Train to Pakistan

Train to Pakistan Khushwant Singh wrote 'Train to Pakistan' in 1956 when the painful memories of 1947 Partition were still fresh and the wounds hadn't yet healed. For this reason, the book reflects the true emotions that people felt when they were forced to abandon their homes in both India and Pakistan to move north or south according to their religious beliefs. It is true that the main reason behind the partition was religion, which had, for many centuries, remained a contentious social issue.

While it would be unfair to say that Muslims and Hindus had never been good friends but the fact remains that their friendship, their neighborly love was all marked by ethnic tension that had reached new heights when British came to India. Prior to that, however, Muslims and Hindus were more or less content with their lives and co-inhabited the same land harmoniously.

This was probably because of the fact that Muslims had been truly just rulers and most of them were sensible enough to allow everyone to follow their religion freely. But Hindus had always been in majority so they felt that ideally they should have been ruling India and not Muslims. With British invasion around 18th century, Muslims were no longer the masters and that's when they became aware of their weaker social status in the country.

Hindus on the other hand had been in majority and knew that once British were driven out of the country, they would get a chance to rule India and thus make Muslims their sub-ordinates. Muslims on their part, couldn't accept themselves in the role of sub-ordinates to Hindus who were non-believers according to them and thus they decided to launch an aggressive campaign to get a free land and divide India into two new separate countries, one for Muslims and the other for Hindus.

Muslims knew that if they did not take such a step, they would be forced to become slaves to Hindus majority that was already more educated and hence more suitable for various positions in the government. Muslims had been living a life of complete self-complacency and came to see their position in true light only when last Mughal Emperor was forced to relinquish control of India. All these political reasons were also grounded in religious differences.

Muslims and Hindus were two different nations with separate beliefs, different values, different calendars, and hence they felt it was impossible to live together in one land after the British were driven out. Singh writes, "Where on earth except in India would a man's life depend on whether or not his foreskin had been removed?" Nationalism had once been marked their 'get the British out campaign' and nothing was ever mentioned about separate lands.

But with ethnic violence rising and with some dynamic Muslim leaders such as Jinnah and Iqbal successfully reaching the causes of this violence, it became clear that Muslims needed a separate homeland while Hindus would stay behind in divided India. Religion has always been extremely important to Muslims and Hindus both.

Thus when Muslims were in power, they had all the religious freedom they needed, but with the invasion of Britain and loss of their powerful position, they realized the religious freedom was indeed a gift that they needed to fight for. Muslims knew that once Hindus came to power, the ethnic violence would only increase and thus a separate country was the only solution they were left with. Their prophecies indeed came true after partition when some percentage of Muslim population decided to stay behind in India.

They regularly encountered problems and are still being subjected to inhumane treatment as we noticed recently in Gujarat massacres where thousands of Muslims were killed for apparently no reason at all. The Muslims living in India are paying a huge price for their decision to stay behind when the rest of the Muslim group decided to migrate to Pakistan. They are always the prime targets of ethnic violence and this can be proved with various incidents that took place in India.

For example the ethnic violence of 1993 in Bombay resulted in the death of a large number of Muslims and also resulted in cruel demolition of the Barbari Mosque and the recent case of Gujarat massacre. This clearly shows that.