ABSTRACT
Short story writers such as Manto and Intizar Husain generated remarkable self-refl exive modes of ‘fi ctive’ testimony in the immediate aftermath of widespread and multiple forms of violence, as we shall see in Chapter Five. On the other hand, not many major novels about the partition appeared before 1960 in Hindi, Urdu and English.1 The few novels that depict the experience of the partition seem preoccupied with obvious manifestations of communal violence or seek to restore the human dimension to the story of independence and division of the subcontinent, at times in overtly didactic ways. Some of these narratives fall back on communal stereotypes and conventional ways of coming to terms with the unprecedented fracturing of intercommunity relations. Such early novels are often marked by sheer bewilderment or a sense of underlying guilt, given their proximity to the event. There is also a seeming inability to fi nd a
1 Novels that appeared in Urdu shortly after 1947 include Ramanand Sagar’s Aur Insan Mar Gaya (1948 trans.1987-88 And Humanity Died) and Krishan Chander’s Ghaddar (1960 lit. Traitor). Ahmad refers to these novels as raw narratives in naturalistic form, seeking to record the extent of devastation. See Aijaz Ahmad ‘Some Refl ections’, p. 27. Perhaps the fi rst major Hindi novel about the partition, Yashpal’s Jhoota Sach (lit. False Truth) was published in two parts, Watan Aur Desh and Desh ka Bhavishya in 1958 and 1960. See S. P. Sudhesh, ‘Partition of India and Hindi Novels’ in S. R. Chakravarty and Mazhar Hussain eds. Partition of India: Literary Responses. New Delhi: Haranand, 1998, p. 56. This novel has not yet been published in an English translation. See the excerpt from the novel ‘Delhi, 1947’, trans. Sunny Singh in Khushwant Singh ed. City Improbable: Writings on Delhi, New Delhi: Penguin, pp. 81-87. Kartar Singh Duggal’s Punjabi novel Nahun te Maas (1951 lit. Nails and Flesh, trans. Twice Born Twice Dead 1979) is briefl y discussed in Chapter Four.
