WHEN A BORDER BECOMES A FRONTIER*

The trauma of the Partition of India in 1947 shaped the modern literature and art of the Indian subcontinent, just as the Second World War and the Holocaust shaped the literature and art of Russia and Western countries. The very fact of division is interpreted as a traumatic collective experience or a historical past that has not been overcome. The subjects of works of literature and art are often localized on the geopolitical border between the new states of India and Pakistan. This "border" becomes an orientation metaphor, i.e. it determines the movement of literary characters both in geographical and geopolitical spaces, as well as in value and spiritual coordinates.

Keywords: partition of India in 1947, state border, frontier, frontier, types of identity, orientation metaphors.

It is difficult to name a major novelist of the twentieth century, in whatever language he wrote - Hindi, Urdu, Bengali or Punjabi-who would not have touched on the topic of "section". For older writers like Krishan Chandar, Yashpal, Bhisham Sahni, Saadat Hassan Manto, Rajendra Singh Bedi, Kurrat ul-Ain Haidar, Kartar Singh Duggal, Amrita Pritam, and Manohar Malgonkar, "the section" has become a personal traumatic experience and an important component of national identity. For young writers writing in English, such as Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Gurcharan Das, "section — is a problem of both historical memory and the past that has not been overcome.

Original Indian cinema has also often depicted the horrors of the "section", using this theme to create serious social films that differ from the usual Bollywood production. In the films "Hot Wind" ("Taram Hawa") directed by M. S. Sathyu, "Son of Destiny" ("Dharmaputra") Yash Chopra, " Riot: A Love Story "(Gadar ek premkatha) Anila Sharma, " Still Waters "(Hamosh Pani) Sabihi Sumar The events of 1947 are presented as a historical tragedy that affected the fate of several generations in South Asia.

The subjects of these literary works and films are often localized in localities located near the geopolitical border between the new states of India and Pakistan. However, given the ongoing violence in this area - murders, robberies, and pogroms - it is not so much a question of the state border between countries (border), but rather of a special border, the middle exclusion zone connecting them, the frontier (frontier), which Frederick Turner called "the meeting place of savagery and civilization" (Turner, 2009, p. 96]. The answer to the question of which side of the Indo-Pakistani frontier lies "civilization" and where "savagery" is located is constantly changing, determined by the identity of the author and his characters.

Further on, we will see how "border" and" frontier "form the orientation metaphors of "partition" in the short story "Toba-Tek-Singh" (1955) by the classic Urdu writer Saadat Hassan Manto (1912-1955), the novel "Train to Pakistan" (1956) by Khushwant Singh (b. 1915), and in Bhovani Junction (1956), directed by

* The article was written under grant No. 14-03-0014 "Heiresses of Asian democracies: tender and political dynasties in South Asian countries".

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George Zukor based on the novel of the same name by John Masters (1954). The choice of these works is due to their wide popularity outside of South Asia, as well as the time of creation - the first decade after the division of the subcontinent.

As a concept, the border is closely linked to identity, which, according to scientists, has an indisputable geographical nature. The fact is that national identity is defined primarily geographically, since control over space, and therefore over its borders, is considered an obvious evidence of the existence of a nation [Herb, 1999]. However, in the process of constructing national unity that the independent states of South Asia, in particular the Republic of India and Pakistan, went through, conflicts arose between competing concepts of identity: national, religious, regional and ethnic.

Delineating a certain territory and drawing borders around it is part of the basic experience of all peoples of the world, and cognitive understanding of this experience generates special orientation metaphors that make an abstract concept spatial, since they are constructed by analogy with the perception of space [Lakoff, Johnson, 2008]. In Russian, an example of everyday orientation metaphors can be the expressions "rise to the top of success"," slide to the side of life","sink into the abyss of passions". The mechanism of matching concepts in these metaphors is related to orientation and movement in space.

In many Muslim countries, the word "border" (sarhad) is a spatial metaphor, becoming a toponym that denotes not a linear boundary, but an entire territory. In particular, in Pakistan, sarhad has been called the North-Western Border Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province) since colonial times. In the strict sense, a frontier is a zone of development; a territory whose social and economic conditions are determined by the development process going on there. Therefore, the border of the subcontinent is not a true frontier, but only a concept, a source of metaphorical projection of the frontier in literature and art (McCormack, 1990).

Frontiersmen were usually different from those in the hinterlands. A classic example is the Akrites, a special class of peasant warriors who inhabited the outskirts of the Byzantine Empire and performed the functions of scouts, looters and simply robbers. People living on both sides of the frontier entered into relationships and alliances that defined their "mixed" identity. The name of the most famous of the Akrites, the legendary hero of the Byzantine epic "Digenis" means "Two-born", i.e. descended from parents of different faiths, since he is the son of a Greek woman and a Syrian emir (Syrkin, 1960).

The term "frontier" originated in the United States, and so the classic frontier relationships and atmosphere are found here. The American Frontier is a place where feats of national heroes are performed. This is a romanticized geographical image, born of the exoticism of the Western, replicated by the Wild West cinema, where cowboys shoot in saloons and free white women from Indian captivity. There is no romance on the South Asian "frontier". Here, people who have lived peacefully inside a certain territory for centuries suddenly start cutting each other on the border of this territory. Obviously, in this case, the frontier is determined not by the marginal geographical location, but by politics. Such a frontier does not coincide with the border of the developed, domesticated space, as in Byzantium or America, but represents a mobile frontier. It runs everywhere - in big cities, towns or villages, where Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims are exterminating each other.

However, the only good Indian is a dead Indian principle was also used on the American frontier, the authorship of which is attributed to

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to American General Philip Sheridan [Wheelan, 2012, p. 21]. The South Asian frontier, unlike the American Far West, is not a territory of delicious personal freedom, where the cowboy "Code of the West" is adopted, but a zone of chaos, where no laws and morals apply, and the rudeness of morals inherent in any frontier turns into brutal cruelty.

The South Asian frontier of the time of the "partition" anticipated the modern fault line of civilizations, which S. Huntington wrote about in the article " Clash of Civilizations?". He demonstrated how state borders are transformed into a mobile border, and border disputes are transferred inside territories: "The conflict of civilizations has deep roots in other regions of Asia. The long-running struggle between Muslims and Hindus is now reflected not only in the rivalry between Pakistan and India, but also in the growing religious hostility within India between increasingly militant Hindu groups and a significant Muslim minority. In December 1992, after the destruction of the Ayodhya Mosque, the question arose whether India would remain a secular and democratic country or turn into a Hindu state" (Huntington, 1994, p. 39).

Huntington continues further: Violence is also practiced in conflicts between Muslims on the one hand and Orthodox Serbs in the Balkans, Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Buddhists in Burma and Catholics in the Philippines on the other. The borders of the Islamic world are everywhere and everywhere covered with blood" [Huntington, 1994, p. 42]. In geographical terms, today we can talk about the part of the border between India and Pakistan that is localized in Kashmir.

Its population also corresponded to the special social conditions of the frontier: people of the frontier — newcomers, adventurers who "fell out" of society, criminals, fugitives from justice, in a word, marginals. In the conditions of the frontier, these people are able to be reborn, change their essence, and make difficult choices. So, the hero of the novel "Train to Pakistan" ("Singh", 1994) Jaggat Singh (Jagga) is an ordinary village bandit, often getting into dangerous scrapes. In the border village of Mano Majra, a train arrives from the Pakistani side filled with the corpses of Sikh refugees, and this blows up the peace between the Sikhs and Muslims living in the village. The authorities decide to expel the village Muslims to Pakistan, but Sikh extremists plan to kill them before they leave. Jaggat Singh becomes their savior and, at the cost of his own life, ensures the departure of a train with Muslims. The bandit turns out to be a noble hero of the frontier, the savior of those he should have considered his enemies.

The latest edition of Khushwant Singh's 2006 novel is illustrated by the work of American photographer and military journalist Margaret Bourke-White (d. 1971), who became famous for both her photo essays depicting the "partition" and her "canonical" portraits of Gandhi and Jinnah. Most of her photographs are taken at the border crossing through Punjab, and show refugee caravans, lines of wagons carrying either the sick or the dead, crowds of people and the chaos of the border area (Bourke-White, 1949).

The film "Bhovani Junction Station"shows how closely identity is connected with the frontier. It would seem that the film is an Anglo-American based on a British novel, and the India shown in it is a construct of orientalism. However, its creators also turn to the orientation metaphor of the border. Masters ' novel takes place in Jhansi, but filming was moved to Lahore because the Indian side required the production team to pre-approve the script. Therefore, Bhowani station was located in the border area, and all the full-scale scenes of the film were shot at Lahore railway station and Shahalam bazaar.

The film's characters are Anglo-Indians, a special population group with a "dual" identity, like the Byzantine Digenis Akritos. The heroine of the film Victoria Jones

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(played by Ava Gardner) is tormented by the choice of which of the candidates for her favor to give the advantage: an Anglo-Indian, a Sikh or a British colonel. Curiously, in the novel, Victoria confirms her "mixed" identity by eventually choosing the Anglo-Indian Patrick (Masters, 1994). In the film, she transforms this identity according to the laws of Hollywood, preferring the British Rodney Savage (played by the English actor Stuart Granger), since it is he who plays the role of the noble knight of the frontier. The Eurasian Patrick, like Jaggat Singh in the novel "Train to Pakistan", heroically dies in sectarian riots. In other words, if you move the action to the frontier, the characters will change their behavior and even their self-awareness.

The most striking example of the frontier vision of the "section" is Manteau's story, about which I will say a little more. Manto has many violent stories about the "section" with descriptions of pogroms, murders and rapes: "Open it!" ("Khol do"), "Cold Flesh" ("Thanda gosht"), "Yazid", "Mistake" ("Misshteik"), etc. The story "Toba-Tek-Singh" [Manto, 2009], which will be discussed, does not touch on such horrors and atrocities - it is a dark satire with elements of "black humor".

The story takes place in a madhouse, which Manteau likens to the madness and chaos of the "partition". A few years after independence, the governments of India and Pakistan decide to exchange psychiatric patients. Crazy Hindus and Sikhs should move to India, and Muslims should move to Pakistan. The inmates of the madhouse in Lahore do not understand where they are now: "If they are in India, then where is Pakistan? And if they are now in Pakistan, how did this happen? After all, quite recently they were here, in the same place, and at the same time they were in India" [Manto, 2009, p.77]. The hospital has long been home to a mad Sikh named Bishen Singh, formerly a wealthy zamindar from the town of Toba-Tek Singh. In the hospital, he is called not by his first name, but by his place of birth. For many years, he has not slept a wink, night or day, he has not sat down all day, and he answers all questions with a meaningless set of words, in short, he is completely mad.

Before the exchange, Bishen Singh seems to come to his senses and starts asking people around where the Toba Tek Singh district is now located, in India or Pakistan. But neither the patients nor the staff of the madhouse are able to give him an exact answer, because the new territorial division seems absurd to people: "After all, Sialkot was always in India, and now, they say, he ended up in Pakistan. Who knows, maybe Lahore, which is now in Pakistan, will go to India tomorrow, or all of India will suddenly become Pakistan " [Manto, 2009, p. 80].

The day of the Wahga border checkpoint exchange arrives, and here Bishen Singh finally learns from a border officer that his hometown is now in Pakistan. He absolutely refuses to cross over to the Indian side and continues to stand motionless, like a statue, on the border strip until he falls dead. "On the one hand, behind the barbed wire was India. On the other hand, behind the same wire was Pakistan. And between them, on a piece of nameless land, lay Toba-Tek-Singh" [Manto, 2009, p. 88].

In the chaos of the borderlands, people lose their orientation and consciousness of their own identity. They just don't understand where India is now and where Pakistan is, whether they are Indians or Pakistanis. Understanding their identity within the new state borders seems to them something crudely imposed. Therefore, they make fantastic assumptions about the current territorial division. So, a Muslim patient explains to his friends where Pakistan is located: "This is a place in India where razors are made. "Pakistan" is a "clean country", which means that they shave cleanly there" [Manto, 2009, p. 75]. Another Sikh patient asks, " Sardarji, why are we being sent to India? We don't know the local language" [Manto, 2009, p.75].

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In other words, people still feel like Sikhs and Muslims, not Indians and Pakistanis; they have a traditional religious identity. As for the new national identity, it brings only problems to the characters of Manto, in particular, the loss of the motherland, broken ties, and divided families. Thus, another character in the story, a mentally ill Hindu, "denigrated all the Hindu and Muslim leaders who conspired to divide India into parts, because of which his beloved became an Indian citizen, and he became a Pakistani" [Manto, 2009, p. 79].

The story culminates in an exchange scene at the border, during which the mentally ill are forcibly pushed to the other side of the frontier. It would seem that Hindus and Sikhs are being extradited from Pakistan, who have a direct road to India cleared of Muslims, but they also resist, because they do not want to break away from their homes, lose their native home, the location of which does not depend on the new state borders. Mad Bishen Singh is being tried to persuade: "Look, Toba-Tek-Singh has moved to India. And if it hasn't moved yet, it will soon be moved there" [Manto, 2009, p.87]. But Bishen Singh no longer believes anyone, because he knows that the homeland cannot be moved. Among the competing concepts of identity, Manto's hero chooses not a national, "Indian", or even a religious, Sikh version, according to which his place is in India, but a regional, Punjabi identity, belonging to a "small homeland", a place of birth. All these qualities - "regional", "provincial", "local" - are described by the word desi in most New Indian languages, as opposed to the concepts of "national", "universal", "general", which are conveyed by the word margi. Thus, the identity of the Manto characters is self-identification in terms of desi.

At the end of the story, the landscape of the border strip acts as an orientation metaphor, as a spatial unfolding of the concepts of duality and hostile isolation - on both sides of the territory of India and Pakistan are surrounded by barbed wire. And only a piece of the middle nameless space turns out to be the place where the hero finds shelter and rest. According to Manto, the homeland, whose orientation metaphor in the story is at that time the provincial town of Toba-Tek Singh, has no state-political affiliation. It is a mental construct that cannot be enclosed or separated by any boundaries.

It is symptomatic that the real city of Toba-Tek Singh is geographically located quite far from the state border, inside the Pakistani province of Punjab; since 1982 it became an independent district with four districts (tahsil) and the administrative center of the same name. And in this sense, the last sentences of the story seemed ambiguous to some researchers: after all, who or what lies on the border between India and Pakistan - a man nicknamed Toba-Tek Singh or the city of the same name? [Joshi, 1996]. Using the coincidence of an anthroponym and a toponym, Manto gave his image a double meaning: stubbornly and adamantly standing on the border, a mad Sikh simultaneously remains on the verge of life and death and, dying on the border strip, demonstrates that a person carries a homeland everywhere.

Manto's story, which has been translated into dozens of languages, is incredibly popular in India and Pakistan, and has been the source of many dramatizations and adaptations. Therefore, it is not surprising that a recent proposal by Pakistani journalists to erect a monument to the hero of this story at the Wahga border crossing. This imaginary monument was supposed to depict three figures - a Sikh, a Hindu, and a Muslim-standing dejectedly against a backdrop of barbed wire. The inscription on the pedestal read: "We are ashamed" (Hussain, 2012). By the way, there is still no monument or memorial to the victims of the "partition"in South Asia.

It is unlikely that Manto knew that his character had a real prototype, a contemporary who lived on the other side of the world - an outstanding German philosopher

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Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), a man so eccentric and eccentric that he was sometimes mistaken for a lunatic. In the fall of 1940, Benjamin, a Jew by birth and also a Marxist and anti-Fascist, attempted to escape to America from German-occupied France, where he had previously emigrated from Hitler's Germany. To do this, he needed to reach neutral Portugal through the territory of Francoist Spain. At the Franco-Spanish border, he was detained, and he learned that he was subject to immediate deportation back to France. Anticipating what awaited him in the hands of the Nazis, Benjamin committed suicide in a border hotel, taking a large dose of morphine [Witte, 1991]. Homeless and persecuted by the Nazis, Walter Benjamin was pushed into the Holocaust frontier, which was as murderously hostile to man as the border of the Indian "partition".

It was said above that the American frontier presupposes the existence of a frontier between civilization and savagery. On an axiological level, this milestone is represented by the main opposition of the western "good cowboy-bad Indian". On the South Asian frontier, there are no rightists and culprits, no opposing heroes and villains, and no civilized side. Lahore in Manto's story is on the Pakistani side of the border, Mano-Majra in Khushwant Singh's novel is on the Indian side (near Amritsar), and Bhowani station in the film of the same name is a figment of the imagination, but savagery and cruelty reign equally here and there. If a lone hero does appear on this frontier, he does not carry a certain collective truth, group justice, moral advantage of some over others, but is doomed to resist the chaos of the borderlands.

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Witte B. Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography. Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1991.

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