Friday, 8 April 2016

Train to Pakistan

Train to Pakistan is the novel by Khushwant Singh. The novel is all about the Partition of India after 1947 . India got Independence in 1947 from British rules but actually they didn't get independence from communal riots and also from religious hatred that are inside themselves.Its all about the DIVISION .There was a great tension near border of Inda and Pakistan.The novel give clear image of  massacres of Hindus and Muslims, especially on the border towns of India.
Train loads of dead bodies used to arrive from Pakistan to India and from India to Pakistan.People were killed without mercy.Women and girls are ruthlessly gang-raped.After reading this we will find out that blame could not be on one group, actually all are responsible. Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. Hindus said, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed ,shot,looted and raped.

The Story is of village Mano Majra, the border of both the country where great religious diversity Hindus,Muslims and Sikhs lived side by side happily.Even mulla of Mosque Imam Baksh visit Gurudwara whenever needed and similarly Sikh's priest Meet Singh too .So the story starts with dacoity and murder of local money-lender , Lal Ram Lal .The dacoits were the Malli and gang  ,who were looking for their old fellow gang member and leader Juggut Singh, a Sikh of great height, build and with a bad reputation and Malli throw bangles in Juggut Singh house. During the event of "dacoit", however, "Jugga" was making love with his girlfriend, Nooran, the daughter of the town's Mullah Imam Baksh. After dacoity, Imran Singh ,well-educated,social reformer arrived in town to organize the peasants for the People's Party of India. Malli and his gang try to pin the crime on Jugga, which results in the arrests of both Iqbal and Jugga due to local suspicions. They are arrested due to the orders of Hukum Chand, the corrupt,unethical regional magistrate.One day people saw the train from Pakistan loaded with dead bodies and burned by soldier. So conflict starts to rise in Mano Majra too like other towns and cities.On the order of Hukum Chand a group of soldiers comes by to evacuate the Muslim half of town (the other half is Sikh) to Pakistan which leads Nooran to depart from Mano Majra .After the Muslims are evacuated, a local band of Sikhs and Malli with group come to Mano Majra to full up anti-Muslim sentiment and sabotage the train that was taking the Muslims to Pakistan.When Hukum Chand came to know about this sabotage of train ,he filledvwith guilt over his own sins, releases both Iqbal and Jugga to stop the killing, and despite Iqbal's self-image as a social reformer and Jugga's self-image as a dacoit, Iqbal drinks himself into a stupor while Jugga gives his life destroying the rope the Sikh soldiers had set up to throw Muslims on top of the train off to their deaths.

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