Karma

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) was one of modern India's most prominent novelists, historians, journalists, and cultural commentators. Renowned for his uncompromising wit, fearless iconoclasm, and trenchant social realism, Singh achieved worldwide literary fame through his partition epic Train to Pakistan (1956). In "Karma", Singh turns his sharp satirical pen upon the anglicized native elite of late-colonial India.

The story is set during the final decade of the British Raj, an era marked by shifting political tides, the nationalist freedom movement, and deep psychological fissures between traditional Indian ways of life and colonial mimicry.

The railway system in colonial India was constructed not merely as transportation infrastructure, but as an instrument of imperial control and social stratification. Singh masterfully exploits this setting to dramatize societal divisions:

Sir Mohan Lal is an Indian aristocrat, bureaucrat, and barrister who spent five formative years studying at Oxford. These five years define his entire identity, transforming him into an alienated snob who views everything Indian with visceral disgust.

• Colonial Exterior: Sir Mohan dons an imported Savile Row suit, the tie of Balliol College (Oxford), Eau de Cologne, and carries a gold cigarette case filled with English cigarettes. Every detail is calibrated to project British aristocratic refinement.
• Linguistic Affectation: He refuses to converse in his native Hindustani unless giving clipped orders to servants. His English is pristine, spoken with a flawless Oxford drawl: "His English was finished and refined, with no more than a few words, and like them, he was not given to much talking."
• Contempt for Fellow Indians: He regards his countrymen as "inefficient, dirty, indifferent." He avoids mingling with native passengers, fearing that their proximity would contaminate his acquired British persona.
• Patriarchal Cruelty: His marriage to Lachmi is a sham. He relegates her to the upper floor of his bungalow, visiting her room rarely at night solely for animal gratification, and strictly forbids her from appearing with him in public.

Lady Lal, affectionately called Lachmi, is Sir Mohan's unlettered, middle-aged wife. Plump, short, and in her forties, she is the diametrical opposite of her haughty husband.

• Traditional Appearance: She wears a dirty white cotton sari with a broad red border, nose-ring, and gold bangles, unabashedly chewing betel leaves (paan) from a silver-plated betel carrier.
• Grounded Gregariousness: Unlike her husband who sits in sullen silence, Lachmi engages the coolie in warm, friendly conversation, laughing at his jokes, sharing domestic gossip, and freely showing her humanity.
• Unpretentious Simplicity: She relishes coarse chapattis smeared with spicy mango pickle on the open platform, washes her mouth at the communal tap, and unconcernedly burps before boarding the Inter-class carriage.

Post-colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha famously defined colonial mimicry as the imperial process of creating subjects who are "almost the same, but not white." In "Karma", Khushwant Singh presents an archetypal case study of this tragic phenomenon through Sir Mohan Lal.

Sir Mohan mimics the imperial master down to the minutest detail—his speech cadence, Oxford University debating tone, newspaper choice (*The Times*), drinking habits (Scotch over water), and sartorial elegance. Yet, this mimicry produces what Bhabha terms a "flawed colonial mimesis." To the British rulers, Sir Mohan is not an equal English gentleman; he is merely an imitation, a grotesque caricature who can never transcend the color of his skin.

Sir Mohan suffers from profound cultural deracination—the total uprooting and disavowal of one's native heritage. He feels ashamed of his Indian origin, viewing his five years at Oxford as the only period during which he truly "lived," and dismissing the subsequent forty-five years in India as an unbearable exile.

1. Situational Irony: Sir Mohan eagerly anticipates the arrival of the two British soldiers, expecting refined intellectual camaraderie; instead, the very men he worships brutally assault and humiliate him.
2. Dramatic Irony: Sir Mohan looks down upon Lachmi's peasant-like ways and travels separately to maintain his elite status, yet it is Lachmi who safely and comfortably journeys forward on the train, while the 'elite' master is left sprawled on the tracks.
3. Cosmic / Karmic Irony: The title Karma embodies retribution. Having treated his wife and fellow Indians as subhuman dirt, Sir Mohan is treated as subhuman dirt by the white masters, fulfilling the immutable law of poetic justice.

Khushwant Singh creates two vivid figures of the British occupying army: Bill and Jim. They are not polished Oxford dons or cultured colonial magistrates; they are coarse, uneducated, drunken British soldiers (tommies) reeking of stale beer and sweat.

• The Subversion of Class: Sir Mohan firmly believes that his Oxford degree, wealth, and high social pedigree elevate him above coarse laborers. However, under imperial colonial rule, race strictly supersedes class. To Bill and Jim, Sir Mohan's Oxford tie and Savile Row suit are irrelevant; his brown skin is the only fact that matters.
• Racial Slurs & Brutality: Seeing an Indian in a first-class compartment, they instantly yell: "Get the nigger out!" When Sir Mohan attempts to protest in haughty Oxford tones—"I say, I say, look here..."—Jim smacks him flat on his face, demonstrating that imperial power rests ultimately on raw physical violence, not refined conversation.

In classical tragedy, hubris (excessive pride and arrogance) inevitably triggers nemesis (retribution and ruin). Sir Mohan's hubris is absolute: he disowns his language, his culture, and his devoted wife. His nemesis arrives with violent swiftness as his expensive luggage, his imported thermos, his prized copy of The Times, and his own person are hurled onto the filthy station platform.