“We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us” is a phrase that was upheld by many Mexican-American immigrant rights activists in describing the unnatural nature of borders and is one of the best ways in which the crux of the works of Sadat Hasan Manto can be described. Sadat Hasan Manto was one of the most controversial writers of his time who never drew back from bringing out the virgin human emotions through his works, be it that of violence, anarchy or even the callousness of the borders in the wake of the Partition.
Manto himself has experienced the ravages of the 1947 Indo-Pakistan partition and metaphorically demonstrates its aftereffects, and some of such examples are the stories ‘Toba Tek Singh’ and ‘The Dog of Titwal’. These stories highlight the complexities of the partition of India in 1947 and the subsequent creation of two nation-states, India and Pakistan. Conceptually, the idea of borders in these stories is closely tied to the notion of the nation-state and its inevitable association with violence. Both stories cater to the concept that borders, which are often seen as both political and territorial bifurcations between nation-states, are arbitrary, wherein they impose a division on people, which creates violence and disputes.
"The Dog of Titwal" revolves around a dog that inadvertently crosses the border between India and Pakistan. This seemingly trivial incident becomes a metaphor for borders' arbitrary and divisive nature. The dog, oblivious to the human-made boundaries, signifies the innocence and indifference of nature in contrast to the chaos and violence instigated by human decisions. The two soldiers of the Pakistani and Indian sides represent the political identities, and the dog represents the people on whose land the borders were drawn as they constantly tussle between their identities about which land they belong. The dog also represents the severed lives and cultures caused in the partition's wake. It also delves into the fact that borders, which might be just geographical expressions for some, create animosity between people who are more similar than different; even though borders exist, there always will be an overlap of cultures and exchange, like how the dog travels from one post to another. Moreover, the dog's character metaphorically stands for a refugee or the person of the borderland; the mere fact that it is depicted as a dog highlights how borders dehumanise people, communities and various other identities.
While ‘The Dog of Titwal’ deals with the physical implications of creating borders, in ‘Toba Tek Singh’, Manto highlights the mental and psychological effects a sudden infliction of borders causes. Bishen Singh, who comes from a land known as Toba Tek Singh, struggles with an identity crisis as his place of origin is neither in India nor in Pakistan. When told he is in Pakistan, he refuses to leave for India, where all Indians that is mainly Hindu and Sikh lunatics, are sent. Through this, Manto talks about the tragedy of forced identity and belonging that the people who were made to migrate during the partition had to go through. Bishen Singh’s heartbreaking death on no man's land, caught between two nations that no longer belong to him, also signifies the death of harmony in the world created by arbitrary divisions.
Through these stories, Manto also questions the legitimacy of these borders. The dog in "The Dog of Titwal" and the inmates in "Toba Tek Singh" become symbols of resistance against restrictive boundaries and challenge the notion that borders define divisions between human beings. These stories are a powerful reminder of the human cost of geopolitical decisions and the enduring consequences of dividing nations along artificial lines on the land of people who constantly suffer from the balancing act of their identities and their existence.
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