Chittagong Summer of 1930

by Manoshi Bhattacharya

  ‘Ah, but never to forget that it was cosmos, transplanted bodily from my garden, that populated the Bell Park! Brian the district engineer,’ explained John, ‘was readying for an industrial and agricultural exhibition and he made two round plots: one a rockery with a flagstaff in the centre and the other with a fountain. My flowers were planted along the borders and still there were lots left – the cornflower and the antirrhinums. And in my cabbage patch …’

  But Donovan who had made off with Dorothy was not listening. ‘Lionel Colson,’ he was saying, ‘had been dragged out after dinner with an electric torch and of course it was my prized gladioli that was the decided winner … but the blasted hare trespassed on my land that night and ate right through a gladiolus, much to the vulgar pleasure of your husband … I half suspected it was him abusing my hospitality. I sat up nights with a gun,’ he said meaningfully, as ribald laughter erupted from behind.

  ‘And I wished that blessed hare a long life and a large appetite … and considering the season was closed for hares I promised to prosecute Donovan personally.’ As he took his place on the verandah he observed mildly, ‘I guess that explains the zareba.’ Donovan shot him a furious look over the cup of tea.

  ‘You should have seen the rohu that was caught from the tank before my house. Old Johur used to spend most of his time I can warrant, watching the anglers. It was past 6.30 p.m. one day, and I had retired upstairs for my bath when he came in to say that the biggest fish ever seen had been caught. I asked at once to see it and it turned out to be the noblest one I had laid my eyes upon – twentyone pounds!’

  ‘I’d love to have one of those at the end of a line,’ sighed Donovan. ‘They tell me the best tank is behind the jail.’

  ‘I was sorry to learn about poor Mr Simon2 having to abandon his trip. The old man must have been feeling the need for a little rest and quiet.’ From the papers at home Dorothy had gathered that the Commission had had a pretty hectic time – with large mobs at every centre demonstrating and shouting ‘Simon go back’.

  ‘And a jolly good thing too,’ added Donovan. ‘For I dared not bring him ashore for fear of our local swarajists and their demonstrations … although,’ he bobbed his head, ‘it would have given him a pretty good idea of the degree of civilization that prevails in these parts and how ready they are, and anxious for another large increment of self-government. I warrant he would have got more insight into the actual state of affairs during the few days of this quiet voyage than in three weeks at Calcutta, listening to the vapourings of half-baked politicians.’

  ‘And the first question that I had decided I would recommend him to put to every villager he met in this district would be …,’ here John put up his finger as a smile trembled on his lips, ‘And when did you come out of jail?’ The two men burst into laughter. ‘Both of us have tried this conversational gambit and in nine out of ten cases the cap fits.’

  ‘I had dinner with Sir Charles and Lady Tegart soon after,’ said Donovan, ‘and got a fair idea of what happened. Mike, in addition to having to prevent the city from breaking out in mob violence – as it had done in February when the Commission had first set foot in India, had Lord Irwin on his hands. The care of all those marked and prominent people meant a great deal of extra work for him. Public appearances warranted elaborate preparatory arrangements. And the HE, though always considerate of police opinions, hated being shadowed by a watcher when he walked in the grounds of Belvedere.3 But Mike was firm: If that chap didn’t follow you about, he would be disobeying my orders and if I didn’t order him to follow you about I should be neglecting my duty. The HE then expressed a wish to see a slum district of the town.’

  Donovan chuckled as John let out a low whistle. ‘He had heard a great deal about the terrible conditions under which the poor – particularly the poor Eurasian community – lived.’

  ‘Perhaps he wished to verify or hoped to disprove the stories for himself.’

  ‘Anyway, it was all terribly risky … you know how striking a figure he makes and as Mike puts it, almost impossible to disguise as a cad. They went all the same: the viceroy, his ADC, Mike himself and one other policeman. They wore their oldest clothes and drove unescorted in a battered Ford touring car around some of the worst districts in Calcutta.’

  ‘And was he suitably horrified?’

  ‘Perhaps most of all by the filth of the streets and the appalling smells. He asked whether nothing could be done to remedy matters, but Mike reminded him that this was an early example of local selfgovernment and that the swaraj-dominated corporation was the responsible body. They stopped at a particularly smelly street and HE noticed an old Muslim squatting on the ground a few yards away, gazing into space. He said to Mike, “Ask that man how he can stay here and tolerate the smell.” Mike went up to the man, who ostensibly was sitting there for a breath of fresh air or to “eat-the-air”, as they put it. You know Mike’s extraordinary skill with Bengali. The finer nuances of the language do not escape him. “What smell?” was the response. The man was apparently mildly astonished, obviously unaware that the atmosphere was impregnated by anything less fragrant than the attar of roses. The tour was a thorough one and the viceroy came to the conclusion that even the most harrowing accounts could not compare with what he had seen.’4

  ‘It is as funny a story as it is sad,’ John explained to Dorothy. ‘The president of the Calcutta Corporation, Mr Subhas Chandra Bose, who had been released in 1925 as an act of clemency, has been incarcerated again for holding demonstrations. He has given himself a commission in his own volunteer corps too.’

  ‘Mike is as southern Irish as one can get,’ said Donovan ruminatively. ‘No one can love his country more aggressively and yet have such a deep and unquestioning loyalty to the Crown. I had a heated argument with him one day over the Black-and-Tan Regime and he quite lost it … threatened to go off and lead an Irish rebel army. “You old Shinner,” Mike, I said to him, “you disloyal old devil!” Really, he had taken me aback. I had scarcely known whether to take him seriously or not. But deep down I believe that however much he believes in independence for Ireland, he desires nothing but a friendly union between her and the empire. Can such a man ever be an enemy of India’s freedom? … The very idea is ludicrous.’

  ‘I would say he loves freedom for himself as much as he does for others,’ said John. Indeed there are few better constituted than he to understand what the mind of the bomb-and-pistol-wallah is blindly groping after. But he will turn his face sternly against short cuts, blazed by murder and gang robbery on the plea that they are political.’5

  ‘Speaking about crime, tell me about the sausages,’ said Dorothy.

  The men exchanged glances. ‘You know how our friend here,’ John cocked an eyebrow at Donovan, ‘will, after a large dinner party, wait for midnight to ask if the judge sahib has any intention of providing his guests with supper – and preferably sausages and eggs. Well, I was having the whole crowd over, for the Taylors – you know the SP and his family – were moving to Jalpaiguri and were keenly aware that I had no sausages, as I had been allowing the stores to peter out before I left for a vacation to Darjeeling. After tea that day, I had come over to ask him out for a walk and found him engaged in talking to a deputation of babus. That’s when the brainwave struck and I quietly approached his old khansama who produced a tin of Walls best and promised to have it sent over without saying a word to his sahib. So about midnight when Donovan made some very pointed remarks about the desirability of providing several hungry people with supper and surely the judge sahib could not let them go home without a spot of egg and sausage, they were duly produced and greedily devoured. It was then that I proposed a vote of thanks to the collector for having so generously given us all supper. And in the coarse laughter that followed, Donovan was forced to join in …’ John had not finished his story and he would not let Donovan change the topic. The juicier bit was only just coming. The cups had been refilled and the butler had left a tray with a sealed envelo
pe behind.

  ‘Well, since he had been hinting periodically, the thought never left my mind and I discovered that a large tin of Walls best would fit exactly inside one of Firpos ornamental cake tins. So I covered the top up with the original ornamental packing paper …’

  ‘You did not!’ Dorothy was listening open-mouthed, ‘And you kept the cake for yourself?’

  Nodding sagely, John continued, ‘… tied the whole thing up with a ribbon and got Mrs Hutchings to put it in his stocking.’

  Donovan was grinning sheepishly as he held the envelope up to the light and ran the paper knife along the edge. ‘I was taken in beautifully and nearly sent it on without opening it, to somebody for whom I had meant to get a Xmas present and had forgotten.’ A disbelieving frown settled on his forehead and a look of shock gradually took hold.

  ‘Well, I’ll be …! The Easter Revolution has come-a-visiting.’

  The message was one of many that had been sent out by the steamship ‘Halizones’ and routed via Fort William: SERIOUS ARMED RISING AT CHITTAGONG STOP ARMOURIES HAVE BEEN RAIDED AND TELEGRAPH CUT STOP SEND AT ONCE AT LEAST TWO COMPANIES TROOPS AND MACHINE GUNS STOP POSITION CRITICAL STOP

  ALEXANDER BURNETT

  The commissioner of Silchar had been flooded by telegrams from the commissioner of Chittagong, stressing the need for immediate military aid to counter the serious rioting that had broken out. A team, thirty strong, had set out immediately after breakfast, accompanied by the adjutant who was the only regular soldier present. The journey had proved uneventful until the brakes screeched, bringing the train to a halt at a point midway between Silchar and Chittagong. The train that had left a little before theirs had derailed. Making their way carefully along a stretch of improvised line past the derailed engine and trucks, they chugged ahead to enter Chittagong.

  The first thing to arrest the sight was the still smoking ruins of the AFI armoury, plainly visible from where he sat in the carriage. The men jostled for a view, crowding at the windows.

  The train was pulling into the station. The commissioner and other officials waited to receive them.

  ‘… a carefully planned operation … town taken completely by surprise.’

  ‘… armouries looted, destroyed … they have made off with the complete stock of rifles, all 400 of them … not a single rifle nor musket to defend the town with; just the odd sporting gun … An Indian dressed as an army officer called at the sergeant’s residence at the AFI headquarters, was received by the wife and asked to see her husband. Quite unsuspecting, she called for him and he was promptly shot. It was the signal to the waiting insurgents to overpower the guards and transfer the entire stock of rifles and a considerable number of police muskets into the taxi cabs waiting outside. The post and telegraph office was then visited and much damage done … by this time the alarm had been raised and the women and children moved with all speed to the safety of the ships.’

  Considering the unexpectedness of the attack, the casualties had been comparatively few and the position might have been much worse had it not been for the presence of mind of an Auxiliary Force sergeant who manned a Lewis gun and used it with effect. The civilians, led by Major Baker, had worked through the night, putting out the fire at the AFI armoury and removing the ammunition out of the small magazine room, which, providentially, had been completely overlooked by the raiders.

  ‘… after having run amok in the town for a few hours the rebels have withdrawn to the hills.’

  The adjutant turned to address the Surma Valley Light Horse. ‘The first task at hand is the demonstration of a show of strength. The impression that troops have arrived in force has to be created.’

  SURESH DE, 19 APRIL MORNING, NAGARKHANA HILL

  A soft light spread slowly, across the eastern sky, putting out the stars one by one. They had been on the march since two o’clock the previous night, save for the little rest in a watermelon field where they had helped themselves to the fruit. Lokenath-da had announced to the young farmer on night-watch who had stumbled upon them that they were the police on the trail of a notorious group of bandits. His initial panic, on seeing so many men in khaki within his field, had been allayed, and though he refrained from pursuing the topic or accepting payment, it seemed unlikely that he had swallowed the story. He could not have possibly missed the sounds of firing that had emanated from the police lines.

  A strange sense of well-being coursed through Suresh’s body. The excitement of the previous evening had brought about a change. He was conscious of a new energy that was welling up from some unknown source. A tall hill was standing before them. They had been marching in single file all night, blindly following Ambika-da, cutting diagonally across the thick jungles, keeping the hills in sight. They were now veering off onto a little winding path. Then he saw it. Glittering amongst the dense foliage was a fresh water pond. It appeared almost magically; Ambika-da had led them to it unerringly and all without the aid of a compass. Why hadn’t anybody thought of bringing one, wondered Suresh. Or was it because there was not an inch of land that was unknown to the leaders? The water carriers had long been emptied, and the weight of the loaded haversacks, the unwieldy muskets and the revolvers hanging from the waist had only served to sharpen the thirst. He must have been carrying at least twenty kilos? Exhilarated, the boys splashed and drank in great gulps. A tinroofed hut stood on the edge of the cliff above but it appeared vacant. The farmers and cowherds probably used it during the afternoons. It was time to move on and climb a hill. The first one scaled wasn’t good enough. A second was chosen.

  The exhausted boys flung down their muskets and threw themselves to the ground. But Lokenath-da was not about to let them sleep. Groups of four or five were being assembled, instructed to find suitable places behind bushes and to keep watch along the periphery of the hill. Two teams, each comprising three sentries were to patrol the eastern and the western sides. The rest were free to nod off. But the morning sun had begun to shine and by eight o’clock sleep was no longer possible. The first job of the day was to clean and lubricate the muskets. The thok-thok khot-khot resounded among the hills, sending the birds screeching from the trees.

  Not enough trees, thought Suresh squinting up at the sky. He would have liked a drink of water. The temperature had begun to rise. All these boys, he looked around; the thirst would soon be upon them. Most of the faces were new. The city lads kept to themselves and the village boys sat apart, conspicuous by their self-consciousness. Master-da, Ambika-da and Nirmal-da moved between the groups, chatting, laughing. They are trying to gauge the morale, he thought, before they disclose the next stage of the plan. It was fairly plain that the success enjoyed at the police lines was to be now followed up by guerrilla warfare. Suresh marvelled at their ingenuity … the degree of thought they had put into formulating the master plan.

  Contacting Ananta Lal Singh and Ganesh Ghosh was the agenda of the day. The contact in the city who was to help out was Ardhendu Dutt. Suresh knew of him, for he was Phutu-da’s classmate at the Chattogram College and lived at Sukhendu Dastidar’s home as his younger brother’s tutor. But Master-da had something else in mind. Manindra Lal Guha, a student of Chattogram College, was chosen: his mission was to contact either Ardhendu Dutt or Sati-da, through them establish contact with the army commanders and get back.6

  The sleepy boys returned to their thoughts. Ardhendu Dastidar, a quiet sort but conspicuous by the raw wounds on his body, was the first to break the silence.

  ‘As long as life lasts we should continue to fight.’

  ‘Attack now!’ said the tall, lanky sixteen-year-old,7 resting his back against a tree trunk, chewing on a stalk of grass. This, Suresh learnt, was Quick Silver or Pulin Ghose of Goshai Danga – the fleet-footed messenger who rushed about on his bicycle through the day, carrying messages from Master-da to Ananta Lal Singh; Ananta Lal Singh’s to Lokenath-da. Chattogram’s police found it impossible to keep track of Pulin: now Pulin Ghose had been spotted on a sampan heading off purpos
efully … the message had been relayed by radio, but by the time the boat docked the bird had flown … Pulin had smelled their presence. He too came from a family that battled constantly with poverty. It made him alive to the plight of those that suffered and he volunteered with the Ram Krishna Mission, collected funds for the poor, and still found time to tend to and excel in his studies. God had poured intelligence into every nerve and fibre of his being. ‘Attack the Imperial Bank,’ Pulin8 said grandly. ‘And distribute the money amongst the poor.’

  The armed revolution ought to hold the hands of those that are less fortunate, thought Suresh. While people in Madras survived on grass and wild plants, the Imperial Bank had continued to rake in revenue. The air was blazing, for April was a hot month. He tried to think of matters other than thirst.

  ‘I want to remind everyone about 18 April, when our flag was raised. We have to keep it aloft.’ This was Naresh Ray, the doctor and boxer, who had studied with Ganesh Ghosh’s brother. It was Kartik Ghosh who had introduced him to Ananta Lal Singh.

  A sudden distraction: Tripura Sen appeared, cradling in his hands a single green mango – one that he handed to Master-da. It was put away as reserve. It brought with it an instant longing for that green pool of water but it was far too dangerous to venture out in broad daylight.

  Nirmal-da called for attention. He stood with one foot resting on the stump of what had once been a great tree. He had a lovely voice, and when he spoke the boys gravitated automatically towards him. ‘All men were created equal. Everybody’s body carries the same red blood. Then why is it that in our country such inequalities exist between the ruler and the ruled? When the ancestors of these very rulers lived in the dark ages, this calm peaceful land provided tapovans for the rishis to meditate, compose the Vedas, sing the songs of the Sama Veda and allowed educated women like Gargi and Gayatri to make a name for themselves. Sages like Vedavyas and Vashistha flourished. They were your ancestors.’