The Great Indian Novel

by Shashi Tharoor

  Now, all this was known before the conference even started, Ganapathi, that was the irony of it. What I am saying to you does not come with the benefit of hindsight (odd phrase, that: which of my readers will consider an old man’s fading recollections a benefit?). No, Ganapathi, it is there in the public record, it is there in Pandu’s impassioned entreaties to the Kaurava Working Committee. ‘Don’t go, don’t let us be a party to this charade,’ he pleaded. But the Working Committee, at Dhritarashtra’s glib urging, agreed not only to attend but to send Gangaji as the party’s sole representative to the conference. Pandu railed against ‘this madness’, as he called it. ‘If we must go, let us go in strength, let us send a delegation that reflects the numbers and diversity of our following,’ he argued. Once again he was disregarded; the Committee placed its faith in the man to whom many were already referring in open hagiology as Mahaguru, the Great Teacher.

  So Pandu stayed in India and fretted, while the man he admired, but could not bring himself to surrender everything to, crossed his legs on a cold wooden chair and awaited his turn to speak after the Monarchists and the Liberals and the Society for the Preservation of the Imperial Connection, which had each sent more representatives to the Round Table than the Kauravas. But Pandu, though now bitter in his denunciation of his sightless sibling, was still a loyal party man. He remained so even when Ganga returned, having bared his chest on the newsreels and taken tea in his loincloth with the King-Emperor (‘Your Majesty, you are wearing more than enough for the two of us,’ the Mahaguru had said disarmingly) but won no concessions from the circular and circumlocutious conferees. Pandu resisted the temptation to say, ‘I told you so’ and concentrated instead on building up his support within the party councils. For once, my pale-faced hot-headed son was going to wait until the time was ripe before striking.

  Do I give you the impression, Ganapathi, that between my pale and purblind progeny my sympathies lie only with Pandu? Do not be misled, my friend. India does not choose amongst her sons, and nor do I. They are both mine, their flaws and foibles, their vanities and inanities, their pretensions and pride, all mine. I do not disown either of them, any more than I could deny half my own nature.

  And besides, Pandu could be wrong as well. As was amply demonstrated in the affair of the Great Mango March.

  30

  Some of our more Manichaean historians tend to depict the British villains as supremely accomplished - the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent manipulators of the destiny of India. Stuff and nonsense, of course. For every brilliant Briton who came to India, there were at least five who were incapable of original thought and fifteen who were only capable of original sin. They went from mistake to victory and mistake again with a combination of luck, courage and the Gatling gun, but mistakes they made, all the time. Don’t forget that the British were the only people in history crass enough to make revolutionaries out of Americans. That took insensitivity and stupidity on quite a stupendous scale - qualities they could hardly keep out of their rule over our country.

  The truth is that the average British colonial administrator was a pompous mediocrity whose nose was so often in the air that he tripped over his own feet. (It was just as well that so many of them had long noses, Ganapathi, for they could rarely see beyond them.) In the process, they made decisions that provoked visceral and lasting reactions. Don’t forget, Ganapathi, that it is to one British colonial policy-maker or another that we owe the Boxer Rebellion, the Mau Mau insurrection, the Boer War, and the Boston Tea Party.

  It all began, as these things tend to do - for the British have never learned from history - with a tax. Why the pink blackguards bothered to tax Indians I will never understand, for they had successfully stolen everything they needed for centuries, from the jewelled inlays of the Taj Mahal to the Kohinoor on their queen’s crown, and one would have thought they could have done without the laborious extraction of the Indian working-man’s pittance. But there has always been something perversely precise about British oppression: the legal edifice of the Raj was built on the premise that anything resulting from the filling of forms in quadruplicate could not possibly be an injustice. So Robert Clive bought his rotten borough in England on the proceeds of his rapacity in India, while publicly marvelling at his own self-restraint in not misappropriating even more than he did. And the English had the gall to call him ‘Clive of India’ as if he belonged to the country, when all he really did was to ensure that much of the country belonged to him. Clive’s twentieth-century successors, who had taken the Hindustani word loot into their dictionaries instead of their habits, preferred to achieve the same results in more bureaucratic ways. They taxed property, and income, and harvests; they taxed our petrol, our patience and even our passing to the next world (through their gracelessly named ‘death duties’). As the expenditure on foreign wars mounted they taxed our rice, our cloth and our salt. We had thought they simply couldn’t go any further. Till the day they announced a tax on the one luxury still available to the Indian masses - the mango.

  The mango is, of course, the king of fruits, though in recent years our export policies have made it more the fruit of kings - or of Middle Eastern sheikhs, to be precise. And the wonder of it is that - again before foreign markets became more important to our rulers than domestic bazaars - the mango was available to the common man in abundance. It was as if the good Lord, having given the Indian peasant droughts, and floods, and floods after droughts, and heat, and dust, and low wages, and British rule, said to him, all right, your cup of woe runneth over, drink instead from the juice of a ripe Chausa, and it will make up for all the misery I have inflicted upon you. The best mangoes in the world grew wild across the Indian countryside, dropping off the branches of trees so hardy they did not need looking after. And we took them for granted, consuming them raw, or pickled, or ripe, as our fancy seized us, content in the knowledge that there would always be more mangoes on those branches, waiting to be picked.

  Then came the stunning announcement: the colonial regime had decided that the mango too had to earn its keep. Mangoes were a cash crop; accordingly, a tax was to be levied on the fruit, calculated on the basis of each tree’s approximate annual yield. Trees in the vicinity of private property were to be attached to the nearest landlord’s holdings for tax purposes; trees growing wild would be treated as common property and the tax levied on the village as a whole. District officials were instructed to conduct a mango-tree- registration campaign to ensure that the tax records were brought up to date. Poor village panchayats and panicky landlords chopped down their suddenly expensive foliage or fenced it. The days of the free munch were over.

  At first the people reacted in stunned disbelief. Then, as the implications of the decision sank in, they gave vent - for they were simple people, used to calling a spade a white man’s garden tool - to collective howls of outrage.

  Gangaji heard the echoes and sensed a cause. He was at the ashram one day when a Kaurava Party member from Palghat, Mahadeva Menon, raised the matter over the Great Teacher’s habitual lunch of nuts and fruit.

  ‘Mahaguru,’ he said in his high-pitched voice, lips rounding the flattest of English syllables - for English was the only language he had in common with Gangaji, as indeed it is my own sole means of dictating this memoir to you - ‘there is something really terrible going on in our country these days.’ (He actually said ‘cundry’, but you can spell that as you have been taught to, young man.) ‘The peeble’ - spell that ‘people’, Ganapathi, you really are getting to be quite difficult - ‘in my nate-yew blace are zimbly so so misserable . . .’ ‘Native place’, Ganapathi, ‘simply’. I shall have to stop quoting people if you go on like this. Mahadeva Menon’s English was as valid a language to him as its American or Strine variants are to their speakers, so there is no need to parody his accent in print. If every Australian novelist had to set down the speech of his characters to approximate the sounds they made rather than the words they spoke, do you think there would be a single rea
dable Australian novel in the world? (As it is I am reliably informed there are two or even three.)

  You are sorry? Good. You won’t do it again? Very well, let us go on. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, Mahadeva Menon speaking to Gangaji about the terrible effects of the mango tax. A small man with a neat, trim black moustache, dressed in spotless white, with a folded white cloth flung over his left shoulder. A landlord from Palghat, converted to the egalitarian nationalism of Mahaguru Gangaji, describing the effects of the invidious mango tax on the well-being, on the depressed morale, of the masses of his district. ‘You must do something about this, Mahaguruji,’ he said.

  Gangaji remained silent for a full minute, contemplating the suggestion and his bowl of dried fruit. At last he spoke. ‘Yes, Mahadeva,’ he said slowly. ‘I think I must.’

  31

  Pandu was aghast that Gangaji intended to make the mango tax an issue. ‘There are so many other vital problems for the Kaurava Party to address,’ he declared. ‘If, at this time of increasing repression by the British, you devote your energies, your moral stature, to something as petty, as ridiculous, as mangoes, you will make yourself the laughing stock of the nation.’ He placed his palms together in supplication. ‘Please, Gangaji, please - do not trivialize our great cause like this.’

  But the Mahaguru was not moved. ‘Trust me, my son,’ he responded, returning with due solemnity to the task Pandu had interrupted - the scrubbing of the ashram latrine.

  Yes, Ganapathi, no endeavour was too trivial for our hero. And he prepared as assiduously for each, taking the same care to ensure his brushes and mops and soapy water and ammonia (he had a great faith in the cleansing properties of ammonia) were to hand as he did to ensure that the reasons for his national satyagrahas were widely known and well-understood.

  Ganga’s first step was to write to the Viceroy. The letter was a characteristic combination of impertinence and ingenuity, fact and foible:

  Dear Friend,

  As you are aware, I hold the British rule to be a curse. Your presence as its representative makes you the chief symbol of the injustice and oppression that the British people have visited upon the Indian nation. Yet I write to you as a friend, conscious of the immense potential for good that your post holds.

  I have found it necessary on several occasions in the past to call into question some of the unjust laws that have been pressed upon the brows of my people. Indeed, I have been obliged on one or two occasions to disobey them and to lead others in disobeying them, in full consciousness and complete acceptance of the penalties for such disobedience. I consider non-violent civil disobedience to be one of the few morally just measures open to my fellow Indians and myself. Our cause is to defend ourselves and our own interests. I do not intend harm to a single Englishman in India, even if he be here as an uninvited guest.

  I explain these things because I seek your help in undoing a great injustice which has recently been committed by the government you represent. I speak, of course, of the Mango Tax. This dreadful exaction has already caused untold suffering to the Indian masses amongst whose few humble pleasures is the fruit of the mango tree. The tax and its consequences have already caused a severe reaction amongst the people at large. I plead with you on bended knee to repeal this law.

  I believe it will do your own cause far more good than harm to heed my plea. The estimates of your administrators speak of a potential revenue of some five million pounds sterling from this tax, which must surely be of little consequence to a government which earns more than 800 million pounds sterling from its other tariffs and taxes in this country. In addition, the repeal of this iniquitous tax will win you personally and your government much popularity, whereas its persistence can only add to the odium in which the British rule is held. The people at large are already saying that the oppressive foreigners will tax the sunshine next.

  I therefore suggest that you rescind this decision as much in your own interest as in that of the people of India. Do not forget, dear friend, that your own salary is more than five thousand times that of the average Indian you tax, and that this colossal sum is paid for by the sweat of Indian brows. I would make so bold as to suggest that the action I urge upon you is nothing less than a moral obligation.

  In concluding this plea, I must add that if you fail to heed it, I shall have no alternative but to launch a fresh campaign of civil disobedience against this unjust law. I would welcome this opportunity to educate the British people in the ethics of our cause. My ambition is no less than to convert the British people through nonviolence, and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India. I do not seek to harm your people. I want to serve them even as I want to serve my own.

  To this Ganga received, three weeks later, the following reply:

  Sir,

  I am directed by the Private Secretary of His Excellency the Viceroy to acknowledge your communication of the ninth instant.

  I am instructed to inform you that His Excellency regrets the tone and contents of your letter, and particularly the threat to violate the laws of His Majesty’s Government contained in its penultimate paragraph. His Excellency regards this as most unfortunate.

  I am also directed to advise you that any breach of the regulations in force will be dealt with in accordance with the laws of the land.

  The letter was signed by a Second Deputy Under-Secretary to the Private Secretary.

  ‘Very well,’ Ganga said, his lips pursing in that slight pout that legions of his female admirers continue to recall. ‘Sarah-behn, please arrange to send the entire text of this correspondence to the press - the Indian papers and the foreign wire-services. And do not forget that very pleasant young man from The New York Times who came to see us last week.’

  Sarah-behn did not forget. And it was she, sitting behind him on a raised platform erected outside the ashram, who recorded in her large clear hand the immortal words of the speech he made inaugurating the Great Mango March: ‘My brothers and sisters,’ Ganga said to the crowd assembled at his feet, ‘I have called you here today to pray, as we usually do on this day each week. To pray for justice and Truth and the grace of God upon our benighted people. But today your prayers take on an additional meaning.

  ‘In all probability this will be my last speech to you for a long time to come. As you know, I have resolved to embark upon a satyagraha to resist the unjust mango tax. Even if the British government allows me to march tomorrow morning they will not allow me to return freely to this ashram and to you, my brothers and sisters. This may well be my last speech to you all, standing on the sacred soil of my beloved Hastinapur.’

  (He was actually standing not on soil at all, whether sacred or profane, but on planks of wood erected to elevate him to the view of his audience. But the lumps were already forming in every throat in the audience, Ganapathi, and Ganga was poised to milk every tear-drop. I marvelled once more at how wrong Pandu could be. Trivialize the cause? Gangaji could dramatize and ennoble the most insignificant of causes when he chose to.)

  ‘I shall personally break the law by violating the terms of the Mango Act. My companions will do the same. We will undoubtedly be arrested. Despite our arrests, I expect and trust that the stream of our volunteer civil resisters will flow unbroken.

  ‘But whatever happens, let there not be the slightest breach of the peace, even if we are all arrested, even if we are all assaulted. We have resolved to utilize our resources in a purely non-violent struggle. Let no one raise his fist in anger. This is my hope and prayer, and I wish these words of mine to reach every corner of our country.

  ‘From this moment, let the call go forth, from this ashram where I have lived for Truth, to all our people across’ the length and breadth of India, to launch civil disobedience of the mango laws. These laws can be violated in many ways. It is an offence to pluck mangoes from any tree which has not been marked as having been duly registered and taxed. The possession, consumption or sale of contraband mangoes (which means any mango from any such tree) is
also, in the eyes of our British rulers, an offence. The purchasers of such mangoes are equally guilty. I call on you all, then, to choose any or all of these methods to break the mango monopoly of the British government.’

  A cheer rose up at these words, Ganapathi, but Ganga was still drawing tears:

  ‘Act, then, and act not for me but for yourselves and for India. I myself am of little importance, a humble servant of the people among whom I have been privileged to live. I am certain to be arrested, and I do not know when I shall return to you, my dear brothers and sisters. But do not assume that after I am gone there will be no one left to guide you. It is not I, but Dhritarashtra who is your guide. He is blind, but he sees far. He has the capacity to lead.’

  And so Ganga soaked his listeners in their own emotions and anointed Dhritarashtra as his successor with their tears. It was at this point that Pandu, who had disdained the cause but come to the ashram out of loyalty to the Mahaguru, walked out, never to return to his teacher’s side.

  32

  The Great Mango March began the next morning. We all slept the night in the open air, in the grounds of the ashram, the reporters from the international press camping on the grass alongside sweepers and bazaar merchants and college students. Ganga awoke the next morning faintly surprised not to have been roused in his sleep by the clink of handcuffs. ‘The government is puzzled and perplexed,’ he triumphantly explained to the journalists, whom he had assured the previous day of his certain arrest. ‘But have no fear - the police will come.’