Memory in ‘Basti’ and ‘Toba Tek Singh’

INTRODUCTION

The partition of the Indian subcontinent into two independent dominions of India and Pakistan

marked a traumatic event in the history of South Asia. Both the nations were demarcated by an

imaginary line drawn by the leaders. The line drawn by a few became the cause of suffering

for many. It resulted into mass migration of people. They were compelled to leave the land on

which they lived for generations. In order to re-settle in a completely new area, they walked

for miles along with their belongings. It was very often that there broke out communal riots on

the way. As Khalid Hassan notes, “If a hundred men were reported killed by one community,

the other community made sure that it doubled the score (Hassan, pp. 222)”.1 Men were killed,

women were raped and children were abandoned. Moreover, what added to their pain was that

despite walking for miles they could not be sure regarding their whereabouts. They did not

know their nationality. As a result, they were all left stranded and utterly helpless.

All this took place so rapidly that people could not get the time to comprehend the entire

situation. As they were displaced from their native land, to which they were attached

emotionally, they could not forget certain memories associated with it. In addition to these

memories were those of violence that they witnessed on the way. This amalgamation of

emotional and painful memories turned so intense that it continually kept haunting the minds

of people even after decades. It, thus, tended to take a toll on people’s psyche.

1
Thakur, Sayantan. Trauma of partition in Saadat Hassan Manto’s ‘Toba Tek Singh’
(IJELLH,Volume III, Issue V, July 2015, ISSN 2321-7065)
Therefore, the partition became not only an experience of physical displacement of people from

India to Pakistan or vice versa but it also cleaved their psyche into two. Finally, the tension of

memories was relieved through the works of a few writers, who represented the entire

community, of contemporary times. Among many such prominent writers were Saadat Hassan

Manto and Intizar Hussain, who are discussed here.

Manto, born in 1912 in Ludhiana, British India, present-day Pakistan, is best known for his

stories about the partition of India. In these stories, he “had the courage to face bitter truth, to

analyze it and to express it openly. He fought all his life for the right to speak the truth. (Akhtar,

pp. 9731)2” And for the same, he was tried for obscenity six times. It was clearly evident that

he scathingly disapproved the entire endeavor of partition through his works till he died in 1955

in Lahore.

Hussain was born in 1925 in Dibai, Bulandshahr district, present-day India. He is widely

recognized as a leading literary figure in Pakistan. He was among the finalists of the Man

Booker Prize in 2013. Being a witness to the dreadful partition event, his works mainly deal

with the nostalgia connected with his pre-partition life. He died in 2016 in Lahore, Pakistan.

As it can be seen, both the writers were born in British India. When the dreadful event of India’s

partition took place, Hussain and Manto were in their early 20’s and 30’s respectively. At this

young age, they would have seen many of their relatives being killed, some of them getting

jobless while a few might have been lost during the entire process. Also, they had to abandon

their native place, the place in which they had been brought up since childhood and move to

2Nisar, Arif. “Problematic of Cartography: A Critical Study of Select Stories of Manto”, European
Academic Research, Vol. II, Issue 7.
an entirely new place of which they were totally clueless. As a result, they had to live in the

memories of their native place wherever they moved. All these factors had a great impact on

their young minds. Unable to communicate their intense feelings orally, they tried to convey it

through their works by re-creating the dreadful episode.

This paper will focus on two such works, each by Hussain and Manto: ‘Basti’ and ‘Toba Tek

Singh’ respectively. The attempt would be to show how memories affect the mind of

individuals even after the passing of several decades. Also, it would focus on how these

continually haunting memories end up in a death of an individual.

BODY (Temporarily Named)

Intizar Hussain, being an eyewitness to the partition, was deeply affected by the upheveals that

it created. He had a first-hand experience of the horrors and brutalities of partition before

eventually migrating to Pakistan. However, all this terror that was hidden in his memories,

surfaced in his stories with the passing of time. His works are often filled with these painful

memories. One such work by Hussain is ‘Basti’ which was originally published in 1979 in

Urdu and was then translated into English by Francis W. Pritchett in 2004. If one looks at the

narrative structure of ‘Basti’ then one finds it that memories are given a kaleidoscopic. He

draws upon a number of memories beginning right from the war of 1857 to the partition of

1947 to the war of 1965 between India and Pakistan, and finally, the 1971 division of East

Pakistan and West Pakistan.

Hussain opens his novel with Zakir, the protagonist of the novel, reminiscing how both Hindu

and Muslim communities lived harmoniously in the village of Rupnagar, a fictional town

located in the United Provinces of British India. Zakir feels that with the partition coming into
effect, harmony was disrupted between the two communities. The communities which used to

live in the same village with love now developed hatred amongst each other. It gave rise to

acute riots. Zakir very vividly remembers these riots. He now had to migrate to the new land

of Pakistan leaving behind his belongings and friends in India. The only thing he could carry

along were the bitter-sweet memories of his native land. The more he tried to forget them, the

more they haunted him. Hussain subtly plays with the idea of remembering and forgetting

throughout the novel. Towards the end of novel, just when Zakir forgets everything, the news

of division of East and West Pakistan in 1971 re-invoked the horrifying memories of 1947

partition.

The plot of the novel itself indicates the intensity with which events were starkly imprinted in

mind of Hussain. He represents the psychological plight of all who were displaced. As it can

be seen, both pleasant and unpleasant memories collide in their minds. It is clearly evident

from the vivid description that Hussain provides in most part of his novel that unpleasant

memories form a larger part. Apart from certain chapters, entire novel contains the unpleasant

and painful memories. Also, the very description of events and riots with the same magnitude

and details after years, point towards the intactness of the memories in the minds of people

even after the passing of several years. It can thus be said that memories are “like a forest to

walk through.”3 They are entangled with each other in such a way that if one amongst them is

triggered, it will lead to a massive surge “like waves ... and illumined the whole series of

waves.”4

3 Hussain, Intizaar. Basti. Translated by Frances W. Prichett.

4 Hussain, Intizaar. Basti. Translated by Frances W. Prichett.
These waves of memories when return back to a displaced individual does not allow one to

live peacefully in the new land for it continually reminds one of his native place. Zakir, as a

dislocated person in a new country, is continuously troubled by these memories. When in

Pakistan he saw a big, well-lit room on the very first night, he thought of his old room “with

discolored walls, a cot, a table full of books, and among the books a lamp that shed a dim

light”5. Because of the revisiting of old traumatic memories, Zakir along with his friends could

not find any sense of affiliation with the new people and the country. But he then adapted

quickly, however, noting the very next day that “the sky of Pakistan was fresh, like the sky of

Rupnagar.”6

The situation of Zakir, here, indicates that whenever a displaced individual sees a similar object

in the new land as that of his native land, it immediately reminds him of those bygone days and

ignites a series of memories. It allows an individual to immerse in the bygone days by forgetting

the present. As a result, a person gets isolated from the society thereby creating an

insurmountable vacuum in the social and religious lives. Thus, everything including the earth,

the sky, days, nights, places, and people, get replaced with “the goodness and sincerity

gradually died out from the days, how the days came to be filled with misfortune and the nights

with ill omen.”7 At last the person realizes that living in memories will yield nothing and so it

is better to live in present. It forces an individual to adapt to the new environment.

Now the question that arises is what if the person is not able to forget the memories and adapt

to the new environment. If the memories of a dislocated person are deeply ingrained then

getting rid of it becomes challenging. It overcomes a person so much so that one is unable to

accept the change culminating into the death of an individual.

5 Husain, Intizar. Basti. Translated by Francis W. Pritchett.

6 Husain, Intizar. Basti. Translated by Francis W. Pritchett.
7 Husain, Intizar. Basti. Translated by Francis W. Pritchett.
Saadat Hassan Manto very accurately presents this idea in his seminal story ‘Toba Tek Singh’.

In order to represent this theme, Manto uses protagonist of his story, Bishen Singh. The story

revolves around a mental asylum, taking the notion of victimhood to its extreme by gradually

focusing on one old Sikh inmate named Bishen Singh, who is also known as ‘Toba Tek Singh’.

It was because he had been a wealthy landowner in a village of that name. Although unable to

speak except in nonsense syllables, upon hearing of the intended transfer to Indian side of the

border, he tries to find out whether they “were now in India or Pakistan. If they were in India,

where on earth was Pakistan? And if they were in Pakistan, then how come that until only the

other day it was India?”8. He could not understand why he is being uprooted from his home.

He is shown to be in an identity crisis wherein he was unable to decide his native place. Like

him, other inmates also experienced an identity crisis. For instance, an inmate named

Muhammad Ali, who considers himself to be Jinnah, argues with a Sikh who thinks himself to

be Tara Singh.

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 borders of the nations, commonly known as zero-line in the contemporary times. Finally,

just before sunrise, Bishen Singh, the man who had stood on his legs for fifteen years,

screamed, and as officials from the two sides rushed towards him, he collapsed to the ground.

There behind the barbed wires, on one side, lay India and behind more barbed wires, on the

other side, lay Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.

8 Husain, Intizar. Basti. Translated by Francis W. Pritchett.

Upon closely examining ‘Toba Tek Singh’, it is clear that the soul reason Bishen Singh refuses

to move across the border is because of the deeply ingrained memories of his native land –

Toba Tek Singh. Even if he crosses the border, he would not be able to live his actual life but

instead would have to live reminiscing the memories from his past. Despite use of force, Bishen

Singh is unwilling to change his mind, leading to an identity crisis in his life. He is unaware

about his location: “whether they were in Pakistan or India. If they were in India, then where

was Pakistan? If they were in Pakistan, how could it be possible when only a short while ago

they had been in India, without having moved at all?”9

All this culminated into the death of Bishen Singh. The memories overwhelmed him to an

extent that he could not adapt to the new atmosphere of a new land. He was unable to move

out of his past immediately. In the middle of all this struggle, Bishen Singh dies on the no

man’s land, the land which belonged neither to India nor to Pakistan. The memories, thus,

devoured the entire human being.

Hence, both Hussain and Manto in their works focus on the workings of memory in the minds

of the displaced. When one suppresses one’s memories, they eventually rebound with double

intensity. Both the writers further suggest that if one does not learn to control the returning of

memories then it could lead to many other problems and ultimately result into death.

CONCLUSION

After reading the entire paper, it can certainly be concluded that the partition was a devastating

event. Many people had suffered during this process of displacement. It affected their minds

9 Husain, Intizar. Basti. Translated by Francis W. Pritchett.

so much so that they were left completely distressed. Consequently, the only alternative left

with them was to take recourse to their memories which included not only decent memories

but also some painful memories. People were often reminded of those memories to wherever

they migrated. Some memories were such that it had overpowering effects on the minds of

people which resulted in their death. Thus, memories play an important role in forming the

character of a displaced individual.