A TRANSLATION OF KRISHAN CHANDER’S GHADDAAR THAT IS TIMELY, MOVING, VITAL
goistic nationalism. This story of India’s division that triggered the migration of Hindus and Sikhs to India and Muslims to Pakistan has been documented many times over – both before and after Chander. However, this is exactly where Chander scores over the others.
As Jalil writes, “...while not the longest or the most well-known of Krishan Chander’s novels, it is certainly the most compact yet moving piece of writing in his oeuvre”. Chander does not fail to delight his readers with his trademark lyrical descriptions even when the protagonist is going through the worst test of his life – “Put me in your wings and take me away, O swans! I haven’t slept for days.”
Hunted out of his ancestral village by drum-beating and sword-wielding Mus- lims, Baijnath discovers there is no room for a Hindu in this now alien and new Muslim country. Baijnath stands by his secular values through the turmoil he is experiencing both within and outside, only briefly losing his mind when news of his young son being killed comes in, and that of his sister being abducted.
He asks for a knife, a dagger, to take revenge – but fails to rape a captured Muslim woman, as Hindus wait their turn in a queue. Her cries of “O brother, I am your sister” hit him hard.
Baijnath rushes to save a child clinging to the body of his Muslim mother. He sees his lost son in the Muslim child and tells him, “I am your chacha”.
Baijnath’s personal journey of reconciling with the many traitors within him – from looking for a dagger to kill Muslims to saving a Muslim child – is a beautiful portrayal of an ideal man’s evolution.
However, due to his refusal to flash the weapons of hate and distrust, he conveniently becomes a Ghaddaar for both faiths, both sides – who expect a show of his religious loyalty over his humanity.
“No monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people,” Jalil quotes Cicero’s words from Dream of Scipio. This is a commentary on the times we live in too. And therein lies the genius of Chander – who for some reason is not quite as celebrated as his celebrated peers.
Jalil has done a fair job of the translation – it’s a Herculean task to match Chander’s original work – but the fact she attempted and helped us language cripples read a masterpiece overshadows a couple of aberrations here and there.
(Lamat Hasan is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi)