Cracking India

Bapsi Sidhwa’s historical fiction novel Cracking India, first published in India in 1988 as Ice-Candy-Man, was translated into English under its current title in 1991.

The 1947 partition of India that created the majority-Muslim country of Pakistan shapes the events of the novel. The novel begins in 1942, when India was an English colony. When Britain declared war on behalf of India during World War II, the move galvanized long-standing Indian independence movements until India ceased being a colony and finally got home rule. The withdrawal of the British Raj left the three major Indian religions—Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu—fighting for control. The solution was to partition India, drawing a line to create the majority-Muslim country of Pakistan, with brutal results. Millions of displaced people were forced to relocate to whichever country aligned with their religion or face devastating violence. Despite promises of religious freedom, Muslims in Pakistan and Sikhs and Hindus in India attacked and killed whichever was the religious minority or drove them out. In the year following the partition, a million people were murdered before India and Pakistan agreed to stop fighting.

Sidhwa models her protagonist Lenny on herself. Like Lenny, Sidhwa was a young Parsee girl in Lahore during the partition; also like Lenny, Sidhwa had polio as a young child and was denied a formal education. And just as the novel implies Lenny will eventually do, Sidhwa has fought for women’s rights as a writer, an activist, a social worker, and an educator.

In 1991, Ice-Candy-Man received the LiBeraturepreis award in Germany; in 1999, Cracking India was included on The Modern Library’s list of the 200 best books in English. In 1986, Sidhwa received the Sitara Imtiaz, the third highest Pakistani civilian honor, for her activism and service.

Plot Summary

The novel shows the period surrounding the partitioning of India through the eyes of Lenny, a young girl who lives in Lahore, India.

Lenny is Parsee, a minority religion, who has a disability because of polio. Ayah, Lenny’s beautiful Hindu nanny, cares for Lenny, whose family has friends of all different religions. At first, Lenny’s world is small. Her disability limits her mobility, and her universe consists of her home and family. But although Lenny doesn’t attend school, she is hungry to learn.

She absorbs the conversations she hears from Ayah’s many suitors about the political happenings in India. She travels to a small Muslim village with the family’s cook and meets Ranna, who has left her sheltered wealthy life to learn about how others live. She watches Ayah and learns about womanhood. Her cousin teaches her about sexuality and her own personal boundaries. From her Godmother and mother, Lenny learns how to use her privilege and power for good.

These learning experiences eventually become practical rather than theoretical. After the partition, Lenny suddenly becomes Pakistani instead of Indian. Violence reaches people who she knows and loves, and she watches as many flee or die. Lenny sees brutal death and destruction first-hand and learns to live with the trauma. Over time, as she grows and comes to understand the world, Lenny also learns the power of her words to cause or prevent violence.