ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the sinister world of Partition and the relationship it shares with violence, through a close reading of Khushwant Singh’s magnum opus, Train to Pakistan. Laying claim to an idyllic, pre-lapsarian past, the sanctified nationalist school of historiography often identifies Partition and its consequent aftermath of violence as a ‘state of exception,’ a circumstantial response that is devoid of a tradition. Khushwant Singh’s novel makes a significant departure from such assumptions and questions the historical validity of understanding Partition and its consequent climate of violence as a ‘state of exception.’ As the chapter argues, it in turn provokes an understanding of violence as both a historical and a naturalised rhetoric, which becomes a mode of self assertion and affirmation in the milieu of Partition.
