My Experience at the Indian-Pakistan Border, Etc. in Light of the Book Train to Pakistan

As part of the consume aim of this blog, I am combining both my personal experience (and photographs) of my mid-semester retreat to Amristar with a book review of Train to Pakistan.  This was definitely one of the most powerful experiences I have had yet in India.  I would love to hear what you think.  Am I the only one who had never heard of the Partition of India, this event that killed nearly a million people- Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims?  What are they teaching us in school?

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book, particularly this version with photographs from Margaret Bourke-White (a pioneer in photojournalism) was fantastic. It is short but a powerful story about the Partition of India in 1947—an event I am sorry to say I had not known much about until coming on this field study to India. I began it on my own train ride to Pakistan.

Okay, so maybe not Pakistan, but a train to Amritsar and the Pakistan border. That has to count for something, right?

Reading this during that experience both impacted my experience and my reading. The Indian train system itself is something to marvel at. When this still functioning colonial train first pulled up to the station I just stared. People hanging out of windows, out of the open door frames, crammed to the roof. I think that Khushwant Singh’s description was remarkably parallel to my journey. Compartments made for fifty with “almost two hundred people, sitting on the floor, on seats, on luggage racks, on trunks, on bed rolls, and on each other,” the oppressive “heat and smell… tempers frayed [because] someone had spread himself out too much or had trod on another’s foot on the way to the lavatory” (59). All of the above happened on the short two hour crawl to Amritsar.

But as I started to read more I thought more about my first train ride. Amritsar probably had the highest volumes of trains come through filled with dead corpses from both sides of the Pakistan border. Could my train, my very seat, once been full of dead bodies?

My experience in Amritsar was probably most profoundly altered from this reading at the Indian Pakistan border. Only 30 minutes away from the Golden Temple, it is something of a tourist attraction. There are two triumphant looking arches on both sides and two gates in between the two dividing the countries. Each side has a few rows of hot cement stadium seating for people to come and observe the lowering of the flags ceremony conducted by the military. People were taking turns running their countries flags to the middle gates and back, blazing their own music, and having competitions to see who could hold out the longest shout. At the bottom of the stadium on the Indian side there were people dancing and screaming, “Hindustan, Hindustan!” Some of my friends joined them. I stayed in my seat.

I couldn’t get over the fact that we were celebrating this great divide. The ceremonies were seemingly identical on both sides of the gate. Everything seemed the same expect- the trees, the heat, the patriotism, the fancy formations.  Everything seemed the same but for one thing. One big thing.

Religion.

The flags were lowered, a quick handshake was exchanged between the guards, and the gates were slammed shut for the day. I do not know enough about what has happened since Partition when this book was set to understand what the current situation is between these two countries with a rocky history together, but in the moment I just could not stop thinking about this book. Why are we celebrating? Or is it time to stop crying over spilled milk?

The themes of this book crept up again during my experience in Amritsar. We went to one restaurant and the owner was sat beneath three pictures—one of Lord Shiva, one of Guru Nanak, and the third of his late father. One of the girls in our group straight up asked him if he was a Hindu. He gave her a blank look and held up his middle finger, “there is only one God.” I get that the middle finger means something different in this context, but I thought there was a rich irony to that in a location that probably has not scarred over from a very recent wound. What is the legacy of Partition in India today, especially here on the border?

The end message of this book was profound. It is individuals who change the world. You don’t have to be a politician, have twenty degrees, a strong religious background, or even a lot of friends or support; you just have to make the right decision even when no one else will stand up with you.

View all my reviews