Tamas

by Bhisham Sahni

  The Sardar was soon lost from view.

  ‘The Sikhra has gone into hiding,’ said Ramzan and quickened his pace. When the pursuers had covered some distance—the Sardar must be about fifty yards away from them—they got another glimpse of him. He was running across a ravine towards a mound. But when they reached that spot he had again disappeared.

  ‘He has gone into some hole,’ Nur Din said. ‘Let us get him out. Son of a…’

  They went and stood on top of a mound. A little while earlier, these religious enthusiasts had picked up stones and clay-balls and hurled them at the Sardar, but now they began pelting stones into the holes and deep recesses inside the mounds, thinking that when a few stones would hit him, he would come out crying and whimpering. Had the Sardar continued running, he would certainly have been stoned to death like a rat under a volley of stones during the monsoons. But instead of running any farther, he had entered a deep, dark recess in one of the mounds, which looked deep enough and sat down in it, crouching to one side. All around were innumerable recesses or tunnels, so it was difficult for his pursuers to know in which particular recess the fellow was hiding.

  ‘O Sikha! Vadi Trikha!’ shouted Nur Din at which there was a guffaw of laughter. Nur Din belonged to the same village as Ramzan. His occupation was to carry donkey-loads of bricks and earth from place to place. He was conspicuous by his very red gums. Each time he laughed his red gums would be visible from a long distance.

  Some persons ran down the mound.

  ‘He must be hiding in this hole,’ someone said. ‘Come out, you son of a…’

  No sound came. It was dark inside and the cave was deep.

  Then many of them picked up stones and hurled them into the cave. But to no effect.

  ‘We won’t find him this way. Let someone go in and see,’ Ramzan said.

  ‘Be careful, Ramzan, the fellow must be carrying a kirpan.’

  Ramzan laughed but to be on the safe side he took out his knife and flicked it open. As Ramzan went in, two others followed suit.

  ‘Come out, you karar!’

  They searched the hole thoroughly. The Sardar was not there.

  ‘The bastard must be hiding in some other hole.’

  Then another member of the gang who was standing on top of the mound, shouted: ‘There he is! There he goes,’ and pointing towards a mound which was located behind two or three mounds, said, ‘He has gone in that direction.’ He had caught a glimpse of the Sardar’s white clothes.

  All of them ran in that direction. Stones began to be hurled into two or three caves simultaneously. In one of the caves, a stone hit the Sardar on his right knee but he did not cry out; and crouched closer to the wall of the cave. This was followed by a volley of stones. Some stones hit the wall of the cave while others hit his knees or shoulders or forehead. The Sardar was in great pain but suppressed his sobs. Stones continued to be pelted in all the three caves. After some time the sound of low moaning and sobbing was heard from one of the caves. Detecting the exact cave in which the Sardar was hiding, the marauders increased instantly the volley of stones.

  Then someone in the gang shouted: ‘Stop! Stop pelting stones!’ At this, the volley abated, but a stray stone now and then continued to be hurled.

  The one who had shouted came and stood at the mouth of the cave and said: ‘Sardar, we shall spare your life, if you accept the Faith.’

  No answer came from the other side. Only the sound of low moaning continued to be heard.

  ‘Speak Sardar, what do you say? Will you accept Islam or not? If you agree, then come out on your own. We shall not harm you. Otherwise we shall stone you to death.’

  There was still no answer from inside. An occasional stone continued to be hurled to intimidate the Sardar into taking a decision quickly.

  ‘Come out, you son of a…, otherwise only your dead body will be left there.’

  No sound came from inside. The pelting of stones was resumed. Ramzan Ali picked up a big stone and went and stood at the mouth of the cave.

  ‘Come out at once, otherwise with this stone I shall make mince-meat of you.’

  Some fellows laughed. Pelting of stones continued.

  Then, crawling on all fours, the Sardar came to the mouth of the cave. His turban was untied and hung loose round his head, his clothes torn in many places were smeared with mud and dust, his forehead and knees were bruised and swollen and blood oozed out of them.

  The Sardar was still on all fours, gazing into vacancy. Because of pain his face was contorted.

  ‘Tell us. Will you recite the Kalma or not?’ Ramzan said. He was still holding the big stone in his hands.

  The frightened Sardar stared wide-eyed into vacancy and then nodded his head.

  A man standing behind Nur Din recognized the Sardar. He was none other than Iqbal Singh, who ran a cloth-shop in Mirpur; his father Harnam Singh owned a tea-shop in Dhok Elahi Baksh. Very likely he was going towards Dhok Elahi Baksh to join his parents when he was waylaid. The moment he recognized him, the man stepped back a few steps so that their eyes did not meet. As a matter of fact, after this, he remained in the background, he neither spoke nor threw stones, but at the same time he did not stop others from tormenting the Sardar. He knew well enough that no one would listen to him, even if he tried to do so.

  ‘Speak, you son of a—! Speak or this stone will crush your skull.’

  ‘I shall recite the Kalma,’ Iqbal Singh muttered between his sobs.

  At this, a resounding slogan reverberated the air:

  ‘Allah-o-Akbar!’

  ‘Nara-e-Taqbir—Allah-o-Akbar!’

  All joined in the full-throated response to the slogan.

  Ramzan threw away the stone to one side. Everyone threw away the stones that he held in his hands. Ramzan put out his hand and said,

  ‘Get up! You are now our brother!’

  Iqbal Singh’s body pained in every limb; he was still moaning piteously. Still fear-stricken and in great pain, he could not stand.

  ‘Come, let’s embrace each other!’ Ramzan said and put his arms round Iqbal Singh.

  Thereafter, everyone by turns, embraced Iqbal Singh. The man embracing him would put his head on Iqbal’s right shoulder, and then, by turn, on his left shoulder and back again on his right shoulder. This was the cordial Muslim embrace. Iqbal Singh’s throat was parched and his legs shook under him, but after practising the embrace three or four times, he got the hang of it.

  Iqbal Singh had not expected that the situation would change so radically and so soon for him, that people who were thirsting for his blood would begin to embrace him like a blood relation.

  They came out into the open, leaving the area of the mounds behind. They were soon walking through green fields where the wheat-crop was ripening, driving Iqbal Singh along, as they would, a beast. They still did not know how they should look upon him, as a trophy of their victory, or as a hated foe who had tried to escape but had been caught, or as a fellow-Muslim whom they had clasped to their bosom. Iqbal Singh was unable to walk steadily. No fewer than five stones had hit his left knee, besides, his forehead was still bleeding. At one place, as they crossed one field and went into another, he staggered, Nur Din gave him a push and Iqbal Singh fell on his face.

  ‘See Ramzanji, they are still pushing me,’ he moaned, as he tried to stand up, like a boy who despite his assurance that he would behave better, was still being pushed around.

  ‘Don’t push, oi!’ shouted Ramzan, and looking at his associates, smiled and winked.

  ‘Don’t push, oi!’ someone else too repeated, imitating Ramzan and gave a shove to Iqbal Singh.

  Hostility and hatred cannot turn into sympathy and love so suddenly, they can only turn into crude banter. Since they could not physically hit him, they could at least make him the butt of their vulgar jokes.

  ‘See Ramzanji, someone has again pushed me.’

  Iqbal Singh had, by then, touched the lowest level of demoralization. A person clinging to life
can only grovel and cringe. If you tell him to laugh, he will laugh, if you tell him to cry, he will begin to cry.

  Then Nur Din thought of a practical joke.

  ‘Stop oi!’ shouted Nur Din to Iqbal Singh.

  Iqbal Singh, with a frightened look in his eyes turned to Nur Din.

  ‘Take off his salwar. The bastard was trying to hoodwink us.’

  And he put his hand into Iqbal Singh’s salwar. Some fellows began to laugh.

  ‘Do you see, Ramzanji?’ wailed Iqbal Singh, looking at Ramzan.

  ‘Don’t! No one will take off his salwar.’ Ramzan shouted.

  ‘He has not yet recited the Kalma. Therefore he is still a kafir, not a Musalman. Take off his salwar.’

  Iqbal Singh felt encouraged when he saw that Ramzan was sympathetic to him; so he too shouted, ‘I won’t let anyone take off my salwar. Come what may.’

  Some people laughed at this.

  Thus, bullying and humiliating him, they arrived in the village.

  It was in the house of Imam Din the oil-crusher that the conversion ceremony took place. The village barber too arrived on the scene, so did the mullah from the mosque. A whole crowd gathered in the courtyard.

  The barber’s fingers began to ache as he cut off Iqbal Singh’s hair. Surrounded by a big crowd Iqbal Singh’s bewilderment intensified. In the beginning, the barber used only his scissors, but later, he tied his hair into tufts with the help of horse-dung and urine, and cut it tuft by tuft. In the end he brought along a pair of shears to help him out. As the shears worked, furrows appeared on Iqbal Singh’s head. Thereafter, his head was shaved with a razor. It was only then that Iqbal Singh could lift his head. When the time came to cut his beard, many voices rose simultaneously:

  ‘Give his beard a Muslim cut.’

  ‘Trim the beard. Make it angular. Make the moustache thin.’

  Iqbal Singh’s shrivelled face, despite his frightened eyes, actually began to look like that of a Muslim.

  Then came Nur Din, making his way through the crowd. When Iqbal Singh’s hair was being cut, he had slipped out, unnoticed. But now, he was pushing people aside, in order to get in.

  ‘Get out of the way. Let me go in.’

  On entering, he went straight to Iqbal Singh, and sat down by his side. With his right hand he forced open Iqbal Singh’s mouth and with his left hand, in which he held a big piece of raw meat, dripping with blood, forced it into his mouth. Iqbal Singh’s eyes popped out; he was unable to breathe.

  ‘Open your mouth wide, you son of a…. Suck it now. Bloody…’

  And Nur Din, turning towards the crowd laughed, showing his red gums.

  Just then the mullah of the mosque arrived, along with an elderly man of the village. The elderly man snubbed Nur Din for being flippant on a pious occasion:

  ‘Get up. You are pestering someone who will soon be our co-religionist, one who is going to accept our faith.’

  With the arrival of the elderly man the entire scene changed. People stepped back and became quiet. Iqbal Singh was given support to stand up. One man brought in a cot and Iqbal Singh was seated on it. The rest of the ceremony was conducted with care and attention. Rosary in hand the mullah made Iqbal Singh recite the Kalma: ‘La Ilah Illallah! Muhammad ar Rasulallah!’

  The Kalma was recited three times. People standing around touched their eyes with the tips of their fingers and then kissed them. Thereafter nearly everyone in the crowd embraced Iqbal Singh one by one.

  He was then taken to the village-well in a procession. After the bath he was given new clothes to wear. As he emerged after the bath in his new clothes, Iqbal Singh actually looked like a Muslim. Once again the slogan went up: ‘Nara-e-Takbir, Allah-o-Akbar!’

  The procession again proceeded towards the house of Imam Din the oil-crusher. The atmosphere now was more solemn, full of religious ardour. Before the shades of evening fell, the circumcision ceremony had been performed. The pain involved had not been so unbearable for Iqbal Singh. The elderly man all the time beguiling his mind with temptations, whispering into his ears:

  ‘We shall get you a buxom wife, the widow of Kalu, a peach of a woman… Now you are one of our own; you are now Iqbal Ahmed.’

  By the time evening fell, all the marks of Sikhism on Iqbal Singh’s person had been replaced by the marks of the Muslim faith. A mere change of marks had brought about the transformation. Now he was no longer an enemy but a friend, not a kafir but a believer; to whom the doors of all Muslim houses were open.

  Lying on his cot, Iqbal Ahmed kept tossing and turning the whole night.

  18

  The Turks had come, but they had come only from one of the neighbouring villages. The Turks too mentally viewed their attack as an assault on the citadel of their age-old enemy, the Sikhs. In the minds of the Sikhs too they were the Turks of the bygone medieval times whom the Khalsa used to confront in battle. This confrontation too was looked upon as a link in the chain of earlier confrontations in history. The ‘warriors’ had their feet in the twentieth century while their minds were in medieval times.

  A bitter fight took place. It went on for two days and two nights. Then the ammunition was exhausted and it became impossible to go on. At the back of the low platform on which the Sacred Book was placed, seven dead bodies covered with white sheets of cloth lay in a row. Five women sat with the heads of their husbands in their laps. For some time they would leave, when repeatedly persuaded to do so, but again, Sardar Teja Singh had only to turn his back that they would come back. Two dead bodies had no claimants. One of these was of a Nihang, who even under the hail of bullets stood on duty on the roof, with his moustaches twirled and his chest sticking out. The other one was that of Sohan Singh, who had come all the way from the city to prevent the riot from breaking out. His dead body was found lying at the end of the lane near the gurdwara. On the second day of the ‘battle’ he had been sent with a proposal for the ‘cessation of hostilities’ to Ghulam Rasul’s house. His dead body was the adversary’s answer to that proposal. His dead body would have continued to lie near the wall where he had been killed, had it not been picked up late in the night by some Muslims and left near the gurdwara to inform the Sikhs about the fate of their peace-proposal. His dead body lay to one side and no one put his head in his or her lap. Even otherwise, the status of both Sohan Singh and Mir Dad had been reduced from peace-makers to that of couriers.

  Besides these, quite a few dead bodies lay scattered here and there in the village. The question of attending to them did not as yet arise. The dead body of the peon of Khalsa School lay in the courtyard of the school itself. On the day the attack took place, while the ‘community’ was gathering in the gurdwara, the peon was exhorted to stick to his duty of guarding the school. The peon’s wife was alive and said to be safe and sound because she had been forcibly taken by the numberdar of the village to his house. Mai Bhagan’s dead body was found lying in the inner yard of her own house. One stinging slap had been enough to finish her. Her jewellery, however, was saved because it lay concealed inside a wall, and her house escaped being set on fire because it stood adjacent to the house of Rahima teli. Saudagar Singh was another old man who lay dead and whose body due to oversight was not carried to the gurdwara.

  There were some more dead bodies too that lay here and there. One of them lay face downward near a well. The man had been killed by mistake. He was the water-carrier, Allah Rakha, who, despite the raging riot, had been sent to fetch water since they had run short of water in the Sheikh’s house and children were howling for water. As he reached the well, under the light of the moon, a bullet accurately aimed from the roof of the Sheikh’s house itself had made short shrift of him. Another dead body of a Sardar who had come from the city lay on the road. Two small children, working as shop-boys in Fateh Din the baker’s shop were also found dead. The baker’s shop was located at the end of the lane that led to the gurdwara. There was no stopping these boys from playing in the lane. Time and again they would rush out ch
asing each other.

  Flames of fire still rose from the building of the Khalsa School. All the houses belonging to the Sikhs on the slope overlooking the stream had been gutted. Besides, all the three shops of the butchers, and the houses of three or four Muslims in the Teli Mohalla, had been set on fire.

  The ammunition inside the gurdwara was almost exhausted. Kishen Singh, stationed on the roof, had begun to fire his gun sparingly. He would fire a shot after every few minutes, so that the enemy might know that the front was holding out. Inside the gurdwara however, the morale was pretty low. A sense of fatigue and helplessness had set in. Eyes would meet but lips would not open. No one knew who it was who had first uttered the words: ‘Ammunition is finishing.’ But it had left the listeners petrified. The ammunition was finishing even in the Sheikh’s fortress. But to cover the reality, slogan-shouting on both sides had become all the more vociferous. ‘Allah-o-Akbar!’ had begun to be heard, not from one but from three directions. The slogan in reply, from the gurdwara was even louder. But the slogan-shouting too had begun to sound hollow.

  The intelligence men had brought the news that the Muslims were getting succour from outside. The contact of Sikhs with the outside areas had virtually been cut off. Two men had been secretly sent to Kahuta for assistance, but they had not returned uptil then. The War Council was of the view that with the help of money peace might be bought; and so they had started negotiations through emissaries.

  Inside the gurdwara, near the main door, members of the War Council sat discussing with Teja Singhji the possible terms and conditions for bringing about a truce.

  ‘They are demanding two lakhs of rupees. This is an impossible amount,’ Teja Singh said irritably.

  ‘What offer did you make to them through the younger Granthi who was sent by you to them?’

  After the death of Sohan Singh, Teja Singhji had tried to seek the help of Mir Dad for purposes of mediation, since before the riots, Mir Dad had been trying to bring about an understanding between the two communities, but when Mir Dad learnt that cessation of hostilities was being bargained for with money, he turned his back on it. Not knowing what to do, Teja Singhji had sent the younger brother of the Granthi, who was generally addressed as the ‘younger Granthi’, as an emissary.