Haunted by Partition: Juggas Trauma in Khushwant Singhs Train to Pakistan

The Partition of India, 1947 is one of the most destructive in South-Asian history, because of which there have been displacement, violence, and scattered identities.In the 1956 novel Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh, this political catastrophe is transformed into a human narrative with the help of the character, Juggut Singh, also known as Jugga, who holds inherited shame, personal guilt, and a desire to redeem with loving emotions.Using trauma theory as an analytical tool, this paper will demonstrate that Jugga's experience embodies trauma and moral understanding.Drawing on Cathy Caruth's idea of trauma as an "unclaimed experience," Dominick LaCapra's concepts of "acting out" and "working through," the study situates Jugga's transformation within the wider psychosocial aftermath of Partition.Through historical context, literature analysis, and the theory of trauma, the paper demonstrates how Train to Pakistan works as a loss narrative as well as a cultural testament that is a witness to the wounds that never heal in the South-Asian collective consciousness.