The Towers of Silence

by Paul Scott

  In 1941 when the choleric Governor’s term of office ended and he was succeeded by a new Governor, Sir George Malcolm, there was scarcely a season in Pankot at all (other than the tentative one provided by the energetic new GOC’S wife, Isobel Rankin, at Flagstaff House). The Rankins made their presence felt, but in the right sort of way. Malcolm, it was said, was an example of the rather alarming kind of person whom the war was throwing up, people with an immense and exhausting capacity for work and an impatience with any tradition which, like the annual movement of an entire administration from Ranpur to Pankot and back again, put the slightest strain on an overworked executive.

  ‘Sir George will settle down,’ people said; and there were hopes of a full season in 1942; but at the turn of the year the war that had seemed so far off was suddenly on India’s doorstep. Malaya went first, to the Japanese, then Singapore. Burma followed. With these stunning losses the hope of anything ever being quite the same again faded quietly away into the background. And as if things weren’t bad enough with the enemy at the gate there was an increasingly troublesome enemy inside it: Indian leaders who screamed that defeat in Malaya and Burma was a forerunner to defeat in India, that the British had shown themselves incompetent to defend what it was their duty to defend but which wouldn’t need defending at all if they weren’t there, inciting the Japanese who had no quarrel with the Indians themselves.

  The political situation sizzled dangerously from the March of 1942 throughout the summer and finally exploded in August with a violence that set people talking about a new mutiny.

  Foreseeable as it had been to anyone with an ounce of common sense and regrettable as it was it was not actually unwelcome. It cleared the air. The policy of placating the Indians and getting on with the war at the same time had failed as it was bound to. Now the question of further Indian advances to self-government could be firmly shelved for the duration. It was felt to be a pity that it had not been shelved at the beginning when Indian politicians proved that there was hardly a man with statesman-like qualities among them.

  After the absurd débâcle of 1939 when the Indian Congress Party threw away all the political advantages it had won, by resigning provincial responsibility on points of principle (failure of the Viceroy to consult it before declaring His Majesty’s Indian empire at war with Germany, refusal to co-operate in a war whose aims it pretended to be in sympathy with but said should have included immediate freedom to Indians to do as they liked) the more troublesome firebrands (that man Subhas Chandra Bose for instance) were popped neatly into clink under the Defence of India rules, but it was felt that the Viceroy should have made a broader sweep.

  The Viceroy in question was Linlithgow; described in Pankot as an odd chap, sound but tactless and as usual not quite the thing because he didn’t know enough about the country. Viceroys seldom did and few had the panache of Curzon who had tried to make not knowing a virtue in itself. The Congress-wallahs had put one over on Linlithgow by adopting this policy of official approval of the war against Hitler but disapproval of the means by which they were to be allowed to co-operate in it; and only those who stood up in the market place and opened their mouths too wide found themselves silenced by imprisonment.

  If the Congress-wallahs had had any political cunning as well as political stubbornness they would have stayed in office in the provinces as the few Muslim League ministries had done, co-operated so far as was necessary in the war effort, expanded their political experience and power and, simultaneously, their grip on the administration, so that when the war was over their claim to speak and act for the majority of Indians and their right to advance steadily to self-government inside the commonwealth would have been difficult to refute.

  But they had thrown their opportunity away and one began to wonder whether in doing so they hadn’t set their cause back to a point where independence would seem as far away on a post-war horizon as it had been on a pre-war one. There were sensible men among them, the ex-chief minister in Ranpur, M. A. Kasim (known popularly as MAK) was an example, but they were all either under Gandhi’s saintly spell or too weak-kneed to exorcize it, and the saintly spell of Mr Gandhi had finally been exposed for what it was: a cover for the political machinations of an ambitious but naïve Indian lawyer whose successes had gone to his head.

  His demand now that the British should quit India, should leave her to ‘God or to anarchy’ sounded fine, courageous, desperate and inspired, but it meant that they should leave India to the Japanese who were already on the Chindwin but with whom Gandhi obviously expected to make a political bargain. Unless you were stupid you did not make bargains with the Japanese but war. Even the liberal American Jew, Roosevelt, had been forced to understand this and it was entirely to placate Roosevelt that Churchill (who knew a thing or two, including the fact that the Americans’ only interest in India was that the sub-continent should remain a stable threat in the rear to Japanese ambitions in the Pacific) had sent out that Fabian old maid, Stafford Cripps, to do what Churchill knew couldn’t be done: put pepper into Indian civilians and politicians by offering them what they’d been offered before, but which a pinko-red like Cripps, unused to office, would see as new, generous, advantageous, a Left-Wing invention. The farce of this particular confrontation between an English pinko-red and grasping Indian leaders had not been lost on the English community. Its total and inevitable failure had been a smack in the eye to Cripps who went home eating crow as well as his bloody vegetables. Given a chance to show that a modern British socialist could achieve what the old-fashioned Right had never achieved, unity among Indians and political co-operation between Indians and English, he had also been hoist with the responsibility of office; a responsibility which meant, quite simply, having to make things work.

  And he couldn’t of course make them work because Indian politicians always wanted more if offered anything. Not understanding this he returned to Whitehall with that smile like a brass plate on a coffin and a conviction that while someone had been unco-operative it was not clear who. Once he had gone the Quit India campaign gathered momentum; which was also funny because it made Cripps look as if he had invented it; and early in August the Congress Party officially adopted the resolution calling for the British to leave or take the consequences. For once the government in New Delhi seemed to have been prepared. Within a few hours prominent Congressmen all over the country were detained under the Defence of India rules in an operation of arrest that gathered them in from Gandhi all the way down through the scale to members of local sub-committees in the towns and cities. Even the moderate ex-chief minister Mohammed Ali Kasim was reported arrested.

  The country held its breath and then with a fierceness not equalled in living memory the leaderless mobs rose and for three weeks the administration was virtually at a standstill.

  V

  From the Ranpur Gazette: August 15th, 1942

  ENGLISH WOMEN ATTACKED

  It has just been officially disclosed that on the afternoon and evening of August 9th two Englishwomen were victims of violent attacks in the Mayapore district of this province. In the first case which occurred in the rural area of Tanpur no arrests have yet been made. In the second which took place in the town of Mayapore six Hindu youths are being held. It is understood that a charge is likely to be made under section 375 Indian Penal Code. The prompt action of the Mayapore police in apprehending the suspects within an hour or two of this disgraceful attack will be applauded. The arresting party was under the personal command of the District Superintendent of Police.

  In a statement issued to the press DSP said, ‘It is not in the public interest to reveal the name of the girl at this time. She worked on a voluntary basis at the Mayapore General Hospital. Her family is one that distinguished itself in service to India. According to her statement she was attacked by six Indian males who stopped her on her way home at night from the place where she also did voluntary and charitable work for sick and dying people of the scheduled castes. She was dragged fro
m her bicycle into the derelict site known as the Bibighar Gardens where she was criminally used.’

  DSP confirmed that among the men arrested was one with whom she was acquainted in the course of her work at the poor people’s dispensary.

  The earlier incident in Tanpur took place in broad daylight. Miss Edwina Crane, Superintendent of the Protestant mission schools in Mayapore district, was attacked by a large mob who obstructed the passage of her motor-car en route from Dibrapur back to her headquarters in Mayapore. Accompanying her was the teacher in charge at the Dibrapur mission, Mr D. R. Chaudhuri. He had left the school to give his superintendent protection from gangs of badmashes rumoured to be roaming the countryside following news of the arrest of Mr Gandhi and other Congress Party leaders.

  Mr J. Poulson, assistant commissioner in Mayapore, said he left Mayapore in a police truck at approximately 3.45 pm on August 9th to investigate reports that telephone lines had been cut between Dibrapur and Mayapore and that troublemakers were gathering in rural areas. He stated: ‘At Candgarh we found the local police locked in their own kotwali and having released them pressed on in pursuit of the mob who had terrorized them. It was raining. A few miles short of Tanpur we saw first a burnt-out motor-car and then a hundred yards beyond, Miss Crane, sitting on the roadside guarding the body of Mr Chaudhuri who had been clubbed to death. She was soaked to the skin. In attempting to save Mr Chaudhuri from the mob, which had apparently objected to an Indian driving with an Englishwoman, Miss Crane had been struck several times. When she recovered consciousness she found Chaudhuri dead and the mob gone.’

  Miss Crane is presently in the General Hospital in Mayapore where her condition although improved still gives some cause for anxiety. Although Ranpur remains quiet, Dibrapur and Mayapore have been the scene of serious riots and in Dibrapur Congress flags have been run up on the court house and the magistrate’s private residence. Troops are reported on the way to Dibrapur to deal with the situation and are also standing by in Mayapore in anticipation of a request for aid from the civil power. The senior military officer in Mayapore is Brigadier A. V. Reid, DSO, MC.

  The rapidity with which the whole situation has deteriorated so soon after the Congress Committee’s endorsement of Mr Gandhi’s quit India resolution in Bombay on August 8th, suggests that plans had been laid well beforehand for these acts of insurrection. The scale on which civil disobedience has been offered in this and other provinces, the reports constantly being received of riots, wanton destruction, burning and looting, hardly support the opinion expressed in some quarters that these are ‘spontaneous demonstrations of anger by the people at the unjust imprisonment of their leaders’.

  The authorities showed foresight in arresting members of Congress within a few hours of the committee passing the resolution. It behoves us all to be equally on our guard. And it is to be hoped that those who are guilty of these vicious and outrageous attacks on two innocent Englishwomen and the murder of the Indian school-teacher will quickly be brought to justice.

  *

  This confirmation of rumours there had been in Pankot of attacks on Englishwomen down in the plains produced a full house at the club-meeting. People arrived with their copies of the Ranpur Gazette opened and folded at the page on which the report appeared, on the off-chance that someone had not read it. ‘I see you’ve all got your tickets,’ one member said. But it was no laughing matter.

  The purpose of the meeting, announced several days earlier, was to discuss arrangements to protect lives and property in the event of riots occurring in Pankot. So unlikely had this seemed that provision had been made for only half the number of people who came. The meeting was delayed for a quarter of an hour while more chairs were brought into the main lounge. Eventually it got under way with an address by Colonel Trehearne in his capacity as senior member of the cantonment board. His voice, although musical, lacked power. ‘Can’t hear!’ someone at the back shouted. He was shushed. Older hands knew from experience that Trehearne’s contribution to any public gathering bore the same relationship to what followed as an overture did to an opera. If you came in after he had sat down you’d missed nothing.

  He was succeeded by two civil officers from district headquarters down in Nansera: Bill Craig, assistant to the deputy commissioner, who assured the meeting that the district was so far unaffected by the disturbances in the plains and expected to remain so; and Ian MacIntosh of the Indian police who confirmed Craig’s report and opinion and added that three men from Ranpur, on whom the CID had kept an eye, had just been arrested for disturbing the peace by attempting to harangue the inhabitants of a nearby village. Mr MacIntosh added that he used the word ‘attempting’ advisedly because the villagers had simply laughed at the men and might have stoned them if a truck-load of constables had not intervened and taken them off to a place of safety: gaol.

  The atmosphere in the club which had been rather tense at the start as a result of the reports in the Ranpur Gazette now reverted to near-normal. The groundswell of indignation, of determination to stand no nonsense, of fear, of sad annoyance that things should have come to this pass, was checked by the counter-pressure of communal good-humour; hilarity, almost.

  At this point an Indian officer from General Rankin’s staff, Major Chatab Singh, known affectionately as Chatty (which he was) got on his feet and explained in broad outline civil and military plans to keep control in Pankot and Nansera (which was ten miles down the road, on the way to Ranpur), should the unthinkable actually happen. There were to be collection points for residents who desired to seek refuge from riots and attacks on European property and installations; for example women living on their own, or with children, and women whose husbands were off-station or likely to be in the event of serious disturbances in the area. One such centre would be the club itself. Chatty said he appreciated that these would henceforth be known as funk-holes but hoped that would not put people off using them if the need arose.

  He spoke with humour and precision. His handsome wife, who headed the small Indian section of military wives, made precise notes. People laughed at his jokes, which were not too clever. Had they been so the suspicion might have arisen that Chatty harboured bitter thoughts inside that neatly turbanned head.

  After a short pause for question and answer Isobel Rankin got up and announced that after refreshments the heads of the various women’s committees were to meet in the card room. These women were co-opted to form the special Pankot women’s emergency committee. She said she hoped this would turn out to be both its inaugural and closing session. She referred to the notice in the Ranpur Gazette and to the rumours of such attacks which had been current in the last few days, grossly exaggerated in regard to the number of women said to have been hurt.

  She did not (she said) wish to play down the seriousness of what had apparently happened in Mayapore but warned against the effects of what she called excessive reaction. Before she left the platform she asked whether Mrs Smalley was present and finding that she was (she could not have been in doubt) invited her to act as secretary to the emergency committee. Mrs Smalley was already secretary to three permanent committees.

  ‘I’m sorry to throw another job at you but you’re the obvious choice,’ Mrs Rankin said.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ little Mrs Smalley said, sitting down and, small as she was, promptly disappearing. People smiled. Mrs Smalley would have been piqued if the general’s lady had given the job to someone else. She was a glutton for work.

  Most stations had their Smalleys; a number of stations had at some time or another had these Smalleys. Because they looked nondescript and unambitious they provoked no envy and hardly any suspicion. In Pankot, where they had been since the end of 1941, they arrived at parties harmoniously together and then put distance between them as if to distribute their humdrum selves in as many parts of the room as possible. Leaving, they did so arm-in-arm, giving an impression that by playing their separate parts in a communal endeavour something integral to their pr
ivate lives and mutual affection had been maintained.

  The Smalleys were slight bores but very useful people: Major Smalley with his expertise in routine A & Q matters at Area Headquarters and little Lucy Smalley with her knowledge of shorthand and patient way with paper: the perfect dogsbody for any committee. Socially they were thought dull but it was always just as well to have some obvious dullness around. The sight of Lucy and Tusker standing arm-in-arm in the porch when a cocktail party was over, looking into the night for the tonga that had once again failed to stay or return for them, brought out the Samaritan instinct in gayer and better-organized guests because this constant breaking-down of arrangements they made for their personal convenience seemed to emphasize the willing efficiency they showed in affairs that affected the community as a whole. The Smalleys always managed to get a lift home.

  They lived in Smith’s Hotel. They had a suite: a small dark living-room and a smaller darker bedroom. Tusker declared himself perfectly happy with this accommodation (he received a special pay allowance for living out) and while Lucy was often heard to say she wished they could find a little bungalow of their own where they could more easily entertain their friends to dinner, Pankot was happy with the arrangement too. Cocktail parties were one thing, dinners another. The experience of being sat next to either Smalley at an official function – he in the dress uniform he insisted on wearing in spite of the wartime dispensation from such formality and which was tight round the shoulders, and she in her crimson taffeta gown (familiar enough after a while for her to be seen as a struggling little point of patient modest reference in a restless and sometimes greedy world) had helped Pankot to form the sensible opinion that the Smalleys were ideally placed where they were. In fact it became almost disagreeable to imagine them outside the context of Smith’s; they went well with the napery and the potted palms; and, residing in an hotel bedroom, they were interestingly endowed with the attributes of perpetual honeymooners even after ten years of childless marriage. In this light their arm-in-armness was not only agreeable to see but satisfactorily explained.