In Train to Pakistan, truth meets fiction with stunning impact, as Khushwant Singh recounts the trauma and tragedy of Partition through the stories of his characters – stories that he, his family and friends themselves experienced or saw enacted before their eyes. A bestseller when it was first published in 1956, Train to Pakistan is now widely accepted as one of the classics of modern Indian fiction. In the summer of 1947, the frontier between India and its newly-created neighbour, Pakistan, has become a river of blood, as the post-Partition exodus across the border erupts into violent rioting. But in the tiny village of Mano Majra, Sikhs and Muslims continue to live peacefully, their lives regulated by the trains that rattle across the river bridge. Until a train comes to an unscheduled stop, and the villagers discover it is full of dead Sikhs. Mano Majra turns into a battlefield of conflicting loyalties which none can control. In the stirring climax, it is left to Jugga, the village ganster, to redeem himself by saving many Muslim lives. Margaret Bourke-White lived and traveled in India through 1946 and 1947, photographing with an unflinching eye the horrors that were unfolding in a sub-continent torn asunder by an arbitrary line drawn by an Empire on whom the sun was setting. Published in Life Magazine, the images sent shock waves across the world. In this unique edition of Train to Pakistan, published on its 50th anniversary, we bring you Bourke-White’s hitherto unpublished photographs of Partition, that illustrate Khushwant Singh’s prose with a stark and almost unbearably heart-rending subtext.
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