Both Pakistan and India have got Manto wrong. In India he is read because he is seen to reject the creation of Pakistan; in Pakistan, purists, apart from blasting him for ‘obscenity’, at times tend to agree with this interpretation. In fact, both India and Pakistan are involved in doing horrible things to each other’s potential citizens. If Manto negated Pakistan in his story Toba Tek Singh, he also negated elsewhere a communalist India that made it impossible for him to stay on in Bombay. His best portrait was of film actor Shyam, also his best friend, who once said he would have killed Manto had he (Shyam) been present at a Rawalpindi massacre of Hindus.
Manto was really in love with only one city, Bombay. That is where he succeeded as a writer and as an observer of men. In Lahore, people might remember him as a bitter, insulting man who respected hardly anyone, but back in Bombay he was able to admire Hindu actors like Shyam and Ashok, and write a wonderful sketch of actress “Parichehra” Naseem Bano only to understand the Hindu-Muslim divide a lot better than most of us and write about it with the kind of mordancy that we often don’t favour in our partisanship. He once did not treat Pakistani cinema icon Noor Jahan too well but the great lady, recognising his genius, always turned up when invited by him.
Manto did not want to return to Lahore. He went to Delhi to work for the radio for a time only to return to Bombay. Then riots overtook Bombay and broke his heart. He was asked by Ashok’s film company to leave after it received communal threats. The remainder of his days that were spent in Lahore — where he was to be put under trial for obscenity and hated by the rightists and progressive writers equally — were drowned in alcohol trying to forget the city he had loved. What we got as a spin-off was the best ‘partition’ writing that we have managed.
Manto irreverently made a psychological study of the founder of the nation, the Quaid-e-Azam, but his more biting iconoclasm was expressed in his stories like Thanda Gosht (Cold Meat). There is the famous Khol Do (Open Up) about a girl raped by Sikhs, and The Assignment, which brings out the complexity of the communal mind Manto had hinted at. Among the sketches, “Pathanistan” rebukes with greater intensity today than it did in 1947. Manto’s sketches were cinematic spin-offs from the carnage of 1947.
Manto would not have celebrated his 85th birthday in 1997 when South Asia was on the brink of nuclearisation. Maybe today he would have agreed to celebrate his 100th birthday seeing that Pakistan and India are about to normalise their bedevilled relationship. That should make us all, on both sides of the long line that divides us, pause and think. Manto’s humanism inclined him to the conviction that happiness does not necessarily lie in conflicts over religion and nationalism but on fellowship and caring, on love and decency, on tolerance and forgiveness. Never were these qualities more in need in the subcontinent than they are today. Some right-wing critics (the leftists never liked him) say Manto was no good because his fiction didn’t have a “maqsad” (objective). The truth of the matter is that he, more than any other writer of Urdu, has a message that hasn’t died after a 100 years.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2012.
COMMENTS (9)
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Manto has raised himself above petty divisions and religious bias. He was a true human and a legend in literature. We would never have a man like him again. They do not come any better than that! A great and fitting tribute to a titan.
Minto was the one of the greatest writer of the sub-continent. His sharp and blunt language exposed the true picture of the society. He was the surgeon who used to operate his patient without giving him any anesthesia. I think the editor wrongly interpreted the story of KHOL DO. IN this story, the great writer exposed the character of the Muslim Guards of Muslim League along with the Sikhs. If we closely read the story, the Guards brought the girl, namely Sakina, to the camp hospital after a week when they had found her in the fields near the border. The Great writer in depicted in his stories the mentality and character of the people at that time. He emphasised that both the sides played havoc with their traditions of hospitality and humanism. The fundamentalism and religious bigotry turned them blind. This difficult task can be performed only by the people like Minto not by any Tom, Dick and Harry.
Manto’s humanism inclined him to the conviction that happiness does not necessarily lie in conflicts over religion and nationalism but on fellowship and caring, on love and decency, on tolerance and forgiveness.
that is what before partition, gandhi was telling to jinnah. but he was high on religion.
A fitting tribute to a legend.Thanks to ET editorial board.
how befitting that i just finished "Kulyat-e-Manto Manto k Mazamin" today. there is just no way words can pay tribute to the genius of Sadat Hasan Manto you have to read him to see how great he was. it is such an irony that both the progressive writers and the rightists associated him with the other camp. those who think that Manto's fiction didn't have a "maqsad" should laugh at themselves and then read him again.
"Both Pakistan and India have got Manto wrong" Yeah, only Express Tribune got him right! Hallelujah!
your claim the 'In Lahore, people might remember him as a bitter, insulting man who respected hardly anyone''. That is very one sided and incorrect statement. He lived in a small flat off Mall Road; his writings were not allowed in radio Pakistan and many called him an infidel and avoided him. Only newspapers like Imroze published his stories. His stories were and still are a treasure to read. He was always broke and many a time asked people to lend him money so that he could drink to forget his miseries. So many years after his death praises are in order, but Pakistan was just as narrow minded as it is today. It has become fashionable to blame General Zia for this state of affairs. It appears somethings do not change; they go from bad to worse.
kya baat hai editor sahib, befitting tribute to a person who dared not to toe anyone's line but his own firm belief in humanism and individualism that was a hard thing to do in the time of great trichotomic polarization of right-left-liberal. if Pakistan were conceptulaized as a state to safeguard a heterodox against the tyranny of majority than Manto would be its first citizen.
Very true Mr. Editor. I think Manto's ability to express our deepest thoughts, our fears and our joys is just overwhelming. Little happenings that make our day better and bitter our in Manto's writings. Ayesha Jalal, Manto's neice, when she taught at Columbia University had a course that included Manto - many of his key stories have been translated into English by an American lady author and I bought this book from Sethi's Vanguard Press on the Mall in 1991. Since then I have come across many American students having knowledge of Manto. Amazing isnt it??? Manto exists not only in our hearts in India-Pakistan but across the whole world with a simple message of love, affection. forgiveness and extending a helping hand to a fellow human being. I am grateful to Manto for making me a better person.