Short Stories Toba Tek Singh Summary by Saadat Hasan Manto & Themes
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Summary
Story of Partition
The story is set in the background of India-Pakistan partition of 1947. In the aftermath of political separation, many people had to relocate and uproot their lives.
There were chaos and confusion regarding what actually was Indian Territory and what was the newly formed Pakistan. The situation got even worse for patients and especially the ones in mental institutions.
Once the two countries had held talks regarding the situation of mental patients, it was decided that the Muslim patients would stay or move to Pakistan whereas the Hindu and Sikh counterparts will move to India.
Deportation Began
Even though India's move was slightly undecided, authorities in Lahore started the proceedings of deportation of Hindu and Sikh patients to India thorough Wagah-Attari land border.
The patients were a riotous bunch and were even more confused about partition as there was any coherent information or news available at the asylum. Some pretended to create their own piece of home in the asylum and did not want to leave. Some climbed up a tree and made it their dwelling whole. One person claimed himself to be God and decided that both India and Pakistan belonged to him.
Bishen Singh
Among these, there was a Sikh named Bishen Singh. He once had a huge property in Toba Tek Singh (place in Pakistan). He had been in the asylum for nearly two decades and never spoke to anyone save some jumbled mumblings.
He was often visited by his family and his daughter who grew up to become a young woman while he remained locked inside. However, since the violence post-Partition, they had not come. Bishen Singh kept asking everyone at the asylum as to which country gained Toba Tek Singh but no one had any clear answer.
Visit by a Muslims Friend
One day, he was visited by his old Muslim friend from Toba Tek Singh. He informed him that Bishen's family was safe in India and they were waiting for him to arrive in India. He also reassured him that Toba Tek Singh was still in Pakistan.
The day of the exchange came and the patients were taken to the border. There was a lot of clamor and noise. When it came to Bishen Singh's turn, popularly called as Toba Tek Singh, he did not move beyond the buffer zone between the two borders.
No guard could push him and seeing his desperation they let him free for a little while and moved to other patients. However, the man's legs soon gave way and he fell to the ground. At that moment the narrator realized that Toba Tek Singh (place and person) stood exactly nowhere, in between India and Pakistan.
Themes
Tragedy
The story is set in the background of the biggest tragedy and episode of violence in the history of independent India. The communal venom and bloodshed marred the whole event and had consequences for the entire populations of the two countries.
The tragedy and its note are loud and clear all through the text of the story. We recapitulate the event through the perspectives of different people, be it the authority or the prisoner.
Separation
Partition brought separation of families and nationalities. People became stranger in their won houses and land overnight. This was particularly true for Bishen Singh who could not even find his town of Toba Tek Singh because no one knew in which country it would end up.
He had his house in Pakistan but his home was in India as his entire family had relocated to India. This conundrum and conflict is something that generations after Independence had to counter and heal from.
Identity
Bishen Singh was a Sikh who was born in Pakistan belonged to India. This was an example of the crisis of identity that resulted from the 1947 partition. There were millions like Bishen Singh who either lost their land, their families, their religion or their life, just in the name of political independence and declaration.
The partition itself was based on religious identity but it was never justified by religion itself. The political war demolished the natural identities of millions of people and made them refugees in their own countries in matter of seconds.
Sanity
Manto plays cleverly with the idea of sanity in this story. The world outside the asylum is represented as chaotic and insane whereas the world inside it is made out to be calm and rational.
The clinical insane seemed to be more receptive of each other's differences and difficulties whereas the bright minds on the political stages seemed to be baying for blood of the "other nation". Arguably, it is their ideology which is often arbitrary and expedient.
The idea of madness and sanity is something that is often not discussed as it seems so clear and well defined but in fact it is anything but that. Sanity and rationality are determined by perspectives.
Hence, to a mental patient like Bishen Singh the blazing worlds of India and Pakistan seemed illogical and insane against the simple idea of peaceful home in Toba Tek Singh.
