Train to pakistan summary sparknotes
Before I undertake this investigation, I first look into what Khushwant Singh deals with in this novel. The contrast between the communal violence during the time of the partition and the fundamental goodness of some individuals is the unique feature of Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan.Īccepting this premise as a starting point, the present work here aims at finding whether any character or any event in Train to Pakistan directly or indirectly reveals any crisis of communal identity or not. Two communities living together in peace and harmony for centuries start killing each other in communal pride and hatred. The crisis of identity is not the dominant theme in Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan. Indeed the novel is a faithful record of how human disaster has taken place during the gruesome period of Indian partition. Here the columnist explains how one identity split into two and the sensitive way Khushwant Singh handles it, in the weekly column, exclusively for Different Truths. The ordinary Hindus and Muslims do not want the partition.
Imam Baksh and his daughter’s sense of belonging to their village, Mano Majra where they have been living in peace through generations hints at their apprehension of being uprooted from their own soil. Pluralism and tolerance for each other is one of the important characteristic features of Indian psyche. But, the centuries old communal harmony between the Hindus and the Muslims at the grassroots is subverted by the planners of the Indian Partition and transfer of population. The life at Mano Majra before August 1947 is idyllic. People of different communities – Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims live together here for decades after decades in peace and harmony until the summer of 1947. Nothing remarkable is at this unknown village, except one railway station that is important for the trains to cross only one-track bridge on the river Sutlej. Mano Majra is a small and obscure village in Punjab. Before Basudeb undertakes this investigation, he first looks into what Khushwant Singh deals with in this novel. But there is someone among the villagers to foil this horrific plan.The present work here aims at finding whether any character or any event in Train to Pakistan directly or indirectly reveals any crisis of communal identity or not. The plot is to fell those seated on the roof of the train with a rope tied across the start of the bridge and kill them.
TRAIN TO PAKISTAN SUMMARY SPARKNOTES WINDOWS
The train is overcrowded with thousands of migrating passengers, who are even perched on the windows and the roof of this train. Enraged at the loss of law and order, they plan their own attack on a trainful of Muslims leaving British India. Sikhs living in this border town have heard numerous stories of Muslims killing, raping, and looting other Sikhs, Hindus, and Christians, and many of whom are their friends and relatives. Tensions run high near the Indo-Pak border immediately after independence of India in August 1947 when the country is being partitioned with a new country called Pakistan.
He single handedly foils the plan to butcher the train passengers sacrificing his own life in the process.
The Muslim lover of the village baddie Juggut Singh is supposed to be on the train. Some hotheaded Sikhs from outside the village hatch a plan to kill the Muslims on the train before it it sent to Pakistan. Government plans to evacuate Muslims from the village to Pakistan to ensure their safety against the wishes of even the Sikh villagers.
Some refugees also troop in from the border.
TRAIN TO PAKISTAN SUMMARY SPARKNOTES FULL
Sikhs and Muslims live in harmony in the village till a train full of dead people arrives from Pakistan. Seen from the eyes of Hukum Chand the District Magistrate it is an account of the turmoil faced by the inhabitants of village Mano Majra in Punjab on the Indo- Pak border during the period of partition after India attained independence. Seen from the eyes of Hukum Chand the District Magistrate it is an account of the turmoil faced by the inhabitants of village Mano Majra in Punjab on the Indo-Pak border during the period of partition after India attained independence.