Khamoshi

In Manto’s view the women were the ultimate victims of the partition. They were not only subjected to the ethnic riots but also suffered because of their gender as men tried to extend their control over them. In Manto’s pre-partition stories like hatak, we see that even though the women are undergoing an emotional turmoil, they have a lot of agency, we can hear them speak. The silence is there but there is also a lot of activity and voice at the same time. In comparison, the woman in the story Bismillah has been forced into prostitution because she was left behind. She is obviously renamed, and the exploitation of the women is not direcly talked about but its so evidently there in her ‘bari bari khamosh ankhein’. Manto repeats this phrase around 10 times in such a short story and it really makes an impact. In the previous stories the women were bursting to say something, here its like they’ve taken her name, her identity, and there is not much left to tell anymore. This story isn’t her life anymore.In Sahib-e- karamat- the ending words- ‘phatan khamosh rhi’ heighten the exploitation done to phatan, similarly the injustice and abuse is evident again when ‘bismillah khamosh rhi’