Betrayal is a central theme in the novel. The country of India betrays its own people—whether Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, or Parsee—by enforcing a hasty, ill-conceived plan of moving millions of refugees from one country to another. The loss of life, lands, houses, crops, livestock, and kinship stands as the reminder of this betrayal. Ranna’s story of the massacre of his village by Sikhs demonstrates the betrayal of the neighboring Muslim and Sikh villagers’ promises to protect one another.

On a personal level, Sidhwa uses betrayal as a theme to reveal hidden character traits, loyalties, and the truth through various characters. For example, early in the novel, after Lenny’s surgery, she wakes in terrible pain. Her parents lie to her, saying that her father has gone to call the doctor and fetch him to the house to help her. In reality, no such call is made. Lenny learns her first lesson in betrayal: even those you love will not always come to your aid.

Furthermore, Lenny betrays many people because she cannot lie, including her beloved Ayah. When the Ice-candy-man arrives with his Muslim gang to kidnap Ayah, he uses his relationship with Lenny to persuade her into betraying Ayah’s hidden presence in the household (194). Lenny is devastated by her betrayal, and her family cannot believe her naivety. Everyone is shocked that Lenny would betray Ayah. In the aftermath, the Ice-candy-man forces Ayah into prostitution, as her pimp. Lenny blames herself for Ayah’s ruination, but the women in her family, including Godmother and Lenny’s mother, will not stop until they have found and rescued Ayah from the terrible life resulting from Lenny’s betrayal. 

Women are oppressed and sexually victimized repeatedly throughout the novel. The novel highlights women’s activism in the face of violence against women and girls. Patriarchal restrictions and misogyny are deeply ingrained in Lenny’s life. Though her Parsee faith carries less emphasis on female modesty and chastity, Lenny doesn’t receive a proper education—seen as unnecessary for women. Lenny’s Cousin feels no compunctions about his borderline sexual assault on her body—ostensibly childish experimentation that comes into clarity Cousin promises to demonstrate to Lenny what rape is. At all times, Lenny is responsible for developing her own boundaries with her body and resisting Cousin’s advances—there is never even a thought that an adult would intervene on her behalf in the situation.

Within families, violence against women and girls is sanctioned and acceptable. Even ostensibly loving couples feature domestic violence that goes unmarked. Father, who by all accounts has a warm relationship with Mother, beats her for arguing with him until there are visible bruises on her body. Families that have no warm emotional foundation are even more horrific. One particularly tragic figure is Papoo, a young girl abused by her mother for daring to have a mind of her own. Her parents marry her off at age 11 or 12 to a cruel-looking middle-aged man, drugging her into compliance on her wedding day. Finally, women without family are subject to wildly abusive scenarios with no recourse. In order to marry Ayah, Ice-candy-man brings a mob to kidnap and rape her for several months so that no other suitors will want her; after marrying her, he forces her into prostitution.

Broadening out from Lenny’s world, we see that religion is a tool for gendered violence. Raping women is a weapon that relies on the fact that conservative religion defines women’s value as sexual purity. In this climate, raped women aren’t victims to be pitied or worthy of revenge—instead, they lose value to their husbands and families, a fate that places the blame for the rape squarely on the shoulders of those attacked rather than their attackers. When Ice-candy-man and his friends expose themselves to the zookeeper’s Muslim women tenants, they use ingrained beliefs about female chastity against them. Later, Ice-candy-man ups the ante to sexual assault against the women of the zookeeper’s family. Male Muslims on the train are murdered, but women are dismembered in a particularly gendered way—the sack full of severed breasts indicates female-centered violence that relies on the religious shame of nakedness and the defiling of women’s bodies. In Pir Pindo, the women are willing to burn themselves alive rather than be raped—a decision that underscores how conditionally valuable women’s lives are in the culture.