Shattering of Communal Harmony: A Study of K.A. Abbas’s The Refugee

Abstract

This paper will focus on the brutalities faced by both the sides of India and Pakistan during Partition of 1947.  K. A. Abbas in his story titled The Refugee has given a graphic picture of  bloodshed, alienation and communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in both India and Pakistan. The festering wound of partition that both the nations suffered on this very day still persists. No remedy can perhaps heal this wound. People from both sides not only suffered the physical losses but mentally they were traumatised. In this story Abbas describes how the people of India and Pakistan lost faith and became enemies to each other in no time. Because of the hatred for one another Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs paid a lot for this bloody   partition. In this paper, I shall try to analyse the pathetic conditions and brutalities faced by the people of both sides before and after Partition. K. A. Abbas has very meticulously given voice to their sufferings.