Saadat Hassan Manto was a short story writer in the Urdu language, ‘a transnational entity^[1]’, best known for his works during and in the aftermath of the Partition of India, following independence from the British, in 1947. He was born in 1912 in Punjab, India, and as a resident of Bombay, Manto had intended to stay in India after Partition. In 1948, his family moved to Lahore in the newly-separated nation-state of Pakistan along with countless other Muslims from India. During this time, as narratives of the atrocities and horror of the Partition riots were widespread, his short stories and essays depicted the pain and helplessness suffered by millions of people. 

The Partition of India divided millions of undivided Indian Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others into two sovereign nations: India and Pakistan. The division of India was meant to resolve the issue of religious animosity in the region, but ironically, it exacerbated the situation as was evident in the mass atrocities committed by people against each other.  The relationship between Hindus and Muslims was already fragile in the years leading to Partition; collective communal violence was widespread; riots and bloodshed was taking place before and after the Partition, and its remnants can be felt even in the contemporary period. The acclaimed Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal wrote about the Partition stating that it was “a defining moment that is neither beginning nor end, it continues to influence how the people and states envisage their past, present and future.”^[2] It has been embossed painfully onto the regional consciousness of both nations with memories of unimaginable violence.

Manto wrote in tumultuous times when the concept of freedom, in India and Pakistan, was a crucial agenda of an ongoing struggle as well as an unsettled question. Even after the British had left India, their mark in the form of the Partition was stamped onto the people who had to be divided according to their religious identities. He often wrote about the difficult and bitter lives of Indians and Pakistanis, especially those who had been cast out and affected by the division. The themes of unfreedom, helpless surrender to the state of political affairs and absence of freedom of choice for the individual came across strongly in Manto’s works. 

Along with Manto, many other writers expressed the state of unfreedom and uncertainty of the period. Some of these were Ismat Chugtai: who addressed the moral policing of female sexuality and class conflict through her stories, Khushwant Singh, who was capable of relating his distinctive descriptive stories of violence with simplicity, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who was renowned as a revolutionary poet against the despotism of the state and Amrita Pritam, who portrayed the agony of migrant natives. Among these writers, Manto emerged as another prominent writer, who remained deeply engaged in the social and religious conflicts that were going on around him. In his stories, the themes of repression, hostility, and unfreedom are reflected as the impact common people underwent during a period when several religious communities were fighting to assert their superiority. His writing depicts the effects of communal violence on the victims as well as the assailants. In this paper, two of Saadat Hassan Manto’s short stories about the Partition of India- Toba Tek Singh and Tetwaal ka Kutta are analyzed through a political, psychological and literary lens to establish the ideas of the lack of freedom of choice and individuality in his works.

The first story is “Toba Tek Singh”, which was published in 1955 when there were riots going on. This story was written when Manto had been leading a tormented and troubled existence in Pakistan. Hence, the story of Toba Tek Singh is one about the uncertainty around the identity of the individual. The story features the inmates of a lunatic asylum. The asylum is representative of the Indian subcontinent: a Hindu, a Sikh, a Muslim, a couple of Anglo- Indians, and parted lovers and criminals are all housed here. After a few years, the Indian and Pakistani governments agree to a mutual exchange of their “lunatic populations”. But the prisoners are unsure if the land beneath their feet belongs to India or Pakistan. One of the characters, Bishan Singh, the Sikh landowner, questions whether the village Toba Tek Singh falls under India or Pakistan, but receives no definite answer, showcasing the uncertainty of the years after Partition. Bishan Singh can be seen repeatedly saying “Upar di gur gur di annex di be dhyana di mung di daal of the Pakistan Government.”^[3] Just as the random and nonsensical words strung together in the sentence uttered by Bishan Singh, Manto draws attention to how unambiguous, ludicrous and futile the decision of Partition was. The division was viewed as a huge political farce that ultimately changed the lives of people in India and Pakistan for generations to come. The political decisions that were imposed on the people of both countries without their consent left them helpless victims metaphorically depicted as lunatics in the story.

Another story, “Tetwaal ka Kutta” was published also in the early 1950s, showcases the army of both nations, which were, according to reports, “countering and containing the communal violence.”^[4] The movement of people across the border of both nations was carefully regulated and most were denied the freedom to choose whether they wanted to live in India or Pakistan. The story centres around the soldiers of both sides and a stray dog. The dog is an unclaimed animal, so the soldiers of the Indian army give a name to the dog, write on a board, “chapad jhun jhun”, just for the sake of entertainment, and hang it around its neck. When that dog wanders towards the border of Pakistan, Pakistani soldiers get alert believing the name to be a code word. They change the name to “sapad sun sun”. When he (the dog) wanders back to the Indian camp, a misunderstanding arises between the soldiers on both sides, and they end up shooting the dog dead. The soldiers do not feel any remorse or regret at their actions, but simply state “he died a dog’s death”^[5].

An important angle from which the stories can be analyzed is by looking at the restrictions placed on writers. Manto, like Bishan Singh from Toba Tek Singh, as a writer, wanted to experiment with a mix of many cultural zones but was unable to locate a space on either side of the line of separation. Similar to how Bishan Singh doesn't comprehend how the village of Toba Tek Singh, which is still located precisely where it has always been, can suddenly be a part of Pakistan or India, he also doesn’t comprehend the restrictions that political plans imposed on his individuality and creativity. In contrast, Manto views freedom as striving against these constricting and oppressive limits. In Toba Tek Singh, Bishan Singh chooses the no man’s land, which no nation claims, as his final resting place. In a similar vein, Manto's writings belong to a "no man's land" and transcend the barriers of geography, literature, and genre to convey the ideas of the struggle for freedom and what freedom looked like. The stories convey the plight of the mass of people who were shifted, how they were not aware of where they were going, and whether they would ever be able to return to their homeland. Toba Tek Singh exemplifies the helplessness and uncertainty of the refugees and denial of freedom of choice owing to the political decisions taken far from their reach and consent.

In a similar vein, the second story shows how the dog did not have the freedom to live a simple life, embroiled in a political quagmire. He wasn’t worried about where he was, because he blindly trusted the humans and simply wagged his tail to and fro. It is a metaphor for the unfreedom of the people who were uprooted from the lands of their belonging, detaching them from their identity and community. The dog’s death acts as an analogy for the death of individuality and choice. The death of the dog depicts the mindlessness of violence inflicted on common assertions of living a life of one’s own choice. It exemplifies that the people, who were the hapless victims of Partition, were not allowed to undertake crucial decisions about which country they wanted to go to as it was already decided for them.

The stories can also be analyzed through a psychological lens, wherein the people of both countries are either portrayed as lunatics in a mental asylum or helpless dogs, both of which are shown to be casualties of political despotism and violence. Manto was against the impulsive decision taken by the government, which seemed to completely disregard the common man’s will. Many contemporary authors note the continued psychological trauma and the trace of the partition that people on both sides carry and pass on to the generations.

Manto’s stories were a powerful mirror through which the world could get a glimpse into the inexplicably painful lives of the people of both countries suffering from the horrors of the Partition. To establish the ideas of unfreedom and compromised freedom of choice, apart from Saadat Hassan Manto, a plethora of other writers highlight the denial and violation of dignity, individuality and freedom of individuals. These stories continue to be relevant in the contemporary world, where the massive refugee crisis continues to wreak havoc, and people are denied basic rights that are considered essential for all humanity.