‘I say, you’d better not do that. If Jha hears about it, he won’t be pleased,’ said Sandeep.
‘Bugger Jha,’ said Maan.
‘No, no, no, here, dear fellow, give it back,’ said Sandeep, and Maan gave him his hat back.
After half an hour, when his hat had filled up, and both his pockets were bulging again, Sandeep stopped in order to count the money.
He had gathered an unimaginable eight hundred rupees.
He decided to stop his collection at once, even though there were plenty of people eagerly reaching forward with their coins. He had more than he needed to put on a really excellent show for Independence Day. He made a little speech, thanking the people for their generosity and assuring them that the money would be well used; he masculinized a great many Hindi nouns in the process.
The news spread through the bazaar and reached Jha’s ears, which grew red with anger.
‘I will show him,’ he said aloud, and turned back home. ‘I will show him who is the boss in Rudhia.’
14.5
He was still fuming when Mahesh Kapoor came to visit him.
‘Oh, Kapoorji, Kapoorji, welcome, welcome to my poor house,’ said Jha.
Mahesh Kapoor was short with him. ‘Your friend Joshi has been evicting tenants from his land. Tell him to stop. I won’t have it.’
Jha, his cap askew, looked shrewdly at Mahesh Kapoor and said, ‘I haven’t heard anything of the kind. Where has your information come from?’
‘Don’t worry about that, it’s reliable. I don’t want this sort of thing taking place on my doorstep. It gives the government a bad name.’
‘Why do you care if the government gets a bad name?’ said Jha with a broad smile. ‘You are no longer part of it. Agarwal and Sharma were talking to me the other day. They were saying that you had joined Kidwai and Kripalani merely to make a K-K-K Group.’
‘Are you mocking me?’ said Mahesh Kapoor angrily.
‘No, no, no, no—how can you say that?’
‘Because if you are, let me tell you that I am prepared to fight from this constituency if necessary to make sure that the farmers here are not maltreated by your friends.’
Jha’s mouth opened slightly. He could not imagine Mahesh Kapoor fighting from a rural constituency, so closely associated was he in everyone’s mind with Old Brahmpur. Mahesh Kapoor had rarely interfered much in the affairs of Rudhia, and Jha resented his new activist role.
‘Is this why your son was making speeches in the marketplace today?’ Jha said in a surly tone.
‘What speeches?’ said Mahesh Kapoor.
‘With that boy Lahiri, that IAS fellow.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Mahesh Kapoor dismissively. ‘I’m not interested in all that. All I can tell you is that you’d better get Joshi to lay off—or else I’ll get a case registered against him. Whether I’m in the government or not, I don’t want the Zamindari Act to become toothless, and if necessary I am prepared to become the local dentist.’
‘I have a better suggestion, Maheshji,’ said Jha, hitching up his dhoti aggressively. ‘If you are so keen on a rural constituency, why not fight from Salimpur-cum-Baitar? Then you can make sure that your friend the Nawab Sahib doesn’t evict his tenants, as I understand he is very skilled in doing.’
‘Thank you, I will take note of your suggestion,’ said Mahesh Kapoor.
‘And do tell me when your party, the—what is it called?—it is so difficult to remember these alphabet parties that keep springing up—the KMPP—yes, KMPP—manages to get a hundred votes, Maheshji,’ said Jha, who was delighted that he could parley thus with a man who had been so powerful just a few weeks earlier. ‘But why have you left us Congress-wallahs bereft of your presence and wisdom? Why have you left the party of Nehru? Chacha Nehru, our great leader—how will he manage without people like you—people of enlightened views? And, more to the point, how will you manage without him? When he comes to ask the people to vote for Congress, do you think they will listen to him or to you?’
‘You should be ashamed to take Nehru’s name,’ said Mahesh Kapoor heatedly. ‘You believe in nothing he does, yet you will use him to catch your votes. Jha Sahib, if it were not for Nehru’s name, you would be nothing.’
‘If. If,’ said Jha expansively.
‘I have heard enough nonsense,’ said Mahesh Kapoor. ‘Tell Joshi that I have a list of the tenants he has turned out. How I have got it concerns neither him nor you. He had better reinstate them by Independence Day. That is all I have to say.’
Mahesh Kapoor got up to go. As he was about to leave the room, Joshi, the very man he had been talking about, entered. Joshi looked so worried that he hardly noticed Mahesh Kapoor until he bumped into him. He looked up—he was a small man with a neat white moustache—and said:
‘Oh, Kapoor Sahib, Kapoor Sahib, such terrible news.’
‘What terrible news?’ said Mahesh Kapoor. ‘Have your tenants bribed the police before you could get to them yourself?’
‘Tenants?’ said Joshi blankly.
‘Kapoorji has been writing his own Ramayana,’ said Jha.
‘Ramayana?’ said Joshi.
‘Must you repeat everything?’ said Jha, who was beginning to lose patience with his friend. ‘What is this terrible news? I know that this Lahiri fellow has managed to extort a thousand rupees from the people. Is that what you came to tell me? Let me tell you that I will deal with him in my own way.’
‘No, no—’ Joshi found it difficult to speak, so momentous was the information he was carrying. ‘It is just that Nehru—’
His face was wobbling with unhappiness and alarm.
‘What?’ said Jha.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor, prepared for the worst.
‘No, far worse—resigned—resigned—’ gasped Joshi.
‘As Prime Minister?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor. ‘From the Congress? What do you mean “resigned”?’
‘From the Congress Working Committee—and from the Central Election Committee,’ cried Joshi miserably. ‘They say that he is thinking of resigning from the Congress altogether—and joining another party. God knows what will happen. Chaos, chaos.’
Mahesh Kapoor realized immediately that he would have to go back to Brahmpur—and perhaps even to Delhi—for consultations. As he left the room he turned back for one last glance at Jha. Jha’s mouth was open, and his hands were clutching the two sides of his white Congress cap. He was entirely incapable of concealing the powerful emotion that had seized him. He was in a state of violent shock.
14.6
Maan had remained behind on the farm when his father had rushed off to Brahmpur in the wake of the news of Nehru’s resignation from his party posts. There had been talk of a crisis in the Congress Party for over a year, but there was no doubt now that it was truly upon them. The Prime Minister of the country had virtually declared that he had no confidence in the elected leadership of the party whom he represented in Parliament. And he had chosen to make this declaration just a few days before Independence Day when he, as Prime Minister, would speak to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi.
Sandeep Lahiri, meanwhile, briefly addressed the assembled population of Rudhia from a podium erected at the edge of the local maidan. He took charge of feeding the poor with the help of various women’s organizations in the town. He distributed sweets to children with his own hands—a task he found pleasant but awkward. And he took the salute at the boy scouts’ parade and the police parade and hoisted the national flag, which had been filled beforehand with marigold petals, a shower of which fell on him as he looked up in surprise.
Jha was not present. He and his supporters boycotted the whole show. At the end of the ceremonies, after a local band had struck up the National Anthem, and Sandeep Lahiri had shouted ‘Jai Hind!’ to the cheers of a couple of thousand people, more sweets were distributed. Maan gave him a hand with this, and appeared to be enjoying it a great deal more than Sandeep. The childre
n were finding it difficult not to break ranks and had to be restrained by their flustered teachers. While all this was going on, a postman came up to the SDO, and handed him a telegram. He was about to put it absently into his pocket, when it struck him that it might contain something of importance. But his hand was sticky with jalebis, and he asked Maan, who had managed to avoid that particular hazard, to open it for him and read it out to him.
Maan opened the envelope and read it out. At first the message did not quite register on Sandeep, but then he frowned, and it was not a silly-ass frown but an aggrieved one. Jha had moved fast, it appeared. The telegram had been sent by the Chief Secretary of Purva Pradesh. It informed Shri Sandeep Lahiri, IAS, of his transfer with immediate effect from the post of Sub-Divisional Officer of Rudhia subdivision to a post in the Department of Mines at Brahmpur. He was to relinquish charge as soon as the officer to replace him arrived, on the 16th of August, and to report at Brahmpur the same day.
14.7
One of Sandeep Lahiri’s first acts upon arriving in Brahmpur was to request an interview with the Chief Secretary. A couple of months earlier, the Chief Secretary had dropped him a note to say that he had been doing an excellent job in his subdivision, and had especially commended his role in solving—by on-the-spot inquiries in the villages—a large number of land disputes that had appeared for some years to be intractable. He had assured Lahiri of his full support. And now, in effect, he had pulled the rug out from under his feet.
The Chief Secretary, busy though he was, granted him an interview at his house the same evening.
‘Now I know what you are going to ask me, young man, and I will be quite frank with you. But I must tell you in advance that there is no question of this order being rescinded.’
‘I see, Sir,’ said Sandeep, who had grown very fond of Rudhia, and had expected to serve his full term there—or at least to be given the time to apprise his successor of the problems and pitfalls—as well as the pleasures—that he was likely to encounter, and the various schemes that he had set in train which he would be sorry to see fall into neglect.
‘You see, orders in your case came directly from the Chief Minister.’
‘Did Jha have anything to do with this?’ asked Sandeep, frowning
‘Jha? Oh, I see—Jha, from Rudhia. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you. It’s certainly possible. I’m beginning to think that anything’s possible these days. Have you been treading on his toes?’
‘I suppose I have, Sir—and he on mine.’
Sandeep filled the Chief Secretary in on the details of their conflict. The Chief Secretary’s eyes drifted across his table.
‘You do realize that this is a premature promotion, don’t you?’ he said at last. ‘You shouldn’t be displeased.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ said Sandeep. And indeed, the position of Under-Secretary in the Department of Mines, though lowly enough in the hierarchy of the Indian Administrative Service, ranked higher than the post of SDO, with all its freedom of action and its life in the open air. He would in the normal course of things have been transferred to a desk job in Brahmpur six months later.
‘Well, then?’
‘Did—well, Sir, if I might ask—did you say anything to dissuade the Chief Minister from getting rid of me?’
‘Lahiri, I do wish you wouldn’t see things in that light. No one has got rid of you, and no one wishes to. You have an excellent career ahead of you. I cannot go into details, but I will tell you that the first thing I did upon receiving the CM’s instructions—which, incidentally, did surprise me—was to call for your file. You have an excellent record, with a number of good marks and only one bad mark against you. The only reason that I could think of that the CM wanted you out of Rudhia was that Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary is coming around in a couple of months. It appears that your decision in that troublesome matter last year rather annoyed him; I assumed that something had jogged his memory of late, and he thought that your presence in Rudhia might be a provocation. Anyway, it will be no bad thing for you to spend some time in Brahmpur early on in your career,’ he continued in a genial tone. ‘You’ll be spending at least a third of your working life here, and you may as well see how things run in the labyrinths of the state capital. My only specific advice,’ continued the Chief Secretary, now rather glumly, ‘is that you should not be seen at the bar of the Subzipore Club too often. Sharma, being a true Gandhian, doesn’t like people drinking; he makes rather a point of summoning me for some emergency work late in the evening whenever he hears I’m at the club.’
The incident that the Chief Secretary had referred to a little earlier involved the railway colony at Rudhia where the previous year a number of young Anglo-Indian men—the sons of railway employees—had smashed the glass in front of a noticeboard that contained a poster of Mahatma Gandhi, which they had then proceeded to deface. There had been an uproar in response, and the offenders had been arrested, beaten up by the police, and hauled up before Sandeep Lahiri in his magisterial incarnation. Jha had screamed for their trial on the grounds of sedition, or at the very least of having grievously injured the religious sentiments of the population. Sandeep, however, had realized that these were hotheaded but not really ill-meaning young men, who had had no inkling of the possible consequences of their actions. He had waited for them to sober up, and then—after dressing them down and making them apologize in public, had discharged them with a warning. His judgement with respect to the charges sought to be brought against them had been succinct:
This is quite evidently not a case of sedition: Gandhiji, revere his memory though we do, is not the King-Emperor. Nor is he the head of a religion, so the charge of injuring people’s religious sentiments does not hold either. As for the charge of mischief, the smashed glass and defaced portrait do not cost more than eight annas, and de minimis non curat lex. The defendants are discharged with a warning.
Sandeep had been itching for some time to use this Latin tag, and here was the ideal opportunity: the law did not concern itself with trifles, and here was a trifling matter, at least in monetary terms. But his linguistic pleasure was not without cost. The Chief Minister had not been amused, and had instructed the previous Chief Secretary to enter a black mark against him in his character roll. ‘Government have considered Mr Lahiri’s ill-judged decision in the case of the recent disorder in Rudhia. Government note with regret that he has chosen to make a display of his liberal instincts at the cost of his duty to maintain law and order.’
‘Well, Sir,’ said Sandeep to the Chief Secretary, ‘what would you have done if you had been in my place? Under what provision of the Indian Penal Code could I have chopped off those silly young men’s heads, even if I had wished to?’
‘Well,’ said the Chief Secretary, unwilling to criticize his predecessor. ‘I really can’t go into all that. Anyway, as you say, it is probably some recent contretemps with Jha that has got you transferred, not that earlier incident. I know what you’re thinking: that I should have stood up for you. Well, I have. I made sure that your transfer was not a lateral one, that it involved a promotion. That was the best that I could do. I know when it is useful, and when it is not, to argue with the Chief Minister—who, to give him his due, is an excellent administrator and values good officers. One day, when you are in a position similar to mine—and I don’t see why, given your potential, you shouldn’t be—you will have to make similar, well, adjustments. Now, can I offer you a drink?’
Sandeep accepted a whisky. The Chief Secretary grew boringly expansive and reminiscent:
‘The problem, you see, began in 1937—once you got politicians running things at the provincial level. Sharma was elected Premier, as it was then called, of the Protected Provinces—as our state then was. It became fairly obvious to me early on that other considerations than merit would apply in promotions and transfers. When the lines of power ran from Viceroy to Governor to Commissioner to District Magistrate, things were clear enough. It was when the legislators crawled
into every level except the very top that the rot started. Patronage, power bases, agitations, politics, toadying to the elected representatives of the people: all that kind of stuff. One had to do one’s own duty of course, but what one saw sometimes dismayed one. Some batsmen could now score a six even if the ball bounced within the boundary. And others were declared out even if they were caught outside the boundary. You see what I mean. Incidentally, Tandon—who’s been trying to declare Nehru out by insisting on the rules by which the Congress plays the game—was a fine cricketer—did you know that?—when he was at Allahabad University. I believe he captained the Muir Central College team. Now he goes around bearded and barefoot like a rishi from the Mahabharata, but he was a cricketer once. Cricket has a lot to answer for. Another?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘There’s also the fact that he was the Speaker of the U.P. Legislative Assembly during those years. Rules, rules, and very little flexibility. I always thought it was us bureaucrats who were the sticklers for rules. Well, the country’s burning and the politicians are fiddling, not very tunefully at that. It is up to us to keep things going. The iron frame and all that: rusting and buckling, though, I’d have to say. Well, I’m almost at the end of my career, and I can’t say I’m sorry. I hope you enjoy your new job, Lahiri—Mines, isn’t it? Do let me know how you’re getting along.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Sandeep Lahiri, and got up with a serious expression on his face. He was beginning to understand all too well how things worked. Was this his own future self he had been talking to? He could not hide from himself his dismay and, yes, it would not be too much to say, his disgust, at this new and most unwelcome insight.
14.8
‘Sharmaji came here to meet you this morning,’ said Mrs Mahesh Kapoor to her husband when he returned to Prem Nivas.