Train to Pakistan

Chapter One, “Dacoity”, begins in the summer of 1947, a dry, hot summer when monsoon season is much later than usual. Many people begin to speculate that the lack of rain is God’s punishment for their sins. India has recently been rocked by riots due to the proposed partition of the country into a Muslim Pakistan and a Hindu India. The death toll is in the thousands, and both sides blame the other. In reality, both sides are responsible for the massacres perpetrated across nation. This has caused a huge migration of citizens, as people flee to areas deemed safe for their religion. As Hindus and Sikhs fled in one direction and Muslims in the other, there were often violent confrontations between the groups of pilgrims. By 1947, when partition was formally announced, almost ten million people had fled their homes. By the time the monsoon season began, the death toll reached almost one million. All of India was in chaos, and the few remaining areas of peace were small villages in the far reaches of the countryside. One of those villages was Mano Majra. 

Mano Majra was a tiny place, with only a few  brick buildings, including a Sikh Temple, a Mosque, and the home of the town’s moneylender Lala Ram Lal. Most people in the village live in mud huts. Lala Ram Lal and his family are the village’s only Hindus; the village’s other residents are Sikhs and Muslims. There are a few sweepers in the village whose religion is unknown, but they interact with American Christian missionaries and have good relations with all the religions. All the villagers, regardless of their faith, venerate a slab of sandstone by a tree near the town’s pond. It is the village’s local deity. All in all, about 70 families live in Mano Majra, about a half mile from the banks of the Sutlej River. This distance affords them some protection from the river’s swollen waters during monsoons. 

About a mile north is a railway bridge, which leads to the village’s railway station. Mano Majra significance is derived from its position as a railway stop, and a small group of shopkeepers and vendors operates around the station to provide food and other items for travelers. The station is run by a stationmaster and his one assistant, who handle all the tasks of the place themselves. The station is not very busy, with only a few slow passenger trains arriving per day and the regular goods trains that keep the village well-stocked. The sound of trains passing through, most without stopping, is constant. Everyone there is very aware of the trains, and the sound of the morning train is usually the sign to start the day. The daily routine in Mano Majra is predictable, and mostly characterized by the hard-working farmers tending to their crops and animals. When the midday express train passes through, it is time for rest, eating, and prayer. The evening passenger train from Lahore means back to work, and the start of preparations for the evening meal. The large goods train signals the end of the day, as the hardworking villagers settle down for the night. This peaceful routine continues undisturbed until the summer of 1947.

In August of that year, five armed robbers, or dacoits, emerge from a nearby grove and wait near the river. They speak of the goods they have for a local thief, Jugga Singh. He is courting a weaver’s daughter, Nooran, and they are carrying a set of bangles for him. Jugga, however, is hard to please. As they talk, the five thieves wait for the daily goods train. They pray, don their masks, and head to the house of Lala Ram Lal. They scare off his dog and bang on his door, intimidating the people inside. When they are told he is not in, they force their way inside and rob his family - an old woman, his wife, and son. They hold a gun to the boy’s head until he confesses that his father is upstairs. They find Lala Ram Lal inside and beat him brutally, but he refuses to give them the keys to his safe. The robbers stab him fatally before fleeing, but stop at the house of Jugga, mocking him and leaving the bangles for him. They flee, not knowing that Jugga isn’t at home. 

Jugga has been gone since the sound of the night goods train, at which point he snuck out of the house. Despite his mother’s warning that he was on probation for his past crimes, he met with Nooran, and the two lovers embraced. Although she is happy to see him, their love-making soon turns violent and he ignores her protests that she doesn’t want him to go that far. However, they are interrupted by the sounds of the robbery, and Nooran must get back home before her Muslim father notices that she is gone. Jugga distracts her and renews his aggressive lovemaking. When they are done, she upbraids him for only thinking about sex, even when their village is in danger. As it becomes clear something very serious is going on in the village, she regrets her decision to sneak out, and he threatens to hit her. Nooran is horrified by Jugga’s ugly behavior when he was so kind before. As they wait in their hiding place, they see the dacoits run by. Jugga recognizes their leader, Malli, and is outraged that the thief has brought his gang to their village. They sneak back to the village, and Jugga asks Nooran to come back tomorrow, but she is non-committal. She is worried about her safety, but he promises to protect her, saying that people are afraid of him for a reason. He returns home, but leaves when he sees his mother talking to villagers outside. 

As well as its railway station, Mano Majra is also notable for an inn for government officers north of the railway bridge. As a result, it has become an occasional vacation spot for passing military groups, who stop there in the winter to hunt, fish, and relax. The morning before the robbery, an important guest, Hukum Chand, the magistrate and deputy commissioner of the district, was expected at the inn. A heavy man and a smoker, he had a friendly demeanor as he welcomed the inspectors and assistants who greeted him, but he was there for serious business. As the orderlies tended to his every need, he discussed the district with Inspector Sahib, a young subinspector. While the district was relatively peaceful, Chand notes that horrific crimes had been occurring outside the area. A train carrying Muslim refugees had recently been attacked and over a thousand people were killed. The subinspector is horrified, saying that Hindus can’t retaliate to crimes on the other side in this fashion. Chand starts asking about the Muslims in the area, fishing for information. He says that the new government is looking to stamp out the unrest in no uncertain terms, but the subinspector is unconcerned. Chand explains that he believes Hindus have respect for women, but Muslims have no such thing and have no problem targeting women. He worries that the violence will soon come to Mano Majra. He wants law and order to be the priority, and states that they should try to get the Muslim villagers to leave peacefully. However, he wants to ensure that they don’t take their wealth with them, because Hindus leaving Pakistan were stripped of their possessions. Their conversation then turns to Jugga, who has been a constant problem in the village since his criminal father was hanged.  Since he met Nooran, the daughter of the local Mullah, however, he has been mostly well-behaved. 

The men part ways as the subinspector returns to his duties and Chand settles in for the night at the officer’s inn. He’s disturbed by a pair of geckos rustling through his room, but otherwise has a peaceful night. He enjoys a special musical performance arranged for him. However, one of the songs the performer sings reminds him of a song he heard his daughter humming once, and this unnerves him. Although he is disturbed by the fact that the young singer and prostitute is younger than his own daughter, he eventually decides to indulge, and the young woman is prodded by her handler, an old woman, into sending the night with Chand. As he attempts to seduce the timid girl, a shot rings out. Although he assumes it’s nothing, more shots ring out— the sound of the robbery—and he flees the town, convinced that it’s a dangerous place. 

The morning after the robbery, the train station is more crowded than usual. The people of the town have become increasingly interested in the trains as more and more refugees pass through the town. However, when the morning train comes in only one civilian family gets off, followed by a dozen armed policemen and a mysterious young man with the demeanor of a well-educated person from the city. The villagers are suspicious of this man, having had trouble with these educated young people before. Some were known to be communist agents. He proceeds to explore the village before introducing himself to the Sikh guru’s guard, Meet Singh, and asking to stay at the guru’s home. He introduces himself as Iqbal Singh, a social worker here to keep peace in the village. Secretly, he is an atheist who has given himself a Sikh last name to ingratiate himself with the Sikh leadership of the town. He is interrogated about his past by the old man, and reveals he comes from a town in what is now Pakistan. The two men discuss religion and politics while they eat, and Iqbal expresses a low opinion of the police that came on the train with him. 

That night, he thinks of the overcrowded, chaotic train ride he endured to get to the village, where he was questioned by his fellow passengers and mistaken for a Muslim. As he tries to sleep, Meet Singh bursts into the room and exclaims that the police have charged Jugga with the murder of the moneylender. By targeting his own villagers, Jugga has disgraced his family. Iqbal is puzzled by the village’s code of morals. In rural communities, loyalty to your village and its people was more important than honesty or law-abiding behavior. What bothers Meet Singh is not that Jugga is a murderer, but that he murdered a fellow villager. Iqbal is frustrated by this thinking and feels out of place among rural people. The two argue whether Jugga was destined to break from his probation, with Iqbal arguing that criminals aren’t made, but are born from hunger and injustice. Meet Singh says that Hukum Chand has put an order out for all local officers to be on the lookout for Jugga, and expresses a high opinion of the magistrate. Iqbal takes a walk around the village and watches the express from Lahore approach. He is struck by the overcrowding around him, even in a rural area, and is frustrated by the fact that nothing has been done to alleviate it. He returns home and tries to sleep, until he is awoken by visitors to the Guru’s home. 

Iqbal and a Muslim lambradar named Banta Singh discuss the state of the world. Singh express his sadness at the chaos that resulted from independence. Iqbal is frustrated by the villagers’ attitude to independence.  He tells them that if they want their freedom to mean something, they must work together and get rid of the elites. The other men express their admiration for the English, but Iqbal calls them a race of cheaters. He lived in England for many years and came away deeply disillusioned. The men leave, and Iqbal tries to sleep, worried that he is just one man and has no chance to alleviate the growing religious intolerance. He hopes to turn the current revolution into one that benefits the proletariat, but knows the time isn’t right. The next morning, he is arrested; he is grabbed by two constables who fill out a warrant in front of him and claim it is valid. He tells them he’ll make sure to end their careers if they take him, but they tell him to take it up with the magistrate. However, he orders them to let him clean up and get ready, and they agree. He leaves his things with Meet Singh and goes with them. The policemen often seem afraid of him, not being used to people who stand up for their rights when arrested. 

At the same time that Iqbal is taken out of the village, a large posse of police is sent to arrest Jugga Singh. He snuck home in the middle of the night, ate, and fell asleep. His neighbors informed the police upon his return, and he is arrested His mother protests his innocence, but the police are unmoved, especially once they discover he was violating his probation. His fate seems to be sealed when they find a spear buried in his house. His mother presents the bangles as proof of his innocence, but Jugga gets belligerent with the officers and they beat him. Before he is taken away, he taunts them that they won’t hold him for long. He is paraded through the village until the policemen meet up with the ones who arrested Iqbal. 

The police realize they may have made mistakes in both cases, as Iqbal is too educated for them to intimidate and Jugga seems to be innocent. Iqbal is even more offended at the arrival of Jugga, as it confirms that he’s been arrested in association with the murder rather than for his politics. Jugga, however, is unconcerned, having been in trouble with the police for most of his life. After his father was hanged, he turned to crime to pay off the mortgage on his mother’s farm and that was his first encounter with the law. The two very different prisoners discuss the state of the village, and Iqbal says that, despite independence, the villagers have no more freedom than they were before. Iqbal argues that it’s only the government that makes Jugga a criminal, but Jugga laughs and says that it’s his fate and destiny to be a criminal. 

When they arrive at the magistrate’s office, the subinspector wastes no time pointing out that Iqbal was on the train and could not possibly be who they were looking for. The two prisoners are brought before Hukum Chand, who becomes enraged when the subinspector implies that Iqbal was brought to him on his orders. He orders Iqbal whipped until he reveals his parents, religion, and background. Iqbal is taken into a room and stripped, while the subinspector asks him about his business in Mano Majra. Iqbal reveals that he was sent by the People’s Party of India, but the subinspector accuses him of being part of the Muslim League, because he is circumcised. He reports this to Magistrate Chand, who orders warrants filled out for both men and for Jugga to be beaten until he gives up the name of the robbers. 

On the way to the local police station, Iqbal tries to strike up a conversation with the officers about the riots. The officers explain that Muslim and Hindu policemen in the cities have begun taking sides. Jugga relates tales of the horrible crimes Muslims have been committing against Sikhs near the Pakistan border, claiming that the misfortunes that befall the Muslim soldiers are the work of god. The driver, Bhola, says he stays out of it because the mobs don’t differentiate between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs when they attack. They just kill everyone in sight. However, Jugga becomes enraged when the subject of Muslim women being sold as wives is brought up, as he thinks they’re referring to his relationship with Nooran. At the police station, Jugga is mocked while Iqbal is treated well by the constables. Iqbal sees this as another example of the inequality at work in the country. He sees symbols of the caste system everywhere, with offices organized by on caste and status. He reads the newspapers, and wonders if his party will hear about his arrest. The subinspector informs him that he has not been charged with anything yet, but he is being held on suspicion. Iqbal is angered by the subinspector’s implication that he is a Muslim and insists that his business in Mano Majra is his own. The subinspector mocks Iqbal’s knowledge of the law and leaves him. Meanwhile, Jugga protests his own innocence, but is unwilling to reveal where he was or the identity of the thieves, even under threat of torture. The subinspector leaves, frustrated by his inability to get information out of the prisoners, and vows to change his tactics.