THE PARTITION VIOLENCE IN KHUSHWANT SINGH’S TRAIN TO PAKISTAN: A NEW HISTORICIST STUDY

Abstract

This research paper presents a broad New Historicist analysis of Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (1956), critically examining the novel in the context of the socio-political, ideologic a l, and historical discourses of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The paper claims that Train to Pakistan functions as a counter-history, foregrounding marginalized voices, partition trauma, and communal violence, which otherwise are absent from official records. The paper uses Stephen Greenblatt’s idea of history as a constructed discourse shaped by power relations as a theoretical framework to critically analyse how Train to Pakistan reconstructs the Partition as not merely a political achievement but a catastrophic intrusion into the lives of the common people. Through the extensive and comprehensive critical analysis of Mano Majra, the village as a micro-historical site, the symbolism of trains, the decaying and collapsing colonial power, and the construction of communal violence, the paper underscores the literature’s central role in challenging prevailing historical narratives and stabilis ing suppressed histories.