This was the hierarchy of this village.īut, one night few dacoits had entered the village of Mano Majra and they not only looted the house of Ram Lal but they also killed him. The latter were the tenants of the former. The family of Ram Lal was the only hindu family in Mano Majra. This was the life which they were living nonchalantly.Īlthough, the village of Mano Majra was close to the border with Pakistan but this small hamlet was remained untouched from the riots of 1947 until the murder of the hindu moneylender, Ram Lal. Men went to their fields to work, children play along the small lanes of the village, women have to take care of their homes. They’ve to follow the same daily routine which they were doing for uncountable number of years. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were living their lives peacefully as their forefathers did for thousands of years.Īlthough, they were aware that the angreji (English) sarkar was no more and the government of Mahatma Gandhi and his disciple Jawaharlal Nehru took over the reins of Hindustan.īut, for them nothing has changed. The same we can say about the village of Mano Majra and its inhabitants. “The soul of India lives in its villages.” Mano Majra-Īs Mahatma Gandhi said several decades ago, It’s a story of a nondescript village on the border of India and Pakistan by the name of Mano Majra. Train to Pakistan is a modern classic fiction written by Sardar Khushwant Singh. So, let’s go and see what the train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh tells us about the madness of 1947. The same mindset which created the havoc in 1947 is still present in this 21st century. The cocktail of ignorance and religious fundamentalism which was given to people in the year 1947 showed that how low a human can go in the name of religion which in reality they never understand what it means and signifies.Īlthough, both India and Pakistan have seen little bit of development but when it comes to religion nothing has changed.
This partition opened a Pandora’s box in 1947, whose repercussions can be felt even today. In fact, The first nation which was formed on the basis of religion is Pakistan. India was partitioned in August 1947 and because of this division a newly country by the name of Pakistan was born. PHOTO: MARGARET BOURKE-WHITEĪ slideshow of these pictures originally appeared on BBC News.Train to Pakistan by Sardar Khushwant Singh. Women were left to fend for themselves after their husbands were killed in riots. The migration was a "massive exercise in human misery," wrote Bourke-White later. Villagers even used oil and kerosene when wood was scarce. Men, women and children who died in the rioting were cremated on a mass scale. A young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi. Lying like the garbage across the street and in its open gutters were bodies of the dead," writes Bourke-White's biographer Vicki Goldberg of this scene. Two men carry an elderly woman on a makeshift stretcher. These are the bodies of the victims being picked up from a city street. During the summer of 1947, over a million people were slaughtered on both sides in the riots. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.
An elderly, abandoned Muslim couple and their grandchildren sit by the roadside. Over 10 million people were displaced from their homeland and travelled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home. A train leaving for Pakistan being given a warm send-off. Several people board the train to the other side of the border in search of a new life. *WARNING: Some images contain graphic content.ġ. The following photographs that Bourke-White took appeared in Indian novelist Khushwant Singh’s book Train to Pakistan: During this massive immigration, several riots broke out and rivalry soared to new heights between Hindus and Muslims.ĭuring the horrific period of partition in 1947, an American documentary photographer, Margaret Bourke-White, captured some of the crucial moments of that time that sum up what partition was like and how it affected millions of lives.īourke-White was the first American female war photojournalist, and the first female photographer for Henry Luce's Life magazine. Countless people living on both sides of the border were displaced and began to flee from one side to the other. In 1947, the Subcontinent was divided into two parts: India and Pakistan.
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