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Volume II, Issue V, September 2014 - ISSN 2321-7065

Azadi: A Freedom with Scar Dr. Anand Kumar Lecturer in English at Mauri (Bhiwani)

Abstract

The was one of the most critical events in the history of world. It was a significance event that had far-reaching political, social, cultural, religious and psychological impacts on Indian as well as the common mass. The historical process of partition had a profound impact on contemporary social culture, literature and history. This historical event of partition left a traumatic impression on the minds of the people. Even the effect of the partition can be seen at presenting in various types.

Introduction

Indian novel in English emerged in its full swing from last seven decades. The three prominent writers and old masters of Indian fiction English are , R.K. Narayan and contributed to enrich the Indian writing in English through their exclusive writing of short stories and novels. These pre-Independent Indian novelists have made use of history, social, cultural and political events in their writing. The second generation writers include Bhabani Bhattachary, Kamala Markandaya, Manohar Malgonkar, , Chaman Nahal Singh, Bhisam Sahni and many others also tried to capture Indian reality of partition in their own way and have narrated historical events truthfully in their Indian perspective.

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Chaman Nahal is one of the brilliant Indian English authors in the field of contemporary Indian English novels. He enriched the field of political fiction which is very poor as compared to other forms of Indian English fiction. Chaman Nahal, born in 1927 in Sialkot, now in Pakistan and educated at and the . Nahal’s fictions include My True Faces (1973), Azadi (1975), The English Queens (1979), The Crown and Loincloth (1981), Sunrise in Fiji (1988), The Salt of Life (1991)and The Triumph of the Tricolour (1993), and the short-story collection The weird Dance (1965).

Chaman Nahal was a witness to the holocaust that followed in the wake of the partition of the country. The traumatic experience made Chaman Nahal restive and in order to give vent to his feeling, he took to writing and the result is Azadi, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Partition as a Scar

The historical and political events of a nation always attract the writers and the partition of India was such a hot cake which every one wants to grab, though this event of partition disturbs the peaceful life of the people. There are many novelists who tried to explore this disturbance, barbarity and most heinous kind tragic event with profound sympathy and condemn the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on the innocent people. The Partition of India does not mean only the partition of land but also catastrophe for millions of people. The massive involuntary and unprecedented migration caused communal riot, clashes, massacres and atrocities of all kinds in both the sides of the boundaries. Country was filled with innumerable refugees who were rendered orphans by the storm called Partition. In fact this event was a national disaster which resulted in the barbarity of the most heinous kind was terribly tragic and heart-rending because it was deliberate, and not a natural calamity likes an earthquake, drought or a flood.

It has been a compelling experience, resulting in irresistible creative urge, for several Indian-English writers, who have dealt with the theme of partition. Chaman Nahal stands out one of the most prominent writer among those who have treated the theme of

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Partition very truthfully. Chaman Nahal Singh is fully aware of this fact and regrets that a fairly good number of novelists have not felt a strong creative urge to re-create this event which is of immense historic value and is exceedingly rich in human passion. In this regard, the Western writers present a contrast to the Indian who seem to have been too dazed to treat history, in detail, in their works.

Azadi, which means ‘freedom,’ deals with various events leading to the partition and it’s after effects on the common mass. Azadi even more gravely raises serious questions the meaning and significance of the kind of freedom and Independence that India wins and the price paid for it. In his novel Azadi he pours out the agonizing tale of human tragedy and the sinister impact of the partition on both sides. Nahal Singh has designed the novel to explore the brutal and hypocritical image of man and simultaneously present his faith in the values of love, loyalty and humanity. Even the title had been selected by the author is full of irony.

Azadi tells the story of a Hindu family who migrate from Sialkot to Delhi during the Partition of the Indian .The love story of a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl unfolds against sense of terror and violence as millions of Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims flee to the new territories of India and Pakistan. In the words of Ramamurthy, Nahal’s concerns in Azadi “…are not only the socio-economic and humanistic implications of the tragic exodus of suffering millions from the lands of their birth but also the deep psychic disturbances and emotional transformation brought about by that traumatic experience in the inner lives of individual men and women”. (Ramamurthy 131)

The Muslims started burning one Hindu 'mohalla' every night and in revenge Hindus started burning the Muslims shops. Mob started looting shops in Pakistan and India. Meanwhile, a train came from Amritsar which was full of murdered and wounded Muslims. This excited the Muslims who killed and wounded the Hindus in Trunk Bazaar. Soon the Hindus were forced to leave for the Refugee Camp. The scene of the leaving of the tenant families and of the family is really very emotional. Like an average Indian, Lala Kanshi Ram is worried about the division of the country and of the brutal violence that might follow it. He

http://www.ijellh.com 436 Volume II, Issue V, September 2014 - ISSN 2321-7065 tells Prabha Rani: “If Pakistan is created, we’ll have to leave. That is, if the Muslims spare our lives.” (28) The thought of the creation of Pakistan gives them a feeling of fear and family members of each family want to be together as a gesture of protection against the danger “…they looked at each other and more than regret, more than fear, on the face of each one of them was disbelief”. (50)

Many years after the partition the two nations are still trying to heal the wounds. Both side lost their most dynamic leaders, such as , Mohmad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal Khan. India and Pakistan have been to war twice since the partition and they are still deadlocked over the issue of possession of Kashmir, boundaries and divisions. Hindu and Muslim majorities and differences still persist in Kashmir.

Conclusion

Partition has been one of the darkest phases in Indian history. Azadi portrays the picture of ghostly horrors enacted on the border region during the horrible days of the partition. It still invokes the same awful memories amongst every Indian. Overall Chaman Nahal ended his novel with a sadly depleted family trying to begin a new life in Delhi. Azadi has none of the sensationalism of other novels about India's partition, such as Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan, Manohar Malgonkar's A Bend in the Ganges or the Shadow Line. Nahal shows the cruelty as well as the humanity of both sides. Azadi portrays vividly the horrors of the Partition that still haunts the Indian psyche.

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Belliappa, K.C. “The Elusive Classic: Khushwant Sing’s Train to Pakistan and Chaman Nahal’s Azadi.” The Literary Criterion. Vol. 15, No. 2, 1980. Bhatia, S.C. “Review of Azadi”. The Literary Criterion. Vol. 12, No. 2-3. 1976. Bhatt Indira, ed., Introduction, The Fictional World of Khushwant Singh, (New Delhi, Creative Books, 2002. Bhatnagar, Manmohan.K. (ed.) Indian Writing in English: Vol. IV New Delhi: Atlantic, 1999. Bhatnagar, Manmohan.K. Modern Indian English Novels. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2003. Bhagwat S. Goyal, ed., “Nahal’s Azadi: A Review” Culture and Commitment Aspects of Indian Literature in English, (Meerut, Shalabh Book House 1984. Butalia, Urvashi. The Other Side of Silence. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998. Chowdhary, Arvind. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2002. Chakravarty, Joya. Indian Writing in English: Perspectives. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003. Chandra, Bipin. India’s Struggle for Independence. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1989. Chandra, Bipin. Communalism in Modern India. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1987. Collins, Larry and Lapierre, Dominique. Freedom at Midnight. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1975. Cowassjee, Saros. The Partition in Indo-Anglian Fiction Explorations in Modern Indo – English Fiction. New Delhi: Bohari Publications, 1982. D.K. Chakravorty, ‘The Theme of Partition of India in Indian novels in English’ in The Indian Novels in English: Essay in Criticism. Ed. by R.N. Sinha and R. K. Sinha, Ranchi and Culcutta, Ankit, 1987.

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