The Setting Sun

by Bart Moore-Gilbert

  Modak’s not simply morally disgusted. He argues with Bill that such measures will be politically counterproductive, alienating the villagers and making elimination of the insurgency more difficult. Sentinel then asserts that Bill reported Modak’s objections to DSP Hobson, who subsequently turned against his Indian subordinate, making it impossible for him to work effectively.

  There are some crumbs of consolation, however. Like Kamte’s memoir, Modak rejects talk of ‘atrocities’ in the nationalist press. He claims ‘only’ twenty-five people were killed by the police during the entire three-and-a-half years of disturbances in Satara, most of them in the course of firing on rioters who’d been warned to disperse. None of these deaths are ascribed to Bill, thank God. Nor does he repeat Shinde’s allegations of ill-treatment of women and old people. I’m also relieved there’s no hint of racism in Bill’s troubled relations with his colleague. Indeed, given Modak’s accusations, it’s heartening, if bizarre, to read that: ‘To me, at any rate, all during his entire stay in Satara, [Bill] was polite and pleasant.’ But there’s no getting away from it. Independent eyewitness testimony – from a colleague, moreover – clearly confirms Bill’s brutality against civilians.

  Yet if he seems unambiguously condemned by this new evidence for the prosecution, I’m more conscious than ever that he has no one to speak up for him now. While I can’t possibly condone what he’s accused of doing, I’m soon aware of problems with Modak’s account. These begin with his reaction to news of Bill’s secondment. Talking to Kiron that night, the aggrieved ASP complains: ‘I have come to one definite conclusion: the British are not fit to rule India or any other place.’ Why does he react so badly? Professional pique? The appointment of an outsider like Bill might have reflected badly on those, including Modak, already dealing with the Parallel Government.

  More importantly, there appear to be serious contradictions over the issue that most concerns me. Indeed, Bill and Modak fall out over the question of police brutality in quite unexpected ways. One occasion involves a sub-inspector called Walawalkar, who’d been recommended by his deputy superintendent for the Indian Police Medal after arresting a notorious bandit. Bill somehow discovered that the dacoit’s wounds were not inflicted while resisting arrest – as the citation claimed – but when the man was in custody. Modak was instructed to investigate further, leading to Walawalkar’s dismissal and the deputy superintendent’s transfer from Satara.

  Modak comments darkly that his unwilling role in all this caused a steep decline in his popularity within the force. Given his condemnation of Bill’s illicit violence, why was he so reluctant to help get rid of a bad apple?

  The second incident’s even more telling. Here comes Bill one day to Modak’s camp in a place called Tasgaon. With him is a woman claiming to have been tortured following a police raid on a Parallel Government safe house in Patan, fifty miles away. Describing the case several decades on, Modak’s still scandalised, ostensibly because – in the absence on leave of the authorised medical officer in Patan – Bill himself examined her (albeit in the presence of her uncle). Her private parts had indeed been badly burned with cigarettes. Bill now asks his colleague to take the woman to the medical officer in Tasgaon, for independent corroboration of her injuries. But Modak refuses, because the brutality occurred in Patan, outside his area of responsibility (although we’ve been told earlier, quite specifically, that technically he had jurisdiction over the whole of Satara District). It seems that he doesn’t want to get involved only because Bill’s broken the rules of the Police Manual by performing the physical examination himself. My father explains that the local women he approached refused to act as witnesses, for fear of reprisals. But Modak continues to demur. So Bill leaves in a huff, taking the woman with him and complaining of Modak’s unco-operativeness.

  Not simply because I’m his son – or is it? – I think Bill comes out of this part of the narrative, at least, rather better than his accuser. Modak’s refusal to help sits uneasily with his repeated cricism of DSP Hobson’s wooden adherence to the Police Manual. More to the point, isn’t Modak far too ready to wash his hands of a female torture victim? Very odd, too, that he expresses no disquiet at the methods used to get information from the woman. Indeed, he comments matter-of-factly of his replacement head constable that Pisal ‘had a way with witnesses’. And if Modak already knew Walawalkar’s ‘methods were questionable’, why hadn’t he intervened before?

  I also can’t help feeling Modak protests too much that he took no part in the kind of behaviour he accuses Bill of. For example, there’s an almost hysterical rebuttal of an accusation in one journal, edited by Gandhi’s grandson no less, that Modak tortured a nationalist leader after arresting him. Above all, if he so strongly objected to the methods Bill allegedly employed, it’s difficult to comprehend why he didn’t report it sooner. Especially since he implies that his belated complaints to the inspector-general hastened the transfer of both Bill and Hobson from the district. Why wait so long? After all, Walawalkar was summarily dismissed and his immediate superior seconded, although their misdemeanours were mild by comparison.

  Perhaps most important, from my point of view, even, according to what’s obviously hostile testimony, Bill was evidently prepared on at least some occasions to come down heavily on police violence, even when it involved a fellow IP officer like Walawalkar’s Deputy Superintendent. Moreover, the woman torture victim whom he went so far out of his way to help was a suspected supporter of the dissidents. Surely that counts for something?

  Equally, Modak’s assertion about Bill’s ineffectiveness in Satara is contradicted by the author’s admission that he learned a great deal about strategic thinking, and the importance of determination and attention to detail from his incubus. Sentinel acknowledges that Bill was decorated for his good work: ‘Very soon after their transfer, the announcement came that both Hobson and Moore Gilbert [sic] were awarded the Indian Police Medal for their meritorious services. I got nothing.’ While I’m grateful to Modak for filling in this lacuna in Bill’s official service record, the whiff of sour grapes is unmistakable.

  And what was that Rajeev told me? Why is there no mention of the shooting of Nana Patil in Modak’s memoir? What else has been omitted? The inaccuracies, too, are troubling. Modak claims Bill was simply an assistant superintendent of police like himself, implying that he tried to pull rank during incidents like that involving the female torture victim. Yet the History of Services is clear Bill was a special Additional District Superintendent, as Modak himself acknowledged this afternoon, and thus unquestionably his senior. Even so, Bill didn’t order his subordinate to take the woman to the medical officer; he simply tried to persuade him to do so. Hardly evidence of overbearing behaviour.

  Enough of the problems with Sentinel. I’m going to have to investigate further. Although I’ve satisfied myself Modak isn’t a wholly reliable witness, it’s not enough to allay my sorrow and anger with Bill. For the first time, I wonder whether he didn’t have a stupid side. Even if he believed passionately in the Raj – and I can remember nothing from my childhood suggesting any great ideological investment in ‘the white man’s burden’ – he must have realised that the behaviour Modak describes would fatally undermine its last vestiges of moral authority, especially since the war was framed as a struggle against fascism. I feel ashamed and somehow incriminated once again, as if my own political ethics have been tainted by association with Bill’s role in such events. I can’t imagine what his victims felt, dragged from their charpoys in the middle of the night, stripped and thrashed in public to extract information they might not have had. What did Modak go through, watching a foreigner abuse fellow-Indians, even if he was unambiguously part of the Raj himself? Is there anything in my childhood which suggests Bill might have acted so unjustly?

  The Australian missionaries who run the bush hospital an hour from Manyoni are coming to tea. The boy dreads these visits. Mrs Rowlandson’s forever talking about God in her brassy, chee
rful voice. Her husband’s jolliness is more laboured, as if he’s perpetually missing sensible, civilised New South Wales and can’t wait to get back. The boy’s father grimaces when the visit’s announced. Normally he looks forward to company. But he’s been in a bad mood these last few days, and his children have been treading carefully. So the boy’s relieved to learn at the last minute that Mr Norton, the district officer from Singida, will also be there, bringing his smart car. Ever since helping the boy’s father hunt down the man-eater in his district, the two men have been firm friends.

  In the early afternoon they all have to brush their hair properly, scraped into partings on the left, and put on clean clothes. ‘No bare feet and scrub your nails,’ their mother reminds them briskly. The boy’s aggrieved. They’ve had to come back early from exploring the tumbling basalt rocks on the hill overlooking the village. A bit longer and they might have made contact with the troupe of baboons which has recently arrived.

  Now they sit, trying not to fidget, at the table on the veranda where the good china’s being given an outing and napkins lie furled in Sunday rings. The cook’s made scones, but the mouth-watering floury smell can’t entirely compensate for Mrs Rowlandson’s loud, jokey complaints about the the wet-season roads. The boy glances at his father. His jaw’s set and he lets his wife do the talking, perking up only when the priest mentions the forthcoming Ashes series, alerting his host to reports from home about a young leg-spinner called Richie Benaud. Mr Norton responds by chaffing him about Frank Tyson and Alec Bedser. Just as his father’s spirits seem to be lifting, Mrs Rowlandson asks the boy whether he’s looking forward to going away to school. He wilts under her beaming goodwill, trying to keep one ear tuned to the cricket conversation. If only she’d pipe down a notch or two.

  Kimwaga, dressed in a starched khaki jacket for the occasion, brings in the tray. He’s not yet accustomed to wait at table and frowns with concentration as he sets down teapot, butter, milk and sugar, before laying out fish-knives for the scones.

  ‘Mpumbafu,’ the boy mutters, swatting a fly from the butter dish, ‘you fool, you’ve forgotten the doilies.’

  He thinks he’s only murmured as Kimwaga goes past, but the disapproving hush quickly disabuses him. Mr Norton coughs and his father glares. Kimwaga’s expression remains impassive as he turns quickly back towards the kitchen. He hasn’t seen Dempsey come in behind and trips over the dog. The remaining cutlery clatters from his tray onto the Rev. Rowlandson.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done,’ his mother scolds the boy.

  He gazes fiercely at the needle-work in the tablecloth, hot-faced, afraid to look at his father, thoroughly grateful now when Mrs Rowlandson brightly resumes her praise of boarding school.

  Later, they wave off the visitors. First to go are the Rowlandsons, in their clumsy van. Mr Norton, pipe wedged beneath his RAF moustache, revs his mud-spattered DKW, with its Olympic rings on boot and grille. The rear wheels spin as he taxis down the drive before shooting off on his next mission.

  ‘Can we get a car like that?’ the boy asks his father with his most ingratiating smile. Recently DKWs have begun winning the East African Safari, a source of local pride as the toughest and longest road rally in the world.

  His father takes him roughly by the arm. ‘I want a word with you. In my bedroom.’

  Terror seizes the boy. This has happened three times before. Once when he stole some money from the trouser-pocket of a family friend. Once when he twisted Darwin’s tail and the monkey’s screeches brought his parents running. The last time when he snaffled and ate an entire packet of ginger biscuits, later denying all knowledge of its whereabouts. He’s dragged along beside his father now, feet barely touching the ground. As soon as they’re indoors, the boy begins to cry. But there’s no deflecting the fury.

  ‘How dare you talk to Kimwaga like that in front of guests? At any time? Didn’t you see how embarrassed he was? After everything he does for you. Why do you behave like a guttersnipe?’

  ‘I was only joking, daddy. I’ll say sorry.’

  But he knows that when his father’s made up his mind about something, he won’t be deflected. Now he resembles the ogre in Jack and the Beanstalk, his expression murderous. This time he reaches not for the purple slipper but for his long-handled hairbrush. Knowing this giant’s wife won’t rescue him, the boy prostrates himself on the bed, as if appeasing an angry god. But he threshes wildly when his father takes hold of him. It’s no use. In seconds, he’s exhausted. His father flips him over easily, holds him down and starts to beat him. The pain’s excruciating, as if boiling water is being splashed on his backside. The six strokes over, the boy can’t move. He feels as if he’s melted into the bed.

  Later, when he’s calmed himself and visited Kimwaga in his quarters, and his mother’s patted him on the head, the boy gingerly enters the living room, where his father’s listening to the radio. Will the grey eyes be soft like dawn, or the battleship colour of thunderclouds?

  ‘I went and said sorry, daddy,’ he mutters.

  ‘Good boy. Come here,’ his father smiles, almost shyly. ‘Want some mango?’

  Despite the smarting pain, the boy settles gratefully on his father’s knee.

  In turmoil, I get up to close the window. The temperature’s dropped dramatically. In these early hours, the street is jaundiced-looking under yellow sodium lights haloed with frantic insects. The front wheels of empty auto-rickshaws are turned inwards, like the heads of birds at rest. A ragged old man’s sleeping on the pavement opposite. He seems so peaceful, stretched out like that, despite the chill, eyes closed, head on one crooked arm, the other hand tucked inside his tattered shirt. I envy him momentarily. There’s still Modak’s novel to read. I turn back to my rumpled bedclothes in dread.

  CHAPTER 6

  Bill or ‘Bill’

  Opening No Place for Crime, I’m mindful of the blurb on the dust jacket of Sentinel:

  He [Modak] believes that if the writing of prose (in any genre) is to be meaningful, it must be true to life and reflect life. He believes that a writer who has had to face drama in his daily life, does not need to scour the recesses of his imagination to get lively and living detail; it is there waiting for his pen.

  It’s soon clear the novel reflects this conviction. Many of the characters have identical names and functions to people in the memoir, including Bashir, Modak’s driver, and his trusted head constable, Pisal. Others are thinly disguised. The underground leader Vasantdada (Nana) Patil morphs into Anna Bala Jadhav, District Magistrate Chambers returns as DM Burke, and Inspector-General O’Gorman as IG O’Flynn. Some characters in No Place are composites, however, notably the wooden and hen-pecked DSP Tomkins, an amalgam of Hobson and his ineffectual predecessor, CMS Yates.

  By contrast, the protagonist Arvind Kumar seems at first to bear little relation to the Modak of the memoir. He’s much more likeable, partly because he has a sense of humour – even, occasionally, at his own expense. You have to admire his stubborn pursuit of the murderers of the ‘untouchable’ woman Vasanti, who has no one to stand up for her. Like her, Kumar has fallen foul of outmoded social attitudes: his girlfriend’s family consider him beneath her. The protagonist shows both determination and ardour to overcome the obstacles they erect. But he’s altogether more vulnerable than the strident Modak of Sentinel, on one occasion confessing to his fiancée that he sometimes suffers from an ‘inferiority complex’.

  Yet Kumar is obviously autobiographical. Like Modak, he spends part of his childhood in Satara, where his father was an important official. He, too, is a Christian who marries a Bengali woman. Kumar is likewise highly anglicised and employs a similar stilted diction to his creator, peppering his speech with words like ‘thrice’ and ‘elevenses’. After probation at the PTS in Nasik, furthermore, Kumar’s posted to Satara, where the Parallel Government is beginning to cause problems. Not only does Modak’s memoir rehearse many of the major incidents from No Place, but whole conversations are repeated verbatim
. These include not only fractious debates over strategy with his superiors, but even intimate conversations between Kumar and his wife.

  The representation of his principal colleague therefore interests me compulsively. It’s soon obvious that Bill Pryce-Jones is a close approximation to the Bill Moore-Gilbert of Modak’s memoir. The novelistic ‘Bill’ differs in minor ways; he drinks and smokes and has an irritating verbal tic, exclaiming ‘Kiss me gently!’ whenever something surprises him. Can’t imagine my father being so precious. He’s also still at the PTS when Kumar arrives. Yet the similarities far outweigh these trivial divergences. The physical description of ‘Bill’ in No Place anticipates almost word for word the one given twenty years later in Sentinel. Many of the incidents involving him are already familiar, and some of his exchanges with Kumar have been cut-and-pasted. Here once more are the stories Modak told me, about the newspapers cut up for lavatory paper and his colleague’s problems with Marathi.

  What’s strikingly different, however, is the tone in which No Place portrays ‘Bill’: far more positive, affectionate at times. We’re introduced to him as the author of an elaborate practical joke which he co-ordinates in his capacity as mess president. En route at night from Nasik station to the PTS, the new recruit’s car gets flagged down by ‘bandits’. Kumar’s Indian escort leaps out of the car and opens fire, forcing the ‘assailants’ to scatter. At dinner, a still-shaken Kumar is solemnly informed that he must swear on the Police Manual to sleep with his sword. Only as he’s about to head off to bed, weapon to hand, is Kumar told the whole evening’s been an initiation rite. Thereafter ‘Bill’ is thoroughly obliging and helpful to his new colleague, explaining everything from the peculiarities of particular instructors to where to shop in Nasik. Contrary to what one might expect of such an institution (‘Bill’ even warns Kumar against ‘sucking up’ to the teachers), the mess president insists from the outset on the use of first names.