India is just a few years away from Independence; cries of ‘Inqilab Zindabad’ have been reverberating in Amritsar, the Swadeshi movement is in full swing and that is when we first meet ‘Shahzada’ Ghulam Ali, caught in the fervour of the fight for freedom. His legendary speeches are the talk of the town and it is just a matter of time before he is imprisoned – quite the badge of honour when you are going to jail for your country.
But before he goes to jail, he and Nigar must marry, and they will only marry in the presence of Babaji, who insists on their spending time at the ashram, where they just might learn a new definition of freedom and what it means to them.
Subtly brilliant and typically Manto, ‘For Freedom’s Sake’ is a surprisingly insightful take on something we usually take for granted: the right to freedom.
A few years after Partition, the thought occurred to the governments of Pakistan and Hindustan that, as with ordinary prisoners, an exchange of lunatics was in order.’
Bishan Singh, an inmate of Lahore asylum, is set to be transferred to India. But what he would really like is to stay where his home town – Toba Tek Singh – is, except that no one is telling him whether it falls in India or Pakistan. Which is also because no one knows for sure what lies where any more. As the day of the transfer draws near, Bishan Singh’s agony escalates. Is there no one who can tell him where Toba Tek Singh lies?
A satirical take on Partition and the relationship between India and Pakistan, Toba Tek Singh is classic Manto – quietly revealing and every bit entertaining.
Before seeking shelter on the Indian side of the border during Partition, Khushwant Singh was leading a life of luxury and splendour in Lahore, entertaining friends who were writers and artists, and art critics, starting a literary circle (which is how Singh’s literary career was born), and drinking (mostly Indian-brewed liquor).
Not many Indians believed that the British would willingly relinquish their Empire in India but Singh knew that his days in Lahore were definitely coming to an end.
Read on, as Singh describes the horrors he witnessed during the run-up to Independence, a stark contrast to the life he was leading mere months before.
Like many north Indian families, Urvashi Butalia’s family too was divided during the Partition. While her mother found herself on the Indian side of the border, Rana, her brother, chose to stay behind in Lahore.
Ever since she could remember, Butalia had heard stories of Partition, and of her uncle – who had not only stayed behind, becoming the sole owner of the family house, but had also become a Muslim. It is with these thoughts and not knowing what to expect that Butalia visits Lahore to see Ranamama.
A heartwarming story of families broken and reunited, amidst mistrust and misunderstandings, ‘Ranamama’ defines the pain and heartbreak of the Partition era that has affected generations.
Ved Mehta – born to a Hindu Punjabi family in Lahore of British India – has the chance to revisit his childhood home after thirty years. It has been thirty years since Partition, since a communal division of two countries, and so, what he might encounter in a house he hasn’t stepped into since he was a child is anybody’s guess.
Will the house still be standing? Will it be the same? Does he want it to be the same?
Read on as Ved Mehta finds the answers to these questions while being amused, more than a little surprised and, most of all, humbled.
It’s open season once again in the long battle of Hind Swaraj against Hindu Rashtra.’
When a new leader comes into power, questions are always raised about the direction in which they will lead the nation. In the case of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his controversial past, the questions are more than aplenty.
Questions about secularism, about not only protecting but valuing minorities, about discrimination, and about freedom of thought and expression are being raised every day. Are we then really moving away from the very ideas that formed the nation we live in today? Is this the ideology that the leader of the country stands behind?
Read on, as Pankaj Mishra and Ananya Vajpeyi attempt to answer these questions.
Babasaheb Ambedkar, one of the most important voices to have spoken against caste discrimination, was also the father of the Indian Constitution. Juxtapose this against the various caste-based attacks happening in the country today and a very different picture of India seems to be developing seventy years since freedom.
After Rohith Vemula’s suicide sparked protests and outrage across the country, questions about discrimination against Dalits and other castes have once again come to the forefront. With its long history of caste-based politics, it remains a sore subject that India still cannot properly address.
Meena Kandasamy in ‘He Has Left Us Only His Words’ and Gopal Guru in ‘For Dalit History Is Not Past But Present’ write about why even education in India still functions in the shadow of caste-politics, and how India has never really escaped its past. Read on, to find out more.
Existing in a universe that can speak in multiple voices, even as we witness its shrinking edges closing in on us’ – is this what it’s like to live in India today?
India is ‘progressing’ through oppression, silencing voices, redefining identities and rewriting history as it sees fit. Instead of coming closer to the rest of the world in the digital age, are we shutting doors – in the face of ideas and people?
Read on, as Ram Puniyani, Amrith Lal, Anish Ahluwalia and Shyam Saran write about the Indian experience in the context of a country that doesn’t seem to value its cultural diversity any more.
In a country like India with its massive socio-economic problems, the role of ideas is of great importance.’
This statement by Justice Markandey Katju, in direct support of writers uniting against the attacks on academics, intellectuals and writers, immediately turns the spotlight to the situation at hand.
The attacks, combined with the government’s silence on the topic sends a message that as a country, India is okay with its people tearing each other apart – all for having thoughts and opinions that are different. In a plea to have their voices and disapproval heard, the literary community came together by returning their government awards. But is it making a difference?
Keki N. Daruwalla attempts to answer that question in her essay ‘Writers Lack Brickbats’, while Markandey Katju and Maya Krishna Rao highlight the urgency of the situation and why it is important to not take this lightly in their essays respectively.
Progress is a unified process – something that involves a people, the exchange of ideas, and agreeing upon what’s best for the bigger picture. Instead, we’re restricting ourselves to one set of ideas, one set of beliefs, one set of understandings, and believing it to be the best, which is the complete opposite of how modern science functions.
The very idea that laid the foundation of India – the freedom to choose one’s own religion, which in turn comes with its own set of choices – is under attack today. With every lynching, and every attack on a minority, India is on its way to proving that it would much rather favour one kind of citizen over the other. There is no doubt that a rich and varied culture like ours comes with its own baggage, but it’s getting to the point where it is hindering our own progress as a country.
Read on, as Meera Nanda questions India’s attitude towards scientific progress while Romila Thapar explores the changing meaning of secularism in the country.
