by Paul Scott
Kasim folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He took his spectacles off, returned them to the case and the case to his pocket.
‘Your mother says she hopes I will agree but that I’m not to be swayed by emotional or private considerations. You had better tell me what I’m being asked to agree to. All I gather otherwise is that she is on her way to Nanoora to stay with my kinsman, the Nawab, and that this could be the scene of our immediate reunion. I too am invited to Mirat?
‘Yes.’
‘As a guest of the Nawab?’
‘Yes. They call it – under his protection.’
‘I see.’ Kasim sat back. ‘While in the sovereign state of Mirat I would be free to enjoy my rights as a private citizen, providing I did nothing to embarrass my host, which means nothing that incurs the displeasure of the Indian Government. Should I set foot outside the State on the other hand, and go back to Ranpur, then I should probably be arrested.’
‘They haven’t said so, Father.’
‘They?’
‘The Governor in Ranpur.’
‘You’ve seen the Governor?’
‘Not personally. Neither has Mother. But he sent representatives. One of them is here tonight.’
‘On whose instigation did he send representatives? On the Viceroy’s? From newspapers and letters received I gather Wavell is anxious to break the political deadlock of the past two years. Who else is being released into this kind of protection? Nehru?’
‘The Viceroy knows, but the initiative’s been with Malcolm. It’s not a general arrangement.’
‘I am the only Congressman of any importance being paroled?’
‘Yes, Father. So far as I know, you’re the only one.’
‘Why?’
The question was snapped. In the past such a tone and such a whiplash of a word had entangled perjured witnesses and intimidated honest ones. There was no way round the truth.
‘Because of my brother.’
A pause.
There is news of Sayed, then?’ Kasim asked calmly. ‘Yes.’
‘Of his death? He has died in prison camp?’
‘No, Father. He’s been captured.’
‘I know he was captured. He was captured by the Japanese in Kuala Lumpur in 1942. It is a long time since we had any word.’
But the old man seemed suddenly older. ‘We’ve had word now,’ Ahmed said. His father might never forgive him for saying what he had to say. Sayed had always been the favourite son, the one in whom hope had been placed, whose life had not been a source of disappointment. It should have been Sayed who sat here. The old man would then not have looked so old. ‘Sayed was captured a month ago in Manipur,’ he went on. ‘We don’t know where he is except in a prison camp in India with some of the others. Directly the army knew who he was they told the civil authorities in Calcutta and those authorities told the authorities in Ranpur. Malcolm invited Mother to Government House, but didn’t say why. She refused to go so he sent someone to the house. Then she wrote to me in Mirat. She said she’d suspected for some time that Sayed had joined the INA. About six months ago she had an anonymous letter delivered by hand, telling her Sayed sent his love and would see her soon. I think I know who might have sent it, but that doesn’t matter. And previously one of Mother’s friends told her they thought they’d recognized Sayed’s voice on the Japanese radio.’
‘The INA—?’
‘The Indian National Army.’
‘I know what the initials stand for. I was about to say – the INA? Sayed? The old man smiled. ‘Captured in Manipur? Yes. Perhaps a man with this name, Lieutenant Sayed Kasim.’
‘He was Major Kasim.’
‘There you are then. Prisoners of war don’t get promoted.’
‘Major is his rank in the INA.’
‘Rank? His rank in the INA? Is there such a thing? No. Sayed is not a major in the INA. He is Lieutenant Kasim and his regiment is the Ranpur Rifles. Why have you believed this ridiculous story? Someone has made a mistake, a ridiculous mistake, as a result of all this feeble propaganda which the British have rightly tried to scotch. Now they are believing it themselves, it seems. The Indian National Army? What can that be? A handful of madmen led by that other madman, Subhas Chandra Bose, who was never any good to Congress. He always had delusions of grandeur. First he escapes from India, then turns up in Berlin and then in Tokyo. He sets up an absurd paper government-in-exile and perhaps a few Indians living in Malaya put on a uniform and help him kowtow to the Japanese, fooling themselves that if the Japanese ever defeat India they will allow Subhas to set up his paper-government in Delhi. But it is all wishful thinking and propaganda, there is no Indian National Army deserving of the name. If a Major Kasim was captured in Manipur he would be some unlucky fellow who foolishly accompanied the Japanese as an observer for Bose. He would not be Sayed. And Sayed would not be fighting and killing Indians. He would not be helping the Japanese to invade his own country.’
There were thousands of Indians taken prisoner in Burma and Malaya. A lot of them felt they’d been deserted by their British officers. There were tales of a white road out and a black road out.’
‘You are speaking up for them? You think your brother is one of them? You are calling your brother a traitor?’ Kasim got up, Ahmed felt it obligatory to rise too. But they came no closer to one another. ‘You forget that Sayed is an Indian officer. He holds, unless he is dead, the King-Emperor’s commission. It was his choice. He was a good officer, the first Indian officer in his chosen regiment. It concerned me that he should choose to take a commission, but then I am a politician. He wished to be a soldier. I said to him once, Do you regret it? He only laughed. In the mess he said they were all equal, that there was only one standard and if you measured up to it you were accepted. To me it all seemed simple and naïve, but Sayed was naïve. He was naïve, he could never have made a success of politics, but he did not have it in him to be a traitor. In 1939 he said to me, “You are a minister of state, I am an officer in the Indian army. We are both necessary people.’ He had no complaints, he encountered no difficulties. It was I who encountered difficulties because a son of mine had taken the King’s commission. But I did not see them as difficulties. The world is full of fools who don’t see an inch in front of their noses. What kind of independence will it be when we get it if we can’t defend it? And how shall we be able to defend it if there aren’t boys like Sayed willing to train and discipline themselves faithfully and steadfastly to inherit that side of our national responsibility? What are we living in, a jungle? When the British invited Indians to take the King’s commission they were proving what my father called their sincerity. You do not hand your armed forces over to the command of men who will turn it against you. What kind of an army will it be if its officers think of their commissions as meaningless bits of paper? It is a contract, a contract. All of Muslim law is based on the sanctity of contract, of one man’s word to another. You must be prepared to suffer and die for it. It is written. It is revealed. It is in our hearts. What are you telling me? That it is not in Sayed’s? That he is not a man to keep his contract? That he is an opportunist? A cowardly scoundrel? Without a thought for his own honour or for mine, or his mother’s, or for yours? Are you telling me this is the kind of India I have gone to prison for? If you are, you had better leave me here. I do not know that kind of India. I do not know that kind of man. He is not Sayed. He is not my son.’
‘We’ve had a letter, Father. He’s written to Mother.’
‘A forgery.’
‘He says you will help him.’
‘Does he?’
‘Eventually there’ll be court-martials.’
‘Will there?’
‘In his letter he says he refused to join until they told him you’d been arrested.’
‘Well?’
‘He asked us to give you his love. He’s sorry he failed.’
‘Failed?’
‘Failed to complete the march on Delhi.’
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sp; His father’s mouth was working. ‘The march on Delhi? What is that? Some city on the moon? Or do you march nowadays on your own capital? He thinks perhaps the Moghul empire still exists and has been ravaged by barbarians? And that I languish in some medieval dungeon, clanking my chains, crying out to my son to muster an army and ride to my rescue? God save me from such a deliverance. I would fear for my life. Such a son would strike me down. He would drag me from prison and have me trampled to death. I don’t accept his love. I don’t listen to his apology.’
The old man’s voice had strengthened and risen to the pitch that had swayed juries, brought order to a noisy Legislative Assembly and sent ministers scuttling at midnight through the corridors of the Secretariat. Ahmed closed the door. The action calmed him and hardened his resolution. He could not escape involvement. He had to speak out.
‘I’ve closed the door because it would be better if they don’t hear. There is an Indian National Army and it isn’t just a few madmen. It would suit the British very well if every Congressman said what you’ve just said. But do you think they will? A dozen Indian officers helping the Japanese would have no political significance. The British could shoot them for treachery and no one would need to raise a finger in protest. But hundreds of officers and thousands of men do have political significance. Whatever the members of your party feel individually, collectively you’re going to have to stand by them, because the ordinary Indian won’t see any difference between men like these who grabbed rifles and marched up through Burma with the Japanese and men who said the Indians had no quarrel with the Japanese and called on the whole country to sabotage the British war effort. Except that the young men who grabbed rifles and marched will look more heroic than the old men who went to jail and suffered nothing but personal inconvenience.’
‘Then I had better go back and continue in that relatively comfortable state of personal inconvenience.’
‘You can’t go back, Father. They won’t let you. I know Mother talks about hoping you’ll agree, but she’s got into the habit of thinking you have a choice, and knows you’d choose what you see as the honourable way. But the plain fact is they’re chucking you out of the Fort. They pretend it’s a compassionate release and men like the Governor may actually feel sorry for you. He obviously knew you well enough to guess you’d feel disgraced, and not proud, about Sayed. But if he knows you as well as that, the kindest thing would have been to keep you in prison, because being in prison is your one current public badge of honour, isn’t it?’
‘You have never thought so!’ the old man cried. ‘You have always been ashamed. Why? Do you think I have not been ashamed too? You think it is a matter of pride to look out of a window and know that this is as much as you will be allowed to see of the world? No! It is not a badge of honour, it is one of humiliation. But there are circumstances in which you weigh one humiliation against another, and choose. I have chosen many times before and I can choose again.’
Kasim sat. He took the white cap off and placed it on the table.
‘No, Father. You can’t choose. At least I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so. We’ll see. Let them take me forcibly to Mirat. But then let them stop me returning to Ranpur.’
‘To do what? Something that will force them to arrest you again? What sort of thing will that be? They only arrested you last time because of your loyalty to the Congress. Wouldn’t most of your time be spent persuading your friends and the wives of your colleagues who are still in prison that your release isn’t a reward for making a deal with the Governor, or with Jinnah? When a man comes out of political detention and there’s no amnesty to explain it his friends want to know why.’
‘There is always the truth.’
‘About Sayed? What will you do? Talk to your Congress friends as you’ve talked to me? Call Sayed a traitor? You might just as well write your letter of resignation now, and apply to Jinnah for membership of the League. Not that Jinnah would touch you with a barge-pole if you took that line with him. He’ll have to call Sayed a patriot too, if he values his career as a future minister.’
Kasim looked up from contemplation of the cap. The sunken eyes glittered. ‘To whom have you been talking? Obviously not your mother. To these representatives of Government? To my feeble-minded kinsman, the Nawab? To that European paederast, that émigré Wazir?’
‘I’ve talked to all of them, but not about this.’
‘No?’
Kasim looked again at the cap. ‘Then I must apologize for having underestimated you. I had assumed your dissociation from the kind of affairs that have been the central concern of my life was a mask for your failure to understand them. But your assessment of my present position is shrewd, and I am indebted to you for bothering to open my eyes to it. Since one of my sons turns out to be a deserter and a traitor, it is some compensation to realize that the other one is not stupid, as I thought.’
Ahmed glanced down at the floor. He supposed he had invited it. It was only fair that his father should hurt him too. But when he looked up again he found his father’s eyes closed and head bent forward. For a long time neither of them spoke. It was his father who broke the silence.
‘I am sorry. You did not deserve that. Forgive me. And you have come all this way to meet me. In prison you forget that time doesn’t stand still, that circumstances change and that without your knowing it you yourself are carried forward with them. It is a shock to come out and discover it. It is difficult to adjust. I must thank you for perhaps having saved me from too hastily making impractical or anachronistic gestures.’
He put his hands on the table, folded, attempting an illusion of unimpaired competence and capacity. But Ahmed guessed that the hands clasped one another to disguise evidence of a sudden and frightening lack of confidence.
‘Presently,’ the ex-chief minister said, ‘you must call in these patient English officials, but there are a few points I wish to be clear on first. Was it the Governor or the Nawab who suggested I should be released from the Fort and sent to Mirat?’
‘The Governor, through his representative. Mother asked me to find out if the Nawab would agree.’
‘Then we need not concern ourselves with the Nawab’s or his Wazir’s motives, but only bear in mind what future political advantage they may see accruing from their generosity. Secondly. What reasons did the Governor give for making the suggestion?’
‘None. At least, not in so many words, but the connection was clear enough, I suppose. The representative told Mother the news about Sayed and then said that the Governor had taken advice—’
‘Advice?’
‘The inference was that there had been a discussion with the Viceroy. The Governor said he’d be prepared to release you into the protection of anyone acceptable to both sides, and suggested the Nawab. He promised Mother that if she got the Nawab’s approval the release would be arranged immediately.’
‘But—?’
‘There weren’t any buts. Except for the condition of secrecy until the release had taken place. The Government will then report it as due to a concern for your health.’
‘My health?’
‘From their point of view it must be more acceptable that way round. I imagine they don’t want an epidemic of Congress wives with fatal illnesses certified as authentic by Congress-minded doctors.’
‘You miss the point that the Governor imagines it is also more acceptable from my point of view. He offers me an alibi that might stand me in good stead later on when my less fortunate colleagues are released.’
‘No, Father. I hadn’t missed that point.’ He hesitated. ‘There’s one other thing, the Governor said that arrangements could be made for you to talk to Sayed.’
They stared at one another.
‘And this is all?’ Kasim asked suddenly, ignoring Ahmed’s last remark. ‘Nothing is said about the expected duration of my illness, nor about the conditions in which I am to live?’
‘You’ll have a private suite of ro
oms in the summer palace in Nanoora. We’ll drive first to Mirat. The Nawab’s private train will be waiting there for us. Mother is on it. So is Bronowsky. The Nawab’s at the summer palace.’
‘Which of course is heavily guarded.’
‘Not heavily.’
‘But where nevertheless I shall be incommunicado. I hope Bronowsky understands that Nanoora will suffer from a slight increase in the population in the form of inquisitive newspapermen anxious for every scrap of information they can pick up or invent about my state of health and mind?’
‘He’s going to issue bulletins. You won’t be pestered.’
‘You mean I shan’t be allowed to be pestered. Well – my kinsman the Nawab of Mirat will be a more considerate jailer than Government, and in this matter you are right, I have no choice. But I am still their prisoner and this time your mother joins me. It is a sacrifice she will willingly make, but it is one I would have spared her. Do you understand that, Ahmed?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ He waited, but his father seemed to have no more to say. He was staring at the white cap again. ‘Shall I go and tell them you’re ready?’ The old man nodded, but when Ahmed was about to open the door he was stopped by the sound of the voice continuing.
‘What have you been trying to tell me?’
Ahmed turned round.
‘That I should bow to the inevitable as I bow to this new humiliation? That I should prepare myself to play along with the crowd and so ensure my political future? Or that I should acknowledge defeat and retire from politics and grow onions to ward off the chills of old age? Have you ever tasted onions that flourish in the dry weather on mugs of shaving water begged from the prison barber on every second day? It is an interesting flavour. Perhaps it is only in the imagination that one tastes soap. But then the imagination of an ageing man is severely limited and prey to all kinds of quaint illusions and expectations.’