The Importance Of Transhumanism In In Freedom's Shade

In the outfit of memoir, Anisa Kidwai’s In Freedom’s Shade, captures innumerable humanistic issues that remain ineffable in a society, where poverty and inequity are endemic and religious fervour takes position of knowledge and learning. As a social activist, the writer had a direct close observation of human plights as the consequences of the partition, and accordingly was mesmerized by both the cruel and the philanthropic faces of the human beings. One may agree with Fred Reid’observation in his essay, “Thomas Hardy, Humanism and History” that “In a sense, human beings have always striven to imprint a memory of their deeds and sufferings on the world” (135). But, the memory of the partition signifies such an image of human activity that the

Anisa Kidwai’s memory of the partition compelled her to write down not of her own deeds nd sufferings, but about thousands of innocent victims whose sufferings can easily rise above its historic limitations and also can be a subject to transhumanism in Nietzsche’s terminology. Mrs Kidwai personally was charmed by Gandhiji’s principle of nonviolence which is a key word of the Indian concept of humanism that plausibly could have diverted the direction of the partition agitation to some other positive way. While working in two refugee camps, the writer saw how the affected people of the riot in 1947 were attacked by thirst, hunger and different epidemic diseases. It was also shaming for her to see how girls were raped and wounded brutally by the riot hooligans, how everyday fifteen and every night ten newborn babies opened their eyes unwanted and in the most unhygienic atmosphere. She was shocked to see a little boy talking of only ‘murder’ and ‘death’. Amidst destruction and distrust, there were few, who bore the message of hope and

Train to Pakistan, A Bend in the Ganges and The Other Side of Silence are the three texts that cover a broad area of humanist values, and interrogate violence as an inevitable facet of the partition. As Punjab faced the most violent reaction of the partition, the writers, for a realistic presentation of violence, depended on its minute description. Subsequently, they did not forget to present the true spirit of Indianism, which believes in the basic goodness and spirituality already in man. To the majority of the Indians, true religion is to obey Truth and serve humanity. Juggat Singh upholds the true spirit of humanism when he decides to sacrifice his own life for the people boarded on the train to Pakistan. He rises above his personal identity and reinvents himself as a super-species and thereby transcends his human self to ‘supra human’. He may not achive any intellectual transcendence as Nietzsche thought to be related to science, but uneducated Jugga achieves the ‘gyan’ or true knowledge of human life through sacrifice or ‘tyag’. When Hukum Chand, Iqbal and Meet Singh remain chocked in between ‘to be or not to be’, Juggat Sing cannot spend a moment in the undulations of thinking and rethinking, because he has no ‘maya’ (false notion) on his own life. He believes only in selfless duty towards all creatures on this earth. Although marked as ‘Badmayesh’ or evil one, he actually acts as the