Khushwant Singh, born Khushal Singh, (2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was a journalist, politician, lawyer, Indian author and a diplomat. Iqbal Singh is a social worker from Delhi who comes to Mano Majra in hopes to inspire the locals to start taking political actions and decisions in the ‘New India’, but he instead gets caught up in the confusion and violence of the frontier. He is the lover soul of Nooran, the daughter of the village imam, and a bitter enemy of Malli.

The local town badmash, Jugga is a large young man who is known for a bad reputation but as ironic as it sounds, has a good heart. A marauder, Malli and his gang of robbers were the ones to kill Lala Ram Lal, but the maladroit police oversees Mano Majra and the surrounding villages falsely imprisoning two men, Juggut ‘Jugga’ Singh and Iqbal Singh, for the crime. The story of ‘Train to Pakistan’ begins with the murder of Lala Ram Lal, the moneylender of Mano Majra, and one of the very few Hindus in the community. It is written that they lived in harmony through being dependent upon each other. Mano Majra is diverse, and constitutes both Hindus and Muslims, but also Sikhs and Christian sympathizers. In this frenzy of chaos and violence is Mano Majra, one of the last remaining peaceful villages on the frontier. The trains run continually, and people called them ‘ghost trains’. But within weeks, almost a million were already dead.

Muslims were deported on trains to Pakistan and Hindus to India, if we consider statistics, nearly ten million in total.

Little by little, death and murder became normal for them. All are equally responsible and have their fair shares in the chaos created.Īs the refugees fled, they were exposed to the constant violence often cropping up whenever Hindus and Muslims were in close proximity. Examination of the varied groups of people not only increases cultural and social understanding of that time and place, but it also shows that the blame could never be placed upon any one group.

Train to pakistan