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SAST-001-401 [ Yo u rn a meh e r e ] Pe n n I D:12/09/2018 | Response 4 Is Partition portrayed as a triumph or tragedy in these writings? The question of whether the partition is a triumph or a tragedy is answered as one with a lot of subjectivity surrounding it. In all frankness, it really is hard to say in concrete terms if it was either. Manto, known for the veracity in his writings and take-humanbelligerence-for-what-it-is attitude, perhaps captures perfectly this sentiment through stories like Khol Do and Toba Tek Singh. In words, this sentiment feels like Sirajuddin trying to figure out Sakina’s whereabouts but when his attempts find futility, he wants to “cry, but he could shed no tears; he needed help and sympathy, but then everyone around him needed help and sympathy”. The scale of emotional desperation is mass; an emotional desperation that renders me, as a student of history void of any concrete answer to the “triumph or tragedy?” question. More importantly, to really look at anything as a triumph or tragedy, it would make more sense to be fully able to analyze the situation and Manto, in yet another sardonic master-move, again speaks to that conundrum: “it was anybody’s guess what was going to happen to Lahore, which was currently in Pakistan, but could slide into India any moment. It was also possible that the entire subcontinent of India might become Pakistan. And who could say if both India and Pakistan might not entirely vanish from the map of the world one day”. The only redeemable answer to this decisive question then is a question itself: in the case of partition, where everyone lost something (at the very least, a larger nation they were initially a part of), how do we even begin defining a triumph? Do these sources present possible explanations for the refugee crisis and violence that was widespread in 1947? Some inferences definitely lead to certain assumptions. For example, some of these inferences come from opening eyes, in Manto’s Khol Do, to a number of passengers losing lives on either side of the country within trains and “seething crowd of men, women and children” receiving this. We see that hate breeds hate as a lack of efforts in trying to subside these conditions exists (and this goes a long way in trying to answer for the prolonged violence). Moving ahead, nothing points out issues clearly like Toba Tek Singh does while trying to implicitly address the refugee crisis: “In India or in Pakistan?” ‘In India, …no, in Pakistan.’ Bishen Singh’s confusion and the entire story’s premise allows us to understand the arching theme of the refugee crisis—similar confusion, but projected onto hundreds of thousands of people across borders, who were left in frenzy to pick sides overnight. 

How does gender fit into the story of Partition and communalization?

Abductions, rapes, violence, and blatant killing—almost everything abhorring about the partition affected females more than it did their counterparts. The strife is even more visible when we take a think about programs that were instituted to recover women abducted in the Punjab violence. Even in their rescue, nationality was “fixed” onto religious communities with the Indian state attempting to recover and rehabilitate Hindu and Sikh women and the Pakistani state attempting to recover and rehabilitate Muslim women. More importantly, however, the crux of this lop-sided disadvantage can be seen from the women themselves resisting this national inscription, and in fact, many wanted to remain a part of their abductors’ families. The partition therefore took a great toll, in many shapes and forms, for some, greater, but for all, equally heaving.

Bibliography: Given readings:  Manto, S. H (1955), Khol Do.  Manto, S. H (1955), Toba Tek Singh.  Zamindar, V. (2007). The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories. Columbia University Press....