‘Please, there is no need. If smoking has become necessary to you, smoke by all means. It doesn’t bother me.’
But Sayed left the ashtray where he had put it and came back, stood; the weakness was still discernible, the uncertainty was still there, in the eyes. Kasim sat. From this angle his elder son looked even taller and broader. Both Ahmed and Sayed dwarfed him but Sayed would make even Ahmed look slenderly built. The periods of privation must have been of short duration, unless the British had been feeding him up.
‘Come, sit.’
Sayed did so.
‘Have you seen Ahmed yet?’
‘Not yet, father. But Ronald told me he’s here.’
‘Ronald?’
‘Ronald Merrick. The chap you’ve been talking to. He said he’d make sure Ahmed and I had a word afterwards. He’s quite a good fellow really. Very decent to me.’
The voice was strong too, the accent clipped, more clipped than Kasim remembered from their last meeting, certainly more clipped than it had been after Sayed had passed out of the Indian military academy when Kasim had told him, ‘You sound like a British officer.’ They had both laughed. He could have stopped Sayed choosing the army as a career. He had been criticized for not stopping him. It hadn’t always been easy for him to explain why he had a son who held the King-Emperor’s Commission. It couldn’t always have been easy for Sayed when young Englishmen, fellow members of the mess, learnt who his father was. But Sayed had never complained and when Kasim became Chief Minister in Ranpur any embarrassment Sayed might have felt vanished. He remembered Sayed saying, ‘You are a Minister. I am an officer. We are both necessary.’ He had meant necessary to India and Kasim had been moved.
‘How are you treated then? You look well. Put on an inch or two. Like Ahmed. As you see, I have taken off. Who is commandant at the fort nowadays? Still Major Tippet?’
‘I don’t know, father. I was only there overnight. You were there too?’
‘Oh yes. Better than the Kandipat although boring after a bit. They gave me a room in the old Zenana House. I wonder whether my bed of onions is still flourishing? It was in a courtyard a few feet from the steps to the Zenana. I watered them mostly with the water from my shaving mug. So this is how they tasted. Of soap. What one will do to keep oneself occupied. But onions are good for warding off colds. So your mother always said.’
The muscular geography of his son’s face momentarily revealed itself: an intricate map. The eyes hardened. Kasim folded his hands on the table. He said, ‘When I was released to go to Mirat they brought me here first of all to meet Ahmed. Now that I’m going back home it seemed a convenient place to tell them to bring you. If I had come to Delhi the world and his wife would have been watching. Anyway, it gives you an outing. What did they tell you. Anything?’
‘First they just told me to get ready for a trip. But then Ronnie Merrick got back from Rangoon and put me in the picture. He said Government had given permission for us to meet and that he was coming with me.’
‘The impression was that I had petitioned Government and that Government had decided to be magnanimous?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is not entirely accurate.’
‘Oh, I didn’t swallow it whole. I know how devious they can be.’
‘In this case devious to what end?’
Kasim waited. Sayed said nothing.
‘Come. Don’t hold back. Just because I am your father.’
Sayed looked down at the table. ‘They know you’ve never written to me. They think this shows you disapprove of what I’ve done.’ He glanced up. ‘It would be very useful to them to have someone like you on their side. A member of Congress, ex-Chief Minister. And a Muslim. Someone to denounce us all as traitors. They realize such people will be in short supply.’
‘Quite so. Both major parties will stand behind the INA. The true nature and extent of INA came as a surprise to many of us. But people who are locked up a long time have a lot of surprises in store when they mingle freely again and find out what has been going on. So among us at Simla it was generally agreed that INA would be supported.’
‘Generally, not unanimously?’
‘Quite clearly all parties will combine to organize the defence if these cases ever come to trial. Whether they will do so is up to the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief. It will be interesting to see how they solve the problem of who should be tried and who should not. From a legal point of view the entire matter is without precedent. Administratively it is farcical. Some kind of legal strategy will have to be evolved to uphold the spirit if not the letter of the law. But I am sure the British will find a way. They have considerable experience of how to deal pragmatically with situations which pose profound questions. They cannot just say, You have sinned, go home and repent, without running the risk of their entire Indian Army resigning en masse by way of protest and going home also. On the other hand they cannot court-martial every INA soldier because it would take several years to do so. On top of that, it is not in them to find a solution such as the Germans might have found. Or the Japanese. It is not in them to line you all up in a concentration camp and shoot you out of hand. It is not in them politically and it is not in them emotionally. What can they do? The answer is fairly clear. They must establish a scale of priorities. In such a scale every King’s Commissioned Officer who joined INA will be at the top. He cannot hope to escape being cashiered at the very least. Your military career is finished, Sayed. You must make up your mind to that. Even if the British left India tomorrow it would be finished. Because whatever we politicians say and however stoutly we defend you, the loyal Indian members of the Indian Army will not defend you. Why should they? It is against their interests. They are on the winning side. Whatever military plums there are to pick when we are independent they will claim properly as theirs. Why should they share them with Subhas Chandra Bose’s defeated people? Of course it would be different if the British had lost the war. Then you’d be in clover. But they’ve won it. Your first error, a very pardonable one, was perhaps to have assumed in nineteen forty-two they’d already lost it. Isn’t this so, Sayed? Isn’t it this more than anything else that persuaded you to join INA? Isn’t it this more than the fact that you heard I and most other Congressmen had been imprisoned and that the whole country was in turmoil that decided you?’
‘No, father. It was entirely because you were arrested along with everybody else and that the whole of India was rising and telling the British to quit.’
‘Who told you I was arrested?’
‘Shah Nawaz Khan. General Shah Nawaz Khan. Originally a captain in the Punjab Regiment. But so far as I’m concerned, General. He came up to Kuala Lumpur in nineteen forty-two as commander of all Indian prisoners-of-war parties. I knew him slightly. He was a very good officer. He stopped the Japanese doing all sorts of things to us.’
‘But he was INA?’
‘He had joined, yes, but only to stop the Japs exploiting Indian prisoners and to wreck the INA from inside if necessary. I am talking of first INA, under Mohan Singh. But you must know all this.’
‘No, tell me.’
‘Mohan Singh was also Punjab Regiment. Shah Nawaz said he thought him a very average officer. Mohan Singh was captured somewhere like Alor Star. People say he had a bad time with his British officers and that they left him to face the Japanese alone. He started organizing the prisoners. When the British surrendered at Singapore all the Indian officers were separated from the British and made to assemble with all the Indian troops at Farrer Park and handed over by the representative of the British Government, to an intelligence officer called Fujiwara and given orders to obey the Japanese. Then Fujiwara handed them over to Mohan Singh. Fujiwara said Mohan Singh was their GOC and had power of life and death over them. I was not in Singapore then. But this is what I was told.’
‘Who are you saying gave the prisoners orders to obey the Japanese?’
‘The British Government representative.’
‘All prisoners of course must obey the lawful orders of their captors. There is nothing much to be made of that. More interesting is the order for the separation of British King’s Commissioned Officers from Indian King’s Commissioned Officers. By whose order was this separation?’
‘The Japanese, presumably. But I never heard any protests from the British. They were too interested in saving their own skins. As at Kuala Lumpur. “Hold this position, Kasim old chap,” Colonel Barker said. So I held it while the rest of the battalion and all the British officers disappeared. I held it for four days. Nothing happened for three of them. In three days Colonel Barker and the others got down to Johore. He got one of the last ships out of Singapore or Malacca, I don’t know which. All I know is that on the fourth day the Japs came and that on the fifth we couldn’t hold them off any longer. We had nothing. Nothing to eat. No ammunition. At the time I said, Well, it is war. Somebody has to carry the can. Since then I thought there was another explanation. Here in India, father, the army looks very sound, very pukka, very good form and very secure, very gentlemanly. In Burma and Malaya you realized a lot of it was eyewash. They never wanted us. They never trusted us.’
He took his father’s hand, leaning forward, lowering his voice. ‘But I have seen senior British officers in Singapore and in Rangoon bowing to Japanese sentries. And I have seen senior British officers slapped and kicked for not bowing, and then bowing.’ He leant back. ‘So much for the raj. They too can be made to act like peons. I shall never forget.’
Hand free, Kasim held it out, palm towards Sayed and shut his eyes. ‘Please. Forget all this. I have heard all this sort of thing before. It is of no importance. It will not help you in any way whatsoever. It’s your conduct that is in question not the conduct or misconduct of this British officer or that British officer. Let us speak no more of disparities between British officers and Indian officers. If you try to do this in court-martial prosecuting counsel will eat you alive and spit you out as a silly boy with a grudge.’
‘I wanted you to know –’
‘I know. I do know. But when you are court-martialled you will be well advised to give quite a different picture and pretend it has never entered your head that your commanding officer treated his white officers in one way and his Indian subaltern in another. If necessary praise him. Adopt a soldierly attitude to this matter. Do not antagonize the court. It will be a military court. Even if one of its members is an Indian officer – which is almost bound to be so to preserve the idea of impartiality – do not be tempted to raise the question of this disparity. Secretly he might agree with you but it will embarrass him and put him further against you. He will be already against you because he will be thinking: Here is this young fellow who is only a lieutenant but calling himself major and also being called a hero by the politicians and the people and here am I, still a captain after twenty years of loyal service to the raj.’
He hesitated, then said, ‘What is wrong, Sayed?’
Sayed’s eyes had become tearful. He bent his head. He said, ‘I’m sorry, father. I prepared myself to find that you weren’t going to help me. I was wrong. I’m ashamed to have thought it. All this is very good. Very helpful.’
Kasim felt himself begin to tremble. He said, ‘Clearly I must help you. I’m not only your father but a man who happens to know something about the law and the way the law works. You are to clear your mind of every consideration except that of your defence. Neither of us can wish to see you sent to rigorous imprisonment or transportation for life. That you will be cashiered and finished for ever with the army is sufficient punishment.’
‘Finished for ever?’
‘For ever. It is my opinion. I have told you why. So. As I say. Clear your mind. Shah Nawaz Khan told you in Kuala Lumpur that Congress Party leaders in India had been arrested and that I was among them and that the country was rising against the British. This led to your decision to join INA. What you call first INA. Why did it? Let me suggest why. Naturally you were angry that your father had been put in prison simply because he was a leading member of Congress. But then you calmed down. You sat back and considered the situation. The British had been defeated in France. They had been defeated in Burma and Malaya. The Japanese held the Chindwin. Beyond the Chindwin lay India. In India the population appeared to have been driven to desperation and had risen against the raj. Although your father was a politician you yourself were politically uneducated. Like Ahmed you have never bothered much about such matters. You did not fully understand why Congress passed a resolution calling on the British to quit but broadly you understood it was because in a war for freedom India should also be free. Also you understood that everyone felt that so long as the British remained in Delhi the Japanese were bound to attack your country. Now. The Japanese were pretending to be friendly towards the Indians as fellow-Asians, but you did not trust them. If they invaded India and as seemed likely again defeated the British the very clear danger was that far from gaining the independence which the British themselves had promised, India would again become subject to a foreign government, this time a Japanese government. A Japanese raj. And what could you do about that, sitting in Kuala Lumpur as their prisoners-of-war?’
‘What indeed?’
‘It was a terrible problem. On the one hand you felt you could not just sit in Kuala Lumpur waiting to be told that Hirohito was now the titular ruler of Hindustan. On the other hand not to sit around would mean appearing to kowtow to the Japanese and disregarding your oath to the King-Emperor. To escape from prison-camp was one thing – virtually impossible though that was in the Far East. To secure your release by throwing in your lot with an organization which the Japanese had helped to bring into being was another. Moreover, should the INA ever march with the Japanese into India, march with whatsoever patriotic intention, there would be the inevitable armed confrontation with those of your own countrymen who were still serving under the British flag.
‘How could these problems be resolved? The answer was they could not be resolved. You had to choose. And you could not see into the future. You had no crystal ball. You had to weigh one possibility against another possibility and make a decision. And then one day you looked around and perhaps remembered some of the things the Japanese had done. And you remembered how this Shah Nawaz Khan had stopped them doing such things in this place or that place. And you thought of the Japanese doing or trying to do these things in India and how it was necessary to stop them doing them.
‘Then for the first time you saw clearly what the problem was, that it was a question of choosing between your own integrity and your country’s integrity. Only an officer who was a national of a country already under foreign rule could ever face this dilemma. But this is an explanation, Sayed, not an excuse. Legally it isn’t even a mitigating circumstance, so put that out of your mind. Go back to Kuala Lumpur and your decision to join Shah Nawaz Khan. You asked to see him and told him you’d made your mind up to join INA?’
‘Not quite like that. And he made a point of never persuading anybody against their own judgment. I didn’t decide until the end of September. He’d gone back to Singapore then. While he was in KL things improved for us but after he’d gone there were several incidents.’
‘What kind of incidents?’
‘For example. Before Shah Nawaz came to KL the Japanese were forcing our jawans to learn Japanese foot drill, things like that. He stopped them. He told me it was what the English prisoners in Rangoon were having to do and that it showed the Japanese intended to make us all puppets if they could. When he had gone it started again. I protested, but it made no difference. One sepoy who refused became very ill. The Japanese must have beaten him up pretty badly.’
‘The sepoy’s name?’
‘I don’t remember. It was happening too often.’
‘More than one sepoy, then.’
‘Yes, more than one.’
‘And you took a risk, protesting?’
‘That didn’t matter.’
‘You were in some kind of position of authority in this camp?’
‘Only a section of the camp. And as a prisoner oneself one’s power was limited. I was responsible for this section, though.’
‘But you were only a lieutenant.’
Sayed glanced up.
‘Shah Nawaz and Mohan Singh were only captains. How many Indian majors, colonels and brigadiers do you know of, father? Do you personally know any Indian generals? The British have always been careful to see that no Indian officer rises high enough to be in a position of much authority.’
‘Again I must warn you not to say such things at your court-martial. Please try to concentrate. What steps did you take at the end of September when you came to the decision to join INA?’
‘I spoke to two INA officers who visited the camp.’
‘Officers visiting for recruitment purposes?’
‘Only partly. Mainly to make sure for Shah Nawaz Khan that we were not being exploited. I told them about the sepoy who had been hurt. They got permission to take him to their house. They gave him good food and medical attention.’
‘But you don’t remember his name?’
‘Perhaps it was a name like Laksham. He was a non-combatant. A sweeper, I think. I’m not sure.’
‘I ask because if this man has survived his testimony might be useful to you.’
‘I understand that, father. I don’t know whether he survived.’
‘Well, go on. You told these two INA officers that you’d thought about it very hard and had decided to join the INA.’
‘Yes.’
‘They were pleased of course.’