I’m completely thrown by this unexpected setback. Everything depends on Bhosle now. I proceed straight to the university. It’s a ten-minute taxi-ride to a spacious landscaped campus with an impressive main building in modern Saracenic style. There’s another enormous statue of Shivaji galloping his horse at the end of the semicircle of front lawn. I’m taken to the second floor and shown into the History department.
‘Professor Bhosle’s still in Kerala,’ the administrator tells me. ‘His wife’s unwell and she is having treatment there.’
That must be why he hasn’t responded to my emails. And why he abruptly changed his plans to be in Mumbai. Still, it’s hard to contain my disappointment at this second blow. ‘Do you have a number for him?’
‘You must ask the head.’
She leads me along the corridor and knocks at a door. Inside, seated at a long table surrounded by a dozen chairs, is a pleasant-looking individual in his sixties with gold-rimmed spectacles, an aquiline nose and a sheaf of pens in the pocket of his short-sleeved shirt. Opposite sits a younger man, handsome and very fair-skinned, in a fawn safari jacket. Both get up.
‘Professor Lohor, head of department,’ the older one says. ‘My colleague, Dr Avanish Patil.’
We shake hands and they pore over my visiting card.
‘I was hoping to see Professor Bhosle. I’ve come specially from London,’ I plead.
Lohor picks up his phone. His colleague and I appraise each other as the silence lengthens.
‘These Indian mobiles,’ Lohor eventually shrugs. ‘I will give you his number and you can try yourself.’
‘When are you expecting him back?’
‘That depends on his wife’s progress.’
I’m really downcast now, unable to see past this dead end. So I’m glad to be distracted by Dr Patil’s offer to show me round. Before we can get up, however, there’s a knock and half a dozen white-robed figures glide into the room. They’re led by a plump woman, grey hair in a bun, carrying a garish portrait of a youthful guru. My hosts now stand to perform a namaste and I follow suit. Once our visitors have reciprocated, they take their seats. I can’t follow the conversation, but there’s much gesturing from the woman and affirming grunts from her followers as they pass round pamphlets with the guru’s photo on the front. At one point I hear the words ‘University of Texas’. Then they rise as one and after further salutations, glide back out of the room like Banquo’s ghosts. Have I dreamed it all? Lohor and Patil look unfazed, as if such interruptions are an everyday occurrence.
‘What was that about Texas?’ I ask as I follow Avanish outside.
‘They said Texas University has provided an affidavit that their saint is “of most stable and solid mind”. They want an attestation from us for the courses they run in the “science of positive thinking”.’
The deadpan expression gives way to a gurgling laugh. I warm to him.
‘So you’re researching the nationalist movements of Maharashtra?’ he asks, once he’s shown me into his own office, a dark cell with a handful of dog-eared books on one shelf and a desk piled high with student papers.
‘Yes. I’d been relying on Professor Bhosle for information about archives in Mumbai relating to the Parallel Government.’
Avanish’s brow puckers. ‘Indeed, he’s writing a book on it at present. It’s thirty years now since he began this work in his PhD.’
My ears prick up. ‘Would that be in the library?’ It might give me some leads.
‘Of course. Should I take you?’
He leads me out of the department and down some flaking concrete steps to the basement of an adjoining building. The holdings seem small for an institution this size. Avanish helps me complete formalities with the chief librarian, a smiling woman in a plum sari who rubs her stomach solicitously.
‘We’ll have lunch afterwards,’ Avanish suggests. ‘Have you tried our famous Kolhapur mutton curry?’
Bhosle’s thesis is soon delivered. Submitted in 1978, it’s entitled ‘A History of the Freedom Movement in Satara District from 1885–1947’. I skip through to the decade I’m interested in. There are several references to ‘police excesses’, including instances of firing on demonstrators. But look, they’re all in before Bill arrived. The most controversial incident involved Hobson’s predecessor, CMS Yates, producing several fatalities at a village called Vaduj. Indeed, there’s only one mention of Bill that I can see. But it’s disturbing enough: ‘When Mr Gilbert, the Additional DSP rightly understood the threat caused by the criminals to law and order, he undertook to wipe out the existence of the criminal gangs. He shot one Mahadu Ramoshi at Kameri and arrested many of the criminals.’ Criminal gangs, according to Bhosle, not the PG or their supporters. Still, it’s a shock. What’s a Ramoshi? Was the shooting fatal? There’s no source for the incident in the bibliography. Hearsay or interviews with eyewitnesses? Frustrating. At this point, it seems Bhosle had done little of the archival work in which he’s currently engaged. Most disappointingly, there’s no mention of the weekly confidential reports I want.
Although doubting my chances of meeting Lad and Nayakwadi now, I keep an eye out for references to them. While Y.B Chavan and Nana Patil were the ‘dictators of the movement’, the two I’m after were on the executive. As D.Y. indicated, Lad was the ‘field marshal’ of the tufan sena, the armed wing of the Parallel Government, and Nayakwadi ‘became increasingly convinced … that military strength was necessary to win freedom’. Evidence of the movement’s violence against civilians is hard to evaluate. At times, ironically, the PG is allied with the police in a common war against ‘antisocial elements’. Thus three Mangs of ‘low character’ have legs amputated by PG activists for crimes of theft and arson. I remember Farrokh’s acid comments about the karmic justice of Nana Patil’s unsuccessful leg operation in later life.
On the other hand, Bhosle denies claims about the shoeing of collaborators: ‘Laxmanshastri Joshi commented that in Satara-Sangli regions the underground workers tortured the pro-government persons by shoeing them like bulls and horses. But the statement has no foundation whatsoever.’ Indeed, the thesis concludes that ‘nowhere under the sun traitors were more leniently treated [sic]’. There’s one final detail, which I wish I’d known when I went to Chafal. The principal agitator there was called Ramanand Bharati, who raised the Indian flag from Ajinkya Tara fort in Satara on Independence Day in 1947. Was this the man Bill was after, on that December night sixty-four years ago?
I’ve finished by the time Avanish arrives to take me for lunch. We sit at one of the open-air stalls set up along the drive to the main building.
‘This place makes it same as my grandmother.’
The mutton curry certainly smells delicious, but the first mouthful feels like an iron’s been passed over my tongue. I suspect it might even have floored Bill. Avanish watches anxiously and I’m afraid I’ve spoiled the occasion. But to my surprise, the scalding shock soon wears off and I begin to appreciate the exquisitely subtle flavours. I’ve never heard of some of the spices.
‘You always drink lager with curry in London, no?’
‘Yes, Avanish, at least ten pints and always in places with flock wallpaper.’
It takes him a moment to realise I’m joking. We compare our experience as academics. Avanish makes me feel decadent, with his sixteen hours of lectures every week and classes of 50 to 100, each student writing two essays per term.
‘How do you get through all the the marking?’ I ask sympathetically.
He shrugs ruefully. ‘We only have two months off a year for holiday and research. No sabbaticals.’
I commiserate.
‘Ah, it’s difficult to be a historian here. Especially regional history. If you write in your own language you have no national audience. But there’s no national audience for local history. It’s very hard to get published. You need subventions from a patron. And that brings its own pressures.’
I remember Nirad Chaudhuri’s laments about the dif
ficulties of being a professional historian in India. How ever did a local boy like Shinde manage to publish The Parallel Government?
‘Also, the state of the archives here in Kolhapur is disgraceful. Yet all the politicians live in mansions and send their children to study in America. Soon everything will be too far gone to save.’
I compare my experiences in Mumbai. ‘By the way, what’s a Ramoshi? And Mangs? Professor Bhosle mentions them in his PhD.’
‘They’re what the British called Criminal Tribes. Traditionally nomadic. These days they’re called the Scheduled Tribes. In Maharashtra, Ramoshis and Mangs are the biggest groups.’
‘Are they settled now?’
Avanish nods. ‘We have some Ramoshi students. But they’re still regarded as backward. Especially by traditionally minded Hindus.’
I then ask if he knows how I could contact Lad and Nayakwadi. He looks doubtful.
‘You really need Professor Bhosle for that, now A.B.’s passed away.’
‘I’m going to see his son after lunch.’
‘Well, he’s a possibility. But if you don’t get the information you need, ring me and I’ll try to make inquiries.’
I’m sorry to say goodbye, and promise to call if there’s time to meet again before leaving Kolhapur. Avanish sees me to an auto-rickshaw and directs the driver where to drop me.
First impressions of downtown Kolhapur is that it’s more ‘Indian’ than anywhere I’ve been so far – not surprisingly, perhaps, since it wasn’t annexed by the British. I see few of the architectural signatures of the Raj and, once inside the surviving city walls, it’s a maze of narrow streets and alleys. Kipling described the princely states as ‘the dark places of the earth’, but he was hardly a disinterested observer. I wonder if the city’s typical of such places, and how it compared with British India. Kolhapur seems to be at least as wealthy as Satara, with none of the obvious poverty of downtown Pune. The Mahalaxmi temple in the centre of town, begun in the seventh century and vastly extended since, typifies the monumental register of public buildings. Outside it, knots of sadhus wander amongst stalls selling food, trinkets and temple offerings of marigolds and coconuts. Some are robed in saffron, some in yellow, others boast only a tatty loincloth, cheeks smeared with ash, beards matted, leaning on sticks, proffering begging bowls. A few holy men squat on the pavements, casting horoscopes or selling small bundles of leaves and twigs, traditional medicines, I assume. The noise and odours are overpowering. It’s exhilarating, but I’m more interested for the moment in the weather-beaten tenement abutting the temple.
The college is busy with students running between classrooms on three sides of a rectangle compound enclosed by two-storey blocks. The gatekeeper shows me into a small office, where a portrait of a man I presume is A.B. Shinde gazes down. It’s a kindly, strong-featured face with wide-set eyes, long hair curling down over faded garlands like the one I wore at Chafal. While the receptionist attempts to call Shinde’s son, two teachers enter, each in jacket and tie. One’s a heavily built man in his fifties, with hollow, pockmarked cheeks; the other’s much younger, with a head so large it looks unsteady on his slender shoulders. Learning I’m from London University, they call for tea.
‘Dr Vilas Powar,’ the older man introduces himself, ‘and my colleague Mr Brihaspati Shinde.’
I assume at first that this is the son. But I’m soon informed that Shinde and Patil are the Maratha equivalent of Smith and Brown. I explain my interest in the Parallel Government, to their evident intrigue. Vilas, it transpires, did his doctorate under Bhosle and expresses regret about his mentor’s wife. He knows Avanish, too, since both work on the Indian ‘Mutiny’ in Kolhapur.
‘It spread this far south?’ Remembering how it was so effectively nipped in the bud in Satara, I’m surprised.
‘Indeed. There were close connections between the royal family here and those who led the insurgency in the north, Nana Sahib particularly. He’d been exiled from Pune when the Peishwas were overthrown by the British.’
The man responsible for the Cawnpore massacre and the siege of Lucknow, if I remember right: events central to the mythography of British imperialism as the innocent victim of the forces of savagery. I doubt the word ‘terrorism’ existed then. And Nana Sahib was also, no doubt, an inspiration to the Parallel Government.
Before my history lesson can continue, a plump-faced man with anxious eyes and an exceptionally luxuriant walrus moustache enters the room. Even though he doesn’t look much older than Brihaspati, my companions rise. In one hand he has a copy of The Parallel Government.
‘I am Mr Charunder Datta Shinde. Chairman of the college since my late father’s decease.’
‘I was so sorry to hear the news. I’d been looking forward greatly to meeting him.’
He opens the book. ‘I would like to sign it on my father’s behalf.’ He studies my visiting card as he inscribes: ‘To Professor Bart: with warm regards of love.’ My family name doesn’t seem to ring any bells. Perhaps he doesn’t share his father’s research interests. But that means he won’t be able to help me locate Bill’s weekly confidential reports, a fact he soon confirms.
Deflated again, I try to show willing while Charunder explains the history of his father’s institution. It’s on the site of the first school established by Shivaji. Soon a bell rings and Powar gathers up his exercise books.
‘Time for classes,’ the chairman announces. ‘Anything else I can help you with?’
‘I wondered if you could put me in touch with G.D. Lad and Naganath Nayakwadi,’ I ask nervously.
He looks at me closely before smiling reassuringly. ‘Let me try. They aren’t far, but you’ll need a car.’
Wonderful. ‘I can rent one at my hotel.’
He goes into an adjoining room and returns with a notebook. ‘When would you like to go?’
‘Tomorrow, ideally. I’m returning to England in a week or so.’
Shinde toys with my card as he makes his calls. He nods and smiles as he speaks, though his tone’s very respectful.
‘That’s settled. They’ll both be at home tomorrow for the holiday. Mr Lad can meet you at ten. Mr Nayakwadi at two-thirty. That gives you time to talk to the field marshal and make the journey from Kundal to Walwa.’
My luck’s turned again. I look inquiringly at Powar and his young colleague. ‘I don’t suppose either of you would be available to come and interpret?’
The younger teacher defers to Powar, who shakes his head after some consideration. ‘I’m sorry. It’s New Year’s Day and I have family engagements.’
‘I could,’ his colleague offers.
The chairman nods approvingly.
‘But if you’re free later this afternoon,’ Powar volunteers, ‘I could show you some of the Mutiny sites here.’
‘I’d be delighted.’ It’s a chance to see something of Kolhapur with a local guide. Besides, I have a long-standing interest in the uprising, and perhaps it’ll also provide an opportunity to compare how Britain dealt with insurgency then and in the 1940s.
‘Shall we say four?’ Powar asks.
‘I have an hour before my next class,’ Brihaspati murmurs, ‘I could walk with you.’
He tells me his name contains the Sanskrit root for Jupiter, and that he teaches English literature while researching Dalit fiction for an MA – though he’s having trouble finding critical material on his chosen authors. I promise to look when I get back to London and email him anything I come across. Belying his youthful appearance, he’s in fact been at the college for several years and expresses great affection for the place.
‘I’m very thankful you asked me to come tomorrow. It’s always been a dream to meet Mr Lad and Mr Nayakwadi.’
Our tour confirms the difference of Kolhapur to anywhere I’ve been until now. Put crudely, it’s far more ‘exotic’. Judging by people’s stares, Westerners are something of a rarity. From an adjoining street comes drumming so loud and deep it makes the ground vibrate.
&
nbsp; ‘One of our most famous wrestlers is getting married this evening. If you like, I can show you one training school.’
Briha leads me through a large square with impressive basalt buildings on three sides. ‘The old palace,’ he explains. The ground floor’s now taken up with expensive-looking shops which overlook row upon row of temporary seating, facing a huge dais beneath banks of spotlights.
‘For the wedding. Here in Kolhapur, wrestlers are Bollywood,’ he says proudly.
So it’s a surprise when the alley he steers me down issues into a courtyard with a stinking open sewer along one edge. A colonnade supports a rickety roof, under which a group of squat young men in loincloths are doing callisthenics. A couple of wrestlers, skin coated in chalk, practise moves in a sunken pit of reddish cinders.
‘These talims, wrestling schools, were bastions of the freedom movement. All kinds of secret training went on in them.’
The perfect cover. I wonder whether the British Resident had any idea.
By the time we get back to the square, a snake charmer has set his pitch. It’s no doubt corny, but I can’t help stopping. He’s sly-eyed, with an unkempt grey beard and grimy turban, baskets set on a threadbare mat in front of him. Responding to my interest, he raises the lid of one basket and begins to sing in a wheedling voice. A sandy-coloured snake sways up to a height of about three feet and spreads its hood. It resembles the snake Bill killed when I was a child. As soon as the man’s voice fades, the snake sinks; then he resumes, making it yo-yo up and down. Soon all three baskets are uncovered and serpents rise and fall, intertwining their necks so gracefully they never seem to touch. My guide drops a five-rupee note, which seems to infuriate the snake charmer. I get out my wallet, but Briha waves it away.
‘He’s trying to cheat you because you’re a visitor.’
I hear drummers and haut-bois players approaching from behind. Turning, I glimpse a woman with thick matted hair, a filthy sari and bare feet, whirling round and round in the middle of the musicians. I suddenly realise that the eyes in her long thin face are turned upwards, showing only the whites. Goose pimples spread over me like a rash. She spins ever faster, before suddenly collapsing on the road, jerking over and over. I look to Briha for reassurance. But he seems quite unconcerned, as do the musicians. The woman’s allowed to rest a while. But soon the band increases the tempo, and a drummer hauls her upright. She doesn’t seem to know where she is. Then the procession continues as before. I wonder if Bill was at first equally unnerved by such sights.
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