Tamas

Tamas is set in a small frontier town in 1947, on the eve of Partition. Nathu, a sweeper, is bribed and tricked by a local Muslim politician into killing a pig, supposedly for a veterinarian. The next morning the carcass turns up on the steps of a mosque, and a town already thick with tension explodes. Muslims massacre many Hindus and Sikhs, who then retaliate by killing every Muslim they can find. The British administrators finally bring in the army to stop the bloodshed. The killing ends, but the survivors cannot erase what they have seen, and the communities will never again trust one another as they once did. Bhisham Sahni based the novel on accounts of the 1947 riots in Rawalpindi, which he witnessed himself. This English version is a translation by the author. It is a chilling record of what communal hatred can do, and its warning still feels relevant today.