Text, Representation and Revision: Re-visioning Partition Violence in Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan and Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas

Abstract

Partition is a complex historical reality that continues to puzzle the minds of scholars, historians and imaginative writers, who, ever since its occurrence, have endeavored to comprehend, through their numerous texts and writings, the subtle nuances of the complex strands that shaped the making of this seminal event. The present study attempts to examine, through a comparative analysis of Singh’s Train to Pakistan and Sahni’s Tamas, how the profoundly sensitive and deeply perceptive imagination of both Singh and Sahni create texts which re-enact, with sheer clarity and force, the happenings of partition and hence enable the readers to re-vision the complexities involved in its occurrence, create awareness/consciousness in them regarding those historical blunders, the consequences of which are still borne by the people and also urge them to revise/reform their attitudes, thinking and practices so that their present as well future is safeguarded against such catastrophic events.

Keywords

• partition
• text
• representation
• re-vision
• revision
• train to pakistan
• tamas
• khushwant singh
• bhisham sahni