The short story “Toba Tek Singh” by Saadat Hasan Manto is an excellent critique on how absurd the ideology of creating political borders on a planet created without borders is in reality. The text opens the mind up to the idea that humanity did not need political maps to identify with cultures for a significant part of human history. This does not imply that certain cultures were not the products of particular climates found only in specific locations, but that humans do not need to politically define those location in order to define a culture or climate.  Humans in their nature have and always will group together based on similar agreeing ideologies.

“Toba Tek Singh” provides readers with a story about a man who is caught in the grasp of an ideology that tells him where he can live based off of his religious ideology. The story takes place in an asylum for the mentally ill. Its diverse group of characters are confronted with having to possibly change to a different asylum location based on their religious beliefs and the current political borders. The characters in the story are continually confused by the changing borders between Pakistan and India. The fact that borders in the story can change diminish their concreteness and make them seem as insane as the characters. If boarder can be changed at any moment, they must automatically be imaginary and irrelevant to any mode of practical operation in reality. The whole situation breeds chaos in the asylum. Instead of letting people live in peace, a form of authority has to impose it desires on the inhabitants who live under it rule.

In order to establish a more perfect ideology that contrasts with the ideology displayed in Manto’s short story, a community’s territory should not expand past the space that they occupy at any given moment. An emphasis should be placed on respecting everyone on an individual level. As long as harm is not caused to any individual or community occupying an area, it should not matter if another individual or group passes through or occupies a part of land near that area.  If harm were to be caused, the victimized party would have the right to confront the source of their problem. In the case that harm was caused to a community without their knowing, it should be left up to karmic forces to resolve the issue. In that way, humanity can live more closely together as one organism instead of separate conflicted nations.

If groups formed naturally around more perfect ideologies like the one previously described, it could be argued that life would be considerably less chaotic. In destroying boarders, humanity would aim an arrow at the heart of one of main reasons for conflict among the people of Earth. In learning to share, humanity could transcend the insanity of separation and realize that we are all sentient human life. Through that process, it might also become clearer that all life is more valuable than claiming ownership over any piece of land that should be free. 

Dillon Dwyer





Leave a Reply.