Chapter 19-

THE PROCESS OF QUITTING

No one was supposed to know anything about the Bombay explosion. The newspapers were forbidden to publish reports or pictures; even the casualty figures were a secret. In the midst of a war, any mishap in a great port was an official secret, to be kept from reaching the enemy.

But within a few days, everyone in the country seemed to have heard about it. Its causes were not known, its details outrageously garbled; but everyone was aware that it was one of the greatest disasters of the war: the port had been almost wholly wrecked and its shipping brought to a standstill; dozens of ships had gone up in flames, complete with their cargoes, and buildings all round the docks had been flattened.

Hundreds of Indians had lost their lives, but very few of their countrymen bothered about that; the sacrifice was insignificant compared with the results. Inwardly, most of them chortled with glee; the destruction was a blow to the ruling power. In the spring of 1944, the British had very few friends left in India. The Empire was ready to fall like a ripe mango into the hands of the waiting Japanese. The face of India was covered with the slogan, crudely painted in clay, chalk, vegetable dye, charcoal or red ochre; across roads, on the trunks of trees, on walls, on motor buses and round telegraph poles: "Quit India l'

Debi-dayal realized that the slogan which, when he first came across it, he had dismissed with contempt as the humble sub- mission of a milksop organization, had by now taken the whole country by storm and acquired new significance. Somehow things were moving inexorably to a climax of violence; it was almost as though Shafi Usman's prediction were coming true. In the midst of non-violence, violence persists," Shafi had told them. Was this what he had meant?

Debi-dayal had been astounded and secretly frightened by the change. He had tried to analyse it, poring over the papers in the reading room of the Silent Hill library, discussing the situation with anyone who was prepared to talk to him.

In their anguish and frustration, fired by their anger at the mass arrests of their leaders, goaded by the thought of the Japanese armies poised for an offensive, the people had chosen to discard their vows of non-violence. At least a part of the heat was generated by the authorities' repressive measures; the callous prison sentences pronounced on Gandhi and Nehru, the methods used to break up demonstrations. It was almost as though the British had forsaken their proverbial restraint, and had suddenly decided to entrust the administration of the country to hundreds of General Dyers pressed into service to smash the national agitation. They had imposed a reign of terror upon the populace. Passive women blocking the streets of Bombay were dragged away by grinning British tommies; all meetings were invariably lathi-charged by the police. At Ballila, in the United Provinces, someone had even brought Dyer's technique up to date and had a crowd machine-gunned from the air; the Benares Hindu Uni- versity was declared closed for alleged subversive activities and its premises taken over by the army; hundreds of Congress camps and offices were burned down under official supervision; crippling collective fines had been imposed on entire villages for sympathy with the movement. The repression had clearly backfired. It had provoked the mobs into acts of violence. There were hundreds of instances of railway stations, post offices and police stations being burnt down, telephone and telegraph wires being cut and, in one place, of a policeman being burnt alive.

Meanwhile those who had the power to restrain the people, to persuade them to refrain from violence, were kept securely locked up in prison.

The authorities had swung into action with unprecedented virulence. The prisons of the country overflowed with its patriots. Sixty thousand people were arrested in the last four months of

1942. After that the arrests went on with warlike resolution, but the figures were not made available to the press. The Calcutta Statesman, mouthpiece of the ruling power, published a daily list of nationalists who had courted arrest. The paper headed the column 'The Crank's Corner'.

It was almost as though the British were striving to convert the non-violence of the leaders of India into the violence of the terrorists; to discredit the movement in the eyes of the world by forcing it to become violent.

For Debi-dayal, it was like a dream come true. The nationalist movement was hardening, being transformed into a revolutionary movement. The British themselves had brought it about. You could not keep the spirited men of a nation tied down for long to bullock-cart speed and to the vegetarian logic of the Indian National Congress.

The time was ripe. The British were fighting with their backs to the wall, suffering humiliating reverses everywhere, losing thousands of tons of shipping every day. Never had their rule been more abhorrent to the people of India; freedom was closer at hand than at any time since the revolt of 1857. The Japanese army, mightier than ever in victory, was at the very gates, gathering for a final blow. India was ready to receive them, to welcome them as the Burmese had welcomed them.

And now they had blown up the docks in Bombay. He was convinced that it was the terrorists' work. He admired their planning, preparation, and patience. Hundreds of men working secretly, waiting for the moment, knowing that some of them would have to sacrifice their lives. They had gone to their deaths cheerfully. It was heartening to think of such men; so long as they were there, India still had a future. The thought of his own lack of action tormented him. It was nearly two years since he had been sent back to India, charged with specific tasks and provided with ample funds. He had allowed himself to be swayed by the arrogance and the ruthless- ness of the Japanese into a position of neutrality. How could he hold his head high in a Free India, knowing that he had spent the crucial years of the struggle in the placidity of an Assamese tea-garden?

It was almost as though he had turned to non-violence himself, he thought with a shudder, while the Indians whom he had pitied for being non-violent were shouldering the weight of the struggle and softening up the ground for the Japanese march to Delhi.

"Chalo-Delhi

And almost inevitably, like a spectre, the image of a fat Indian in a crumpled uniform, sweating at every pore, marching at the head of the column, came to him, like a bad smell curdling his enthusiasm. What would the Japanese bring? What would they do in Delhi once they had marched up to the Red Fort? The same sort of freedom they had brought to Burma? To the Andamans? Would he ever be able to hold his head high if the Japanese became the rulers of India?

He had wavered, racked by confusion. He had gone on working methodically and diligently in the tea-garden, comforting himself with the thought that he could never prefer Japanese rule to that of the British. At the end of 1944, when Patiram, the stockman under whom he worked, was made assistant manager, Debi-dayal was offered the post of stockman. He had been so used to the perquisites of unimportance and anonymity, that promotion came as a jolt. But he took on the new job, knowing that he would not hold it for long.

For once again, the wheel had burned. The Japanese, who, barely a year earlier, had seemed invincible, had been dealt a series of shattering blows by the British and the Americans. The opening of the second front in Europe which no one had thought probable then, had come to pass, and the Anglo-American and Russian armies were already deep inside Europe, bearing down upon Germany from all sides. It was only a question of time before the Germans would be vanquished. Then the Japanese would experience the full fury of Anglo-American might.

It made his mind reel, but it was true. And although it was not his, Debi-dayal's war, the prospect of an Anglo-American victory was somehow less abhorrent than a Japanese victory. He had seen the Japanese from too close to wish that their rufe should replace that of the British in India.

Admittedly, even as things were going, the war would still last a long time, for the Japanese were determined and resourceful fighters. He felt thankful that there was still much time before he would have to face the issues squarely, it was only after the war had ended that he himself would have to plunge once again into the struggle for freedom.

The complications were being resolved, and yet, the thought of involvement in revolutionary activities had made his mind shrink. Two years of softness, of introspection, of worrying about rights and wrongs, had only increased his uncertainty; for the rights and wrongs seemed to be still as hopelessly mixed up as ever. He would have to talk it over with some of the others, seek their guidance to help him to make up his own mind. How long did he have? How much longer would the war go on? And then came Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reminding him that the time for decision was at hand.

He left Silent Hill on the very day the war against Japan ended, threading his way carefully through the bazaar where the coolies were waiting in long lines for the ration of rum they had been promised to celebrate the victory. 

FOUNDER MEMBERS

THE two-room tenement in Talkatora overlooked one of the bustees of Calcutta; a welter of rusting tin and fabric and cardboard, where men and women and their cattle, dogs and cats lived, procreated and died. One of the rooms was the kitchen and had a tap for their baths and for washing their kitchen utensils; the other was the bedroom and sitting room. Basu's wife brought out cups of tea and a plate of sondesh, keeping her face covered with the palla of her sari as though she observed purdah. The two children went in and out of the two rooms, excited, babbling in a mixture of Hindi and Bengali. "I could take ten days' leave,' Basu said at last. "Since you are so keen."

'But aren't you keen yourself?' Debi-dayal asked. 'Don't you want to see him?"

'I can't afford to get mixed up in anything like that, just now,"

he said. "Look at that!"

"That' was the dark, frail woman who was his wife, sitting by the smoking kitchen fire, her face still covered by her sari, rolling the flour for the loochis; that' was the quivering poverty of the house, the smells of the bustee, the two unkempt children, the pile of washing that lay under the kitchen tap.

Would you consider it presumptuous if I offered you some money?' Debi-dayal asked. His host laughed. 'Oh, you don't have to be so sensitive about it. Of course I wouldn't. I'm too far gone to worry about things like that.'

"It is not my own money, anyway,' Debi-dayal told him. 'Ill- gotten wealth. Would a thousand rupees be any use? Of course, I could give you more.' 

'It's as much as I earn in a whole year! Yes, a thousand would be most welcome."

And I don't want you to think that it has anything to do with what you have agreed to do. I mean, I'll pay you the money even if you don't want to come with me."

But of course I want to go with you. see the's face when you confront him. It is just that I am so tied down and helpless because of all that,' and again he waved his hand towards the kitchen.

Debi-dayal could understand his hesitation. Basu was one of those who had got off with a lighter sentence. He had not been sent to the Andamans, but was allowed to serve his term in the Baripada jail. He was still on parole though; he must not get implicated in any activities which might bring him into conflict with the law.

I don't think we shall have to do anything particularly violent," Debi-dayal tried to reassure him. I'm not going to pick a fight with him if it can be helped. But still, on second thoughts, I think it would be just as well for you to keep out of this."

Basu held out his hands. 'Do you think I have started wearing bangles?' he asked dramatically. Become like one of those people who have taken a vow of non-violence? Of course, I want to be in on this. I promised myself, when I went to jail-that's why I checked on his whereabouts carefully. It's just that I'm so tied down with family life.'

I don't think you should get involved with people like myself again."

"Oh, no, I want to be in on this."

'As you like."

Besides, they won't let you in. I am known there. The durwan -the watchman at the door knows me. I used to tip him well.'

'Are they very strict about letting strangers in?" Debi-dayal asked.

'Oh, very. No one more particular than one of these old- fashioned brothels. They check every visitor. You have to be- sort of introduced."

It was difficult to reconcile Basu with his older self-as a debonair young man who prided himself on his prowess with women and boasted about his credit rating in houses of ill fame in Delhi and Lahore..

Does he live there permanently, do you think?"

'I was told he doesn't. He comes and goes. Whenever he is in Lahore, he stays there."

What a pass we have come to, fighting amongst ourselves, just when we should be concentrating on the British,' Debi-dayal lamented. 'It is almost as though just when they are on the point of leaving the country, the British have succeeded in what they set out to do. Set the Hindus and Muslims at each other's throats. What a lovely sight!

'Do you want to see a lovely sight?' Basu asked, suddenly roused. I'll show you one. Dipali!' he called. "Dipali! Come here. Come out and be introduced to my friend!' He jumped up from the bed on which he had been sitting and darted into the kitchen. He came out, holding his protesting wife by the hand, the two frightened-looking children trailing their parents. 'Look! Look at this lovely sight!" Basu said. He pulled the sari away from her head, exposing her face. 'Look!"

Debi-dayal winced. One side of her face was like a large wound that had healed, the skin all puckered up and shiny, with the eye, a small pink slit like a wound still open. It was as though some wild animal had clawed the side of her face. 'She was a lovely sight! Basu was saying, 'Lovely as a Bankimchandra heroine. And now look what they have done to her!' He let her go, with an expression of disgust, and she hurriedly covered her face again and scrambled out of the room, the two children now clinging to her legs. I am very sorry,' Debi-dayal said. 'How did it happen?"

"Someone threw acid at her face-an electric bulb filled with sulphuric acid. That is the standard weapon of the Hindu-Muslim riots, don't you know? That is what has happened to the face of India-the mutilation of a race conflict.'

'Did the Muslims do it?"

"Who else? Who else would attack a Hindu house? When a race riot starts, it is the time for settling private scores.'

But how did it happen? Where had your wife gone?"

'She had gone nowhere. She was here, leaning out of the window, looking at the lovely sight you see below, one of our
greatest bustees, with the hooligans of both sides going for each other. That was when someone threw the bulb at her face. Possibly some Muslim buck with an urge to seduce her, working it off. That is what made me join the Mahasabha, parole or no parole. I could not keep out. We have to become aligned, in sheer self-defence. Hindus against Muslims."

And to think that we used to sit together and partake of beef and pig to symbolize our unity."

'But this is how things have developed in this country," Basu said heatedly. "What had been aimed against the British, has turned against itself. And the ugliest thing it has bred is distrust. No Hindu can trust a Muslim any more, and no Muslim trusts a Hindu. The country is to be divided. That is what Jinnah wants; that is what the Muslims want. But before that division comes, every town, every village, is being torn apart. The Muslims don't want freedom for India unless it means the carving out of a separate state for themselves. They fear the Hindus will dominate them. They insist that when the Congress ruled, just at the beginning of the war, they treated the Muslims as a subordinate race."

'What is going to happen, do you think?" Debi-dayal asked. 'Isn't it clear as daylight? The moment the British quit, there will be civil war in the country, a great slaughter. Every city, every village, every bustee, where the two communities live side by side, will be the scene of war. Both sides are preparing for it, the Hindus and the Muslims. The Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha are both militant.

'It almost makes one think that non-violence is perhaps the only answer,' Debi-dayal commented.

Non-violence! Basu said with scorn. "How can anyone be so blind? How can you go on striving for perfection and at the same time believing it's already there? You can't change the human race overnight. Non-violence is merely a pious thought, a dream of the philosophers. I shudder to think what disillusion confronts them; what Gandhi will feel when he sees the holocaust that will engulf this country. He will die a thousand deaths, I tell you, he will suffer for each single man that suffers, Hindu or Muslim, but will he ever recognize that mankind is not prepared for true non-violence-will never be prepared? No! No! He will go on living and preaching his dream. Would you remain non-violent if someone threw acid at the girl you loved? Would Gandhi?'

"We may not hold with his philosophy,' Debi-dayal said. "But no one can doubt his sincerity. Personally, I don't think he would retaliate with violence... Sincerity! Are we not confusing sincerity with a delusion, something brought on by wishful thinking, endowing the human race with virtues it does not possess? And then again, has Gandhi himself not expressed doubts about it?" "What if," he says, "when the fury bursts, not a man, woman or child is safe and every man's hand is raised against his neighbour ?" That is exactly what is going to happen, what is already happening today. And the only thing we Hindus can do about it is to get ready for it, as the Muslims are doing. Unless we are prepared to meet violence with violence, we will perish. If our answer to Muslim fury is to be non-violence, then we shall be a slave race again within weeks of the British leaving us. Non-violence is all very well, if the other party too plays by the rules. It may prove an effective weapon against the British because of their inherent decency. How far would it have gone against Hitler? Yes, tell me, what would non-violence do against brute force?" 'I don't know,' Debi-dayal said weakly. "The Jews are said to have tried it.'

"Yes, and what happened to them? Did you see the pictures of Buchenwald? Of Belsen? Read the accounts? They were exterminated like some kind of pest... he stopped.

His wife brought out the brass thalis with the mounds of loochis and katoris of bagoon-bhaja and macher-jhol and placed them on the little bedside table. He stared at her for a long time, as though at a stranger who had interrupted their talk. Then he gave her a smile. Come on,' he invited Debi-dayal. 'I don't think you will have tasted spiced fish quite like this. It is a speciality from Dohazari, that is where she comes from."

But Debi-dayal still had a question to ask. "Tell me,' he said. 'Do you think the Congress movement has been just as much of a failure as ours?'

Basu took a deep breath before he spoke. 'It is an even greater failure. But will they ever admit it? They will take all the credit for achieving independence when the British finally leave, as though all that the others have done, the Mahasabha, the League even, means nothing. But there is a greater failure still: the emasculation of the people-making them into a nation of sheep, as Shafi used to tell us. That is what our organization, the Hindu Mahasabha, is attempting to remedy. But it may be already too late. The results of what non-violence has done will be seen-seen as soon as the British leave us to our own devices. For every Hindu that had to die, five will die because of the way the doctrine of non-violence has caught on. More women will be raped, abducted, children slaughtered, because their men will have been made incapable of standing up for themselves.' "The loochis are getting cold, his wife reminded him.

"And what will Gandhi do? He will go on a fast,' Basu went on, ignoring his wife. A fast to purify himself, perhaps a fast unto death. But will he ever admit failure? That non-violence itself has failed? No. And one thing more. What is the future for a country nurtured on non-violence in a world of mounting violence? Tell me that. How are we to survive?-defend our borders? Can a non-violent nation have a violent army?-a navy? We will be sitting ducks for anyone who chooses to pick a quarrel with us; Burma, Ceylon, this new country, Pakistan. If non- violence is the bedrock of our national policy, how is the fighting spirit to manifest itself only in our services?

The loochis are getting cold, his wife said again. Basu glared at her. "That is the spirit of non-violence for you!" he said to Debi-dayal, pointing a finger at his wife. 'Her face has been ravaged by a hooligan, and I her husband, have done nothing to avenge it. But will she ever be angry with me?-tell me I am a no-good bastard who cannot look after a family? No! She is mother India, dammit-non-violent! All she is worried about is that I should eat my food while it is still hot!'