Rereading Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan on his 107th birth anniversary

It has been 75 years since the Partition, but the wounds are nonetheless fresh because 75 years of Independence, when you come to think about it, are not a lot, especially when the oppression has been inflicted for over 200 years, and it is put to an end by paying a calamitous cost in form of a great divide that would leave enormous blood stains on what was once a collective Bharat, now of course India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh respectively.

Never before in history, had cross migration been done at such a scale. A migration where millions were uprooted, mutilated, raped, and slaughtered. Friends turned into enemies, strangers turned into helpers, and humanity rendered helpless. It is against this devastating background, that the late author Khushwant Singh wrote Train To Pakistan [1956>, an exemplary novel that is synonymous with Partition literature.

Set in 1947, in a fictional village called ‘Mano Majra’ that lies on the India-Pakistan border with a predominantly Sikh and Muslim population, Train To Pakistan follows the story of the residents of this village, and the storm that they would encounter after receiving a train filled with dead bodies of Sikhs and Hindus. An incredible narrative about common folks who are living in their own bubble of brotherhood and peace, away from the bloodshed that surrounds them. However, violence and destruction cannot be caged for very long, and turmoil eventually strikes this little village. What follows is a tale of human nature, morality, and discussions on freedom and religious polarisation. Singh, a storyteller par excellence, refrains to elaborate on the politics of the Partition, instead humanises the event to bring out the individual and social element of one of the darkest periods of Indian history.  

However, what makes Train To Pakistan a classic is not how well it captures the turbulent times in 1947, but how significant and relevant it is even today. “Ethics, which should be the kernel of a religious code has been carefully removed,” Singh writes in his book, and it is this simple fact that defines our endless differences through the ages. Whether it is the Partition of 1947 or the hate-brigade today,  the fact that we move without ethics and morals is what remains, and is what threatens peace. In our quest to prove ’the greater religion’ or defend the ‘scriptures,’ we forget what these things stand for, empathy and ethics, as Singh tells us. Train To Pakistan is relevant when we speak of the Partition, it is relevant when we speak of Godhra, it is relevant when we discuss Ayodhya, it is relevant when we remember the 1969 Gujarat riots, it is relevant every time a person is judged by their clothes, practices, surnames, and other metrics that are truly irrelevant. Because Train To Pakistan tells us exactly what is wrong with us, irrespective of the times we stay in.

It tells us, “In a country which had accepted caste distinctions for many centuries, inequality had become an inborn mental concept,” and it is this concept of discrimination and inequality that has persisted in our great nation since time immemorable. It is what has persisted in our world, as we continue to suffocate in this foggy air of bigotry.

Train To Pakistan stumbles into individual feelings instead of statistics, the human psyche instead of politics, because as Stalin is often quoted, ‘The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.’ Because when something becomes so catastrophic, we often remove the human out of it, because even grief seems to have a cut off value, so after a certain number, we stop spending it.  

Train To Pakistan reminds us to mourn for the singular hearts that break, for the death toll of one that make up several thousands.

Singh has a firm hand on empathy, and makes sure that he never looses it throughout this harrowing tale as he discusses religious extremism, the manipulative people in power, and the fickleness of the human existence. To evoke a sense of brotherhood, compassion and kindness in such circumstances is an art that Singh’s searing but nonetheless sensitive voice has mastered. It is not often that great human disasters are humanised and individualised, but Singh reminds us why we must do it, because if every tragedy is transformed into statistics, then there will be nothing more inconsequential than human life, and that is a threat bigger than any. Train To Pakistan is story about Partition, but its impact travels way further, and that is perhaps the aim of it.  

Popularly, known as the ‘Dirty Old Man Of Indian Journalism’, Khushwant Singh was and will always be a writer, a columnist, and an author who inspires honesty and veracity in generations after him. He would have turned 107 years old today, had he been alive but he remains so in his verses, prose, and stories nonetheless.  

Takshi Mehta is a freelance journalist and writer. She firmly believes that we are what we stand up for, and thus you’ll always find her wielding a pen.