Marcie Panutsos
The “Broken Mirror”:
Casualties of Nation Building in Train to Pakistan
The process of nation building is often thought of in terms of creation; the very phrase suggests an act of construction. The process carries with it positive associations of newfound independence and national pride, but what these patriotic visions neglect is a consideration for the darker side of the process and the materials out of which the new nation is built. Nation building is an act of creation, but it is also an act of destruction. Particularly in considering the Indian partition of 1947 that led to the formation of two independent nations, one can see the potentially disastrous consequences of nation building. In the process of constructing these new independent states, a multicultural community was destroyed and an estimated one million lives were lost to sectarian violence (Daiya par. 7). Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan exposes the brutalities of nation building by exploring the divisive reality of Indian partition on a peaceful, multicultural rural community. His novel demonstrates the dangerous process of “Othering” inherent in the construction of a new nation and the destructive results of such “Othering.”
Singh establishes a conflict between the ideal of the nation as a site of unity and community and the reality of its divisive impulses. Focusing on a small rural community as a microcosm of larger events, he demonstrates the rapid process of “Othering” that results from the formation of new nations. The people of Mano Majra initially live in isolation from the communal violence; their village is one of the “remaining oases of peace” (Singh 2). The partition does not seem to directly affect this harmonious community until the arrival of the first “ghost train” loaded with the bodies of slaughtered refugees from Pakistan. As the violence outside the community continues to seep into it, the head constable begins to plant seeds of suspicion amongst the people of Mano Majra in an effort to force the Muslims of the village to evacuate to Pakistan. Things begin to change rapidly as the village becomes hyper-conscious of internal differences. The narrator observes that “the head constable’s visit had divided Mano Majra into two halves as neatly as a knife cuts through a pat of butter” (120). Immediately, friends and neighbors begin to view each other as enemies. “Rumors of atrocities” committed by both sides, which the villagers had previously dismissed, begin to gain a hearing. Communal bonds are tested by a sudden awareness of difference.
Once the definitional shift begins to occur, its effects are rapid. Sikh villagers begin to speak of the people of the village in terms of a binary division – referring to Sikhs as “we” and Muslims as “they” (122). Muslim villagers whom the Sikhs had previously regarded as “brothers” (123) are suddenly recast as “pigs” and “snakes” (123). When the Sikh religious leader, Meet Singh, questions what the Muslims of Mano Majra have done to deserve this regard, the response is “they are Muslims” (123). The process of “Othering” begins when the sectarian violence becomes visible to this isolated community. The presence of Sikh refugees in the village lends credence to claims of Muslim violence and encourages the Sikh villagers to begin to shift their communal loyalties. With a little encouragement from government forces, the Sikh villagers rapidly come to regard their Muslim brothers as outsiders and begin the process of “Othering.” The people who had previously been considered part of the village’s “us” are immediately recast as “them,” disrupting the village’s interethnic unity.
This definitional shift leads the villagers of Mano Majra to the conclusion that the Muslim villagers must immediately depart for the refugee camps. With this conclusion, their sense of group loyalty is temporarily realigned to include all villagers. The Sikh villagers fear that they might be unable to protect their Muslim brothers from the refugees who are staying at the temple, so they declare that the Muslim villagers must leave for their own protection. In their reasoning, the Sikhs are torn between two fundamental principles; they must shelter the refugees because “hospitality was…a sacred duty,” but they cannot put the Mano Majra Muslims at risk for the sake of the refugees because “loyalty to a fellow villager was above all other considerations” (124). When the leaders of Mano Majra come together to discuss the situation, the Sikhs declare that although they would protect their Muslim brothers with their lives, they believe it to be safer for the Muslims to leave the village “while this trouble is on” (126). As the Muslim villagers pack for departure that night, the two groups are still “swearing love and friendship,” and the bond between the two groups of villagers seems to have been restored.
Despite the seeming preservation of this communal bond, the text does not gloss over the devastating effects of this decision. The narrator observes that the village is in a state of mourning; “it was as if in every home there had been a death” (129). The traumatic effects of departure are most obvious in the reaction of Nooran. Nooran is a young Muslim woman pregnant with the child of her Sikh lover, Jugga, who is in jail at the time of the community’s decision. When Nooran’s father tells her of their imminent departure, she “defiantly” declares that she will not leave her home and insists “this is our village” (128). Nooran does not understand why the Mano Majra Muslims would need to leave their home and believes that the other villagers would never “throw [them] out” (128). Once she realizes that their departure is not a choice but a form of mass exile wherein the Muslims must leave or risk death, she experiences the sense of dislocation and disorientation that Meenakshi Mukherjee attributes to refugees who are “jolted out of their secure collective identities” (621). Nooran reluctantly acquiesces to her incomprehensible fate and packs for a journey she expects to be temporary, hoping that Jugga will come for her once he is released from jail.
Singh creates a poignant image of the shattering effects of the partition in describing Nooran’s preparations for departure: “The packing was over. All that remained was to roll her quilt round the pillow, put the odds and ends on the charpoy and the charpoy on the buffalo. She could carry the piece of broken mirror in her hand” (133). In this image, readers see a life reduced to what can be loaded onto a buffalo (and later learn that even these objects cannot be taken to the refugee camps). The image of the broken mirror is deeply symbolic, suggesting the fracturing of communal bonds, the shattered illusions of communal identity, and the fragmentation and lack of cohesion that result from destroying old bonds to construct new nations. On a literal level, the piece of broken mirror could be used as a potential weapon, bringing to mind the stories of Muslim and Sikh women who committed suicide to preserve their sexual purity when attacked. The image carries with it the threat of violence that plagued refugees as well as providing a visual representation of the dislocation and disruption inherent in the condition of the refugee – what Edward Said describes as “the crippling sorrow of estrangement” (173).
Despite the assertions of fellow villagers that “this would soon be over” (Singh 132) and Nooran’s own hopes that she will soon return to her village, the image of the broken mirror suggests that what has been destroyed in the act of partition is irreparable. Said notes that the condition of exile creates an “unhealable rift between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home” (173). The image of a broken mirror embodies this sense of a fracture that cannot be healed. Salman Rushdie uses a similar image in describing the condition of the exiled Indian writer who “is obliged to deal in broken mirrors, some of whose fragments have been irretrievably lost” (11). He argues that the broken mirror is a more genuine representation of human consciousness since “human beings do not perceive things whole” but are instead “capable of only fractured perceptions” (Rushdie 12). In this sense, Nooran’s broken mirror can represent the limitations of human perception and, by extension, of interpersonal relationships. The inability to perceive the whole will inevitably lead to fragmentation and misunderstanding. The broken mirror reflects the fragments of a group identity that can never be made whole again.
To further illustrate the irreparable harm that results from the partition, the text demonstrates how rapidly the new sense of communal identity resulting from nation building can lead to violence. Once the Muslims depart from the village, the Sikh villagers quickly forget the bonds of loyalty they have sworn to uphold. The night after the Mano Majra Muslims’ departure, all of the Sikh villagers are gathered at the gurdwara when a band of rebels arrives to spur them toward violent action. The young leader of the rebels advocates a violent response to Muslim violence and advises, “for each trainload of dead they send over, send two across” (Singh 149). Meet Singh’s objections to this escalation of violence against innocent people are met with a distorted perversion of justice that requires the massacre of innocents in response to the massacre of innocents. The persuasive effect of the boy’s argument indicates the potential for violence inherent in the construction of communal identity. Said argues that the sort of “defensive nationalism” (Said 184) that results from nation building creates “an exaggerated sense of group solidarity, and a passionate hostility to outsiders, even those who may in fact be in the same predicament” (178). Because the partition has forged new national identities based on religion and ethnicity, the villagers are able to disregard previous bonds of community to defend their new nation against the external threat of the “Other.”
Nation building is a divisive and often bloody process. In conceiving of the “Other” as enemy, the Sikh villagers are able to justify violence against individuals who represent a potential threat to their community simply by virtue of their new communal identity. In this way, the Muslim villagers who were considered part of the community the previous day are now redefined as part of the enemy populace. When the rebels propose the annihilation of Muslim refugees on their way to Pakistan the next day, Meet Singh points out that the train will be carrying the Mano Majra Muslims, but the rebel leader mocks his objections, declaring that “it is enough to me to know that they are Muslims. They will not cross this river alive” (Singh 151). The rebel leader calls for volunteers to assist him in his venture, and “some villagers who had only recently wept at the departure of their Muslim friends…stood up to volunteer” (Singh 152). These villagers have completely redefined their sense of communal identity and realigned their loyalties within the span of a day. They have gone from swearing to protect the Mano Majra Muslims with their lives to agreeing to massacre the same populace as a testament to their loyalty toward their new communal group.
Meet Singh offers the only vocal resistance to this planned massacre, and the ease with which the rebel leader silences his arguments is disturbing. Meet Singh provides legitimate rebuttals and counterarguments to the rebel leader’s claims about the necessity of violence, insisting that “only people who have committed crimes should be punished,” questioning the bravery of “killing unarmed innocent people,” and citing scripture and religious precedence in favor of harmonious relations between Sikhs and Muslims (149-50). After several eloquent arguments in favor of peace, Meet Singh is effectively silenced by the rebel leader’s demand that he point to an example of a “good” Muslim. His inability to respond to this request is “taken as an admission of defeat” (150). The ease of his defeat is unsettling for the reader, who can think of several “good Muslims” in the context of the text. Readers must question why Meet Singh did not respond with a reminder of the villagers’ Muslim “brothers” who had left only the previous day. His inability to refute the boy’s arguments demonstrates his marginalization. The voice of reason is easily silenced in the face of the nationalist call for violent retribution, and previous loyalties are forgotten or disregarded.
In order for the Sikhs of Mano Majra to identify completely with their new nation, they must forget their old affiliations. Homi K. Bhabha argues that “it is through this syntax of forgetting – or being obliged to forget – that the problematic identification of a national people becomes visible …the identity of part and whole, past and present, is cut across by the ‘obligation to forget,’ or forgetting to remember” (310). In the formation of national identity, individuals are “obliged to forget” that which threatens their new identity. Because cultural difference threatens national unity, nations must focus attention outward, forming internal unity by emphasizing that which makes them different from external groups. Bhabha notes that it is “the ambivalent identification of love and hate that binds a community together” (300), pointing to Sigmund Freud’s claim that “‘it is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left to receive the manifestation of their aggressiveness’” (qtd. in Bhabha 300). The distinction between the nation and “extrinsic Other nations” (299) allows for the performance of a national identity. Each nation state is bounded by the fact that it is “in permanent competition with other countries, other nations” (Foucault qtd in Bhabha). In order for the new Indian nation to feel unified, it must have a common external enemy. In adopting this new communal identity, the Mano Majra Sikhs assume their prejudices and turn their aggression outward toward the newly “Othered” Muslims of their own community. Meet Singh’s objections on grounds of morality and brotherhood are easily disregarded in the face of such powerful psychological identification.
Ironically, the spiritual leader is not the only one incapable of stopping the communal violence that results from nation building, but the government itself cannot stem the violence. Nation is, in this sense, portrayed as something which cannot be contained. Both the magistrate, Hukum Chand (who is symbolically referred to as “the government”), and the Communist political activist, Iqbal, lack the power to halt the planned attack. Hukum Chand reflects on his own impotency, observing, “Magistrates were responsible for maintenance of law and order. But they maintained order with power behind them; not opposing them. Where was the power?” (175-76). Because the new government has no power, it cannot control the chaos or violence; it can neither impose order nor promote peace. The communal identity formed through nation building is far more powerful than the government designed to regulate the new nation.
In spite of the overwhelming pessimism such observations create, Singh’s novel does offer a hope of redemption through individual action. Jugga is able to stop the planned attack and save all of the 1,500 refugees on board the train, but he can only do this at the cost of his own life. Shot to death while cutting the rope that was meant to derail the train, he falls onto the track at the moment of his success. The narrative ends on a mixed note as the final lines offer both an indication of his success and a completely deromanticized report of his death: “The rope snapped in the center as he fell. The train went over him, and went on to Pakistan” (181). Jugga’s actions demonstrate that one man does have the power to make a difference, despite Iqbal’s claim that such individual sacrifice “would do no good to society” (170). Where the officials who have a responsibility or an ideological obligation to act fail, one individual acting out of love succeeds. His anonymous self-sacrifice (the text never names him in the final scene, though the context makes clear who the “big man” cutting the rope is) demonstrates the potential for a human connection that rises above ethnic differences.
Jugga acts out of his love for Nooran and his desire to save her and their unborn child; his actions are not ideologically motivated, but they have ideological implications. The love between the Sikh man and the Muslim woman transcends definitional differences. Where the rest of the community has forsaken its bonds of love, loyalty, and community, Jugga’s love for Nooran does not fade. He rejects the “obligation to forget,” not for political or ethical reasons but because of a fundamental human emotion. His redemptive self-sacrifice suggests that individual bonds can be stronger than communal ones. His heroic self-sacrifice offers a glimmer of hope.
The power of this redemptive sacrifice is limited, given that the only character seemingly capable of such action dies at the end of the novel. Singh focuses on the very local and personal as sites of resistance: the interethnic love between Nooran and Jugga, Meet Singh’s attempts to appeal to the bonds of communal brotherhood to prevent his community from engaging in violent action, and Jugga’s attempt to save the woman he loves. All of these conciliatory figures have bleak fates in the face of broader ideology. Nooran is torn from her community and may believe herself to have been abandoned by her lover, never knowing of his ultimate sacrifice. Meet Singh is silenced and can only watch as his fellow villagers set out to massacre their former friends. Jugga dies an anonymous death. Yet, the text seems to suggest that there is value in the resistance—that these personal bonds are more meaningful than the ideological differences.
These characters cannot stop the larger forces at play; their emphasis on individual bonds seems insignificant when set against powerful forces of nationhood, but they are able to make a difference. The train runs over Jugga’s body; he is literally crushed by forces larger than himself, but in the process, he saves 1,500 lives. The love between Nooran and Jugga leads to the redemptive sacrifice that saves a trainload of people. Meet Singh provides Jugga with spiritual guidance before Jugga sets out on his mission. Each of these individuals in some way contributes to the salvation of 1,500 lives. In the context of one million casualties, 1,500 lives may not seem like much, but Jugga’s success is a symbolic victory, providing a glimmer of hope in the depiction of an overwhelming tragedy. His sacrifice confirms that some bonds are stronger than sectarian divisions—that a recognition of the individual, the personal, and the humanity of the “Other” can quell the violent impulse of division.
Through the depiction of this tragic romance set in the context of a larger historical tragedy, Singh reminds readers of the overwhelming violence and brutality of partition. Discourse of nationhood often neglects the destructive realities of nation building, but Singh’s novel brings this destruction to light. Rushdie notes that “description is itself a political act” (13). In providing a detailed account of the effects of partition on one community and on individual villagers, Singh makes the psychological effects of partition more easily felt. He resists the “Othering” impulse by making readers relate to characters on both sides of the divide. Reports of mass casualties do not affect people as much as the tragic description of individual suffering; a character with a name and a story is harder to ignore than a mass of nameless, faceless victims. Through his focus on the local and the personal, Singh makes real the disruptive experience of exile and demonstrates the process of “Othering,” which is essential to the formation of national identity. He forces readers to acknowledge the violence and dislocation inherent in this process.
Singh’s novel, while free of overt political commentary (save that which is attributed to individual characters), engages in the “political act” of acting as a witness on behalf of the one million lives lost and the millions of people who were torn from their homes and communities. In a self-justifying attempt to reconcile his political activism with his refusal to act to prevent the attack on the train, Iqbal insists that sacrifice is meaningless unless someone is there to witness it: “If there were people to see the act of self-immolation, as on a cinema screen, the sacrifice might be worth while: a moral lesson might be conveyed” (170). By witnessing Jugga’s self-sacrifice and the suffering of the Mano Majra exiles, Train to Pakistan makes their sacrifice worthwhile, rejecting the “obligation to forget” and suggesting instead a need to remember.
Works Cited
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Daiya, Kavita. “Postcolonial Masculinity: 1947, Partition Violence and Nationalism in the Indian Public Sphere.” Genders 43 (2006). DOAJ. Web. 25 Feb 2011.
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Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. London: Granta Books, 1991. Print.
Said, Edward. W. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000. Print.
SarDesai, D.R.. India: The Definitive History. Boulder: Westview P, 2008.
Singh, Khushwant. Train to Pakistan. New York: Grove Press, 1956. Print.
Vohra, Ranbir. The Making of India: A Historical Survey. London: M.E. Sharpe, 1997.