Train To Pakistan by Khushwant Singh

Khushwant Singh was India's best-known writer and columnist. He was founder-editor of Yojana and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and Hindustan Times. He is the author of classics such as Train to Pakistan, I shall Not Hear the Nightingale (retitled as The Lost Victory) and Delhi. His non-fiction includes the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs, a number of translations and works on Sikh religion and culture, Delhi, nature, current affairs and Urdu poetry. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan. Among the other awards he has received are the Punjab Ratan, the Sulabh International award for the most honest Indian of the year, and honorary doctorates from several universities. He passed away in 2014 at the age of ninety-nine.It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and Muslims of Mano Majra, a village on the border of India and Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion falls upon Juggut Singh, the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim girl. When a train arrives, carrying the bodies of dead Sikhs, the village is transformed into a battlefield, and neither the magistrate nor the police are able to stem the rising tide of violence. Amidst conflicting loyalties, it is left to Juggut Singh to redeem himself and reclaim peace for his village. First published in 1956, Train to Pakistan is a classic of modern Indian fiction.