The Death of an 80-year-old at Attari Crossing Shows how Manto Lives On

Saadat Hasan Manto is easily one of the most famous writers of the subcontinent. Born in Ludhiana district of the Punjab Province of British India (now in Punjab, India), he lived through Partition and died in 1955 at the age 42 in Lahore. His stories have stood the test of time because he chronicled the human cost of political decisions. Partition might have been inevitable, but the ways in which it affected individuals, families and communities, is seldom reckoned with.

What happens when an arbitrary line drawn in the sand overnight determines one’s citizenship and nationality? What happens when this line decides if families can stay together or if they will be torn apart? What happens when a government announcement decides who belongs and who must be expelled? These are the questions that the iconic writers raised in his stories, plays and essays.

One of Manto’s most famous short stories is ‘Toba Tek Singh,’ which was published in 1955. This Urdu story of less than 3,000 words tells of the period after Partition when the governments of Pakistan and India decided to exchange ‘lunatics’ just as people were moving and crossing borders. The lead character is a Sikh who had been an inmate for 15 years at an asylum in Lahore. It was believed he never slept and never sat down causing his legs and heels to swell up to unnerving proportions. His name was Bishan Singh, but everyone called him Toba Tek Singh. On the day of the exchange, the Hindu and Sikh lunatics are transported to India, and the Muslims are dispatched to Pakistan. Manto writes, “Most of the lunatics were opposed to the exchange. They didn’t understand why they should be uprooted and sent to some unknown place.” Bishan Singh believes that his village Toba Tek Singh is in Pakistan and so he’s adamant that he be allowed to stay on. After a while the guards give up on him and continue their work through the day. Just before sunrise the next day, the man who refused to sit or lie down, lets out a scream and falls on the earth. Bishan Singh crumbles on the patch of land between India and Pakistan, he succumbs to no-man’s land.

To look at the news stories of today is to see Manto’s short story play out nearly 80 years after Partition. Today an Indian Express story from Amritsar ran with the headline; “Awaiting deportation to Pakistan, 80-year-old dies at Attari crossing.” The aged man named Abdul Waheed Bhat had allegedly been staying illegally in Srinagar since 1980. Given the new diktats, that Pakistanis with expired visas must return to Pakistan, he was ordered to return. Having suffered a stroke a few years earlier, he died in the bus at the Attari border waiting for deportation.