This month marks the 75th anniversary of the partition of British India into two countries: Hindustan and Pakistan. Some years ago we featured Rajinder Singh Bedi’s Lajwanti, a Partition story from an Indian viewpoint. In honor of the occasion, we are pleased to provide this story from the Pakistan side by controversial writer Saadat Hasan Manto. This is not your usual Partition story of mass displacement and violence. Instead, it is a clever satire of the governments of the two countries, as reflected in a decision several years later to exchange institutionalized lunatics. Themes: insanity, separation, religious segregation, nationality, confusion, belonging.
A 2015 article in The New Yorker sums the story up nicely: In a few thousand darkly satirical words, Manto manages to convey that the lunatics are much saner than those making the decision for their removal, and that … the madness of Partition was far greater than the insanity of all the inmates put together. An interesting element (and irony) of the story is that nobody seems to know whether Bishan’s hometown is located in India or Pakistan. Toba Tek Singh is a major city/district in Punjab, well inside the newly partitioned Pakistan and over 200km from the border at Lahore. Almost any educated guard or official should have been aware of this!
The reason the story takes place a few years after Partition is that just two months after their formation the new countries went to war over the rule of Kashmir. This conflict extended the violence of the partition for two more years. Another of our Manto stories, The Dog of Tithwal deals with this war.
Original Text / PDF (2,578 words)