Publication

Abstract : Train to Pakistan for all its apparent fascination with violence is a tour-de-force of imaginative storytelling, a profoundly moving and moral work that is perhaps one of the most telling refutations of certain types of pacifism to have emerged from the India of Mahatma Gandhi. Khushwant Singh followed it up with a novel that deals with the lure of violence and the paradox of heroism against the backdrop of the partition of India and Pakistan . The novel embodies the exploration of new concepts of reality. The exploration of the human world and its related values in Train to Pakistan is more profound and more moving than perhaps the most erudite and expert commentary on aspects of twentieth century civilization. As the events portrayed in the novel had been witnessed in flesh and blood just nine years ago, the work created a sense of solid reality and a feeling of danger, desperation and violence of an unprecedented scale. The work has also been interpreted, in the post-colonial context,, as a protest novel against imperialistic designs, communal violence and the indifference of the Indian bureaucracy. The theme of the novel spotlights the human and spiritual implications of a bloody historical massacre. The writer attains this through the recreation of the quintessence of Sikhism against the backdrop of religious flare-ups.