BORDER

In the short story “Toba Tek Singh”, the author Saadat Husan Manto has mentioned the effects of partition or national borders on common people. It made me think about the suffering people go through during the partition of any country. He has highlighted the sad part of independence. On one hand some people (specifically politicians) were celebrating the freedom from the British rule, but on the other hand common people were losing their families, their own lives and were told that their country was not their anymore. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were separated just because they had different religious believes despite of the fact that they had been sharing their joys and sorrows for years and were so attached to each other. In the article “Splitting the difference”, the author mentions a question asked by the novelist  Khwaja Ahmed, “Did  the English whisper in your ears that you  may chop off  the  head  of  whichever  Hindu  you find, or that you  must plunge a knife in the  stomach  of  whichever  Muslim  you find?". I am from India and in the high school history, I studied that the British followed the divide and rule policy to rule India. Therefore, I think they were responsible for dividing people on the basis of religion, caste, colour and race. Here is a link to a scene from the movie “The legend of Bhagat Singh” that shows how the British mistreated Indians in their own country : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVd_K7UWA2w

National borders make people feel that they are different just because they belong to a specific piece of land. I don’t even understand the purpose of the evening ceremony called “Beating Retreat” that is performed every evening at the Wagah border. What do they want to prove? That they hate each other so much? I have been to that border once and I have seen that ceremony. It was a very sad and terrifying experience. I felt like I was in some warzone. I cannot understand how people can be so much divided based on religion. Why don’t they understand that we have only one religion and that is “Humanity”?