“Don’t say that a hundred thousand Hindus and a hundred thousand Muslims died. Say two hundred thousand human beings have died. The worst tragedy is not that 2 lakh people have been killed. The real tragedy is that there is no record who was killed and who were the killers. Muslims must have thought that by killing a hundred thousand Hindus, Hindu religion would be wiped out. But it is alive and will continue to stay alive. Similarly after killing a hundred thousand Muslims, Hindus might have gloated over the extinction of Islam. But reality is before you. Islam did not suffer even the faintest scratch. Only the ignorant think that religions can be hunted down with guns. Religion, faith, compassion, conscience, conviction, devotion – all these exist not in our body but in our souls. How can this be destroyed with daggers, knives and bullets?” Saadat Hasan Manto's words narrated by Jameel Gulrays, filmed by Abdullah Zakaria and edited by Aparna Roy.
