Phundne By Toba Tek Singh Analysis

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The decolonization of India in 1947 was accompanied by geographical partition into two nations – India and Pakistan – based on religious differences and anxieties. In the nine months between August 1947 and the following year at least 28 million people --- Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims --- were forced to flee from their homes and became refugees; at least a million were killed in communal violence.Partition is central to modern identity in the Indian subcontinent, as the Holocaust is the identity among the Jews. The well-known Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal has called partition, “the central historical event in twentieth century South Asia.” She writes, “A defining moment that is neither beginning nor end, partition continues to influence how …show more content…

The story is narrated by a reliable but not omniscient narrator who speaks like a Pakistani, and seems to be Lahori. The story dates to the historic Indo-Pak partition and mental asylum where the protagonist of the story is kept. The story revolves around Bishan Singh, a Sikh inmate of Lahore asylum. The story takes us to Lahore asylum, ‘taking the notion of victimhood to its extreme” and gradually focuses on one old Sikh inmate named Bishan Singh, but who is called Toba Tek Singh because he had been a wealthy land owner in a town of that name. Although unable to speak except in nonsense syllables, upon hearing of intended transfer, he tries to find out whether Toba Tek Singh is in India or Pakistan. He can’t understand why he is being uprooted from his home. That was the question over two million people asked their governments during partition. At the border, Bishan Singh learns from a liaison officer that Toba Tek Singh is in Pakistan and he refuses to cross. When all persuasion fails, he is left standing by himself between the two border stations. (Tiwari, S. …show more content…

He was allowed to stand where he wanted, while the exchange continued. The night wore on.Just before sunrise, Bishan Singh, the man who had stood on his legs for fifteen years, screamed and as the officials from the two sides rushed towards him, he collapsed to the ground.There, behind barbed wire, on one side, lay India and behind more barbed wire, on the other side, lay Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.” (Manto: 6)
The central character of the story, is an instrument for Manto through which he exposes the cataclysmic consequences of partition that devastated the lives of so many innocents of the time. He is an epitome of Manto’s criticism of the contemporary political decision that was meant for nothing. The decision brought nothing change in common lives except making them homeless, penniless. It played a significant part in drawing the unbridgeable barrier between India and Pakistan between Hindus and Muslims. The question that haunts Bishan Singh that is “Where

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