Volume 2 Issue 3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND

December 2015 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926

Moral Condemnation of Partition Violence in Manto's Toba Tek Singh

Dadhi Ram Panthi

Tribhuvan University, Pashupati Multiple Campus,
Chabahil, Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

The research paper; written on the theme of Indian Partition of 1947 on Saadat Hasan Manto’s
Toba Tek Singh; attempts to explore the quest for universal moral values. In doing so, the writer
presents a character named Bishan Singh who is revolutionary in nature. His attempt to break the
religious and cultural boundaries is praiseworthy as he is ready to die in the border i.e. no-man’s
land raising the voice of true universal moral values. In fact, millions died during partition
violence. The Muslims died chanting the slogans- “Pakistan Zindabad” and the Hindus and Sikhs
died chanting the voice of their liberation and demanding separate state on the basis of their
religious principles. In such critical condition, the character Bishan Singh neither supports India
nor Pakistan; rather he climbs on the tree that lies in between India and Pakistan. His death on no-
man’s land indicates that he is opposing partition and intends to live in harmony. The writer’s
attempt to disqualify the ethical aspects by highlighting moral values is his condemnation of
partition violence.

Keywords: Indian Partition, Revolutionary, Universal moral values, No- man’s land, Ethical,
Moral.

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Introduction and Analysis

Saadat Hasan Manto's Toba Tek Singh exposes not only the idea of trauma of the Indian
partition violence but it also highlights the importance of universal moral values and human values.
He is presenting his idea through the role of the protagonist Bishan Singh. Bishan Singh represents
Toba Tek Singh and Toba Tek Singh represents Bishan Singh and at the same time Toba Tek Singh
represents no man's land from where he is expressing his ideas. Despite being neutral, Bishan
Singh, an extreme victim of partition violence is forced to leave Pakistan and is taken to the border
in the police custody with all the Hindus and Sikhs from the Lahore asylum. It was decided two or
three years after the partition by both Indian government and the government of Pakistan that
Muslim lunatics from Indian institutions should be sent over to Pakistan and Hindu and Sikhs
lunatics from Pakistani asylums should be allowed to go to India. Bishan Singh seems quite radical
and wants to protest the decision of both the governments as he is quite away from politics and
force which is being exercised in the name of religion.

When force is used to chase the partition victim Toba Tek Singh away and then he remarks, "I
want to live neither in Pakistan nor in Hindustan- I will live on this tree"(15). It clearly indicates
that he is quite neutral and he is far from politics and ideology. He means to say that human life is
greater than the nation. He is climbing on the tree which lies in no man's land. Some of the lunatics,
who are not completely mad, shout "Pakistan Zindabad and Pakistan Murdabad!"(18). Here, Manto
tells us that human values or moral values lie in complete lunacy. People forget their ideology if
they are completely traumatized, as traumatized as Toba Tek Singh. He condemns the force used by
any government either by Indian government or by Pakistani government. Toba Tek Singh or
Bishan Singh is speaking from common ground that is neither Pakistan nor Hindustan. In the story,
the expression, “When the guards threatened to use force, he installed himself in a place between
the borders and stood there as if no power in the world could move him"(19). It exposes that use of
power violets human values. Force is used upon Toba Tek Singh and other lunatics to displace them
and it exemplifies that misuse of power leads to the end of moral values and it is the sign of
anarchy.

Bishan Singh's cry is the cry for human values. The end of his traumatic life is not the end but
it is the sacrifice for human values and moral values. He is dying in no man's land calling human
values. While dying it is heard,"... a peircing cry arose from Bishan Singh..."(19). And the
expression indicates that Bishan Singh's extreme pain is unbearable. Toba Tek Singh's neutral
position can be felt through the expression as Manto exposes, «Beyond a wired fence on one side of
him was Hindustan and beyond a wired fence on the other side was Pakistan. In the middle, on a
stretch of land that had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh"(19). His life ends in such a land which has
no name, no any national boundary and he does not confine him within the limit of any religions.
For him, the earth has been common home in which all human beings should have equal rights and
freedom for life. And religions, customs, forces and issues of nationalism all are the obstacles that
distort moral values.

Tarannum Riyaz argues that the main character Bishan Singh in the story "Toba Tek Singh",
is the writer Manto himself as he says:

It seems that the main character of the short story, a mad person, is no other than Manto
himself. At the time of partition the piece of land, Toba Tek Singh, fell neither within

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the boundary of India nor of Pakistan. Toba Tek Sigh is a piece of land which has no
specific national identity....(205)

Here, Toba Tek Singh's identity allegorizes Manto's identity that is forced on him. In this
sense Toba Tek Singh is partly autobiographical. On the one hand, Toba Tek Singh represents a
fictional character named Bishan Singh. On the other Manto's own life.

For Devendra Issar, Manto's Toba Tek Singh exposes Manto's identity as "Liminal Zones". He
argues:
Manot's stories often take place in liminal spaces where borders are erased and
consciousness loses its bearings, where sanity and insanity, health and sickness, moral
goodness and sin cease to be sharply demarcated. The asylum and the hospital are apt
symbols for life in such spaces.(186)

The main issue raised by Devendra, in this sense, is the issue of moral values. He might be
indicating that there lies humanity where borders are erased and consciousness loses. Asylums and
hospitals can be such liminal spaces where issues of nations become minor and all the victims are
seen through the perspective of human values. Such spaces are free from politics.

Prakash Bodh in his "Nation and Identity in the Narratives of Partition" writes:

Bishan singh's identity is established by his pseudonym, Toba Tek Singh, the name that
alludes to the character more often than to his village. By this simple device, Manto is
able to collapse the individual and the communitarian identity. Bishan Singh is Toba
Tek Singh both literally and metaphorically. He not only belongs to his village; he
becomes his village, land and home....(14)

Prakash Bodh's idea expressed in this essay is that when we are able to collapse our individual
identity and communitarian values then after human values will appear. Forgetting our personal
identity and communitarian identity, we will be able to see and analyze the real trauma of the
partition victims. We should see the pain of the sufferers by forgetting our identity, community and
politics. This is Manto's demand.

Harish Narang expresses that Manto's Toba Tek Singh does not talk about the lunacy of the
victims but it is the use of force that becomes lunatic. The power exercising authority has been
brutal and this is the act of lunacy. Bishan Singh is ironically presented as a lunatic. He is extreme
victim but not real lunatic. Both the governments forgot human values and moral values so Bishan
Singh is presented here as the character who carries human values. Harish Narang argues, "Use of
force upon common but the very lunacy of forcing people to give up their roots-physical, cultural
and psychological"(72). It shows people have been traumatized physically, culturally and
psychologically due to the use of force even after the partition violence. Khalid Hasaan writes,
"India was free. Pakistan was free from the moment of its birth, but in both states, man's
enslavement continued: by prejudice, by religious fanaticism, by slavery"(90). Prejudice, religious
fanaticism and slavery are the problems of both India and Pakistan even after the partition violence
and these problems have been the obstacles in the path of development and moral values have been
collapsed due to these problems. He further argues,"... wherever I go, I will make my little
world"(89). In this way, he is in favour of mobility and he believes that our identity is determined
through mobility but not within certain national boundary fixed by certain nations. Gopi Chand

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Narang asserts, «The logic of human relationship is more powerful than the logic of religion" (vii).
He is making us aware that human values are better than religious values. In Toba Tek Singh, the
protagonist Bishan Singh does not listen about any religion but he sees only human being in the
centre. Beerendra Pandey argues, "Trauma is sociopsychological"(125). His notion of trauma is
neither singularly cultural nor exclusively psychological; it coalesces the two. Pandey agrees to
Manto's notion of trauma as he knows, "Morality, for Manto means emphasis on human
relations..."(131). It means trauma of 1947 should be seen through humanitarian level neither
through merely cultural nor psychological level. Pandey‘s disagreement is that both India and
Pakistan are involving in identity politics forgetting the real trauma of the victims which is
dangerous for both. Pandey further argues:

The trauma of 1947... means speaking to a shared suffering from the perspective of a
shared moral need for the pain to be listened to by a moral community... morality
functions as the basis for disqualifying ethics concerned with personal and communal
relationships. (131)

Ethics is disqualified in the presence of morality because ethics does not care about the real
pains of the victims. Like Manto, Pandey demands for the formation of moral community.

In her "Trauma and Testimony," Veena Das raises the issues of prophecy, everyday business
and acknowledgement. She studies the prophecy theory of Reinhart Koselleck and Achille
Mbembe's theory of subjectivity and proposes for remaking. Koselleck's notion is futuristic notion
where as Mbembe's notion is 'self-writing'. Mbembe argues that Afro-American don't write
themselves but others write about them so their subjectivity cannot emerge in their writings.
Without subjectivity trauma cannot be authentic. Veena Says real trauma can be realized only
through everyday business and acknowledgement. She further argues, "I found that the making of
the self was located not in the shadow of some ghostly past but in the context of making the
everyday inhabitable"(300). It shows if victims are busy in daily business, they will be less
traumatized. Actually, she is studying the gap between prophetic approach and diagnostic approach
for the remaking of the future. Here, she is quite hopeful about future as she expresses,"...public
acknowledgement of hurt can allow new opportunities to be created for resumption of everyday
life"(302). In this way she speaks in the behalf of future community. Manto also seems quite
optimistic about the creation of good future community. Geoffrey Hartman writes, "Monuments can
foster forgetfulness in the way they select what is to be remembered. They are highly visible
metonymic markers that can be politically exploited..."(72). Video testimony tries to struggle to be
authentic/truthful but it remains only realistic. Video testimony loses its aura due to simulacrum so
video testimony can be realistic but not truthful. Remembering trauma through monument is not
authentic. Trauma should not be forgotten deliberately because forgetting refers to 'mental block'.
Acknowledging trauma is a must. Remembering trauma through icon is metonymy. So
remembering trauma through icon is political which is quite dangerous and it creates a lot of
conflicting situations. Hartman's ideas can be connected in Manto only in the sense that both are in
search of authenticity of traumatic testimony. But Agamben is quite closer to the ideas of Manto
because Agamben in "Testimony and Authenticity", raises the issue of "Muselman" (qtd. in
Hartman: 87). 'Muselman' refers to a survival with extreme pain. 'Muselman' is the extreme victim
of extreme violence. 'Muselman' is also called living dead. There is contradiction between Hartman
and Agamben in terms of the authenticity of trauma. For Agamben, living dead or extreme victim
can be the best source of authentic testimony but for Hartman true witness is the dead. So searching

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truthful testimony is a vain job but Agamben disagrees with him and tells that truthful testimony
lies in extreme victim or living dead or 'Muselman'. In this connection the protagonist Bishan Singh
of Manto's Toba Tek Singh is the extreme victim of extreme violence who has lost consciousness
and is demanding freedom. He is lunatic in the sense that he is in the state of melancholia due to
extreme violence. In other words, he is 'Muselman' of Agamben. His speech becomes authentic
because he is not escaping or running away from no man's land. He cries a lot and dies there. Video
testimony is the interest of Hartman and the problem in it is the problem of ethics. But Agamben's
interest is the interest of Muselman's muteness or unspeakablility. Agamben, like Manto is
highlighting moral issues not ethical issues.

In The Ethics of Memory, Avishai Margalit also raises the problem of ethics and memory.
Ethics is in binary opposition to morality. Remembering the past is our ethical responsibility. He
argues, "Being moral is a required good; being ethical is, in principle, an optional good"(105).
Ethical issue is optional whereas moral issue is a need. The major issue raised in this essay is the
issue of relation. Relation consists of two parts: thin relation and thick relation. Ethical relation is
thick relation whereas moral relation is thin relation. If we want to be the member of a certain
community we are in thick relation but if we take us as a member of whole universe we are in thin
relation. The members of thin relation are few because very few people believe in moral values. The
writer further argues, "For the goodness within the relation, memory is crucial"(106). So thick
relation is good relation in ethical level and good relation is based on memory. But thin relation
seems better in moral level. In Toba Tek Singh, Bishan Singh is maintaining just thin relation as he
strongly believes in moral values. He has a very thin relation with India or Pakistan so he has been
alone. The writer further says, "Ethical element that makes good relation"(106). We lack human
values if we live just ethical life though it seems better in individual and cultural level.

Amitav Ghosh, in his novel The shadow Lines expresses that national and cultural boundaries
are useless. Partition is the power to make the familiar to unfamiliar even uncanny. Nationalism is a
problem for him. He does not talk about Indian line or Pakistani line but his journey is towards
human line. This is his cosmopolitan attitude. The writer exposes this attitude through the mouth of
the narrator which is expressed,"...believing in the reality of space... I believed in the reality of
nations and borders; I believed that across the border there existed another reality"(219). Here, the
writer is using the phrase 'another reality'. What does it indicate? He might be indicating that human
values exist beyond the reality of nations and borders. So 'home' is not a geographical entity, but an
emotional, moral and intellectual entity which can be identified in The Shadow Lines. This is the
meeting point of Manto and Ghosh as both are in the quest for 'Home' which is common ground for
all. The protagonist Bishan Singh's struggle is the struggle for common home where human values
exist. This is his cosmopolitan notion.

Allen Meek is quite influenced by Agamben's theory of Homo sacer and argues,"In
Agamben's theory Homo sacer, once a marginalized figure, has become no longer the exception but
the rule..."(25). Meek's opinion proves that victims are not real victims. They are made up victims
by force. If they get freedom they can be rulers not just exception. In this sense 'Homo sacer' is a
person of bare life and he is the person who has been marginalized by the people who are in the
power. So far as Manto's Toba Tek Singh is concerned, Bishan Singh is not real lunatic but he has
been made lunatic by force. It shows biopolitics is the main cause of the violation of human values.
Meek further agrees to Kristeva and says photographs are more speakable than the experience of
real death itself in the trenches as he argues reading Kristeva's theory of Powers of Horror:

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The spectacle of mass death and decomposing bodies in trench warfare was
unprecedented. Julia Kristeva has argued that such an experience of the abject- the body
as disgusting other- threatens the foundations of the self's sense of individual integrity.
The experience of death in the trenches was more than indescribable; it was
unspeakable. But photographs could show it. (59)

It shows the world of traumatic image is more communicable and speakable than real
experience of traumatic violence and death. In Manto's Toba Tek Singh it is quite clear that the
image of the death of Bishan Singh is comparatively more traumatic and painful than such real
event like the real event of 1947 partition violence of India and Pakistan.

Walter Benjamin, in "Theories, Histories and Images" argues, "Articulating the past
historically does not mean recognizing it 'the way it really was'. It means appropriating a memory as
it flashes up in a moment of danger"(qtd. in Meek: 41). Benjamin sees problems in history as it is
not written from the below. Traumatic memory tends to come in our mind but we forcefully try to
forget it. This is the moment of danger for Benjamin. Real trauma comes automatically through
memory and we never try to suppress or forget it. In Toba Tek Singh, the writer Manto has
presented such a character named Bishan Singh or Toba Tek Singh who is naturally expressing his
pain without fear. He does not care about the use of force and dies in no man’s land with a loud
shriek. He knows it is moment of danger but he does not afraid. His cry is the cry against
biopolitics. Lacapra's emphasis is on empathy where as "Benjamin rejected empathy"(Meek: 43). It
shows Lacapra was interested in cultural politics where as Benjamin hated it. For Benjamin
humanity was greater than culture. Benjamin's major concern was to "brush history against the
grain" (Meek: 44). His interest was that truth of violence emerges if history becomes 'discontinuous'
and if it is written in 'unsettled' manner. Unless and until it is done human values are always in the
shadow. Same thing is expressed in Manto's Toba Tek Singh because no one shows interest to listen
the voice of Bishan Singh or Toba Tek Singh.

Elissa Marder in her "Trauma and Literary Studies" writes, «Elman proposes that certain
historicdal trials inadvertently put the very blindness of the law to its own limits on display in the
trail ... and enacts the effects of the very trauma that law is unable to see"(50). Elissa and Felman
both favour moral values. The major point of Felman is that trauma does not have legal values.
Trauma cannot be closed through law. Felman argues that law is unable to heal trauma. Literature is
more authentic testimony than court of law. Law only works on the basis of closer. Literature can
be taken as a traumatic testimony but not history or law. Trauma literature is acting out and it has
some healing power. "Literature", in the words of Manto, "is not a malady but a response to malady.
It is a measure of the temperature of the country, of the nation. It tells us of its health and
disease..."(qtd. in M Asaduddin: 24). Manto is quite hopeful in the sense that literature emerges
with some sort of healing power. For him literature is not sickness but rather a response to sickness.
He means to say that literature only can address trauma but not history and literature carries human
values and moral values. So Manto's Toba Tek Singh is a piece of literature but it is more powerful
than any historical document and law.

Manto's Toba Tek Singh is a triumph of ambivalence as it proclaims the in-betweenness of the
protagonist. The madman's death takes place in no man's land where the writ of neither nation
prevails. The story shows the partition as an outbreak of collective madness which is turned upside
down. For Manto, the partition was primarily a lived reality which became a metaphor for human
depravity. The partition became a metaphor for the post independence communial divide. The story
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is short but it tells a lot about partition violence of India and Pakistan in 1947. Manto suggests us to
fight for humanity and morality forgetting national boundary, culture and religion.

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