ABSTRACT
Partition is therefore a nodal point underlining a massive shift in conceptualizing ‘the self’ and ‘the collectivity’ in relation to the politically demarcated boundaries. Without devaluing Desai's comment however it would be more relevant to liken Manto to Chekhov instead, with whom he shares the sheer impersonality of tone and voice in representing some of the most unseemly incongruities and haunting paradoxes of life. Manto's stories provide the reader with history mediated by an artistic sensibility of purpose and form, while Urvashi Butalia's text The Other Side of Silenceprovides the reader with many of the actual facts of the horror of Partition. It is an index of Manto's humanism that he is able to judge beyond race and religion, and see each person, Hindu or Muslim, as a victim of circumstances. However, it also calls for a different kind of remembering and re-imagining.
