Theme of Partition in indo-Anglian Fiction

The horror accompanying the transfer of population has been the major theme with Indo-Anglican writers. Though they might differ in the treatment of their subject matter and in their choice of gory incidents to enliven their writing, they all seem to insist that the division of Punjab was done arbitrarily; that the Hindus and Muslims could have lived in a united India as they had done for a century and a half under British rule. Furthermore, with one or two exception, they assign the blame for the partition to power-hungry-politicians who inflamed hatred among simple people to serve their own selfish ends. The politicians are not above reproach, but the haste with which Mountbatten acted only exacerbated the tragedy. And no writer has yet taken the last Victory to task though each claims absolute historical validity for his narrative. A study of the partition reveals some interesting facts. See that the novelists fall roughly into two groups, Sikhs and the Hindus, there is also a Muslim novelist, Attia Hosain. in general Hindu writers far outnumber the Sikh writers, yet the majority of the novels on the partition are by Sikhs (Khushwant Singh, Kartar Singh Duggal,Raj Gill and H.S.Gill being the more prominent one).This is not surprising, for the Punjab was the homeland of the five million Sikhs, and it was to them that the province owned its prosperity. They were considerably richer than their Muslim counterparts. When the Punjab was cut into two, the two and a half million Sikhs whose home fell in Pakistan were enraged-not so much by threat to their religion as by fear for their very considerable material possessions. They hungry Muslims, who had long envied the Sikhs, at last found an opportunity to enrich themselves quickly by looting Sikh property. There is much truth in Leonard Mosley's observation that “This was not a Hindu-Muslim war, but a Sikh-Muslim war." If we talk of some Sikh novels like Raj Gill's The Rape(1974) which opens i