India and Pakistan Partition

The partition of India in 1947 is considered to be one of the largest migrations of people and the most violent one. It is believed that more than 12 million people were displaced during that period and the estimated number of death varies from varying from several hundred thousand to a million. There were many women who were raped and murdered and some never found. People had to leave their ancestral homes and friends they have known all their lives. Most people didn’t really understand why they were forced to leave. The panic that was created because of this led only to more violence.

In the story Toba Tek Singh, Saadat Hasan Manto tells us about the exchange of lunatics two years after the partition. The people in the asylum where behind four walls so, they didn’t understand what was happening around them. They didn’t know where they were and where are they going. One of person (Bisham Singh) in the asylum always asks where Toba Tek Singh is now; if it is India and Pakistan. Another person refused to leave.  During the partition of India and Pakistan, most of the people where like this patients, confused and lost. In the end of the story, Bisham Singh was found lying in the border, where it was neither India nor Pakistan. He has finally found Toba Tek Singh. For most the people during the partition it was hard to leave behind everything that they have worked for. For them, it was their home, it was place where they were born and grow up and living these all behind is like losing a part of themselves.

A line in the map was drawn and this caused people to lose their homes, livelihood, loves ones and for some even their lives. The violent nature of the partition left an open wound between the two countries (India and Pakistan) that even to this day have never fully healed.