1947 - Toba Tek Singh

 

          Name  - Rohit Andrew Lobo

          Roll no - 20SJCCC346

          Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/betweenbarbedwires/

           REPORT

          I have chosen to use an Instagram page as a form of creative expression, as Instagram is one of the biggest platforms in the world right now where people can express themselves and their work to the world. As the saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words", the Instagram page that I have created has a lot of pictures that will help viewers learn more about the hardships that people faced during the partition which is considered one of the world’s biggest calamities of the 20th century. 

The Partition of India of 1947 was the division of British India] into two independent dominion states, India, and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India; the Dominion of Pakistan is today the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal, and Punjab, based on district-wise non-Muslim or Muslim majorities. The partition also saw the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury. The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj, or Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 15 August 1947. 

This partition displaced almost 10 and 20 million people  on the basis of religion , creating a refugee crisis in the newly constituted countries. There was a lot of violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million with the number of Muslim deaths being more than Hindus and Sikhs. The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that affects their relationship to this day. 

“Toba Tek Singh,” written in 1954, is Manto’s most famous short story. Describing the exchange of inmates of a Lahore mental asylum after partition, “Toba Tek Singh” uses the madness of the inmates as a mirror for the madness of the outside world. As the story progresses, the reader comes to realize that the asylum inmates are in fact much saner than the politicians controlling their destiny. The main character, Bishan Singh, in his painful struggle for identity, is symbolic of the displacement suffered by millions of partition refugees. Although the story is fictional, an actual exchange of psychiatric patients between mental hospitals in Lahore and Amritsar took place in 1950 (Jain and Sarin 2012). Despite extensive studies of Manto’s life and work, as well as selected articles on his psychology and mental health, few attempts have been made to integrate both aspects. “Toba Tek Singh” provides a useful lens through which to look at Manto more broadly and explore the role of mental illness not only in his life and work but also in the Indian subcontinent more generally around the time of partition. By discussing Manto’s personal experience of mental illness, themes in “Toba Tek Singh” and their implications in specific historical context, this essay aims to shine an integrative light on aspects of Manto’s work and mental illness.