Identity, Fate, and Survival in Train to Pakistan and Survival in Auschwitz
This paper offers a comparative literary analysis of Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan and Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, examining how individual identity — religious, national, and ethnic — functions as the primary determinant of fate and survival in each work. Drawing on key characters and passages, the paper argues that neither the characters of the Indian Partition nor the prisoners of Auschwitz possessed meaningful agency over their circumstances; instead, the identity they were born into dictated their treatment, status, and chances of survival. The analysis explores Iqbal's forced reclamation of Sikh identity, the Greeks' communal cohesion in the camp, and Primo Levi's meditation on the difference between civilian imprisonment and the permanent, death-oriented condition of Jewish captivity.
- Introduction: Circumstance and Identity: Identity as fate in both literary works
- Iqbal and the Politics of Identity in Train to Pakistan: Iqbal's party identity versus birth identity
- Birth, Faith, and the Limits of Enlightenment: Iqbal forced to reclaim Sikh identity
- National Identity and Survival in Auschwitz: Greek prisoners and black market cohesion
- The Hierarchy of Captivity: Jews, Civilians, and the Camp Order: Pecking order and Jewish fate in Auschwitz
- Conclusion: Choice Without Agency: Survival determined by circumstance, not choice
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What makes this paper effective
- It draws a coherent thematic parallel between two historically distinct works — the Indian Partition and the Holocaust — through a shared conceptual lens: the powerlessness of the individual in the face of identity-based persecution.
- The paper uses direct quotations strategically, allowing the primary texts to carry argumentative weight while the author provides interpretive framing around them.
- The analysis of Iqbal's reluctant reclamation of Sikh identity is particularly well-observed, showing how even an avowed atheist is ultimately defined by birth identity in a crisis.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative close reading: it selects passages from two different literary works and places them in dialogue around a single thesis — that identity, not choice, determines fate. This technique requires the writer to both summarize context and interpret significance, which the paper does consistently through embedded quotations paired with analytical commentary.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a thesis connecting both works through the theme of identity and circumstance. It then devotes extended attention to Train to Pakistan, tracing Iqbal's character arc as a case study. The second half shifts to Survival in Auschwitz, examining national identity among Greek prisoners and Primo Levi's personal narrative. The conclusion synthesizes both works by returning to the central claim about agency and survival. The structure is broadly two-part with a unifying conclusion.
Introduction: Circumstance and Identity
In the personally charged works Train to Pakistan and Survival in Auschwitz, there is a clear sense that circumstances rule the day and that characters' lives are changed by the events surrounding them — events over which they have no direct or indirect control. The most logical and obvious argument in each work is that identity is the key to status and opportunity. In Survival in Auschwitz, identity as a Jew or as a member of another persecuted group, as well as national identity within the camp, determines a great deal about the present and future lives of prisoners. In Train to Pakistan, national, birth, and religious identity are crucial to both division and protection during the upheaval of Partition.
Iqbal and the Politics of Identity in Train to Pakistan
The character Iqbal in Train to Pakistan is one of the most revealing figures when it comes to understanding how a social worker — purportedly seeking to serve others — could intellectualize both action and inaction during a divisive time. Iqbal's party identity means next to nothing to either his comrades or the village people, yet, as will become clear, his birth status and faith mean a great deal to everyone around him.
Iqbal's own thoughts betray his sense of displacement and powerlessness:
"Iqbal wished they had sent someone else to Mano Majara. He would be so much more useful directing policy and clearing the cobwebs from their minds. But he was not a leader. He lacked the qualifications. He had not fasted. He had never been in jail. He had made none of the necessary 'sacrifices.' So, naturally nobody would listen to him. He should have started his political career by finding an excuse to court imprisonment. But there was still time. He would do that as soon as he got back to Delhi. By then, the massacres would be over. It would be quite safe." (Singh 50)
Iqbal's presence in the village eventually lands him in jail. As a stranger to the area, he is arrested for a murder he did not commit (62). Later, the magistrate and his subordinates plan to charge him with any sort of mischief, assuming he is a Muslim League member, even though he has stated that he was sent by the People's Party of India (64). The magistrate and his underlings dismiss his stated political affiliation entirely, believing in a roundabout way that he is in fact a Muslim League member attempting to protect Muslim refugees from expulsion from India. His birthright as a Sikh — regardless of the fact that he is a professed atheist, an educated and secular man who holds that religion is irrelevant — ultimately determines how he is perceived and treated (166). His treatment by the magistrate and the community forces his hand, compelling him to claim his lineal connection to Sikhism.
Birth, Faith, and the Limits of Enlightenment
The moment in which Iqbal is pressed on his religious identity is among the most revealing in the novel:
"You are Sikh, Iqbal Singhji?" inquired one of the men. "Yes." A fortnight earlier he would have replied emphatically "No," or "I have no religion," or "Religion is irrelevant." The situation was different now, and in any case it was true he was born a Sikh. "Was it in England that you cut your hair?" asked the same person. "No, sir," answered Iqbal, completely confused. "I never grew my hair long. I am just a Sikh without long hair and a beard." "Your parents must have been unorthodox," said Meet Singh, coming to his aid.
Identity is the sole basis for division in the Partition of India and Pakistan, and the individual manner in which each person found it necessary to confront the issue of identity head-on was essential to the divisions that plagued the nation at the time — just a few years after independence from Britain. Many argue that Britain left India to contend with years of segregated hatred that it had not only failed to address, but had actively supported and even encouraged for its own benefit. Even an educated and relatively enlightened individual like Iqbal was ultimately forced to claim the identity he was born with, so that others and the system as a whole could superficially categorize his opinions and allegiances, accepting or rejecting him based on the convenience of stereotypes.
Iqbal closes his reflections in the work by reiterating the themes of identity, right and wrong, and the complete absence of personal control over anything. Having failed to act in aid of the refugees on the train, he feels the utter indifference of moral order in the world: "If you look at things as they are, he told himself, there does not seem to be a code either of man or of God on which one can pattern one's conduct. Wrong triumphs over right as much as right over wrong. Sometimes its triumphs are greater. What happens ultimately, you do not know. In such circumstances what can you do but cultivate an utter indifference to all values?" (172). Iqbal seeks to reconcile his lack of action with his conscience, and wanders off into the world stripped of conviction. His essential identity has served only to protect him superficially; without the certainty of moral or divine guidance, he settles for a listless indifference, sleeping through the moment of prayer that calls the world to acknowledge God's authority over human diversity and wrongdoing (173).
Conclusion: Choice Without Agency
The personal choice to leave or to stay, despite desperation, was available to civilian workers and entirely absent for the Jews — through no act of their own. The only power they possessed was to live within the terms of Primo's early assertion in the work: "that man is bound to pursue his own ends by all possible means, while he who errs but once pays dearly" (13). Within each work there is a clear sense that choice is derived only from immediate circumstances, which are entirely outside one's control and yet almost completely determine even one's very survival.
Works Cited
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Singh, Khushwant. Train to Pakistan. New York: Grove Press, 1994.
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