The Pity of Partition: Manto’s Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide PDF
Preview The Pity of Partition: Manto’s Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide
The Pity of Partition Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:30 PM Lawrence Stone Lectures Sponsored by The Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies and Princeton University Press 2011 A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book. Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:30 PM Ayesha Jalal The Pity of Partition Manto’s Life, Times, and Work across the India- Pakistan Divide Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:30 PM Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket photographs: Manto in a pensive mood, Lahore. Courtesy of the Manto archive. Indian refugees crowd onto trains as a result of the creation of two independent states, India and Pakistan, 1947, Amritsar, India. © Bettmann/CORBIS All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jalal, Ayesha. The pity of partition : Manto’s life, times, and work across the India-Pakistan divide / Ayesha Jalal. p. cm. — (Lawrence Stone lectures) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-15362-9 (hardcover : acid-free paper) 1. Manto, Sa’adat Hasan, 1912–1955—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Manto, Sa’adat Hasan, 1912–1955—Political and social views. 3. Manto, Sa’adat Hasan, 1912–1955—Correspondence. 4. India— History—Partition, 1947. 5. India-Pakistan Conflict, 1947–1949. 6. South Asia— History—20th century. 7. South Asia—In literature. 8. Authors, Urdu—20th century—Biography. 9. Short stories, Urdu—History and criticism. 10. Narration (Rhetoric)—Political aspects—South Asia—History—20th century. I. Title. PK2199.H338Z687 2012 891.4’3936—dc23 2012024142 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Garamond Premier Pro Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:30 PM In loving memory of Safia Khala— a wonderful aunt, caring mother, and gentle- mannered soul who stoically stood by Manto through his highs and lows. Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:30 PM Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:30 PM Contents Preface ix Prelude: Manto and Partition 1 I Stories 17 1 “Knives, Daggers, and Bullets Cannot Destroy Religion” 19 2 Amritsar Dreams of Revolution 29 3 Bombay: Challenges and Opportunities 55 II Memories 83 1 Remembering Partition 85 2 From Cinema City to Conquering Air Waves 91 3 Living and Walking Bombay 111 III Histories 139 1 Partition: Neither End nor Beginning 141 2 On the Postcolonial Moment 151 3 Pakistan and Uncle Sam’s Cold War 187 Epilogue: “A Nail’s Debt”: Manto Lives On . . . 211 Notes 229 Select Bibliography 245 Index 249 Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:31 PM Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:31 PM Preface “This letter comes to you from your Pakistani nephew whom you do not know, nor does anyone else in your land of seven freedoms,” Saadat Hasan Manto wrote in the first of a series of factitious letters to Uncle Sam.1 It was the height of the Cold War. Pakistan was on the verge of signing a military pact with the United States of America. Manto was irked by the prospect of seeing his newly adopted country exchange the ills of British colonialism for the uncertain virtues of Amer- ican imperialism. In his youth he had imagined driving the British out of India with homemade bombs. He once started a rumor that the British had sold the Taj Mahal to the Ameri- cans, who were sending special equipment to Agra to relocate the monument to New York. Within a matter of hours, his hometown, Amritsar, was abuzz with chatter about the sale of the Taj Mahal.2 With his imaginative canard, Manto gave vent to his anticolonialism while at the same time deftly planting in the minds of subjugated Indians the idea of Britain’s declining clout as the dominant global power. ix Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/25/16 3:36 PM
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