Gaubert 1 Vaughn Gaubert Katherine Tracy English 210 October 21, 2012 Train to Pakistan Book Review In 1947,

British troops left the area of present day Pakistan and India after the Indian Independence Act of 1947. The Dominion of Pakistan and Union of India were created in this area (Talbot). This partition of India created much tension between the two newly constituted states. A million men, women, and children were killed and ten million more were displaced from their homes and towns (Daiya). Much fighting and bloodshed was encountered by both sides. This mutual opposition and dislike between Pakistan and India is still present to this day. Singh writes about a small village in the Punjabi countryside and the horrifying events its people endured one fateful summer. A surge of refugees entered the area. Violence from Bengal and the Northwest Frontier reached the village and the men and women were disorientated, persecuted, and shredded apart (Manavor). Singh creates a powerful cast of characters. The village hooligan, Juggut Singh, is an enormous Sikh always getting in trouble and spending his time in and out of jail. Juggut secretly meets with Nooran, the daughter of the village mullah. The other main character is Hukum Chand who is the influential magistrate and district deputy commissioner. Chandan is an unhappy but sensible minded realist who struggles internally with memories from his past which he drowns out at night with alcohol. The novel also features a strong supporting cast such as Chands subordinate, the inspector of police at department headquarters, a humble priest at the Sikh temple, and a social worker named Iqbal who works for the Communist party (Singh).

Gaubert 2 In the village of Mano Majra, Muslims and Sikh get along and are unharmed by the violence going around other nearby areas. Mano Majra is on the rail line near where it crosses Sutlej. The village loaner, a Hindu, was discovered murdered. Singh and the Iqbal are brought in. Things change for the worse when an east bound train makes an unscheduled stop at Mano Majra. The rail cars are full of corpses. At this point, the villagers had heard rumors about Hindu and Sikh refuges being killed while trying to flee the Pakistan area. This horrendous sight frightened many of the villagers. Thousands of bodies are cremated in huge piles or bulldozed into mass graves; intensifying actions of atrocious manmade turmoil (Singh). As time goes by violence in the village escalates. More and more people are getting hurt. The refugees tell stories of massacres and desecrations from where they came from. Both Sikhs and Muslims become drenched into a warfare type setting, killing and hurting others. Later, the government makes the decision to transport all the Muslim families from Mano Majra to what is now modern day Pakistan. The villagers are surprised and overwhelmed with emotions. A small army, consisting of units of Sikh, Baluch, and Pathans, arrive at the village and order all the Muslims to board the train within ten minutes to be transported to Pakistan. The Muslims listen and board the train with their only possessions being what they could carry. Many non-Muslim families did not get a chance to say goodbye to their Muslim families. These people are uprooted from their life and forced into an unknown future in unfamiliar territory. In the last major scene of the book Juggut independently tries to save the trainload of refugees. Juggut is killed in his effort to save them. Train to Pakistan is a novel that tells a story from many points of view. There are no particular good or bad guys. There is no particular group that has ever been held solely

Gaubert 3 accountable for what took place. All groups involved were responsible. Both sides killed as Singh says in his book. Both sides shot, stabbed, speared, clubbed, tortured, and raped (Daiya). Many of the situations in the book are true to what really happened at the time. The book shows in glimpse into the pain and immense cruelty that these people endured. Singh shows readers the truth about what happened to these people when they were left without any help. He shows the behavior of people when they are taken out of their comfort zone and put into a position in which they have to do things unthinkable to survive. He wants to portray this time in history so other civilizations can look upon it and learn from what happened. Importantly, he does not want people to forget the pain and suffering of these people and the things they were put through at a time when the world looked the other way.

Gaubert 4 Works Cited Daiya, Kavita. Violent Belongings: partition, gender, and national culture in postcolonial India. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. Manavor, Twinkle. "The Theme of Partition in Khushwant Singh's Novel Train to Pakistan." Dodiya, Jaydipsinh. Contemporary Indian Writings in English. Vishal Enclave: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001. 28-33. Singh, Khushwant. Train to Pakistan. New York: Grove Press, 1956. Talbot, Ian. "Literature and the human drama of the 1947 partition." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (1995): 37-56.