PARTITION: Tape 11 (cont) Writer 255MODEM Mod Date & Time 255MODEM Jan 06 16:28 Side B Danial LATIFI - interviewed again at his home in Delhi on 2nd January 1997 about 'Train to Pakistan' and early years in the CPI [see earlier interviews on tapes 3 and 4] 10 > [re being inspiration for character of Iqbal in 'TtP'J "neither flattered nor disturbed ... 20 > [a Communist bore, as Khushwant said] 'it may well have been true ... at that age, this burst upon one like a gt shaft of light, and one began to u/stand the world in a way that one did not u/stand it earlier and poss it did intoxicate you a bit and might have made you a bore, I'm sure it did' 42 - ’my Punjabi, was not village P, cert not ... [but in villages] at a time of excitement people listen ton you so long as you are intelligible and you don't have to be eloquent; it's only at times of non-excitmenet that you have to be eloquent to get people's attention' 55 - 'Comm was mixed up with freedom ... I think we did succeed to make them sound as one ... everyb Comm was a missionary ... there is nothing like war to politicise people; villagers were liostening to German radio ... and you had to tell them what really was going on' 78 - [village modus operandi] 'it depends on which village and how and where, but every village has its own meeting place, usually near the village well ... they'd talk about ... somebody's wife has run away, somebody's buffalo has been stolen ... and you had to fit in what you are saying to what these people are talking about; buffalo wouldn't have to be stolen if people had enough buffalos' 92 - 'in Punjab, people were not communally ... antagonistic' 103 - 'there was no communal feeling ... the communal feeling there was the Hindus, the minority group there, they were inclined to be communal; the Ms were the majority group, and at that time they couldn't conceive of a sitn where the minority group cd oppress them ...' 118 - [central msg of TtP - re innate wisdom of people] 'I think that's a v valid point ... if you're talking about the sitn after 46 ... I think everywhere where there was a sensible prson, he cd bring people round ... they used to say if there's one Comm in a village, there'd be no riots in that village, and that brought enormous prestige to the CP which unfort somehow it was frittered away, partly by the ... removal of P.C. Joshi and all that ... and partly by the deliberate drive of the Cong 1/ship to damn the CP' eg about money from the British or Soviet govts 144 > CPI approach to war 152 - no recollection that Khushwant ever mentioned re model of character of Iqbal, 'but obviously there were resemblances' 161 - 'I was something new and novel, they were rustics ... and even Khushwant is a rustic with a little polish, and I was a more urbanised person I suppose' 168 > story of how went to jail for putting up Urdu posters in Lahore, anti-war, just joined the CPI at the time;