THE PLIGHT OF COMMON PEOPLE IN THE PARTITION LITERATURE OF INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

The sources of history and literature witnessed that few people on the name of religion divided the subcontinent and created severe problems in all regions of the subcontinent that people still are facing even after seventy years of partition. If we go through the pages of Indian History and Partition Literature many admirable characters will come alive in front of us. About numerous events and disasters we can learn from the books of historians and literary giants who portrayed all the situations, disasters and predicaments faced by the people before, during and after partition. Partition of India is still a darkest period in the history of subcontinent and it has left indelible marks on the pages of Indian history. Many writers have attempted to represent the trauma of partition skilfully through their writings. Britishers before leaving the subcontinent tried to break the unity of religions on the name of partition, many people were shocked as they were aware about the consequences of this division. After partition, the people who earlier were friends, neighbours, colleagues were labelled as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians and became thirsty of each others' blood. They acted as savages; they forgot the respect for elders and women, love towards children. To represent the people who on the name of religion killed millions of precious lives, many writers of the Indian subcontinent produced a literature called Partition Literature. The partition led to huge movements and disastrous conflicts across Indo-Pak border. About ten million Hindus and Sikhs were expelled from Pakistan and nearly seven million Muslims from India to Pakistan and thousands of people were killed in this conflict. Though, independence for Indian subcontinent was an event of celebration, but it was celebrated in the shape of mourning, tears, separation, exile, crying, bloodshed, abduction, rape, murder etc. India was the one of the largest colonies of Great Britain and was granted freedom after a long period of subjugation, however resulted into the partition of country which caused a big destruction to the subcontinent in the form of ethnic and religious riots. This paper aims to explore the voice of people and their plight, who badly suffered during the cataclysmic event of partition.