Social Scientist

Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

Author(s): Mohammad Asim Siddiqui
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 40, No. 11/12 (NovemberDecember 2012), pp. 17-29
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23338867
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 Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

Mohammad Asim Siddiqui

I begin with the basic question of how to read Saadat Hasan Manto today,
sixty five years after the Partition and at a time when traditional ways of
reading litera-ture are being seriously questioned. It is true that more than
any other writer of his time, Manto's stories do not appear dated, and he, like
Premchand, still commands readers, which is the envy of many current
writers. But the basic question of how to read Manto is a good question even
today because a lot has been said in recent times about how to read an author,
the limitations of reading and, above all, the politics of reading - often seen
together with the politics of writing and of the writer. In the case of Manto,
the verdict is often the result of a selective reading of his few stories. He is
presented as a pur-veyor of obscenity, as a merchant of violence and as one

who made capital out of the tragic events of the Partition. More recently, in
narrow-minded, vulgar nationalist criticism, Manto has been considered a
writer who changed sides and became a Pakistani. The evidence adduced in
favour of this argument is a skewed reading of his last writings, pieces like
'Yazid' and 'Pandit Manto's Letter to Pandit Nehru'. Even his celebration
after his death - his being hailed as a champion of women and the downtrod
den - has not the dominant view of Manto as a writer who writes
changed
about sex, and who loves to titillate and shock. In such discussion, very often,
his stories which do not touch the subject of Partition or sexuality are
conveniently glossed over. There is rarely a mention of stories like 'Khalid
Mian', 'Manzoor', 'Mammad Bhai', 'Farishta' and many such, which are
neither about sex nor about the Partition. Then there are scores of Manto's

radio plays which have hardly, if ever, elicited any critical response. The
Manto canon is too vast and too complex to be reduced to sweeping reduc
tionist judgements. There is surely sound merit in Alok Bhalla's view that
Manto's stories 'are marked by the sense that we are foredoomed to a life of
solitude, pain and sorrow'.1 An almost similar point, though given a definite
existentialist slant, is made by Gopichand Narang when he sums up the
characteristic features of Manto's stories:

Manto, in his finer moments, is attuned to the symphony of the mystery of

creation, and in this symphony his dominant note is the note of sorrow. The

sorrow of existence, the loneliness of the soul, and the unfathomable suffer

ing, dukha, which is part of the music of the infinite.2

Sound critical opinions about Manto's work have obviously been 17

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Social Scientist

2! expressed from different theoretical positions. One problem with the criti
^ cism of fiction, which partially applies to short stories, is that it tends to be
reductive. Any easy judgment of the entire canon of Manto's stories, leave
jjj
alone his non-fiction, sketches and plays, would also suffer from this reduct
a; ive quality. However, admission of the limitations of different theoretical
frameworks does not obviate the need to see a writer's work from newer

^ positions. The complexity and richness of a work appears different from

different vantage-points. Manto's work lends itself favourably to newer
E critical theories also, which can illuminate its unexplored dimensions.
> As the focus in the present paper is on Manto's attitude to power of
Z different kinds, be it colonial or nationalist, I have drawn heavily on the
insights of postcolonial criticism. Also implied in this paper is the methodol
<N
ogy of what Edward Said, arguably the ubiquitous presence in postcolonial
7
criticism, called a contrapuntal reading of texts. Explaining his radically
m new method of reading, Said wrote: 'The point is that contrapuntal reading
must take account of both processes, that of imperialism and that of resist
^
ance to it, which can be done by extending our reading of the texts to include
o what was once forcibly excluded.'3 Obviously, Said's frame of reference was
Western cultural forms, but his methodology of reading against the grain is
> of some help in looking at the strategies of resistance against dominant
powers in Manto's work. The framework offered in this paper will certainly
not apply to all the stories, but it does try to address a particular strand in
Manto's writing right from the start to the end of his literary career. Another

remarkable point which should not be missed is that while Manto's most
controversial stories also happen to be his best, his lesser known writings also
significantly substantiate some of the ideas which are present in his better
known stories.

As Manto's writing appeared at a very critical juncture in the history of

the subcontinent - before and after the turbulent period of the birth of the
two nations - it unmistakably addresses issues that are now the staple of
postcolonial criticism: the question of nationalism, attitudes to colonialism,
notions of identity and opposition to dominant discourses. Here, one will
have to disagree with the liberal-humanist readings of Manto which stress his
amoral concerns, his views on man's sexuality, his stance on the moral
- in other words, a decontextualised
degradation of man reading of Manto.
This kind of reading often considers his characters as archetypes who tran
scend their context. On the contrary, Manto's subjects are firmly rooted in
his time, the specific context of his writing being vital to an understanding of
Manto. Alok Bhalla justifiably laments the lack of adequate biographical
material on Manto 'which carefully locates him in a historical period ... his
readings and sources, his friendship and betrayals, his religious and political
presuppositions or his restless shifts from Delhi to Bombay and finally to
Lahore'.4 Going beyond the orthodoxies of biographical method and the
18 formalist positions, one can still find enough textual evidence in Manto's

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 Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

writings to form an opinion about his creative stance on questions of power, !Z

control, subordination and resistance. Obviously this stance expresses itself =r
in presentational form through motifs, symbols, and other linguistic and 3
narrative devices. 3
All through his writings, Manto evinces a critical attitude to any kind of
power which results in the subordination of an individual, a class or a nation. w*
This concern is apparent from the very beginning to the end of his writing 3
career, from 'Tamasha' to his Letters to Uncle Sam. His refusal to be coopted
into the system and his active resistance to dominant ideologies of his time 2:
distinguish his life and his poetics. Thus, in his early stories 'Tamasha' and c
'Naya Qanoon', the sentiment against the colonial power is very strong.
Interestingly, when publishing 'Tamasha', arguably his first story, Manto
decided not to use his name for fear of being harassed by the British govern
ment. The British authorities are not named anywhere in the story. Rather,
Manto turned them into a powerful king whose authority and power is only
next to God's. The comparison with God is interesting as even secular power
often models itself on God's power, a recurrent theme in the novels of Kafka.
The helplessness of people combined with their suppressed anger is beauti
fully captured in young Khalid's conversation with his father. Khalid's rage
against the powerful king and his father's realisation of its potency is aptly
highlighted in the story in the omniscient narrator's intrusion into the nar
rative at one point: 'Wish this little revenge is distributed among all people.'5
'Naya Qanoon', written in the backdrop of the hope aroused by the Soviet
Revolution, the Red Shirt movement in the frontier and the expectations
about the India Act, transports Mangu, a tonga driver, into a fantasy world of
liberation. Mangu's anger against the English masters is reflective of an

ordinary Indian's deep-rooted resentment against the foreign rule.

'Swaraj ke Liye', also written before the independence of India, fictionalises
different aspects of the freedom struggle, especially capturing the anti-colo
nial mood in Amritsar. Manto's Muslim protagonist develops political con
sciousness and is ready to do anything for the independence of the country,
even abstaining from sex. The story, interestingly, takes a critical view of the
leaders' inability to sustain the anti-colonial mood, the Mahatma's denial of
the biological demands of the body and leaders resorting to different gim
micks to attract their followers. Manto's primitivism and his acceptance of
the sensual side of man does not find the Mahatma's (a character obviously
modelled on Gandhi) ideal of denial of body acceptable.
'1919 ki Ek Baat', written in 1951, fictionalises many instances of resist
ance against the oppressive British rule. Thaila Kanjar, the main character in
the story, redeems himself of his bad habits of gambling and drinking by
leading the Indian resistance against the cruel and callous British adminis
trators. However, despite the obvious anti-British sentiment in the story,
Manto does not play to the gallery and saves the story from becoming
didactic. The two endings of the story, one 'real' and the other invented by the 19

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Social Scientist

j narrator in the story, suggest the impossibility of the situation in 1919, a

period when the independence of India was a distant dream.

A fundamental question that can be asked is whether the Empire suc
ceeded in colonising Manto's mind and imagination. It will be correct to say
oj that Manto remained sceptical of imperial attitudes. This point needs some
elaboration. A very important motif in postcolonial literature is how writers

^ perform the difficult task of decolonising the mind. In Manto's case, two
points need to be stressed. First, all cultural texts do not necessarily come
into existence because of a need to engage with the colonial power. More
> often than not, they address the specific local needs of readers and writers.
2 Manto was obviously concerned with many issues faced by his ordinary
readers, hence the subject matter of his stories. However, even these subjects,
when scrutinised closely, somewhere touch the famous 'writing to the centre

argument'. This is reflected in Manto's story-telling technique, his use of

^ occasional English expressions in a very meaningful manner, and his humour
directed at the colonial power, especially in his letters. In his story-telling
2
technique, the reader is reminded of the best practitioners of this art in the
world - Guy de Maupassant, O. Henry and Somerset Maugham. The effect
seen in achieving brevity, simplicity of expression, and, most importantly, a
> dramatic and powerful ending, demonstrate Manto's way of showing to the
West that he is equally good at this art.
Manto's stories can be read a second time from the end, to see how every
clue that was present earlier in the story but was probably missed, can now

illuminate all the details. The tight structure of his best stories is at par with
the best in the history of the short story. However, in some cases this very

quality can become predictable. In quite a few stories, a trained reader can
possibly predict the responses of the characters. There are also very strong

cinematographic elements in his stories, and no wonder Manto interests

filmmakers today no less. The fact remains that Manto has demonstrated his
ability in his best stories to show to the Western centre that he is equally adept
at using a form perfected in the West.
As a rule, Manto uses English expressions in his stories only occasion
ally. He also uses an apparently meaningless blend of Urdu-English gibber
ish in some stories. But if this gibberish is repeated in stories like 'Toba Tek
Singh' and 'Babu Gopinath', it needs some attention. In 'Babu Gopinath',
Abdul Raheem Sando's use of words and phrases like 'continutally', 'anti ki
panti po', 'continutian', 'tin pipti, fill fill foti', is surely a source of some
humour. It also presents a funny and non-serious kind of person who has
probably used an English name Sando for some effect. Though it will be too
far-fetched to suggest that Manto was refashioning English in the manner of
many postcolonial writers, this kind of English does mimic the new English
speaking class in India, the new sahibs, subjecting them to ridicule. In this, it
is an act of defiance on the part of Manto's characters. Interestingly, Sando
20 thinks about 'Inquilab Zindabad' when he talks about the effectof whiskey in

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 Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

the stomach. Toba Tek Singh's gibberish - 'opad di gad gad di annexe the !Z
- =r
bedhyana the moong the daal' acquires some significance in his rejection
of the colonial arrangement of dividing the country. These characters, on 3
such occasions, are Manto's mimic men mimicking Homi K. Bhabha's. =j
Bhabha considers mimicry 'one of the most elusive and effective strategies of

colonial power and knowledge'.6 Indians who learn to speak English are at ^
best mimic men who are anglicised but are not like the English. However, as 3
McLeod says, 'hearing their language returning through the mouths of the ~
colonised, the colonisers are faced with the worrying threat of resemblance 9:
between coloniser and colonised'.7 The ambivalent position of the English- "c
speaking colonised presents a form of anti-colonial resistance. Toba Tek
Singh's English presents a second order of mimic men mimicking not only
the English, but also the English-speaking Indians who are at the forefront of
the nationalist movement but are not beyond suspicion, and who, in his
view, have accepted the colonial arrangement of dividing the country too
meekly. Toba Tek Singh's painful puzzle is also a rejection of the new bor
ders accepted by the English-speaking sahibs of India. Toba Tek Singh, in a
way, is speaking to the second centre based in Delhi.
A very important motif in the entire postcolonial writing is how writers
have expressed the question of national and cultural identity. Manto's sto
ries about Partition violence tackle the question of identity in a very sensitive
manner. A lot has been written about the Partition, but Partition is still an
unfinished story. Books and articles on the Partition discuss their subject
from different angles. In many of his stories, Manto appears to mimic the
multiple perspectives of historians and the official discourse of the adminis
trators. Though literature is also often a kind of evidence for historians

writing history, the difference between history and literature becomes appar
ent in Manto with literature emerging unscathed. In history-writing, Parti
tion is an event, but in the fiction of Manto the eventfulness of Partition is
captured. Thus, for many months after the Partition there was total uncer

tainty about the official status of many places, whether they were in India or
in Pakistan. Toba Tek Singh's query is not the query of a mad man, but rather
that of many people who were forced into the dilemma faced by him.
In his book Remembering Partition,8 Gyanendra Pandey talks about
three different conceptions of Partition: first,in the demand of the Muslim
League for Pakistan from 1940 onwards; second, in the division of the
Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal; and third, the partition of
people from both sides of the border resulting in large-scale massacres,
suffering and exile. The third conception of Partition is often considered an
aberration in the writings of historians who proclaim the myth of India's
unity, the unity of its diverse traditions and people. Pandey also makes the
point that historians often move on by tracing the origin of the violence or
describing the violence as non-narratable. It is here that Manto's stories
score. He gives a total picture of this third conception of violence in his many 21

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Social Scientist

2! stories. Even now, in the accounts of historians there is no clarity about the
^ death-toll in the violence of the Partition. Manto begins his story 'Sahay' by

jjj mentioning the death of one lakh Hindus and one lakh Muslims. These
round figures also appear in historical writings which are based on FIRs and
a) accounts, where rumour, and into offi
eyewitness testimony hearsay creep
cial history-writing (Pandey's insight).
^
More recently, a different kind of feminist history by writers such as
^
Urvashi Butalia, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin has focused on the violence
against women in the Partition, the untold stories of rapes, mutilations and
> abductions. commentators have viewed the Partition violence as a war
Many

Z between Hindus-Sikhs and Muslims on each other's women. In almost all

the stories of Manto about Partition violence, there is a reference to violence
CM

against women. Stories like 'Sharifan' and 'Thanda Gosht' immediately

come to mind. In many the women were not even
cases, spared by their co

^ religionists, a subject taken up by Manto in 'Khol Do'. In fact, Manto's vision

of oneness is expressed through his ironical handling of the differences
2
between different communities. His stories are peopled with characters
from different religions. In their everyday life, there is not much to differen
^
tiate. In their sexuality and romance, they express themselves in similar
> manner. Their religious identity overrides other identities only during time
of external turbulence. Thus, in stories like 'Gurumukh Singh ki Wasiyat',
'Sahay', 'Sharifan' or even 'Thanda Gosht', Manto presents characters who
probably discover their religious identity by external circumstances.

A point can be made that even in the worst of times, Manto's stories

present, to quote Alok Bhalla's perceptive words, 'survival of moral being in

the midst of horror'.9 Much has been written about Ishar Singh's moral being.
- like the
Many other characters judge Abdul Hai in 'Gurmukh Singh ki
Wasiyat', Jugal and Mumtaz in 'Sahay', Ram Khilavan in 'Ram Khilavan' or
even Qasim in 'Sharifan' - are examples of the survival of this moral being in
the midst of horror. Almost as a rule, Manto treats the religious differences of
his characters with irony and humour; the humour in such cases is dark and
bitter. The irony is very pronounced right from the title to the last details in
stories like 'Do Qaume'. The violence and brutality seen during the Partition
riots admitted no differences on religious lines. It may appear a clich to say
so, but in Manto's stories Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are equally guilty of
the worst kinds of crimes. By no stretch of imagination can Manto be
accused of sectarianism. And yet Manto never tried to follow the formula of
balancing the Hindu/Sikh-Muslim violence in his writing. Keki N. Daruwala
rightly comments: 'and he was totally unselfconscious about his impartiality
towards the Hindu and the Muslim - there was no deliberate attempt to
match Sikh atrocities with Muslim ones to arrive at some phoney balance'.10
In her book The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan,
Yasmin Khan fully captures the feeling of difference and awareness of the

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 Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

other in the 1940s. This was a time when even water and tea had religious
identity, and 'even non-believers or self-proclaimed atheists were labelled as
members of a "community" because of the group that they happened to born

into - not what they believed'." Manto's rising above petty communalism,
seen in the context of his times, appears remarkable. There is also a strong
view held by some commentators (like Upendra Nath Ashk and Neelabh) j/T
that Manto left for Pakistan not because of communalpolitics, but because 3
of his massive ego which was hurt on many occasions in the Bombay film ~

industry. Q:
In recent years, there has been a lot of debate about the State's role in "c
violence against its own people. Javeed Alam discusses the nature of Parti
tion violence making a distinction between three different kinds of violence.
In the firstkind, the State carries out the killings and organises massacres. In
the second kind, large organisations are responsible for violence on a big
scale. In the third kind, people indulge in violence at a moment of loss of
judgment.

Looking at Partition there is something which strikes us as a particularity.

There are innumerable cases of large-scale massacres mutually indulged in

by people at a moment of loss of judgment, of a sense of proportion, at a

moment of frenzy. There is no involvement of large organisations or the

State as the instrument of mass killings. You can't therefore talk of these

events as a general phenomena (sic).12

In many of Manto's stories written against the backdrop of Partition

violence, the crime is committed as a result of loss of judgment in a moment
of frenzy. Sometimes it is the mob and at other times it is the individual who
turns a beast in a moment of frenzy. The best example is provided by Qasim's
killing many people after he sees the naked dead body of his grown-up
daughter, in the story titled 'Sharifan'. What is remarkable about such stories
is that quite like the Hindi movies, the State is largely absent from the scene
of crime, maybe because the demands of the plot and the narrative do not

require its presence. This is also understandable as there was a total failure of
law and order machinery in the troubled times. Thus, in 'Sharifan' the scene
of violence is not only the home but also the street, and yet Qasim does not
encounter any law-enforcing agency during his killing-spree. However,
there are no examples of the collusion of the State, and faith in the law and
order machinery is not completely absent in Manto's stories. The presence
of the police is a sign of security and reassurance. Often, the awareness of the
long arm of the law catching up with the perpetrators of crime also suggests
the positive light in which police is presented. Thus, in 'Sahay' Mumtaz fears
being caught by the police for 'killing' Sahay. In 'Ram Khilavan' the Muslim
narrator, when surrounded by a belligerent group of Hindu dhobis, thinks of
the police: 'There was no policeman around whom I could have called for

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Social Scientist

2 help.'13 In 'Anjam Bakhair' the old madam asks for police security; the

presence of the police would have provided a sense of security to the madam
and Nasim Akhtar, the young prostitute.
Many of Manto's stories grapple with the historical experience of decolo
-j|
<u nisation. He was writing at a time when some grand myths were being
created, trying to unify the people sometimes in a kind of spurious unity.

^ Talking about his creative process in his essay titled 'Manto', he mentions his
struggle with writing stories. He also casually mentions his getting up early
E and trying to squeeze a story out of a newspaper story. Many of his stories
> must have been a result of this process. And, predictably enough, newspapers
Z in his times were full of stories of communal violence and the assertion of
grand myths of the nation and nation-building. Before and after indepen
dence, it was the myth of one Indian nation tracing its continuous glorious

history from the ancient period. Then there was the myth of Pakistan, liter
^ ally meaning pure and sacred land, a nation for Muslims, which gripped the
collective imagination of Muslims. Enough has been written about the
2
^ depiction of violence in Manto that resulted from the journey towards
o decolonisation. However, Manto also writes about the failure of the grand
myths, or their inability to take different sections of society into their fold.
-g
> His stories are also about the fact that the myth of the nation does not unify
all people. They show that a nation achieving unity on the basis of a common
religion can still exclude many sections of society. There are far too many
people on the margins of the society, far too many people who are outside the

norms and limits set by the myth of the nation.

History bears out Manto both in India and Pakistan, what with identity
politics achieving centre stage in both countries in different ways. Etienne
Balibar aptly remarks in his essay 'Racism and Nationalism' that many
decolonised nations have gone through the stage of 'seeing nationalisms of
liberation turned into nationalism of domination'.14 The people who suffer
in Manto's stories are generally people on the margins of society in terms of
their gender, class and profession. His world is the world of Mangus, Gamas,
Sugandhis, Zeenats, Saritas, Sirajs, Shadans, Sultanas and many many such
characters who live on the fringes of society. They are people whose lives are
controlled by others. Ironically, Manto was ignored by the progressives in his
time despite the fact that a subaltern perspective is very pronounced in his
stories. To see only the nudity and obscenity in the world of his prostitutes is
to miss a very important point. These women probably do not figure in the
great myth of the nation that is proclaimed from official quarters. The myth
of unity would ignore the class division in 'Hatak'. The main character in
'Nara' smarts under insults but is helpless to act because of his social
position. Babu Gopinath is kind-hearted and sensitive, but still the decider of
Zeenat's destiny. There is a view that 'Manto is not interested in exploring the
reasons why women became prostitutes'.15 The fact is that the reasons are

24 hidden behind the ideologies which provide operative force to the society and

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 Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

the nation, which Manto skilfully exposes in his stories. Almost as a rule 12
these women come from the poor sections of the society. They are doubly =r
marginalised, first as women and second as poor women. The fact that many 3
of Manto's whores look happy and contented with their lot suggests the force 3
of the dominant patriarchal discourse. CL

In his influential book Location of Culture, Homi K. Bhabha develops his /T

concepts of pedagogic and performative discourse which can further explain 3
the nature of Manto's concerns in his stories. As a rule Manto's stories do not
Q.
participate in the performative aspect of the nationalist discourse. They 9:
rather develop a line at odds with the official nation-building discourse. The "c
counter-narratives of his characters challenge the official discourse which
tries to achieve coherence by harmonising and aestheticising difference.
Thus in the story titled 'Licence', howsoever independent Neeti may be, she
is still defeated by the official view on the role of women. The law of the land
is an instrument of her exploitation. She cannot get the licence to drive a
tonga but can easily get the licence to sell her body. A cobbler by caste which
ranks low in the caste hierarchy, the intersectionality of gender and caste is
also important in her subordination. In the context of the story, it may
become difficult to understand as to how a strong-willed woman like her so
meekly accepts the suggestion to sell her body. The climactic end of the story
also offers a comment on the patriarchal set-up in which women, especially
women of lower caste, have no place. Neetis do not fit into the nationalist
discourse.

An almost similar fate awaits Nasim Akhtar, the young prostitute in the
story 'Anjam Bakhair'. This story is remarkable for showing the hollowness
of the dominant discourses of the time, both nationalist and sectarian.

Nasim Akhtar's insecurity results from her awareness of her religious iden
tity. The exclusionary Hindu majoritarian discourse is the direct cause of
her insecurity. She is taken in by the daily rehearsing of the myth of Pakistan
and would feel secure on the other side of the border: 'Our religion and their
religion is the same. Qaed e Azam sahib has worked very hard to establish
Pakistan for Muslims. We must now live there.'16 The business-minded old
madam, on the other hand, is not fooled by the dominant religious-nation
alist discourse and would like to remain in India as most of her customers
are Hindus. Nasim Akhtar can remain safe in Delhi only as Seth Govind
Prakash's mistress. Manto exposes the hollowness of this nationalist-reli
gious discourse by showing the sad fate of Nasim Akhtar in Pakistan. Her
dreams of home, marriage and a respectable life in Pakistan come to naught,
and there too she is forced to live as a prostitute.
The nationalist discourse comes under close scrutiny also in Manto's
stories entitled 'Aakhiri Salute' and 'Tetwal ka Kutta', which are set against
the backdrop of India-Pakistan skirmishes on the border. There is total con
fusion in the mind of Rab Nawaz, a soldier with the Pakistani army, about the
identification of religion with nationalism. He is puzzled as to how his 25

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Social Scientist

C! religion comes into the picture in the battle over Kashmir because if it were
a religious war, then why are other Muslim nations not fighting it and how to

jjj explain the presence of Muslim soldiers from India fighting against Paki
stan? Manto shows the effect of ideology on the minds of the two childhood
<u friends fighting against each other for their respective sides. Rab Nawaz seeks
help for his doubts from an ideological construct that soldiers should not
^
think too much, that they should simply fight. Soldiers certainly do not think
^
in 'Tetwal ka Kutta'. The story focuses not only on the futilityof war, but also
JLj
the tendency of people to carry their nationalism to ridiculous extents.
> Nationalism is as much the butt of ridicule in it as the stupid actions of the
~Z_ soldiers who attach nationalist labels on a dog who has strayed on to the
battle-front.
<N
Manto's treatment of nationalism in some of his later pieces, like 'Yazid'
and 'Pandit Manto's Letter to Pandit Nehru', has received sharp criticism
oo from some quarters in India. The view has been expressed that Manto

2 presents himself as a Pakistani in this letter, and that his espousal of Pakistan's
cause hurts his Indian readers. Or maybe Manto was playing to the gallery
O and with these pieces he finally severed his ties with India. 'Yazid', which
*}"
came out in 1951, was written against the backdrop of India-Pakistan
> skirmishes and the news that India would stop river waters from flowing
through Pakistan. The story presents multiple discourses which are in con
flict with each other. The anti-India discourse of the villagers in the story is
balanced by Rahim Dad's understanding of a country's behaviour during
war. A positive character defined by a rational outlook, he genuinely wants to
improve people's understanding, offer a corrective to their attitude towards

politics, and enlighten them on their wrong notion of the enemy. He also
knows that his solution cannot be acceptable to everyone. He is positive in
his refusal to accept that water can be stopped quickly. The time gained in the
process will offer its own solution. There is the use of the device of inversion
of a traditional symbol at the end of the story. No Muslim names his/her son
Yazid because in Muslim history, Yazid had denied water to the grandsons of
the Prophet, but Manto's Yazid is expected to be a positive character who
would open the flow of water. 'Yazid' also explores the effectof the decisions
of State power on individual lives. The decision of Rahim Dad to name his
son Yazid is an individual's optimistic solution to counter a powerful state's
superior might. If anything, the story has a pacifist agenda.
It can be argued that Nehru is portrayed in a negative light in this story.
The story can be read along with 'Pandit Manto's Letter to Pandit Nehru'
(dated 27 August 1954), that Manto wrote as a foreword to his book Beghair
Unwan ke. In this letter, Manto is not only critical of what he considers
Nehru's deceptive charms, his contradictions and his lack of care for
Kashmiris, but he also speaks his mind on the state of Junagarh, the influ
ence of a certain Maratha on Nehru's decision-making and his fear about
26 Urdu's future in India. That Manto speaks as a Pakistani national in this

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 Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

letter is beyond doubt, but his deeply-felt pain is also unmistakable in this 2
piece. Abdul Bismillah makes a very apt remark when he says that 'though =r
India had been divided into two parts, the writer named Saadat Hasan Manto 3
had developed a double self, one divided, the other undivided'.17 It is largely 3
his undivided self that we come across in his stories. Most of his stories are set
in undivided India - Bombay, Delhi, Amritsar - even after he left India. His i/f
transcribed self that appears again and again in his stories belongs to undivi- 3
ded India. His story '1919 ki Ek Baat' presents this undivided self though it ~
was written five years after the Partition and is included in his volume titled 0:
Yazid. In his exhaustive reading of this story, Alok Bhalla makes many inter- ~c
esting points. Bhalla traces the bloody tracks (Bhalla's term) of the Partition
even in this story which obviously talks about Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He
also discovers self-justificatory nationalist romance (Bhalla's term) in it.
Most importantly, as Bhalla writes, 'in a story about the politics of debase
ment and hate, for the narrator Gandhi remains, even years later, a Mahat

ma, a figure of humanitas, a man who is recognised as an example of virtue

by everyone'.18
In his short life, Manto saw the colonial power of Britain replaced by the
imperial power of the United States.He was also quick to notice how the
nationalist discourse can replicate the power dynamics of the colonial era. In
a way, the colonial power structure was replaced by the new nationalist
jargon. As stated above, many of his writings take an ironical view of the daily
rehearsing of nationalist myths and symbols. His veiled criticism of the
colonialism-imperialism-nationalism triad is especially pronounced in
his non-fiction, like Letters to Uncle Sam, 'Sawere Jo Kal Meri Aankh Khuli',
and 'Allah ka Bada Fazal Hai'. The last-mentioned essay bemoans the death

of intellectual traditions in his country where art, literature, music and

journalism have been suppressed and replaced by official discourse through
an official mouthpiece. The essay, written in an ironical style, captures the
suffocating climate in which an artist like Manto had to work in his new
country. In an interesting reference, 'Sawere Jo Kal Meri Ankh Khuli' shows
a shopkeeper turning the face of his fan towards the photograph of Mohammad
Ali Jinnah. Manto's saying 'Pakistan Zindabad as a reaction reflects his
bemused reaction to this rehearsing of the symbols of nationalism. All
through the essay, he comments on the rehearsing of different symbols and
motifs of the new nationalism.
His Letters to Uncle Sam offer a scathing criticism of American imperial
ist projects in different countries. Manto is critical of Americans trying to
redraw the map of the world. He speaks of the American bombing in Japan,
America's efforts to make the destructive hydrogen bomb and its selling
weapons to poor countries. He is not happy to see the new ideology of impe
rialism infiltrating all walks of life in Pakistan. To his credit, Manto under
stood the nature of this ideology and appears very critical of the American
influence in the subcontinent. He makes fun of the American culture, its 27

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Social Scientist

<N
flaunting of money, its exhibitionism, its tolerance of nudity and homo
O
<N sexuality, its own publicity and marketing, and its total lack of concern for
L. the world's public opinion. He also speaks of an India-Pakistan war because
<u
-0 of American interests in the region in his seventh letter. He is no less critical
E
<u of the path decolonisation has taken in his country. Pakistan's bomb-fixa
u
<U tion and Pakistan's tension with India is treated with irony by him. As if

L reacting against the charge of obscenity, Man to makes fun of Pakistani femi
V nists and Pakistani mullahs whose obnoxious behaviour in public is no less
-0
e obscene. He is critical of Pakistan feminists because of the elitist nature of
0)
> the All Pakistan Women's Association.
o
Z Letters to Uncle Sam, unlike his stories, reveal Manto's thinking on
international issues. Manto is too preoccupied with his favourite subjects to
rx
think about international issues in his stories. His silence on many interna
T
tional issues of his time appears puzzling at times. His Uncle Sam letters
i/i bring out his political self in the public domain in very clear terms. Saadat
o
Hasan Manto's distrust of power, that is very evident in his early story
z
'Tamasha', has matured by the time of his Letters to Uncle Sam. He now does
o not have to use a persona, but can speak in his own person against power - be
T
it nationalist or imperialist.

Notes

1 Alok Bhalla, 'Introduction', in Alok Bhalla

(ed.), Life and Works of Saadat Hasan
Manto, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, 1997, p. 10.
2 Gopichand Narang, 'Manto Reconsidered', in Bhalla (ed.), Life and Works of Saadat
Hasan Manto, p.12.
3 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage Books, London, 1994, p. 79.
4 Bhalla, 'Introduction', in Bhalla (ed.), Life and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto, p. 9
5 Saadat Hasan Manto, 'Tamasha', in Dastavez, Vol. 1, compiled by Balraj Mainra
and Sharad Dutt, Rajkamal Prakashan, New Delhi, p. 382. (All translations from
Urdu texts to English used in this paper are mine.)
6 Homi K. Bhaba, Location of Culture, Routledge, 1994, p.85.
7 John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism, Manchester University Press, Manches

ter, p. 55.
8 Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in

India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001; see Chapter 2, 'The Three
Partitions of 1947', pp. 21-44.
9 Alok Bhalla, quoted in Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 62.
10 Keki N. Daruwalla, 'The Craft of Manto', in Bhalla (ed.), Life and Works of Saadat
Hasan Manto, p. 55.
11 Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, Penguin,
New Delhi, 2007, p. 20.
12 Javeed Alam, quoted in Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 58.
13 Saadat Hasan Manto, 'Ram Khilavan', in Dastavez, Vol. 2, compiled by Balraj
Menra and Sharad Dutt, Rajkamal Prakashan, New Delhi, p. 213.
14 Etienne Balibar, quoted in McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism, p. 103.
15 Indra Nath Choudhuri, 'A Note on Some Myths About Manto', in Bhalla (ed.), Life
and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto, pp. 218-19.
28 16 Saadat Hasan Manto, 'Anjam Bakhair', in Dastavez, Vol. 1, p. 421.

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 Saadat Hasan Manto's Poetics of Resistance

17 Abdul Bismillah, 'A Reading of Pandit Manto's Letter to Pandit Nehru', in Bhalla 2
o
(ed.), Life and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto, p. 183.
ZT
18 Alok Bhalla, 'A Dance of Grotesque Masks: A Critical Reading of Manto's "1919 ki W
Ek Baat'", in Bhalla (ed.), Life and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto, p. 45.
3
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Asim Siddiqui is Associate Professor in the Department of English, Aligarh
Muslim University, Aligarh. CL
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29

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