Politics of aesthetics: Reading Saadat Hasan Manto's "Toba Tek Singh"

Abstract

Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh’ has been considered a masterpiece. It has been seen as a significant fictional narrative usually in the context of the partition of India. In reading the story solely as a partition narrative, its other formal traits have been relegated to the background. The present paper tries to examine the story from a modern philosophical perspective in an attempt to look at its politics. The analysis is based on Jacques Ranciere’s concept of ‘the politics of literature.’ The discussion of Ranciere’s concept of the politics of aesthetics of a work of art is followed by a comprehensive analysis of the story. The paper argues that the story implicitly as well as explicitly exemplifies the politics carried out by a work of literature.