Khushwant Singh (1915-2014)

 Khushwant Singh was an Indian novelist, journalist, and lawyer. He was a man of many talents and served the Indian legal system, Indian journalism, and literature all with equal passion and hard work. He was a well-learned man and studied at various institutes like Modern School, New Delhi, Government College of Lahore, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and King’s College London. He set his foot in his professional life by starting as a lawyer but soon he turned to the Indian Foreign Service. Served that for a few years and later he found his place in mass communication and journalism. He wrote many historical novels and Train to Pakistan (1956) is one of them.
Train to Pakistan takes place in the fictional town of Mano Majra, which was near the partition. Many border towns like Mano Majra contained great religious diversity, with Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs living side by side. But the British took no account of these towns, and so great violence erupted within them. In contrast, the author shows Mano Majra as maintaining its order, given its relative isolation. However, Mano Majra possessed a train station that would eventually make it the center of the conflict.
The story begins with the robbery and murder of Lala Ram Lal, the only Hindu family in town. The murderers were a gang led by Malli, who were looking for their old fellow gang member and leader Juggut Singh, a Sikh hoodlum of great height, build, and a bad reputation. During the event of "dacoit", however, "Jugga" was making love with his girlfriend, Nooran, the daughter of the town's Mullah (the interreligious love was strictly forbidden). At the same time as the dacoit, Iqbal Singh, a well-educated, effeminate atheist, though ethnic Sikh, arrived in town to organize the peasants for the People's Party of India.
Malli and his gang try to pin the crime on Jugga, which results in the arrests of both Iqbal and Jugga due to local suspicions. They are arrested due to the orders of Hukum Chand, the regional magistrate, in part because of his suspicions of both characters for independent reasons. While they are in prison, however, conflict starts to rise in Mano Majra when a train full of Muslim corpses is brought to town and burned by soldiers. Not long after, a group of soldiers comes by to evacuate the Muslim half of town (the other half is Sikh) to Pakistan which leads Nooran to depart while Jugga is in jail in the regional capital of Chundunnugger.
After the Muslims are evacuated, a local band of Sikhs comes to Mano Majra to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment and sabotage the train that was taking the Muslims to Pakistan. Chand, normally corrupted but racked with guilt over his sins, releases both Iqbal and Jugga to stop the killing, and despite Iqbal's self-image as a social reformer and Jugga's self-image as a thug, Iqbal drinks himself into a stupor while Jugga gives his life destroying the rope the Sikh soldiers had set up to throw Muslims on top of the train off to their deaths.