KHUSHWANT SINGH’S I SHALL NOT HEAR THE NIGHTINGALE: THE TWO FACETS OF COLONIZED (Pages 42-53) by Vinay Kumar Dubey in THE ENGLISH INDIA / ISSN: 2321-1172 (Online); 2347-2634 (Print)

In his novel I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Khushwant Singh has successful dealt with the theme of the anti-thesis between violence and right moral conduct. The novel presents the conflict between the colonizer and the colonized. The colonized people have different aspects against the British colonizers like - protest, submission, love-hate relationship and compromise. The novelist highlights these conflicts logically. He, being a Punjabi, is an eye witness of the love-hate relations between the Indians and the British. He has tried to give a very microscopic picture of the Punjabi life in the novel even when he concentrates his attention on the political theme. I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale is a novel that depicts the additional Punjabi life. He deals with "the Sikh culture, faith and life and the story of the Quit India Movement dating back to April 1942. This gives exhaustive knowledge about a traditional Sikh family.Khushwant Singh has frankly shown the mixed reactions of Indians towards the British Raj. He presents a microscopic picture of the strange mixture of attitudes to the alien rule through the depiction of life in Amritsar, district. The situation presented here is easily comparable to those in other colonized countries like Africa and West Indies. There are two groups of people. The first group comprises pro-British people like, Sardar Buta Singh, Wazir Chand, John Taylor and Lambardar. The second consists or anti-British people like Sher Singh, Madan and other student leaders. The novel has a symbolic title. The 'nightingale' symbolizes the coming of spring, and the spring for the country is the dawn of freedom.In his novel I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Khushwant Singh has successful dealt with the theme of the anti-thesis between violence and right moral conduct. The novel presents the conflict between the colonizer and the colonized. The colonized people have different aspects against the British colonizers like - protest, submission, love-hate relationship and compromise. The novelist highlights these conflicts logically. He, being a Punjabi, is an eye witness of the love-hate relations between the Indians and the British. He has tried to give a very microscopic picture of the Punjabi life in the novel even when he concentrates his attention on the political theme. I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale is a novel that depicts the additional Punjabi life. He deals with "the Sikh culture, faith and life and the story of the Quit India Movement dating back to April 1942. This gives exhaustive knowledge about a traditional Sikh family.Khushwant Singh has frankly shown the mixed reactions of Indians towards the British Raj. He presents a microscopic picture of the strange mixture of attitudes to the alien rule through the depiction of life in Amritsar, district. The situation presented here is easily comparable to those in other colonized countries like Africa and West Indies. There are two groups of people. The first group comprises pro-British people like, Sardar Buta Singh, Wazir Chand, John Taylor and Lambardar. The second consists or anti-British people like Sher Singh, Madan and other student leaders. The novel has a symbolic title. The 'nightingale' symbolizes the coming of spring, and the spring for the country is the dawn of freedom.Key words: colonizer, colonized, conflicts, compromise. Sikh culture, alien rule, anti-British, symbolic, British-Raj , freedom, love-hate relations, political,