.… When I came to Pakistan, my ties with Qadirpur were broken, and
its life and people became a story for me. (pp. 167–68)
The narrator’s belief that only the past and its memory are fit subjects for
a creative work is a clear rejoinder to the numerous Partition narratives that
were written in the immediate aftermath of Partition. The narrator’s failure is
thus related to the subject’ s proximity, and also ties up with the centrality of
memory and myth in modernist representations. It is the memory of Pichwa
in Qadirpur that makes him a suitable subject for an epic but his turning up in
Pakistan puts “a monkey wrench”, as the narrator says, in the project.
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178 Writing Partition

Interestingly, the Subedar Sahib’ s letter to the narrator about the death of
Pichwa leads to his decision to end his “Qadirpur Mahabharata”, as he refers
to it, at this point. The pluralist culture of subcontinental society is relevant to
the narrator–creative writer purely at the level of mythology and has little in
common with the way in which the progressives employed it to construct the
secular humanist consensus. This pluralist vision that has its origins in the
shared myths of a society enables the narrator to connect events in a pattern
that makes sense within the culture-specific modes of apprehension. The nar-
rator records in his diary that he had intended to cast Pichwa “as a twentieth
century Tipu Sultan”, or as “the vanquished Arjuna of this Mahabharata”.
Locating the character in the tradition of mythological and/or historical char-
acters is not only a feature of modernist literature that builds upon traditional
narrative modes like the kissas and dastaans; it also disassociates itself from
realist narratives that “have the power to turn fact into fiction”. (p. 169)
Tragically, the narrator , in a supreme act of self-reflexive irony , also gets
involved in material pursuits as he looks around for something to do in an
environment that stifles his creative instinct.
The characters who migrate from Qadirpur do so out of practical consid-
erations, and the narrator , instead of sympathizing with their loss, actually
laughs quietly at their discomfiture and later reveals their selfish grasping
nature. Naim Miyan, the leader of the Muslim League, finds any mention of
the Congress irritating and feels it is beneath his dignity to talk to a Hindu,
but with the announcement of Partition, he distances himself from the
Muslim League and any talk of Pakistan. Even when he goes with his family
to Pakistan initially , he pretends that he was only going to Delhi and later
writes from Lahore that he decided to migrate on the advice of ‘higher -ups’.
The representation of Pakistani society as greedy and selfish denies an implicit
endorsement of exclusivist Islamic nationalism. Patriotism is seen as creatively
stifling—“Every time I take up the pen, the slogan, ‘Long Live Pakistan,’ goes
up with such force that I drop the pen.” (p. 168)—even as the narrator takes
an ironical swipe at the nation-building project. After the flour -mill is allot-
ted to him he feels that he has changed: “As long as I was stuck in the web of
literature, I felt cut off from my nation.…Now, however, I consider myself a
responsible citizen—a dutiful member of a rising nation.” (p. 178)
Involvement in politics or working for material, personal benefit—both
destroy the creative instinct. This is the significance of the ironical undercutting
of the nation-building project. Communal or exclusivist nationalist or even
secular humanist perspectives are irrelevant to the narrator or Husain. To
argue that the de-centred narrative is itself a critique of the national and
national communal discourse, as Bhalla attempts to do, is to misread the prin-
cipal thrust of the text which is a critique of progressive narratives of Partition.
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Ideology and Aesthetics 179

Where then does the story stand with regard to the secular humanist out-
look that one has seen as the key feature of Partition narratives? As a committed
anti-Ideology text it minutely examines various aspects of progressive narra-
tives of Partition and discards them individually by lampooning them. But it
would not be possible to ar gue that it endorses an anti-secular or communal
position either. The narrator does not condemn communalism or exclusive
nationalism, but he does poke fun at the fanaticism of its proponents and reveals
the debasement of characters looking for material benefits in Pakistan. The
one generalization that could be made about the text is that it consciously
attempts to free itself of any Ideology and succeeds in this ef fort to a consid-
erable extent. But the shared mythology (that the narrator employs to critique
the way the progressive writers constructed the secular consensus) does sug-
gest the existence of a pluralist system of belief in society . Husain himself
responds to the char ge of positing an exclusivist Islamic belief. In an inter-
view with Alok Bhalla, he denies knowing what “a purely Islamic culture” 56
is, and to Memon he states that he considers himself to be a part of an “Indian
Muslim culture” that “has shaped the history of which I am a part”.57 He goes
on to argue that the creative amalgam of society was threatened by the “puri-
tan frame of mind” 58 of reactionary elements on both sides. In a wider sense
the secular humanist consensus is retained by Husain though it is recast in a
different context and form. It is important to recognize this aspect of his writ-
ing given that writers like Hasan Manzar and Muhammad Salim-ur -Rahman
have subverted the secular perspective in their representations of Partition.
A closer look at the critical debate within Pakistani literary and academic
circles on Husain reveals the underlying controversy concerning ideology in
Pakistan. In his introduction to a collection of Husain’ s short stories, The
Seventh Door and Other Stories, Memon gives a fairly comprehensive account
of the criticism levelled against Basti when it came out in Pakistan in 1979.
According to Enver Sajjad, a major writer and critic, the historical and myth-
ical material of the novel does not warrant the passivity of Zakir. “Undaunted
defiance and struggle inevitably produce change. Husain just doesn’ t want
change … What he is waiting for is a saviour who would set things right for
us without our participation and move along…” 59 Interestingly, Sajjad does
not question the intermeshing of contemporary history (the Partition) with
Islamic mythology and history . He is ar guing for an alternative vision of a
militant Islamic society that transforms Pakistan into the cherished ideal that
its supporters had dreamed of. The contest here is really between the Shia and
Sunni versions of social transformation. According to Memon, Pakistani
critics view the novel as a national allegory . Any regard for the work as an
autonomous creation with its inherent aesthetics is conspicuously absent. This
raises the larger question of whether any creative text dealing with the subject
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180 Writing Partition

of Partition can be viewed in purely formal, aesthetic terms? Issues like

nationalism or Partition have always been highly contested in both India and
Pakistan. Critics and academics from the subcontinent and indeed anyone
who has been a part of Indian or Pakistani society after 1947 would find it dif-
ficult if not impossible to perceive a Partition text purely in aesthetic terms. It
is, of course, understandable that Memon, with his long association with
Western academia, objects to how Intizar Husain has been appropriated by his
fellow countrymen.
Memon in his lengthy introduction tries to defend Husain against the
charge of apathy and political quietism: “I hope to take the issue out of the
realm of revolution, politics and ideology and into that of literary aesthetics,
where it properly belongs.” 60 He makes much of Husain’s commitment to the
Ganga-Jamuni culture and how it received a setback with Partition. Unlike the
progressive writers, Husain sees Hindu–Muslim strife as predating the com-
ing of the British and holds reactionary Hindus and Muslims responsible for
the Partition. But instead of looking at the historical causes or roots of the
event, he sees it as an unnatural event that happened because of the actions of
a few powerful people. As Memon says, the creation of Pakistan was not a
moment to gloat over , but something tragic. The agony of that painful
moment could be lessened by exploiting the creative potential of the event,
by contextualizing it in terms of the hijrat. Memon characterizes Basti not as
a realistic text, but a post-realist one in which all questions of temporal and
historical relevance can only be considered allusively, if at all. Memon’s argu-
ment relates to the Shia influence in Basti that considers suffering as redemp-
tive and does not believe that the possibility of regeneration exists in the
impure and immoral world till the coming of the Mahdi. Thus, issues like the
passivity of the central character , Zakir, are to be seen as a part of the lar ger
Shia vision that informs the text. The ‘historical’ memory (presumably of the
Shias), that consists of the martyrdom of Imam Husain, the complete abnega-
tion of all forms of militaristic struggle, the acceptance of suf fering as a
redemptive mode of protest, is the overarching symbolic framework within
which Memon explicates the entire novel. Exodus, in Husain, carries the
association of the hijrat of Prophet Mohammad and thus the possibility of a
better future.
Through a bold and imaginative leap backward into the primeval hour , Husain
equates—rightly or wrongly—the 1947 exodus of Indian Muslims with the historic
migration (hijrat) of the Prophet Mohammad to Medina in 622 C.E. 61 (p. 19)
This relationship, made possible by a “bold and imaginative leap” (Memon is
even defensive about it—“rightly or wrongly”), between the migration of
Muslims in 1947 and the hijrat, is problematic, particularly in the context
of Indian Islam. Does this relationship reside in the imagination of Husain,
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Ideology and Aesthetics 181

the Shias, the mohajirs or all Muslims who reside in India and Pakistan or all
Muslims of South Asia or only Memon? And what does the ‘imaginative’par-
ticipation of Muslims who remained where they were, mean in plain terms?
The emancipatory aspects of the migration could not have been apparent to a
very large number of Muslims who were forced to leave their homes in search
of security. C.M. Naim has rightly dismissed all such attempts to construct a
meta-history of a monolithic Islam and Islamic society . “The so-called
Islamic past is but an abstraction, constructed by and useful to those who tra-
ditionally have made exclusive claims to hold power .”62 To generalize what
could be a personal vision and belief is to belie and falsify the diverse range
of experiences that Indian Muslims must have gone through during and after
Partition. In any case, a careful reading of Husain’s Basti does not bear out this
uniquely personal vision that Memon is so keen to establish.
The Islamic Shiite meta-history that Memon uses to explain the structure
of the text is a particular construction not borne out by detailed analysis.
Firstly, to consider Zakir, a Shiite, primarily on the strength of his name (‘one
who remembers’) is somewhat misplaced. If there is a representative Shiite in
the novel, it is Zakir ’s father , who uncomplainingly accepts all suf fering,
including the plague, as a part of a lar ger, divine scheme. In his inimitable
manner, instead of moving out of Rupnagar, when the plague is running amok,
he pastes a piece of paper on the door , on which is written, “I have five per-
sonages by whom the power of destructive diseases can be eliminated: they
are Muhammad and Fatima and Hasan and Husain andAli, Ali, Ali.” (p. 13)63
A virtual state of civil war and poor governance are considered nothing much
to be exercised about, since justice has never existed in this imperfect world,
but the sentiments are not Zakir ’s. They are expressed by his father to his
friend.
Abba Jan said gravely, “Khvajah Sahib! In this world there have lived one hundred
twenty-four thousand Prophets, and has the world changed?” (p. 72)
Secondly, there are various historical and mythical events that are recalled
—the Revolt of 1857 (p. 71), the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (p. 70), and there
are references to both Islamic and Hindu origin myths (pp. 4–6). Indeed, t he
numerous references to dif ferent mythologies create an eclectic grid within
which Zakir and his experiences are contextualized. Memon’ s point that the
Shiite Islamic history makes up the essential text does not take into account the
multiplicity of myths and references from Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic sources.
For instance, Afzal converses with the image of Krishna that the earlier
occupants of the house have left behind (p. 105). When people are fleeing
Lahore during the 1971 War fearing an Indian invasion, Afzal narrates a
Buddhist parable about the goose refusing to abandon the burning sandalwood
tree, as it had provided shade to the bird (p. 158). When Zakir is devastated by
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182 Writing Partition

the chaos Lahore has fallen into, the mythic figures and places which people
his reveries include Lord Shiva “of the matted locks” (pp. 179–80), Lord
Krishna, Rama and Dwarika, Yudhishtara and Kurukshetra (pp. 239–41). In
fact, Memon’s approach severely limits and constricts the scope of the text.
Zakir himself is essentialized as an archetypal Shia, something the text does
not bear out.
In the context of stories by Ibrahim Jaleez and Vatsayan, which are clubbed
together as stories of anger and negation, Alok Bhalla argues that the exodus
of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs is not understood by the refugees in the stories
as a re-enactment of sacred events from their religious traditions.
The pain of the present migration, a result of unique historical circumstances, is not
lessened by references either to the wanderings of Rama and the exile of the
Pandavas, or to the hijrat of Prophet Mohammad from Mecca to Medina… (V ol. I,
p. xxii.)
The refugees in these stories are not learned people who can recognize
their migration and the destruction of their habitual world as a chance to be
“filled with grace”. In the same collection, which includes Intizar Hussain’ s
“Sheher-e-Afsose” and “Ek bin-likhi Razmiya”, Bhalla also writes that Husain
seeks the retrieval of memory as one way of making the present and the future
less painful. In any case, the singularization of perspective that results from
any attempt to see the migration in terms of thehijrat, seriously limits the plu-
ralistic traditions that Husain draws upon in his representation of the Indo-
Muslim culture.
The attempt by Memon to interpret Basti using the Shia perspective is
restrictive and limiting. While some aspects of the text can be illuminated in
this way, the novel is far more inclusive and wider in its scope than Memon’s
myopic approach makes out. As a modernist writer, Husain clearly is not con-
cerned with social realism and historical events. For him, the significance of
events does not lie in their surface texture but in their deeper meanings that
transcend the specific context. As has been ar gued, this approach generates
implications for Partition that are not overtly secular. However, a close reading
of the text also suggests a deeply felt anguish at the fragmentation of a poet-
ically realized idyll.
It is, of course, possible for a text to explore deeper and subconscious lev-
els of experience without necessarily reneging on a secular outlook. S tories
like “Lajwanti” and “Gadariya” are representative examples of this. Memon’s
critique of what he calls “narrowly nationalist aspirations” is a skewed approach
towards Partition narratives. There is little doubt that fiction “imparts a kind
of wisdom—a trans-empirical wisdom … felt deep inside the individual in
something like a visionary flash”. 64 From a wider perspective, all creative
works open up corners and niches as well as vistas that exist in the human
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Ideology and Aesthetics 183

self. Its ability to shock and surprise arises in no small measure from the
artist’s vision that transcends the ordinary and the obvious. But to ar gue that
literature does not have a social role to play in the context of the aftermath of
Partition or the Holocaust is to limit its scope. This is particularly so in the
context of the Partition, an event that has been as such a defining moment in
the history of the subcontinent. Memon’s test for whether Partition narratives
written in the immediate aftermath taught society anything is premised on the
assumption that had it been so “none of what is occurring today in SouthAsia
would have occurred…” 65 This is a specious ar gument and flawed on many
counts. As an aspect of culture, literature is the expression of numerous
beliefs and values that have been nurtured and cherished by a civilization.
Without taking away from its universal appeal, in its essence it is local and
specific to the social and historical conditions that have produced it. Very fre-
quently many of the unresolved contradictions within society surface in a
variety of ways in a literary text. Literature, like other cultural constructs, is
not a panacea for the deficiencies in the social and political order . It cannot
provide definitive answers for social and political problems. But at the same
time it can recall cultural norms, values and memories that are frequently lost
sight of in times of stress. In the imagining of an alternative world, these stories
subtly, imperceptibly refocus our attention on what we have lost at the emo-
tional and spiritual levels.
Memon is particularly unhappy with the editorial introductions to various
collections of short stories on the Partition published in the 1990s. 66

According to him, the ideological underpinnings of these “learned introduc-

tions” distorted the material presented in the stories; “Hence [his] decision to
steer clear in [his] own presentation of any such narrowly nationalistic aspi-
rations on the one hand, and of a kind of mealy-mouthed, neo-Gandhian
mumbo-jumbo on the other.67 He also disapproves of what he believes is the
sermonizing tone of the editors in the kind of emphasis that is placed on the
values of secularism and liberal humanism. Jason Francisco has also vehe-
mently dismissed what he perceives as Bhalla’ s sympathy with “Gandhi’ s
personal religious orthodoxy, and with a Hindu religiosity modelled on it”. 68
He is strongly perturbed by Bhalla’s suggestion that Gandhi could have been
accepted as an ethical secular model. Worse, according to him, Bhalla has the
temerity to attack Pakistani historians who justify the violence of Partition “in
defense of Pakistan” as “a historical destiny”, without mentioning the
“appalling levels of communal violence” that Hindutva history has abetted.69
Francisco concludes his sharp critique with the suggestion that Bhalla’ s
“Gandhian humanism seems remarkably like Indian nationalism, more con-
cerned with discrediting Pakistani ideology than setting its own house
right”.70 In a similar vein, the Bangladeshi scholar Niaz Zaman writes that
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184 Writing Partition

though India insists on its multi-cultural unity, this unity is partly the creation
of its creative writers and film-makers: “If, in the process of history , unifica-
tion and fragmentation are inevitable … then the unity of India is as unnatu-
ral as the partition of India into two created states…”71 Zaman argues that the
national identity of writers, whether Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi, is
directly or indirectly manifest in their works. One may even add that the
nationality of scholars is no less manifest in their interpretations and critiques
of the same creative works. It is interesting that the subtitle of Zaman’s
book—The Partition in Selected Novels of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh—
draws attention to the nationalist appropriations of Partition. Such approaches
clearly indicate the unstated biases of scholarship on Partition.
Many of the objections do not take cognizance of the context within which
interest in Partition studies in India emerged in the 1990s. The destruction of
the Babri Masjid and the emer gence of the right-wing Hindu communal
forces in the last decade brought back the origins of the communal divide in
the subcontinent into focus in social sciences and culture studies. Francisco’s
critique of Bhalla and, by extension, Gandhi, can be traced back to the revisionist
approach to Jinnah popularized by the Cambridge-school historians like
Ayesha Jalal. 72 Jinnah is showcased as the secular reasonable character who
only wanted to use Partition as a bargaining counter to secure the future of the
Muslim minorities in a Hindu-dominated India. In this ar gument it becomes
imperative to emphatically assert the Hindu communal orientation of Gandhi
and the Congress leadership. Hence, the vitriolic and somewhat uninformed
attack on Bhalla stems from the strong desire to prove that Indian secularism
is as deeply flawed as Pakistani polity.
Creative writers may or may not have been conscious of their social and
historical contexts (although this is highly improbable for any writer in the
subcontinent writing on the Partition), but there is little doubt that for literary
critics, students of culture studies, social scientists, sociologists and psycho-
logists, Partition narratives have become a rich source. Memon’ s second
objection—that literature essentially deals not with society but with “the exis-
tential situation of the individual”—is a very wide generalization that is highly
debatable. The extension of his critique of preachy, moralistic or ideologically
oriented stories (like those of Krishan Chander) to include all writings that priv-
ilege a secular outlook is untenable. In any case one considers literary texts
to be both aesthetic, social as well as historical documents, and these two are
not mutually exclusive.
It is interesting to look at what Husain himself has to say about his earlier
hope in the creative regeneration of Pakistan being belied by subsequent
events, the overthrow of democracy, the 1965 War with India and the creation
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Ideology and Aesthetics 185

of Bangladesh. In the context of how nations for get their history, he says:
And the great expectation that we had of making something out of it [the experience
of Emigration] at a creative level and of exploiting it in developing a new con-
sciousness and sensibility—that bright expectation has now faded and gone. 73
Which nation is Husain referring to? If he is talking about Pakistan, then what
is the past of that nation or its history but what it shares with India? If the
migration is the definitive and founding event that is being related to the
Pakistani nation, and it is the experience of migration that people have failed
to make anything of, then surely one must remember that the construction of
a Pakistani Islamic identity through the cultural continuum of Islam contra-
dicts the co-mingling of cultures in the pre-Partition period.And the interpen-
etration of Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist mythologies is as much a part of that
Ganga-Jamuni culture, something that Husain so evocatively renders in the
first and last part of the book. However one looks at it, there is a complexity
within Husain that Memon is reluctant to accept. And this complexity arises
from the simultaneity of both a deeply felt anguish for the past as well as a
constructive engagement with the present. Modernist representations of
Partition do not necessarily jettison the secular outlook, as Memon would like
to believe.
A somewhat clearer enunciation of the untying of Partition from its secu-
lar humanist moorings and its recasting and elaboration as the fulfilment of
the Pakistani dream is evident in Mohammad Salim-ur -Rahman’s short story
“The Thaw”. Apart from the numerous commonalities with modernist texts,
it is perhaps the first work that centres on Pakistan and Islam as exclusive,
meaningful categories in the remembrance of Partition. Partition itself is
merely restricted to the murder of a Muslim family by marauding Sikhs and
the migration of other characters. The story describes the trance-like state of
Major Murad, as he lies wounded along the Line of Control between India
and Pakistan sometime during the Indo-Pak War in the Asil Uttar sector . A
refugee himself, he had tried to rescue his family only to come across the
corpses of his mother , sisters, brother and servant, with their wounds still
fresh and blood flowing into the drain. Now, as he lies in a state of shock, sus-
pended between wakefulness and dreams, he sees shoals of people, including
his dead family, walking past him, and looking straight ahead towards the direc-
tion of Pakistan. In more formal aesthetic terms the entire dream is an
epiphany that reveals the meaning of his experiences. As he says, “…it was
for the first time they sensed a glimmer of the truth, the idea for which they
had died.” (p. 222)
The relationship between Murad’ s wakeful dream, in which he sees the
women stitching the flag that looks like a wedding wreath, and Nazir ’s
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186 Writing Partition

experience from his childhood is established through the image of the wed-
ding. The moths die because lamps are lit throughout the night for a wedding
celebration. As a young boy, Nazir recalls the holy man who had carefully col-
lected the wings of the dead moths to put them to rest in the river . However,
the images that are evoked in both cases carry a related set of suggestions that
are central to the experience. The dead moths die because they are attracted
to the light in the same way that Murad’s family and countless other Muslims
die for the cause of a pure ideal—Pakistan. And what the holy man is encour-
aging the young Nazir to recognize is the sanctity of their sacrifices by care-
fully collecting the wings and giving them a formal burial in the river .
The story ef fectively de-historicizes human experience by rejecting the
notion of teleological time. Regarding the transformation in Murad as a con-
sequence of his dreamlike trance, Nazir says:
Time, which had long stood frozen, suddenly started to thaw for him in those days
of the war. … You know—don’t you?—that a seed with the intention of conveying
the trust of a thousand past seasons to a thousand coming ones, grows in two direc-
tions, above ground, and beneath it as well. And this is how we are enabled to break
out of the prison of time. (pp. 233–34)
The seed that conveys “the trust of a thousand past seasons to thousand
coming ones” does not, however , extend backwards beyond the bloody and
violent image—the corpses of his family—that Murad is imprisoned in.
Unlike Husain, who traces the past through both history and mythology ,
Rahman’s story remains imprisoned in the immediate past.
What sort of ideological implications does the modernist representation of
Partition in Salim-ur -Rahman’s story “The Thaw” carry? Thematically and
formally it shares many similarities with the works of Joginder Paul, Krishan
Baldev Vaid, Surendra Prakash and Intizar Husain. One has seen how mem-
ory, the non-linear narrative, consciousness, time, and the experiential self are
all critical aspects in modernist narratives of Partition. Notwithstanding the
virtual elimination of Ideology as it existed in progressive narratives, the
modernist texts considered so far have retained a secular humanist outlook in
one form or the other. “The Thaw” introduces a new perspective in Pakistani
modernist representations. The story carries a clear Islamic orientation. Firstly,
it identifies only Muslim victims of Partition riots, and secondly, it considers
them not as victims but as martyrs for the spiritual ideal enshrined in
Pakistan. Although the image of the dead people returning at night to
Pakistan, their faces suf fused by a green glow and the green lantern of the
tonga suggest a spiritual rather than political idea, the context within which the
images are placed establishes their link with an exclusive Islamic nationalism.
The selective recall of the past—the massacre of Murad’ s entire family by the
Sikhs of Kapurthalla and Kartarpur—and its symbolic significance as a sacrifice
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Ideology and Aesthetics 187

for the pure ideal of Pakistan construct an essentialist Islamic experience. The
violence and murders and rapes of Partition riots thus become ennobling and
worthy acts of sacrifice for an Islamic ideal in Murad’ s imagination. Unlike
Intizar Husain, whose trans-historical Shiite outlook is constantly tempered
by a parallel vision of a shared mythology , Rahman’s representation fails to
extend the experience backward in time. By restricting the past to the images
of Murad’s dead family, the text shuts out the possibility of an extended past. It
is worth recognizing that such a representation falsifies not merely reality
(modernist writers are in any case not really concerned about social material
reality) but also experience itself. This does not in any way imply the invalid-
ity of individual experience. But individual experience becomes isolated and
unitary when represented in such a way that it suggests a singularization of
an experience that was complex and was preceded by a shared history of
experiences.
To conclude, secular ideology and a humanist perspective have had an
obvious role to play in the representations of Partition. Among progressive
realist writers, this ideology/outlook was expressed in a variety of ways.
While the earlier texts tended to privilege a class analysis of communalism,
with the passage of time this gave way to a greater emphasis on many other
aspects of culture like religion, gender and identity . In the case of modernist
works, with their concern for individual experience, many aspects of Progressive
narratives are rejected. A sharper focus on memory , recalling, nostalgia; or
even a refusal to remember or an inability to accept the traumatic past, coupled
with a need to interpret the present in the light of the past, leads to a recasting
of the narrative mode. However, the secular humanist perspective continues to
inform these modernist narratives. The privileging of individual experience
does not reject the pluralist, humanist idea at any level. Indeed, it is precisely
a syncretic and shared existence, albeit in a dif ferent social and geographical
context, that is held out as the means whereby the individual can overcome
his traumatic memories.
We have also traced the trajectory of modernism in Pakistan by analysing
its significant difference from the work of Indian writers. The imperative of
creating a distinct Pakistani identity particularly by the second generation of
Pakistani Urdu writers, has had major consequences for the way Partition has
been represented. Indeed, the very term Partition has been substituted with
the phrase ‘birth of Pakistan’ and the event has been completely transformed
from being a terrible catastrophe to a welcome and eagerly awaited outcome
of a long struggle for the creation of a Muslim homeland in which thousands
of people achieved martyrdom.
Political and social imperatives have had a role to play in the perspective
in which a historical event like Partition is viewed. The carving out of a sep-
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188 Writing Partition

arate country in 1947 has had far -reaching consequences for its people. The
need to create a distinct identity that clearly demarcates it from the political
and cultural ethos of India and the Indian National Movement has led to sig-
nificant reconfigurations in several areas. For obvious reasons, Pakistani
intellectuals, writers, ideologues and apologists have played an active role in
the creation of a whole body of knowledge devoted to Pakistani cultural and
political identity, its roots, history , ancestry and ideology . There is a move-
ment away from the earlier debates, particularly in history, that centred on the
Hindu communal leanings of the Indian National Congress as the reason for
the creation of a separate state for the Muslims. But the post-Partition gener-
ation has been more positively assertive about its Pakistani identity . The
Islamic roots and the perceived af finity with a pan-Islamic society has led
Pakistani intellectuals to seek connections not with India but with the Arab
world. The hostility to modernity too has strengthened such tendencies. From
Partition as a tragedy to Partition as the long awaited outcome of a cherished
dream—the transition has been dramatic. Literature too has not been spared.
Partition studies have also influenced the reading of Partition narratives. In
a peculiar ironic reversal, the secular humanist approach has become suspect,
while the narrower Islamic construction is endorsed as a genuine expression
of a people’s cultural memory. While it is not within the scope of this work to
debate the ideology of the Indian S tate, the antipathy to the secular humanist
approach reveals a strong anti-secular prejudice. Postcolonial critiques of
nation and secularism have given strength to the communal discourse in the
name of community and dif ference. By endorsing the unique and singular
perspective on Partition, the anti-secular approach mar ginalizes narratives
that dream of an inclusive community bound by a common culture.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. See, for instance, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in
India’s Partition (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998), Shail Mayaram, Resisting
Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1997), Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: V oices from the
Partition of India (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1998), Gyanendra Pandey, “The
Prose of Otherness” in Subaltern Studies, Vol. VIII (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1994) and Remembering Partition: V iolence, Nationalism and History in India
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
2. Terry Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory (Great
Britain: Verso, New Left Books, 1985 [1976]), p. 20.
3. Ibid., p. 69.
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Ideology and Aesthetics 189

4. Ibid., p. 69.
5. Ibid., p. 20.
6. Terms like ‘European modernism’ are misleading, given that there are dif ferent kinds
of modernisms, which become apparent at dif ferent points in time. While the high
phase of British modernism is normally considered to be the period between 1900 and
1939, the French existentialist writers produced their major works during the Second
World War. (Sartre’s Being and Nothingness came out in 1943, whereas Camus pro-
duced The Myth of Sisyphus in 1942 and The Plague in 1947.) Among readers and
writers in India, while British writing was initially quite popular, during the 1950s and
1960s writing from the subcontinent provided important sources of inspiration. Harish
Trivedi draws attention to the popularity of diverse writings among Hindi writers in the
period after Independence, as for instance, the French existentialists and the Latin
American and German and Italian ‘magic realists’. Harish Trivedi, Colonial
Transactions, pp. 192–93.
7. Introduction to The World of Premchand: Selected S tories of Premchand, Translated
by David Rubin (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1969), p. 13.
8. From Ralph Russell, “Prem Chand and the Short S tory”, in The Pursuit of Ur du
Literature: A Select History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 196.
9. Ahmad Ali, “The Progressive Writers’ Movement and Creative Writers in Urdu”, in
Carlo Coppola (ed.) Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, p. 42.
10. Ibid., p. 44.
11. Priyamvada Gopal, Literary Radicalism in India: Gender , Nation and T ransition to
Independence (London and New York: Routledge, 2005[2005]).
12. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
13. Indian Literature, No. 2, 1952. By ‘N’. From Sudhi Pradhan (ed.), Marxist Cultural
Movement in India: Chr onicles and Documents (1943–1964), Vol. III (Calcutta:
Shanti Pradhan, 1985) p. 62.
14. Premchand, “Upanyas” in Nirmal Verma and Kamal Kishore Goenka (eds),
Premchand Rachna Sanchayan (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1994), pp. 685–86.
Translation mine.
15. From “Note by Translator”, in Saadat Hasan Manto, Partition: Sketches and S tories
(Translated by Khalid Hasan) (New Delhi: Viking, Penguin Books India, 1991), p. xiii.
16. From “The Aim of Literature” in Appendix to The Oxford India Pr emchand (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004).
17. Alok Rai, “The Trauma of Independence: Some Aspects of Progressive Hindi
Literature, 1945–47” in Amit Kumar Gupta (ed.), Myth and Reality: The Struggle for
Freedom in India, 1945–47 (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and
Manohar Publishers, 1987), pp. 309–27.
18. Ibid., p. 320.
19. Krishan Chander, Hum Vahshi Hain (Lucknow: Kitabi Duniya, 1948).
20. Alok Rai, “The Trauma of Independence”, p. 322.
21. “Pali” is available in Pali (New Delhi: Rajkamal, 1989).
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190 Writing Partition

22. “Parmeshar Singh” was first published in Baazaar-e-Hayaat (Lahore: Idara-e-Farogh-

e-Urdu, 1952).
23. References to Sahni’s “Amritsar Aa Gaya”, Krishan Chander ’s “Peshawar Express”,
Rai’s “Filth”, Singh’s “The Bridge and the River”, Farruqi’s “The Land of Memories”,
Qasim’s “Where Did She Belong?” and Qasmi’ s “Parmeshar Singh” are from Alok
Bhalla (ed.), Stories About the Partition of India , 3 Vols (New Delhi: Indus,
HarperCollins, 1994). Volume and page numbers follow the quoted passage in the text.
24. Qudrat Ullah Shahab, “Y a Khuda” (“O God”) in Saros Cowasjee and K.S. Duggal
(comp.), Orphans of the S torm: Stories on the Partition of India (New Delhi: UBS
Publishers and Distributors Ltd., 1995), p. 293.
25. From Introduction to Orphans of the Storm, p. xvii.
26. It is possible that some writers may not have been formal members of the IPW A.
Manto was never formally a member of the or ganization. Yet, it would be hard to
locate any significant writing of this period, which did not carry the stamp of progres-
sive realism.
27. Yogendra Malik “Socialist Realism and Hindi Novels” in Carlo Coppola (ed.),
Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, p. 127.
28. Niaz Zaman, A Divided Legacy: The Partition in Selected Novels of India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2000). Copyright: The University
Press Limited, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
29. Ibid., p. 333.
30. Ibid., pp. 187–88.
31. Corinne Friend, “The Evolution of Yashpal from Socialist Realist to Humanist”, in
Carlo Coppola (ed.), Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, p. 166.
32. Mumtaz Shah Nawaz, The Heart Divided (Lahore: ASR Publications, 1990. [1957]).
All references to this book are from this edition.
33. All references to the novel are from Rahi Masoom Reza, Adha Gaon, translated by
Gillian Wright as The Feuding Families of V illage Gangauli (New Delhi: Penguin
Books India, 1995).
34. Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 200.
35. Ibid., p. 200.
36. This position is also taken by , among others, Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu
Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994) and Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, The Muslim League and the
Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
37. All references to the novel are from Qurratulain Hyder, River of Fire (Aag ka Darya),
Transcreated from the original Urdu by the author , (New Delhi: Kali for Women,
1998, [1958]), p. 203. I have tried to overcome the limitations of the shortened English
version by keeping as close as possible to the original Urdu version.
38. According to the editors of Saadat Hasan Manto:Dastavez, “Thanda Gosht” was one
of the 161 short stories that Manto wrote between 1948 and 1955. See ‘Bibliography’
Saadat Hasan Manto: Dastavez, Vol. II, pp. 454–456.
39. Aijaz Ahmad, In the Mirror of Urdu, p. 21.
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Ideology and Aesthetics 191

40. From Introduction to Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, The Old Banyan and Other S tories,
translated by Faruq Hassan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. xvi.
41. All references to Hasan Manzar ’s “Kanha Devi ka Gharana” and Mohammad Salim-
ur-Rahaman’s “The Thaw” are from Mohammad Umar Memon (ed), An Epic
Unwritten. Page numbers follow quoted passage in the text.
42. All references to Hasan Manzar’s “Kanha Devi ka Gharana” (first published in Rihai,
Hyderabad, Aagahi Publications, 1981) are taken from Mohammad Umar Memon
(ed.), An Epic Unwritten.
43. The phrase has been used by the Pakistani American critic and writer M.U. Memon,
in his introduction to An Epic Unwritten.
44. Hasan Manzar, A Requiem for the Earth: Selected S tories, Pakistan Writers’ Series,
Series Editor, M.U. Memon, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. xv .
45. Note how even a text like Joginder Paul’ s Khwabrau, written in the modernist mode,
eventually concludes imagining a time when the mohajir immigrants and the Sindhi
natives would bond to create a new partnership.
46. From “An Introductory Note” by Alok Bhalla, in Intizar Husain, Leaves and Other
Stories (New Delhi: Indus, HarperCollins India, 1993), p. vii.
47. All references are from Intizar Husain, Basti translated by Frances W. Pritchett Delhi:
HarperCollins, 1995 [1979]).
48. Introduction by Mohammad Umar Memon in Intizar Husain, Basti, p. xiii.
49. Introduction to Intizar Husain, The Seventh Door and Other S tories, edited by
Mohammad Umar Memon (London: A Three Continents Book, L ynne Rienner
Publishers, 1988), p. 30.
50. All references to Intizar Husain’ s “An Epic Unwritten” are from Muhammad Umar
Memon, (ed. and trans.), An Epic Unwritten.
51. Ian Bedford, “Intizar Husain’s ‘An Unwritten Epic’ and the ‘Matter of Pakistan’, p. 30.
52. Ibid., p. 30.
53. Intizar Husain, A Chronicle of the Peacocks: S tories of Partition, Exile and Lost
Memories, translated by Alok Bhalla and Vishwamitter Adil (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2002), p. xiv.
54. Ibid., p. xiv.
55. The attempt to create an anti-progressive Partition narrative within the context of
South Asian society results in several peculiarities of which the remnant of a pluralist
mythology is only one. The brooding sense of pessimism that hovers around Husain’s
works also recalls the construction of Partition as a tragedy. But the significant differ-
ence lies in how Husain focusses not on Partition but on the birth of Pakistan, its great
potential and its terrible decline.
56. “An Introductory Note” by Alok Bhalla, in Intizar Husain, Leaves and Other Stories,
p. vi.
57. Introduction by Mohammad Umar Memon, in Intizar Husain, Basti, p. xvii.
58. Ibid., p. xvii.
59. Cited by Memon in the Introduction to The Seventh Door, p. 32.
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192 Writing Partition

60. Ibid., p.34. The problem is that it is rather facile to look at literature from the subcon-
tinent purely in aesthetic terms. No text that deals with the issue of Partition and society
after Independence can really evade the issue of a common heritage and culture. To a
very lar ge extent, the academic debate on Husain stems from the need to create a
Pakistani identity that somehow manages to negate the common ancestry that it shares
with Indian culture and history. The idea of a common heritage and culture runs con-
trary to the idea of an Islamic national identity . In fact, the cultural and historical
Muslim continuum that Memon refers to is what intersects the memory of a shared
Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist past that Husain evokes.
61. Ibid., p. 19.
62. C. M. Naim, Ambiguities of Heritage: Fictions and Polemics (Karachi: City Press
Publication, 1999), pp. 63–64.
63. Ali was the son-in-law of Prophet Mohammad through his marriage to Fatima. He was
also the last Calipha and his sons Hasan and Husain and the entire extended family
was brutally massacred by the opposing political faction’s henchman Yazid. The mar-
tyrdom of Imam Husain is revisited by Shias every year on the occasion of Mohurram.
It is an occasion of mourning and lamentation.
64. From the Preface in Mohammad Umar Memon (ed. and trans.), An Epic Unwritten, p.
xii.
65. Ibid.
66. Memon is referring to the introductions by Alok Bhalla in Stories About the Partition
of India and by Mushirul Hasan in the book India Partitioned: The Other Face of
Freedom.
67. Preface to Mohammad Umar Memon (ed. and trans.), An Epic Unwritten, p. xiii.
68. Jason Francisco, “In the Heat of Fratricide: The Literature of India’s Partition Burning
Freshly” Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol. 11, 1996, pp. 227–50.
69. This is a deliberate misreading. Bhalla is no less critical of Hindu communal forma-
tions, their brand of distorted history , and the immeasurable havoc that they have
wreaked in recent times.
70. Francisco, “In the Heat of Fratricide”, p. 234.
71. Zaman, A Divided Legacy, p. 335.
72. See, for instance, Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman.
73. Introduction by Mohammad Umar Memon in Intizar Husain, Basti, p. xviii.
chap06.qxp 10/29/2008 9:39 PM Page 193

CONCLUSION

This work has critically explored the ways in which Partition has been repre-
sented in Hindi and Urdu fiction over roughly half a century. Beginning with
the earliest short stories of the late 1940s till today, the theme of Partition has
witnessed dif ferent kinds of representations, ideological interrogations and
contestations. Essentially, a historical event in the late 1940s, Partition is sub-
jected to a closer scrutiny by progressive writers before being transformed
into a modernist theme. In its modernist reconfiguration, Partition is essen-
tially considered in terms of its implications for the uprooted and displaced
individual. In a sense, modernist texts take up the ‘partitioned’ individual rather
than Partition itself.
Literary movements or trends and philosophical, cultural and ideological
reorientations have, jointly or separately, gone into the making of this extremely
rich and varied theme of Partition in literature. Given the enormity and sud-
denness of the event and its lasting impact on social and political develop-
ments, it has held out tremendous potential for the creative writer . Initially,
the anxiety and insecurity of the times, the sudden and often violent deaths of
care providers like parents, and the experience of being faceless in an alien
place were difficult to render in the conventional realistic form. The chapter
“The Individual and Society” examined the sudden break in the relationship
between the individual and her community , village, mohalla or group as a
consequence of Partition and also showed how creative writers struggled to
make sense of the event in the earliest representations. The initial naturalistic
documentation by writers like Hyatullah Ansari or Krishan Chander indicated
as early as the late 1940s, that a tragedy as monumental as Partition could not
find a successful expression in the traditional realistic categories of class,
caste and gender. This was not a simple case of a caste or class conflict that,
no matter how serious, remained confined to a limited time and space.
Nothing in recent history parallels this sudden and manmade disaster , in
which the principal agents of violence were not some powerful, consolidated
groups, but ordinary people from virtually any section of society who were
caught in a vortex of violence and counter-violence. Naturalistic represen-
tation was one of the initial responses of cre ative writers. Not only did it
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194 Writing Partition

provide an aesthetic framework to represent a different kind of reality, it also

provided a means whereby the artist made sense of a monstrous and unnatu-
ral situation.
Forced to flee their homes, towns and villages, the refugees running across
newly created national borders found themselves in completely alien places.
But it is in these new places that they had to fashion newer identities by leav-
ing behind their past. This shift or movement from one kind of identity to
another was a complex and dif ficult process. The demands of the present
functioned in tandem with the pulls of the past in the refashioning of identi-
ties. Memory, the sense of loss, and the vitality of the imagination are some
of the crucial aspects of this search for a new identity . While some of the
stories end with the suggestion that the individual now has to chart a new
direction in life, others explore this process holistically by focussing on the
individual self in the aftermath of Partition.
This study has simultaneously attempted to trace the growth of modernism
in Hindi and Urdu fiction in the context of a societal and philosophical shift
brought about by Partition. At one level, the massive dislocations of people
and the extensive violence in which common men and women were engulfed
created conditions in which the individual was compelled to rethink and ques-
tion her own subjective identity. The contours of relatively stable identities of
class, gender and religion were reshaped and redrawn because it was neces-
sary to engage with a new social situation of homelessness and alienation
from the family . At another level, creative writers also recognized that the
new emotional and mental landscape required a different narrative form. The
content found a new and appropriate form in the Nai Kahani of the 1950s,
which is normally considered a marker of a new modernist sensibility . The
experimentalism of writers like Agyeya during the 1940s found its ef flores-
cence in the Nai Kahani of the 1950s. Realism was clearly limited when it
came to representing a dif ferent kind of reality that was situated within the
psyche of the individual.
Shades of a modernist representation of Partition can be found in some of
the stories that took up individual tragedies, such as “T oba Tek Singh”,
“Lajwanti”, “Malbe ka Malik” and “Gadariya”. Once the focus shifted to the
individual, it was perhaps inevitable that the concern of the writers shifted
from the violence to its impact on the individual. While these stories did not
fully plumb the post-Partition scenario, they did suggest that it was quite
clearly impossible to go back to life as it was before the Partition. The expe-
rience had not only altered the social landscape, but it had also altered the per-
spective through which reality would now be apprehended. Uprooted from all
paradigms that went into the creation of an identity, at the end of the story, the
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Conclusion 195

individual is left standing at the edge of a new world, lost and faceless on the
one hand and completely free to fashion a new identity on the other .
Mainstream modernist representations elaborated many of the ideas that
had been suggested by the aforementioned stories. Writers like Intizar Husain,
Surendra Prakash, Krishan Baldev Vaid and Joginder Paul created a new aes-
thetic framework within which the post-Partition reality found its appropriate
expression. The emphasis on the individual’ s inner self, its traumatic aware-
ness of the loss, the shadow of the past on the present and paradoxically the
irreversibility of the process of time, the indeterminacy and blurring of the
contours of the self—these were all sketched in a modernist idiom. Nostalgic
recollections were crisscrossed by the shadows of the present and the need to
fashion new identities in keeping with the demands of the present; the new
content created a new form.
But this new content was also constituted by fresh ideological imperatives
(particularly those relating to gender), which in some cases continued to be
framed within the realistic form. In the chapters “Ideology and Aesthetics”
and “The Woman Protagonist,” it has been shown how ideological positions
get expressed through both realistic and modernist forms. In women-centred
narratives, the emergence of the first-person narrator creates a modernist fem-
inist narrative, whereas Yashpal’s Jhoota Such and Manzoor Ehtesham’ s
Sookha Bargad are examples of ideologically oriented novels that explored
the formation of new identities within a sociological context and a realistic
form. Unlike the earlier Progressive realist texts, the secular humanist per-
spective finds a more nuanced expression in later realist texts like Bhisham
Sahni’s Tamas or Manzoor Ehtesham’s Sookha Bargad.
While many of the early naturalistic stories represented the woman as a
victim of patriarchal and communal forces, some of the stories and novels
after the emer gence of the Nai Kahani explored the various ways in which
abducted and/or rejected women tried to come to terms with life. In this
process, a new and empowered subjectivity was constructed. While most of these
women are not able to completely rid themselves of a patriarchal orientation,
they engage with it and recognize its crippling effects. Women-centred Partition
texts are significant because they do not stereotype women as helpless vic-
tims. They reveal how women perceive their own selves and also how they
can empower themselves in enabling contexts even within patriarchal society.
In other words, Partition or the consequences of Partition are not extirely neg-
ative for women characters. They can also push the victims of patriarchy to
fight for their own space and identity . Although it is primarily the educated
middle-class woman who is able to chart out a visibly independent course,
other victims too become aware of their oppression and attempt to resist it in
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196 Writing Partition

subtle ways. The chapter on the woman protagonist in Partition narratives has
attempted to show how dislocation created a space for women empowerment.
A greater degree of self-consciousness, awareness of one’s gendered iden-
tity and its possible restructuring in an altered context could not be contained
within some of the older frames of reference. The subjectivities of women
both as victims and in their opposition to their victimization were the focus
of modernist writing on this subject. While some writers employed dif ferent
modernist, narrative forms and techniques (for instance, first-person or
stream-of-consciousness narratives) to represent a new approach and sensibility
to the woman’s question even progressive realist writers produced women-
centred narratives with a self-consciously feminist sensibility . This is not to
argue that progressive realist writers were not feminist in their approach in the
earlier phase but to indicate a greater and more nuanced awareness of the
issue in their representations in the later phase.
Purely from a study of Partition narratives in Hindi and Urdu, it is possi-
ble to generalize that the shift from realism to modernism during the 1950s
and 1960s, did not lead to a complete break with the realistic form. At the
empirical level, realistic works like Bhisham Sahni’ s Tamas or Manzoor
Ehtesham’s Sookha Bar gad (published in 1974 and 1983 respectively) are
evidence of how social realism continued to register its presence and rele-
vance in Hindi fiction. Similarly, Joginder Paul’s modernist Urdu stories do not
have the esoteric and completely anti-realistic form found in many Pakistani
stories. For all their modernism, they remain rooted in a tangible reality . At
the literary aesthetic level, the realistic form has constantly underpinned
modernist works in a way that makes them quite distinct from their Western
counterparts. Characteristic of Western existentialist texts in the first half of
the twentieth century are the absolute alienation of the individual from society ,
her hallucinatory experience in a godless world, the unpredictability of each
moment and the rapid flux of identity, but these are not the staple features of
modernist Hindi and Urdu function. The individual has not been divorced
from society. Instead, a delicate balance has been maintained between the
two, in which the individual is simultaneously a part of and outside society .
The cognition of a unique inner self that is not identical to a social persona is
one of the defining aspects of modernism. Yet, this unique self has to con-
stantly engage with social processes and interrogate the myriad ways in
which they hold her . In particular , the representation of the woman’ s con-
sciousness and its implications for her identity in a patriarchal society is an
important aspect of modernist representations in the narratives of Partition.
The construction of a woman’s subjectivity is in itself a modernist moment in
these literatures. From being represented as a wife, mother or sister , she now
becomes aware of herself as an individual. No matter how much she feels that
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Conclusion 197

she is at the mercy of patriarchal forces in society, her ability to distance herself
from this victimized self signals a turning point in her ideological orientation.
It is necessary to remember that the social and historical conditions that
underpinned the emer gence of modernism in the West did not exist in India
during the second half of the twentieth century. The rapid growth of capitalist
economies, the inequalities and frustrations of life in modern cities, the fail-
ure of the modern State to deliver on the promise of genuine freedom for the
disadvantaged and the sharply declining belief in religion were not significant
aspects of the social and historical reality in India. Through a large part of the
twentieth century, the crucial struggle has been against colonialism and impe-
rialism. The transition from feudalism to capitalism, which accompanied
most democratic revolutions in Western Europe, traced a dif ferent trajectory
in the Indian context. The colonial intervention created conditions of under-
development even as the West was rapidly developing its capital and indus-
trial base. The socialist vision that underlined the independent Indian nation,
the largely agricultural economy and the colonial modernity that was the left
over from British rule could nowhere approximate the conditions that pre-
vailed in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century . However the dis-
location caused by Partition, the violent uprooting of settled communities and
the social reconfigurations that it entailed created a climate in which some
aspects of modernism found a fertile soil among creative writers of Hindi
and Urdu.
Literary trends or movements in any language do not ever replicate their
counterparts in any other language unless they are mere imitations. At the
same time, most creative writers are aware of literary forms in other lan-
guages. Numerous Hindi and Urdu writers have been bilingual and their
familiarity not only with the English language but also with European litera-
tures (through English translations) needs little elaboration. Shifts in literary
forms came as a consequence of several factors. This conjuncture of social,
historical and aesthetic concerns has its own specificities. Thus, while com-
parative frameworks are useful input in any critical study , it is important to
note that each literary tradition has its own uniqueness. Modernism in Hindi
and Urdu fiction cannot be merely equated with any other modernism. Both
its differences and its similarities with its counterparts elsewhere need to be
looked at with a degree of caution. It is possible to overstate either similarities
or differences if one is not sensitive to the nuances of the moment of conjunc-
ture that we have referred to.
Modernism in Hindi and Urdu fiction emerged in specific conditions caused
by a rupture in society. With the passage of time, other kinds of concerns and
issues came to dominate literary production. The defeat in the Chinese war of
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198 Writing Partition

1962, the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964, the creation of Bangladesh in

1971, the Emergency in 1975 and the spread of communalism after the Nehru
years, all created their own reverberations in fiction. Both modernism and
realism came to co-exist from the 1970s onwards. If writers like
Phanishwarnath Renu and Nirmal Verma wrote intensely inward-oriented
stories, Shrilal Shukl also produced Raag Darbari (Hindi, 1968), a novel that
explored the ugly nexus of landlords, politicians and the bureaucracy in con-
temporary times. And both forms also rubbed of f on each other . Modernist
texts did not become fanciful and obscure narratives, as they sometimes did
in the West; they remained rooted in their times. Realist texts too shed their
Progressive dogma and ended with many unanswered questions. The traditional
sequential and chronological model of literary history needs to be reworked in
the context of Hindi and Urdu fiction. Perhaps one of the factors that can partly
explain this rather unique co-existence of the realist and the modernist form
is the fragmented nature of society itself. Urban existence, particularly the
lives of the middle classes, their ennui and angst, has been the subject of
many modernist Hindi and Urdu writers from both sides of the border . In
Hindi, Srikant Verma, Mohan Rakesh, Rajendra Yadav and Kamleshwar and
in Urdu, Balraj Menra, Enver Sajjad, Surendra Prakash and Khalida Husain
have written several short stories on modern, urban existence. This has led to
a simplistic and erroneous conclusion that a modernist sensibility is generally
restricted to a particular area and class. There are exceptions, of course. Ek Adim
Ratri ki Mehak is a rare modernist story set in a rural context. Nevertheless,
issues of caste and economic exploitation, the discrimination against minority
and other disadvantaged groups, given their ideological nature, find their
expression more often in the realist form. But concluding from this distinc-
tion that modernist literature is reactionary or conservative is to oversimplify .
It is the nature of the content that determines the aesthetic form, and the expe-
rience of the urban middle-classes is no less authentic than that of the poor
and the oppressed.
Partition narratives from India and Pakistan cannot but be strongly entan-
gled in the web of ideology. If realism was the preferred mode for Progressive
writers with their secular , humanist concerns, modernism became an appro-
priate mode for the representation of a restrictive identity by some Pakistani
Urdu writers. Among Indian Urdu writers, however, the secular humanist per-
spective, though not as apparent as in mainstream progressive representa-
tions, continued to subtly register its presence even in modernist texts. The
chapter ‘Ideology and Aesthetics’ has discussed how the need to create a new
Pakistani, Islamic identity led some Pakistani Urdu writers to re-christen
Partition as the birth of Pakistan and locate the event within a continuous and
unbroken history of Islam in the world. Mohammad Umar Memon, for
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Conclusion 199

instance, has commented extensively on the Shia theological aspects of

Intizar Husain’s novel Basti, to locate it within a tradition of Islamic history .
While Memon’s interpretation could possibly be a response to the char ges of
nostalgia and political quietude levelled against Intizar Husain by some
Pakistani critics, his approach involves a misreading of the text as it deliber-
ately omits the aspects that fall outside the narrow scope of Shia theology. In
the process it also serves to undermine the liberal humanist character of a
work like Basti.
One must, however, be cautious in assigning ideological labels to narrative
forms or modes. Literary forms and aesthetic frameworks have been appro-
priated by the rhetoric of Cold War politics in the West. In India too, one has
seen how left-oriented ideologues have simply superimposed Cold War polit-
ical rhetoric on the Indian literary scene. Neither realism nor modernism is
either progressive or reactionary. Some of the greatest modernist works have
been incisive critiques of capitalist society , just as the greatest realist writers
have been shown to have reactionary tendencies. Thus, it is imperative to go
beyond simple juxtapositions of form and ideology and examine the ways in
which creative writers have employed dif ferent narrative modes for their
specific purposes, and this is what I have attempted in this study .
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Index.qxp 11/4/2008 4:34 PM Page 213

INDEX

A B
aantrik yathaartha, 41 Babri Masjid demolition (1992), 3, 184
Abbas, K. A., Bagchi, Jasodara,
“The Death of Sheikh Burhanuddin”, The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and
145 Partition in Eastern India, 5
Abducted women, 100–102 Bangla short stories, 2
Agyeya, 2, 9, 27–28, 32 basharat, 175
Apne Apne Ajnabi, 28 Basu, Aparna, 101
charges of imitation or artificiality, 35 Bedford, Ian, 5, 176
“Sharnarthi”, 142 “Intizar Husain’s ‘An Unwritten Epic’ and
“The Refuge”, 143–44 the ‘Matter of Pakistan’”, 5
Ahmad, Aijaz, 6, 31, 40 Bedi, Rajinder Singh, 2, 29, 139
“In the Mirror of Urdu: Recompositions of “Lajwanti”, 55–57, 97, 107–108
Nation and Community, 1947–65”, 4 Bengali women refugees, 123
Ahmad, Ashfaq, 52, 54, 87, 168 Bhakti saints, 140
“Gadariya”, 52–53, 166–67 Bhalla, Alok, 14, 148, 173, 176, 183
Ahmad, Nazir, Partition Dialogues: Memories of a Lost
Mirat-ul-Arus, 93 Home, 4
Akbar, Emperor, 140 Stories About the Partition of India,
Ali, Ahmad, 27, 136 3–4
All Pakistan Progressive Writers’ Association Bhasin, Kamla, 95, 110
(APPWA), 40, 169 Borders and Boundaries: Women in
alienation, 25, 64 India’s Partition, 5
Anand, Mulk Raj, 137 “Recovery, Rupture, Resistance: Indian
“Andhe”, 141 State and Abduction of Women During
Angare, 9, 27 Partition”, 5
Angelou, Maya, bourgeois realism, 20
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 98 Bradbury, Malcolm, 19–20
Anglo-Americans, 20 Brahmo Samaj, 92
Ansari, Hyatullah, 193 Buddhism, 140
Shukrguzar Ankhein; Lahoo ke Phool, Butalia, Urvashi, 95, 100
96 “Community, State and Gender: On
anti-Sikh riots of 1984, 3 Women’s Agency During Partition”,
Arya Samaj, 92 5
Ashoka, Emperor, 140 The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the
Azhar, Masood, 169 Partition of India, 5
Index.qxp 11/4/2008 4:34 PM Page 214

214 Index

C Ehtasham, Manzoor
Chakravartty, Gargi, 123 Sookha Bargad, 3, 31, 60, 61–64, 150,
Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women 162–65, 195
of Bengal, 5 Ek Adim Ratri ki Mehak, 34, 198
Chander, Krishan, 2, 139, 193 Eliot, George, 133
“A Prostitute’s Letter”, 141 Eliot, T. S., 24
Hum Vahshi Hain, 96, 141–42 English education, 21–22
“Peshawar Express”, 110, 144, 147 English translations, of Partition-related
Chatterjee, Partha, 92 literary narratives, 3
Chauhan, Subhadra Kumari, 94 European progressivism, 8
Chauhan, Sudha, 94 Existentialism, 19
Chekhov’s stories, 37–38
child widowhood, 92 F
Choudhary, Kamla, 94 fascism, 137
Chughtai, Ismat, 29, 94, 137 Faiz, Faiz Ahmad, 40
“Lihaaf”, 33 family and modernity, 25
Communist Party of Pakistan, 39 Farruqi, Asif Aslam,
community, constructions of the “The Land of Memories”, 146
in Ashfaq Ahmad’s “Gadariya”, 52–53 Fatima, Altaf,
in the narratives of Partition, 50 Dastak Naa Do, 115
in Premchand’s stories, 50 Fazl, Abul,
comparative literature, 11 Ranga Prabhat, 2
Coward, Rosalind, 99 feminist literary theory, 91
Cowasjee, Saros, 3, 145 feminist perspective in Partition
Cracking India. see Sidhwa, Bapsi narratives, 97
cultural syncretism, post-Partition, 52–53 First World War, 19
Forster, E. M.,
D A Passage of India, 107
Francisco, Jason, 183–84
Dasgupta, Shubharanjan,
“In the Heat of Fratricide: The
The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and
Literature of India’s Partition
Partition in Eastern India, 5
Burning Fresh”, 4
Debi, Jyotirmoyee,
Freud, Sigmund, 10, 28
Epar Ganga, Opar Ganga, 2, 102–104
Devi, Homvati, 94
Devy, G.N., 23–24 G
Dickens, Charles, 133 Gaban, 136
Din-i-Ilahi, 140 Gandhiji, 4, 24, 140, 184
Direct Action Day, 1 Ganga-Jamuni culture, 185
Duggal, K. S., 3 Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gaubar,
Orphans of the Storm, 145 The Mad Woman in the Attic, 91
Nun te Maa, 2 Gimmi, Salim Khan,
Dutt, Gauri Sanjh, 2
Devrani Jethani ki Kahani, 93 God, concept of, 25
dynamic individualism, 26 Goswami, Kishorelal,
Hriday Harni, 93
E Gujarat communal riots (2002), 3
Eagleton, Terry, 133 Gulzar, 4
East Pakistani novelists, 2
Index.qxp 11/4/2008 4:34 PM Page 215

Index 215

H India, modernisation in
Habermas, Jurgen, 18 colonial intervention and, 21–22
Hans, 4, 140 concept of teleological linear time, 25
Hasan, Mushirul, emergence of modernity in literature,
India Partitioned: The Other Face of 32
Freedom, Vol. II, 3 influence of Western concepts of tradition
Hashmi, Jamila, 168 and culture, 23–24
“Banished”, 98–100, 122 and non-English literatures, 30
Hassan, Faruq, 169 social reforms, 22–23
Heidegger, Martin, 134 Indian Progressive Writers Association
Hindi literary works, 2 (IPWA), 4, 9, 27, 40, 137
constructions of the community, 50 Indian Urdu writers, 198
modernism, 26–27, 168 Indo-Pak War of 1965, 3, 6, 7, 62, 162, 164,
modernist element in, 31–39 168, 169, 185
modern moment in, 27–30 Indo-Pak War of 1971, 3, 62, 162,
Hindu–Muslim solidarity in literature, 145 182
Hindustani, 7 Industrial Revolution, 134
Husain, Abdullah, Islamic selfhood, 176–79
Udas Naslein, 172 Islamism, in Partition literature,
Husain, Intizar, 3, 4, 7, 60, 169, 187 172
Basti, 65, 158–59, 173–75, 199
Shia perspective, 182 J
“Ek bin-likhi Razmiya”, 65, 84–87, Jadeed Afsana, 17, 31
175–78 jadeediyat. see Urdu fiction, modernism
Leaves and Other Stories, 173 Jahan, Rashid, 27, 136–37
The Seventh Door and Other Stories, 179 Jain, Jasbir,
Husain, Khalida, 169, 198 “Daughters of Mother India in Search
Hussein, Abdullah, of a Nation: Women’s Narratives
Udaas Naslein, 2–3 About the Nation”, 5
Husserl, Edmund, 134 Jalal, Ayesha, 184
Hyder, Nazar Sajjad, 94 Jameson, Fredric, 19
Hyder, Qurratulain, 13, 33, 94, 119, Jinnah, 184
147, 150, Joshi, Ilachandra, 9, 27–28, 32
Aag ka Dariya, 2, 28, 150, 160–62 Joyce, James, 28
Mere bhi Sanamkhane, 28
K
I
Kamleshwar, 4, 32–33, 198
ideology Karmabhumi, 94
and class oppression, 141 Khamosh Paani, 105
in the context of Marxism and progressive Khan, Ayub, 7, 39, 169
writing, 139 Khan, Farrukh A.,
in creative writing, 139 “Speaking Violence: Pakistani Women’s
and IPWA, 135 Narratives of Partition”, 5
in Partition narratives from Pakistan, Khan, Liaqat Ali, 39
179–82 Kidwai, Begum Anis,
relation with aesthetics Azadi ki Chaon Mein, 3, 101
Eagleton’s model, 133 Kulshreshta, Mahendra, 3
Marxist understanding, 134 Kumar, Jainendra, 9, 27–28, 32
socialist and nationalist, 134
Index.qxp 11/4/2008 4:34 PM Page 216

216 Index

Kumar, Sukrita, 28 modern

Narrating Partition: Texts, Interpretations, common definition, 17
Ideas, 4, 6 in the Enlightenment period, 18
The New Story: A Scrutiny of Modernity in in the pre-Enlightenment period, 17
Hindi and Urdu Short Fiction, 5 romantic modernists, 18
Kuprin, Alexander, science, 18
Yama/The Pit, 30 vs traditional, 18
modernism. see also Partition narratives
L Anglo-American, 24
association between the Occident and
Lalita, K., 91 modernity, 23
Lawrence, D.H., 24, 28 during the 1940s, 17
Lukacs, Gyorgy, in Europe, 8, 19, 25
Studies in European Realism, 133 in the Hindi and Urdu short story, 5, 8
in Hindi literature, 27–30, 196
M in Hindu and Urdu fiction, 31–39, 198
MacFarlane, James, 19–20 in India, 21–25
Mahmuduzzafar, 27, 136 modernist responses to, 25–27
Major, Andrew, 100 in Pakistani fiction, 39–42
Malik, Hafeez, 40 in Urdu literature, 196
Malik, Yogendra, 147 phases of, 20
Manto, Saadat Hasan, 2, 29, 51, 71, 87, postmodernist approaches, 20–21
139, 168 progressive-realist to, 30–31
“Toba Tek Singh”, 51–52, 71, 166–67 Western, 20, 27, 197
Manzar, Hasan, modernist character, 36
“Kanha Devi ka Gharana”, 169–70 modernist representation, of Partition,
A Requiem for the Earth, 171 194–95
Marxist theory of literature, 137–38 modernist responses, to modernity, 25–27
Mastoor, Khadija, mohajir experiences, 65, 162
Aangan, 2–3, 115, 118–21 Mool Sotan Ukhdelan. see Patel, Kamlabehn
Mathur, Ramesh, 3 ‘Mother India’ image, 5–6
Mayaram, Shail, Mountbatten, first earl of, 1
Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Mukherjee, Meenakshi, 8, 44 n.33, 93
Shaping of a Muslim Identity, 5, 95 Muktibodh, 29
Memon, Mohammad Umar, 158, 175, 199 Mulgaonkar, Manohar,
An Epic Unwritten, The Penguin Book of A Bend in the Ganges, 2
Partition Stories from Urdu, 3 Muslim identity, 64
“Partition Literature: A Study of Intizar Muslim League, 1, 4, 159, 170
Husain”, 4
Menon, Ritu, 95, 110 N
Borders and Boundaries: Women in Nahal, Chaman,
India’s Partition, 5 Azadi, 2
“Recovery, Rupture, Resistance: Indian Nai Kahani, 17, 26, 31, 61, 150, 166, 194
State and Abduction of Women During consciousness of the present, 37
Partition”, 5 contemporary significance, 38
Menra, Balraj, 198 focus, 35–36
Mirza, Sughra Humayun, 94 form, 34
Mitra, Narendranath, malleability of, 33
“The Four Poster Bed”, 2 notion of ideology, 37
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Index 217

reader experiences, 38–39 ideology in, 142

subject matter, 33–34 India, 184
vs progressive writing, 35 Indian Muslim’s dilemma in Indo-Pak
Nandy, Ashis, 24 wars, 162–63
Nasreen, Taslima, in the late 1940s, 31
Lajja, 143 microcosm of the nation, 160–62
Nawaz, Mumtaz Shah, 160 modernist, 168, 194–95
The Heart Divided, 153, 168 nationalism, 159–60
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 25 Pakistan
nutana, 23 ideology, 179–82
Islamism, 172, 179
P Memon’s views, 182–83
methods of negotiating religious
Pakistani Urdu writers, 198–99 differences, 176–78
second generation of, 169–70 modernist representation of Partition,
Pakistan Progressive Writers’ Association, 7, 185–87
39–40 patriotism, 178
Pandey, Gyanendra, 95 refugees, 182
Aadha Gaon, 159–60 secularism, 170
parampara, 23–24 post-Partition period, 31
“Parmeshar Singh”, 122 religious identity, 146
Partition narratives relocation issues, 149–50
communalism in, 140–41 secular humanist perspective,
abductions and rapes, 144–45 141–44
class dimension, 146–47 woman protagonist, 92
dilemmas of both victims and oppres- Partition of India
sors, 145–46 consequences, 1–2
and IPWA, 143 general impression, 1
violence, 141, 143 impact on women, 122–23. see also
constructions of the community, 50 woman protagonist
during 1970s, 31 Muslim League’s position, 1
emergence of modernity in literature, essays and reviews on, 4–5
32 feminist perspectives, 5–6
changes in context and content, 33–34 postmodern approaches, 7–10
characterization of urban middle-class progressive movement, 9–10
individuals, 33–34 shift in representations of Partition, 6–7,
concerns with form, 34 10
contemporary significance, 37–38 testimonies, oral interviews, diaries and
context of identity, 36 autobiographies, 3
context of ideology, 37 Patel, Kamlabehn,
context of reality, 35–36 Torn from the Roots, 3
mode of presentation, 33 Paul, Joginder, 3, 36, 60, 196
progressivist vs modernist, 35 Daryaon Pyaas, 72–75
reader experiences, 38–39 Fakhtayen, 70–72
relationship between the individual and Khwabrau, 3, 65–70
society, 36 phenomenology, 19
relationship of past and present, Prabhakar, Vishnu, 2
37 Prakash, Surendra, 60, 198
fundamentalists’ views, 143 “Khayal Surat”, 65, 73–75
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218 Index

Premchand, Munshi, 139 R

constructions of the community, 50 Raag Darbari, 198
contribution to realism, 135–37 radical ideologues, 139
stories, 7, 9–10, 27, 30, 49 Raghav, Rangey,
“Kafan”, 31 Hazur, 147
“Poos ki Raat”, 31 Rai, Alok, 140
“Shatranj ke Khiladi”, 31 “The Trauma of Independence: Some
women protagonists, 94 Aspects of Progressive Hindi Literature,
views on the social purpose of literature, 1945–47”, 4
138 Rai, Amrit,
Pritam, Amrita, “Filth”, 145
Pinjar, 2, 104–105 Hathi ke Dant, 147
Priyamvada, Usha, Rais, Qamar, 27, 31
“Wapsi”, 36 “Jadeed Urdu Naval”, 32
progressive literature, 33, 35, 135, 195 Rajan, Balachandra,
aftermath of Partition, 162 The Dark Dancer, 2
anti-colonial sentiment in, 136 Rajan, Rajeshwari Sunder, 97, 102
between 1947 and 1955, 147–48 Rakesh, Mohan, 198
characterization, 148–50 “Malbe ka Malik,” 54–55, 166–167
characters, 36, 150–51 “Miss Pall”, 36
communalism, 141–42, 150, 152–55 Ranadive, B.T., 9, 29
issue of responsibility, 151 Rashid, N.M., 29
leftist views, 150, 152–55, 172 Raza, Rahi Masoom,
limitations, 165–66 Adha Gaon, 2, 150
Marxist theory of literature, 137–38 realism, 49, 194
microcosm of the nation, 160–62 and narrative modes, 8–9
Pakistani identity and nationhood, transition to modernism, 19
168–69 refugees, 194
representation of Congress workers, 150, Renu, Phanishwarnath, 34
152–55 Roy, Raja Ram Mohun, 92
during 1960s and 1970s, 150 Rubin, David, 135
satirical attacks, 175–78 Rushd, Abu,
secularist views, 163–65, 170 Nongor, 2
social reality in, 50 Rushdie, Salman,
social relationships, 155–59 Midnight’s Children, 2
transition, 166 Russell, Ralph,
progressivism, 4, 7, 9, 20 The Pursuit of Urdu Literature: A Short
progressive realism, 4, 17, 37 History, 135
Prophet Mohammad, 4, 158, 175 Ruswa, Mirza Mohammad Hadi,
protagonist Umrao Jan Ada, 93, 135
Punjabi literary works, 2

S
Q
Sagar, Ramanand,
Qasim, Suraiya, Aur Insaan Mar Gaya, 96
“Where Did She Belong?”, 97, 109–110, Sahni, Bhisham, 2, 4, 142
146 Pali, 149
Qasmi, Ahmad Nadeem, 40, 122, 142, 168 Tamas, 2–3, 31, 95, 105, 143, 147,
“Parmeshar Singh,” 148–49 150–52, 162, 195
Quit India Movement, 157, 160 “Amritsar Aa Gaya”, 144
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Index 219

Sajjad, Enver, 179, 198 Soviet blocs, 20

Salim-ur-Rahman, Mohammad, 7 Sufi saints, 140
“The Thaw”, 82–84, 185–87
Salim-ur-Rehaman, Mohammad, 3 T
sanatana, 23
Saraswati, Dayanand, 91 Tara Saptaka, 10, 17, 27, 29–30
sati, 92 Tharu, Susie, 91
secular humanism Thoa Khalsa, 100
in Indian society, 140 Tradition, for the middle class Indian, 26
in Pakistan, 170 Trivedi, Harish, 27, 29
Partition narratives, 141–44
progressive literature, 163–65, U
170–71 Urdu fiction
Sen, Ramesh Chandra modernism, 26–27, 168
“The White Horse”, 2 Pakistani, 39–42
Sevasadan, 94 modernist elements in, 31–39
Shah, Ramesh Chandra, 28, 33 modern moment in, 27–30
Shahab, Qudrat Ullah new generation writers, 27–28
“Ya Khuda”, 144 Pakistani Urdu writers
Sharnarthis, 69–70 new generation, 171
Shaw, George Bernard, 28 second generation of, 169–70
Shia community, 158 on Partition, 6
Shia metaphysics, 7 Premchand’s contribution, 135–36
short stories, on Partition, 2–3. see also woman protagonists, 107–08
Partition narratives Urdu literary works, 2
modernism in, 5
Showalter, Elaine
A Literature of Their Own, 91
V
Sidhwa, Bapsi, 4 Vaid, Krishan Baldev, 4
Ice Candy Man, 2, 58–59, Guzra Hua Zamana, 3
107 Varma, Mahadevi, 94
Singh, Kashinath, Verma, Nirmal, 23–26, 34, 35–36
“Sukh”, 36 “Parinde”, 36–37, 38
Singh, Khushwant “Pichlee Garmyon Mein”, 33
Train to Pakistani, 2 “Traditional Cultural Values:
Singh, Maheep, Contemporary Challenges”, 22
“The Bridge and the River”, 146 Verma, Srikant, 198
Singh, Namwar, 27–28, 32, 37–38 victim syndrome, 6
on Nirmal Verma, 36 Victorian society, 19
changes in the Hindi fiction post-Partition, Vidyasagar, Ishwar Chandra, 92
32
comments on “Parinde”, 36–38 W
on reader experiences, 38–39
Walker, Alice,
Singh, Nanak, 2
The Color Purple, 98
Sita myth, 98, 108–109, 126n.16
Wentink, Linda J., 9, 31
Sobti, Krishna, 2, 4
Western modernism, 27
“Where is my Mother?”, 145
Western society, 18
socialist realism, 135, 139
West Pakistani novelists, 2
social reform movements, 92
Williams, Patrick, 20, 23
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220 Index

woman protagonists, 195–96 recovery of abducted women,

creative accounts, 95–96 100–102, 108–109
empowerment of victims women writers, 94
and issues of class, 115–18
migration and consequences, Y
115–18
Yadav, Rajendra, 198
radical progressive transformation,
“Prateeksha”, 33, 36
111–14
Yashpal,
issues of education, 92–94
Jhoota Such, 2, 31, 97, 111–14, 150–52, 195
representation in Hindi and Urdu
“A Holy War”, 146
literature of the nineteenth century,
Yashpal
93–94
Watan Aur Desh, 142
representation of woman’s body,
Yeats, W. B., 24
109–10
and social reform movements,
92 Z
in terms of sensibility, 97 Zaheer, Sajjad, 27, 40, 136–37
in Urdu fiction, 107–108 London Ki Ek Raat, 28
as victims of violence and brutality, Zaman, Niaz
96–98, 104–105 The Divided Legacy, 151
generalizations, 124 The Partition in Selected Novels of India,
humanitarian values, 105–106 Pakistan and Bangladesh, 184
identity, 102–104 zamindari, abolition of, 155–56
index.qxp 11/7/2008 6:12 PM Page 221

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bodh Prakash teaches at the Department of English, Zakir Husain College,

University of Delhi. He has an M. Phil. in English from the University of
Delhi, and received his Ph.D. from the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University for his thesis “Modes of Representation in Partition
Narratives: An Examination of Hindi and Urdu fiction”. He has published an
essay titled “Individual/Society Overlap in the Narratives of Partition” in the
journal Jigyansna, and contributed an essay titled “Nation and Identity in the
Narratives of Partition” in Postcolonial India: History, Politics and Cultur e,
and an essay titled “The Woman Protagonist in Partition Literature” in
Translating Partition, edited by Ravikant and Tarun K. Saint. He is the co-
editor (with Sukriti Paul Kumar and Vibha S. Chauhan) of Cultural Diversity,
Linguistic Plurality and Literary Traditions in India, a prescribed text for the
concurrent course in the BA Honours Programme at the University of Delhi.