Saadat Hasan Manto: The chronicler of partition

On 15 August 1947, two nations were born—Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. The goal was to establish peace and harmony in both regions. However, the partition of the subcontinent resulted in unprecedented bloodshed, claiming over a million lives and displacing around 15 million people. Instead of peace, both nations witnessed escalating unrest—communal riots, religious fanaticism, and extremism reached horrifying new levels. This legacy of discord continues today, most recently seen in ongoing conflicts between the two countries over Kashmir.

Among the literary figures who deeply grasped the agony of Partition and the societal decay brought on by religious intolerance and extremism, Saadat Hasan Manto stands out. The world-renowned Urdu short story writer captured these horrors with piercing clarity throughout his body of work. Story after story, Manto gave voice to the trauma of Partition. He once said, “If you cannot understand the times we are living in, read my stories. If you cannot bear my stories, it means the times are unbearable and disturbing.”

Manto was a man of many faces—sometimes revolutionary, sometimes banned, and always a fierce opponent of communal poison. In every sentence, Manto expressed the brutal truth of Partition’s anguish. The ruling class saw him as a thorn in their side. Even in his homeland, India, he faced three obscenity trials for his writings.

His story "Khol Do" led to the six-month suspension of the Urdu literary magazine Naqoosh. Another story, "Thanda Gosht", brought a fine to the magazine Javed. When his work "Aur Darmaiyan" was banned from print, no other publication dared publish its remaining parts. In August 1950, Manto was charged with obscenity again for his story "Bitter Fruit", this time in a Lahore court.

Due to dire financial hardship, Manto couldn’t afford a good lawyer. It was three young lawyers, including Sheikh Khurshid Alam, who volunteered to defend him. The authorities tried repeatedly to erase his presence, but Manto became timeless. Ironically, the man now considered the greatest Urdu short story writer never passed his school Urdu exams and failed his intermediate exams twice at Hindu Mahasabha College.

Manto’s writing process was unique. When an idea struck, he would often spend sleepless nights contemplating how to begin a story. At dawn, he would read the newspaper from start to finish, searching for inspiration. Sometimes he picked arguments with his wife just to stir a new narrative. And when all else failed, he would walk the streets, buy a betel leaf, close his eyes, and observe life unfold—seeking stories in real people.

In his iconic story "Toba Tek Singh", Manto portrays Bishan Singh, a non-Muslim mentally ill man caught in the absurdity of Partition. A few years after Partition, the Indian and Pakistani governments decide to divide even the inmates of mental hospitals—non-Muslim patients to India, Muslims to Pakistan. Bishan Singh, held in a Lahore asylum, discusses how to return home. Being non-Muslim, he is to be sent to India—but he longs to return to his beloved village, Toba Tek Singh, now in Pakistan.

Manto once dreamed of becoming a revolutionary like Bhagat Singh. He wandered the streets of Amritsar all day, eyes filled with visions of independence, pockets stuffed with cigarettes. In those moments, he dreamed of driving out the British. But in the post-Partition chaos, Manto found himself forced to flee to an unfamiliar land—Pakistan. Bombay, the city he loved, had turned alien. With no choice, Manto left for Lahore. Only one friend, actor Shyam, came to bid him farewell.

But misfortune followed him to Lahore. In this unfamiliar land, he found no peace. Without a job, his only means of survival was selling stories to magazines. Every afternoon, he’d visit an editorial office and plead, “Give me some money; I’ll pay you back with a story.” For a writer, such desperation is heartbreaking. Once, he would argue with his wife over stories. He once scoured newspapers for narratives. Now, he was forced to write stories not out of inspiration, but sheer necessity.

Worried about money for alcohol and groceries, Manto would scribble stories of recent riots with trembling hands. Some were just a single line; others stretched to a page and a half. These became part of his collection "Siyah Hashiye" (Black Borders), a compilation of 32 such pieces.

Manto’s literary journey began at 22 when he translated Victor Hugo’s "The Last Day of a Condemned Man" into Urdu as "Sarguzasht-e-Asir". Over the next 20 years, he published 22 collections of short stories, three memoirs, and a novel. His characters were filled with his own pain and realization.

His death, too, was filled with sorrow. On the morning of 18 January 1955, suffering from advanced liver cirrhosis, a skeletal Manto told his wife of unbearable abdominal pain. He knew his end was near. Still, he refused to go to the hospital. Knowing alcohol was now poison, he begged for one last sip. Eventually, a few drops were given to him—but they dribbled from his lips. He was rushed to the hospital.

Doctors declared him dead upon arrival in the ambulance. It was 10:30 in the morning. His burial was scheduled for 4 p.m., but due to the condition of the body, everything was completed by 3:30 p.m.

Though he was nearly banned from Radio Lahore during his life, the station repeatedly broadcast news of his death. A massive crowd attended Manto’s funeral—young people, students, teachers, ordinary citizens, and even veiled women suspected to be sex workers, the very people Manto had depicted with empathy in his stories. He was laid to rest at Miani Sahib Cemetery in Lahore.

Manto is rightfully remembered as the chronicler of Partition. Shortly before his death, Manto penned his own epitaph: “Here lies Manto, buried under tons of earth, wondering who is the greater storyteller—God or Manto?” On his 113th birth anniversary today, we pay solemn tribute to the literary legend, Saadat Hasan Manto.

The writer is a journalist.