Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal

by Maloy Krishna Dhar

The untold vivid portrayal of human tragedy on teh eastern flank of Bengal before, during and after Partition. In 1947, East Bengal was drenched with as much blood as was shed in Punjab. Seen through the eyes of Maloy Krishna Dhar as a young boy making the perilous journey to India-escaping to a 'new' India from an 'old' India that had become East Pakistan, the memoir tells the story of the rapid deterioration of age-old bonds between Bengali, Hindus and Muslims, of the cruelest violence comparable to the worst genocides in history.

Genres: India, Nonfiction

307 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Maloy Krishna Dhar began life as a journalist and a teacher, but ended up spending more than thirty years as an officer in India's Intelligence Bureau, retiring as its Joint Director.

Reviews

[Sonali Dabade · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars!

Review soon.

[Avishek Bhattacharjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

পড়ে দেখুন, মানুষের চরিত্রের কিছু সুক্ষ দিক বড়ই স্পষ্ট ভাবে তুলে ধরেছেন লেখক | কিছু মানুষের লোভ, হিংসা ও স্বার্থের জন্য আজ এই সোনার বাংলা দুখন্ড | 'ট্রেন টু পাকিস্তান' পড়ে থাকলে এটাও পড়ে দেখতে পারেন |

[Debdut Mukherjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of my grandfather and zillions of other grandfathers

[Shatheesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will make you ashamed of the base with which India got the so called... freedom and its rulers. The truth would haunt you for some time. I imagined myself as a boy running for life with too many controversies as questions without any foreseeable answer(s).

[Mahesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

wasnt knowing that massacre of hindu community in bangladesh continued till 1950. It throws good light on the partitions effect in east pakistan.

[Aditya आदित्य · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maloy Krishna Dhar retired as the joint director of the Intelligence Bureau of India in 1996. He visited his hometown in Bangladesh in 1997 and for the next ten years – working on this book – he recorded incidents that are summoned, astonishingly, from a very tender age.

Minute details of the author’s childhood are recalled to build the background of one of the biggest human tragedies of the world. The partition of India, leading to the creation of Pakistan, involved fabrication of international boundaries at both the eastern and western flank of the subcontinent. The partition of Punjab has been studied extensively and its history has been kept alive, especially by the Sikhs. The partition of Bengal, however, is less spoken of, examined only slightly and projected popularly to an even smaller extent. In this context, this book is a valuable addition to a limited repository of works on the said topic.

Perhaps the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 overshadows the creation of East Pakistan in 1947. The author, it seems, feels quite positive about this development. In fact, as stated in the book, Maloy Dhar was in East Pakistan when the civil war was raging between Bengali freedom fighters and Pakistani Army. The book does not mention in what capacity. And this is exactly what concerns me about this book and what the author wants to say through it.

I would have completely understood the sentiment possessed by Maloy Krishna Dhar, had he not been the Chief of India's internal intelligence agency having served in several sensitive regions throughout the country. Given that he held such a position, the wholesale approval of his father’s ‘Unified Bengal’ ideology and his repeated criticism of Congress as being solely responsible for the ‘misfortunes’ of the Bengali people is very disturbing, to me at least.

According to Dhar, Bengali Muslims are a unique variety of Muslims and they had no role in creation of Pakistan, or in the forced expulsion of his family from their homeland. Only the Bihari and other assorted non-Bong Muslims caused trouble to his family, and Hindus in general. Also frequently mentioned is the ‘composite culture’ of Bengal. Similar assertions when made by different people from all over India - Kashmiris, Punjabis, Jats all talk of brotherhood and comradery – are met by skepticism form my side. But I have never been to Bangladesh, and so, I should not comment on the social relations between religious groups in the ‘Bengali’ nation. I guess the composite culture that Mr. Dhar talks about would be ever present in that country.

Also I could not comprehend the magnitude of guilt felt by the author upon injuring (NOT fatally) two persons in self-defense. The gravity of his feelings in this case far surpasses anything he felt when - his classmate was murdered on the street, the daughter of his tenant was raped by a mob, his servants slashed and left to bleed to death and several other blood curdling and life-threatening instances. I just don’t get the author’s fixation on the wounds inflicted by him, in self-defense, in midst of literal mass-murders on religious lines.

[Shrinath Kariyatil · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I knew anything on partition and it's effects it was from the good old school books. entering a word outside it, I had known that there existed a much deeper untold story. The effect that British empire had on the mighty land of India and the pious people was much more than our textbooks teach us of.
This book effectively takes us to the bad time that the people of India had been through. even though it would bring tears to the eyes of reader and would leave anyone heartbroken, yet is a must read.

[Agni Sen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceptional recounting of the devastating Hindu Muslim war caused by the partition of India.

[hooolahoopp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly one of the very few books that documents the accounts of horror and plight of the eastern third of the country that once was, and succumbed to political jugglery. This book is a must read for everyone who sets out to give an opinion on the India that we know today, its compromised idea of secularism, socialism that today's armchair activists preach from the comfort of their state-of-the-art tapestried wing chairs.