Implicit Rhetoric of Genocide in Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (1956)
| Published date | 01 January 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23220058231217171 |
| Author | Anindita Dutta,Biswanath Gupta |
| Date | 01 January 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Implicit Rhetoric of Genocide
in Khushwant Singh’s
Train to Pakistan (1956)
Anindita Dutta1 and Biswanath Gupta2
Abstract
The article explores the complex nexus of the legal and the literary by re-envisioning the idea of
genocide as a legal, social as well as political concept, as the violence engendered by it continues to
cast its shadow over humankind. The relevance of Khushwant Singh’s novel Train to Pakistan lies in its
vivid portrayal of how mass passions of religious antagonism result in gripping accounts of bloodshed
and forced expulsion of ordinary people in South Asia. The paper also seeks to contest the narrow
understanding of genocide where the victim and perpetrator communities are perceived as exclusive
categories. Through this exemplary novel, the paper attempts to foreground how fictional narratives
mirror the basic conceptualizations of genocide as enshrined in the United Nations Genocide Conven-
tion (1948). The paper delves into the blurred distinction between victim and perpetrator communities
in the context of partition in South Asia. The article engages in a close textual analysis to shed light
on the synthesis of the literary and legal context of genocide in Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan.
The paper establishes how reading the novel from the legal point of view underscores the contentious
nature of genocide that prevailed during the time of Partition.
Introduction
Accounts of genocide are a common concern of the international community as it continues to unleash
its terror on civilian populations around the world. The recent instances of genocide in Ukraine,
Afghanistan and Iraq/Syria have made this issue of genocide all the more pertinent in public discussions.
The themes of mass extermination, jingoism, human rights violations and mass displacement explored
in Khushwant Singh’s novel Train to Pakistan make it an interesting study for legal analysis.3 In the
South Asian context, the concept of genocide is all the more relevant owing to its legacy of two major
Article
Asian Journal of Legal Education
11(1) 83–96, 2024
© 2023 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23220058231217171
journals.sagepub.com/home/ale
1 Department of English, Tezpur University, Napaam, Assam, India.
2 O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
3
Corresponding author:
Biswanath Gupta, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
E-mail: bgupta@jgu.edu.in
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