He also points out that fundamentalism has less to do with religion than with politics. Analysing the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the burning of Graham Staines and his children, the targeted killings by terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir, Khushwant Singh forces us to confront the absolute corruption of religion that has made us among the most brutal people on earth. But after the carnage in Gujarat in 2002, he had reason to feel that the worst, perhaps, was still to come. ‘I thought the nation was coming to an end’ When Khushwant Singh witnessed the violence of Partition nearly seventy years ago, he believed that he had seen the worst that India could do to herself.
He records his professional triumphs and failures as a lawyer, journalist, writer and Member of Parliament the comforts and disappointments in his marriage of over sixty years his first, awkward sexual encounter his phobia of ghosts and his fascination with death the friends who betrayed him, and also those whom he failed. Writing of his own life, too, Khushwant Singh remains unflinchingly forthright. With clarity and candour, he writes of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the talented and scandalous painter Amrita Shergil, and everyday people who became butchers during Partition. Truth, Love & A Little Maliceīorn in 1915 in pre-Partition Punjab, Khushwant Singh, perhaps India’s most widely read and controversial writer has been witness to most of the major events in modern Indian history from Independence and Partition to the Emergency and Operation Blue Star and has known many of the figures who have shaped it. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endures and transcends the ravages of war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the “ghost train” arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refugees, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. One of these villages was Mano Majra.” It is a place, Khushwant Singh goes on to tell us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. The only remaining oases of peace were a scatter of little villages lost in the remote reaches of the frontier. “In the summer of 1947, when the creation of the new state of Pakistan was formally announced, ten million people-Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs-were in flight, By the time the monsoon broke, almost a million of them were dead, and all of northern India was in arms, in terror, or in hiding. This Novel Of Partition Was First Published In 1956 And Is Now Widely Accepted As Being One Of The Classics Of Modern Indian Fiction. Set in a village on the border between India and Pakistan, 'Train to Pakistan' is a classic of modern Indian fiction. The novel has been translated into several European and Indian languages and its readership has grown over the years. For his brilliant service to the Indian society and culture, he was awarded with a Padma Bhushan, but due to his deep contumacy for Operation Blue Star, he returned it back to the government.Train to Pakistan was first published on 1956 and is now widely accepted as being one of the classics of modern Indian fiction. Indian literature is lucky to have received works like ‘Train to Pakistan’ (1956), ‘Delhi: A Novel’ (1990), ‘The Company of Women’ (1999), ‘Truth, Love and a Little Malice’ (2002), ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous’ (2013), etc. Singh was more known for his writing though. He was the editor of many reputed newspapers and magazines like, The Illustrated Weekly of India, The National Herald and the Hindustan Times. Served there for a few years, later he found his place in mass communication and journalism.
He started his professional life as a lawyer but soon he turned to Indian Foreign Service. Stephen’s College, Delhi and King’s College London. He was a well learned man and studied from various institutes like Modern School, New Delhi, Government College of Lahore, St.
He Served the Indian legal system, Indian journalism and literature all with equal passion and hard work. Khushwant Singh was an Indian novelist, journalist, and a lawyer. And it knows no boundaries of religion or caste. Book Review Love triumphs over hatred of all kinds.