In August 14th and 15th, 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned on religious grounds into a secular India and a Muslim Pakistan, which then became independent nations. In the mass migration that followed, with over 14 million people changing countries, terrible violence erupted and up to a million were killed.
Ken McMullen’s powerfully provocative film, adapted by Tariq Ali from Saadat Hasan Manto's famous short story Toba Tek Singh, takes place immediately before and in the days following Partition. Set in both a lunatic asylum in Lahore and in a map room where officials draw the new border, it takes as its subject the fact that even asylum inmates were forcefully separated on religious grounds. Actors play dual roles as officials and inmates in counterpointed scenes. Throughout, a cleaning lady provides a knowing commentary.
Appropriately for the film's themes of division and the co-existence of several selves, mirrors and veils play a large part in the production design. Theatrical rigour then combines with intricately plotted camerawork to thrilling effect – no more so than when Roshan Seth crosses the border between the film’s worlds, moving from the map room to the asylum in an unbroken 10 minute take that finds you holding your breath for its sheer audacity.
The film grows in conviction throughout and when Saeed Jaffrey, on learning that he must leave the asylum, climbs a tree, refuses to move, and delivers his impassioned ‘what have you done to my world?’ speech with a terrifying force, the drama pierces to the core. The devastatingly calm conversation that follows, in the Gymkhana Club in Delhi, where a British General calls the slaughter that followed Partition 'one of the dreadful ironies of history', chills.
The British soldiers and officials leave to the strains of Auld Lang Syne, but the film's final words, 'what is broken is broken', tell the real story here.
A brilliantly executed and intense drama based around the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the transfer of power from British to Indian hands. Based on Saadat Hussan Manto's famous short story about partition, McMullen's film focuses on the historical footnote that inmates of lunatic asylums were also transferred - Muslims to asylums in Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan to India. The film is set in both an asylum on the border and the conference rooms of the rulers, and the same actors play both the rulers and the inmates of the asylum, with events in the asylum mirroring the actions of the ruling order. The film's structure is complemented by superb cinematography and set design and the cast list reads like a who's who of Indian acting talent.
The Humphrey Jennings Collection 
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Partition (McMullen, 1987)
