III

“Don’t say that 1lakh Hindus and 1lakh Muslims have been massacred,” Saadat Hasan Manto wrote about Partition, 70 years ago. “Say 2 lakh human beings have been slaughtered. It is not such a great tragedy that 2 lakh human beings have been butchered but the real tragedy is that the dead have been killed for nothing.” Hindu bijli Muslim bijli; qabristan versus shamshan: Are we back to those dark days? The BJP under Narendra Modi will stoop so low none had perhaps imagined. Balvinder, Chandigarh