This is not a just a love story of a sikh boy and a muslim girl.It is the story of the gruesome atrocities committed in india after the partition.It is the story of an educated moralist and an illiterate dacoit.What comes across most in the novel is the brutally frank description of ignorance in india and indian double standards.
The punjabi village of Mano majra is an exception in the post partition era, it being the only village where hindus and muslims live harmoniouly. Ram Lal the village money lender is looted and murdered by Malli , a dacoit from the neighbouring village.The police under the pretext of suspicion for the murder arrest juggut singh, the village dacoit and Iqbal singh, a social reformer.Ironically Iqbal arrives in the village a day after the murder and jugga was too busy making love to Nooran, his muslim lover, when Ram lal was murdered.
CRisis begins when the ghost train bearing hundreds of corpses and the brutally mutilated bodies floating in the river provokes the hindus of mano majro to drive away the muslims with whom they’ve lived like kin .The religious hatred now deeply embedded in the sikhs of the village stimulates them to aid in the train massacre carrying their own muslim brothers.The anxious magistrate HUkum chand has a brainwave and orders his subordinate to release Iqbal and jugga hoping the social reformer and powerful dacoit can pump some sense into the sikhs and avert the crisis.
Iqbal an anglo indian who loathes and is embarrased by an average indian is a comrade in the peoples party.He is a portrayal of one of the many social reformers born out of wedlock in the post independence period who cared more about their status in the party and their life rather than their calling as a social reformer.
Jugga a notorious and womanising sikh is the startler and the hero of the story who forsakes his life for the safe journey of the train containing hundreds of muslims and his Nooran to Pakistan.