‘Sir Richard,’ the Viceroy smiled amiably, his hand straying from the lingam to a jewel-encrusted dagger from Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s collection that was now used to slit open confidential envelopes, rather than throats, ‘I don’t mean any of those wars, of course. The last one in Europe we were mixed up in. The Great War.’
Ah.’ The Principal Private Secretary reflected briefly. ‘I think we heard about that one in India a few weeks after it had started in the old continent. And by then there wasn’t much point in a formal declaration. Of course, the Great War never touched this part of the world very greatly. Except for all the Indian soldiers we sent off to fight in France and Mesopotamia.’
‘This one may, Sir Richard. Touch this part of the world, I mean. The Japanese are in alliance with the Germans and may attack our possessions in the Far East. India is still a long way from their forces, but distances in today’s world mean a good deal less than they did twenty-five years ago. No, this time, when war is declared in India, it could really mean something for this country and her people. India may have to fight to preserve her freedom.’
‘I’m not sure all our Kaurava friends will see it quite like that.’ Sir Richard smiled humourlessly. ‘Mr Datta and his khadi-clad companions seem to think that’s what they’re doing already - with us on the wrong side of the argument.’
‘Quite.’ The Viceroy nodded. ‘But I think they’d draw a distinction between the two kinds of fight. The Mahaguru and his friends are “fighting” - if that’s the word for their non-violent agitations - for, in the celebrated phrase, the rights of Englishmen. It’s democracy they want. I hardly think they’ll consider the Nazis a model of swaraj, except for the fringe in the Onward Organization, and we can lock that bunch up soon enough. Don’t forget that Ganga Datta was on our side the last time round, quite actively in fact - the Ambulance Association in Hastinapur, was it not?’
‘I haven’t forgotten, Your Excellency.’ Sir Richard, who tended to think of Hastinapur as a personal heirloom, harrumphed. ‘But a lot of water, and some blood, has flowed under the bridge since those days. I’ve made something of a special study of Mr Ganga Datta over the years, and I’m not convinced for a minute by his pontifical pacifism. Today the sainted Mahaguru is just as opposed to British interests as his fellow vegetarian in Berlin.’
The Viceroy put down the dagger and gave his seniormost advisor a sharp look. ‘I do believe your prejudices are showing, Sir Richard,’ he said mildly. India’s non-violent saint-statesman lending moral support to Germany’s jackbooted stormtroopers? No, I think Ganga Datta and most of the Kauravas, certainly Dhritarashtra and his socialist followers, will be happy enough to go along with a declaration of war on Nazi Germany. They’ve been quite critical of the Nazis in their public pronouncements on international affairs. The point is, how do we go about it? It’s easy enough to declare war, but do we, ah, consult them first, and in what manner? There were no elected Indian ministries to think about at the time of the last war. Now there are.’
‘I don’t see how it’s any of their business,’ Sir Richard, defeated, scowled.
‘Come, come, Sir Richard. We propose to declare war on behalf of India and we don’t think it’s the business of the Indian leaders we have?’
‘Precisely, sir.’ Sir Richard’s eyes glowed redly above his pink cheeks. ‘You, the Viceroy of India, will be declaring war on behalf of His Majesty the King- Emperor, whose representative you are in this country, upon those who are his enemies. India only comes into the picture at all because it is one of the King-Emperor’s possessions. It has no independent quarrel with Herr Hitler and his friends. I know you don’t agree with my view that Ganga Datta and his ilk would support Attila the Hun if it would help drive the Raj out of Delhi, but leaving the political reliability of the Indians aside, the point is that the only reason for India to be at war with Germany is that she is ruled by Britain. Britain is at war with Germany. British India must follow suit. The Indians governing their provinces - under the supervision, in any case, of British Governors appointed by the Crown - have nothing to do with it at all. Defence isn’t even their business; it’s ours.’ He raised an eyebrow at his sovereign’s representative. ‘Quod erat demonstrandum, Your Excellency.’
‘Nec scire fas est omnia,’ the Viceroy riposted. ‘None the less why not consult them anyway? It should buck up that po-faced lot the Kauravas have in office.’
‘All the more reason not to, sir.’ The Principal Private Secretary was emphatic. ‘They’re insufferable enough as it is. Why should we give them the additional satisfaction of being consulted, when it is our nation that is under attack, our homes under threat, our armies and aircraft under fire? Personally, sir, I’d think it humiliating to have to seek the consent of the loincloth brigade before we placed His Majesty’s subjects here on a war-footing. In my view, it’s neither politically appropriate nor constitutionally necessary.’
‘Perhaps you’ve got a point there,’ the Viceroy conceded, rubbing a reflective chin.
‘With respect, indeed, sir. And think what propaganda the Kauravas would make of it. The all-powerful Viceroy has to ask them before he can declare war on another European state! It would be disastrous for our credibility with the man-in-the-street, Your Excellency.’
‘Hmm. I think you may be right there, Sir Richard. It’s just that I don’t think they’ll take it very well. And the last thing I need here at the beginning of a war is a new set of political convulsions on my hands.’
‘Don’t worry about a thing, sir. As Virgil put it, “Experto credite”.’
‘I hope you’re right, Sir Richard. As Horace reminds us, “Nescit vox missa reverti”.’
Horace was, of course, right - words once published cannot be taken back. When the declaration of war was made without the slightest semblance of consultation with the elected Kaurava ministries in the states, the Mahaguru’s followers resigned their offices en bloc. An appointed official had no moral authority, they announced, to declare war on behalf of a nation whose elected representatives had not been consulted. The Kaurava Party, Dhritarashtra added, might conceivably have endorsed a request to join the Viceroy in a declaration of war, not so much out of a desire to come to Britain’s aid in her hour of peril, but simply because of the nationalist movement’s dislike of international Fascism. But the callous disregard by the colonial authorities of the legitimacy of the democratic process - a process, Dhritarashtra pointed out, by which Britain pretended to set such great store and in whose defence it was supposedly fighting - had made such an endorsement impossible. The Kaurava Party could not possibly remain in office in these circumstances, and it would urge all Indians not to cooperate with the war effort.
Vidur tried to advise his compatriots and relatives against such precipitate action: ‘Make your point by all means, but for God’s sake don’t resign,’ he pleaded with his sightless half-brother.
‘You do not understand politics, Vidur,’ Dhritarashtra told him.
‘Perhaps not, but I understand administration,’ my youngest son responded. ‘And one of the first rules of administration is, do not give up your seat until you know how much standing-room there is.’
But they did not listen to him, Ganapathi. A sheaf of identical resignation letters were wired to Delhi. As always, there was one governmental institution that never failed to do well out of a political crisis: the Post Office.
There were thunderclouds on the Viceroy’s brow the next morning, but Sir Richard persisted in seeing the silver lining.
‘Jolly good thing, this, if you’ll pardon me, Your Excellency,’ he beamed, his jowls quivering with satisfaction. ‘With one stroke, or rather the absence of one, we have cut the dhoti-wallahs down to size and got rid of a number of dangerous troublemakers from vital positions of power. Imagine Kaurava seditionists and anti-colonials in control of the Ministries of Supply, Food and Agriculture, Power and Electricity in the major provinces at a time of war and national peril - it could have pr
oved disastrous.’
‘Indeed?’ The black clouds seemed to lighten a little on the viceregal forehead.
‘Instead,’ the Principal Private Secretary affirmed, ‘we can run these departments ourselves with tried and tested officials, or even’ - and he glowed at the ingenuity of the thought - ‘even place other parties in office from amongst the minorities in the legislatures. They will be beholden to us, and since the Kauravas have forfeited their responsibility we can hardly be blamed for turning to other elected Indians to do their job for them, can we? This will, in turn, weaken the Kauravas’ base of support, because they will no longer have any patronage to dole out, no more jobs for the boys, no more opportunities to operate the levers of power. And we will, therefore, have a weaker nationalist party to contend with in the years to come, after the war. Oh yes, Your Excellency, I see a lot of good coming out of your excellent decision not to consult the Kauravas.’
The Viceroy let the implications of his advisor’s last sentence pass. He was not yet convinced he wanted the paternity of his unilateral announcement ascribed to him. ‘I hope Whitehall sees it that way, Sir Richard,’ he replied, absently fingering the lingam and then drawing his hand away as if scalded by its procreative symbolism. ‘And I trust you will draft a suitable note on the matter to ensure that they do.’
59
He did; and Whitehall did; and as events unfolded it appeared that Virgil was right too, and it was advisable to trust the man of experience. For the Kauravas sat at home while the provincial legislatures carried on without them, gaining neither the advantages of being in office within the country nor those of leading a glorious crusade in exile as Pandu was doing. In due course, other parties and alliances staked their claims to form ministries in some of the provinces, and when it suited them, the British admitted these claims. The Muslim Group of Mohammed Ali Karna, which had failed to win a majority in any of the provinces, formed minority governments in three where the Kaurava ministries had resigned. They set about systematically increasing their following through every means at their disposal. One story quoted Karna as saying: ‘We shall win the hearts and minds of the people, however much it costs us.’
Thwarted, frustrated, excluded, the Kaurava Party chafed in its self-imposed irrelevance. Then, in a desperate and not entirely well-thought-out bid to regain the political limelight, the party met under Gangaji’s chairmanship and proclaimed a new campaign of civil disobedience. The message to the British was simple and direct: ‘Quit India.’
Oh, Ganapathi, how those two magic words captured the imagination of the country! The new slogan was soon over all the walls; it was chalked, scrawled, painted on notice-boards, on railway sidings, on cinema posters. Little newspaperboys added it sotto voce to their sales cries: ‘Times of India. Quit India. Times of India. Quit India.’ The magic refrain was taken up by chanting crowds of students, office-goers, political workers, hoarsely orchestrated by the Kaurava Party and its vociferous cheerleaders: ‘Quit - India. Quit! India. Quit? India!’ The words beat a staccato tattoo on British ears; they were the heartbeat of a national awakening, the drum roll of a people on the march.
It lasted twenty-four hours. Oh, there may have been sporadic resistance in some places for a little longer, but the organized movement to get the British to Quit India was snuffed out within a day of its proclamation. The Raj had been watching the Kauravas closely, very closely. It arrested the principal leaders within hours of the Quit India call, in one notorious case arresting a dilatory Working Committee member as he was coming out of the meeting-hall. (I had gone to the bathroom when the others dispersed, Ganapathi, if you must know.) By the next afternoon the lower-level organizers - the men who actually got the crowds out on to the pavements, who told them where to march and led them in their sloganeering - were behind bars. It was all over before it began.
At least the non-violent campaign was, Jayaprakash Drona, tutor to the Pandavas, abandoned his charges to wage a one-man battle against the Raj. He blew up two bridges and derailed one goods train before the long arm of the law caught him squarely on the tip of the jaw. He was interned in a maximum-security prison and the only significant result of his bravado was that the education of my five grandsons suffered.
60
So, Ganapathi, as Pandu strove and struggled in Berlin and Singapore, Gangaji and his Kaurava followers languished in prison while two very different individuals moved closer to realizing their ultimate ambitions of thwarting the Mahaguru.
Mohammed Ali Karna, with three provincial governments dancing to his tune and unchallenged as the most prominent Indian out of captivity, glowed with the lustre of quasi-divinity in which his followers had cloaked him. His name could no longer be taken in vain by lesser mortals: he was now referred to almost exclusively by the honorific ‘Khalifa-e-Mashriq’, or Caliph of the East, a choice of cognomen which ignored - indeed, blandly denied - his secular Anglicization. And as the Muslim Group consolidated its hold on, and its taste for, power, a vocal section of its adherents began openly calling for the creation of a new political entity where they could rule unchallenged, a state carved out of India’s Muslim-majority areas. This Islamic Utopia would be called Karnistan - the Hacked-off Land: simultaneously a tribute to its eponymous founder and an advertisement for its proponents’ physical political intent. The party’s younger hotheads had already devised a flag for their state. It would carry, on a field of Mohammedan green, a representation of the half-moon that throbbed on their caliph’s burnished forehead.
Yet there were already signs, if only we had known how to recognize them: signs that Karna, at his peak, had peaked. His long face began to look increasingly pallid at the post-sundown cocktails and receptions which celebrated and reinforced his prominence. As the darkness gathered Karna would withdraw even more into himself, until all that remained was the vividness of his birthmark against the pallor of his skin. Sometimes he would withdraw altogether, slipping out of the reception rooms where his awed followers gathered in respectfully distant clusters. It was thus that I found him once, shivering in an unlit garden while the hubbub of conversation continued on the terrace behind.
‘It is late, isn’t it?’ I ventured conversationally.
‘It is dark, Vyas,’ Karna replied.
‘You don’t like the dark?’
My question seemed to ignite a dying ember in him. ‘I hate the dark,’ he replied with sudden vehemence. ‘I hate the blackness of night. Even as a child, it was the sun I yearned for. The sun, enveloping me in its glow, setting me ablaze with its light. When the sun is up there I am warm, I am safe. But as dusk drops and the light fades, I feel the shadows creeping up behind my shoulder. A chill enters my bones; I find myself shivering. The nameless demons of the dark keep sleep from my eyes, Vyas. I can only rest with the light on.’ He seemed to pull himself together with a physical effort. ‘But let the morning come, let the flames of the sun touch my skin and scorch the dreadful memory of night from my brain, and I am myself again.’ He shook his head, as if realizing just in time whom it was that he was confiding in. The dapper lips twisted in deliberate irony. ‘Good night, Vyas,’ he said self- mockingly, inclining his head as he walked away, away from the starless night sky and into the well-lit acclaim that awaited him indoors.
If the khalifa-e-Mashriq constituted a growing threat to what Gangaji stood for politically, a slight, embittered figure was beginning, unknown to all of us, to cast an equally dangerous shadow on the Mahaguru’s person. Amba, the slim, doe-eyed princess whose nuptial bliss the Regent of Hastinapur had once so thoughtlessly blighted, was almost ready to exact her revenge.
She was no longer the lissom beauty of Salva’s fancy. Long years of neglect and frustration, of vainly seeking familial, royal and finally criminal help to redress her plight, had altered the soft lines of her face and body to reflect the hardness of her hate-filled heart. Yes, Ganapathi, the very twist of her mouth mirrored the warping of her soul. Only her eyes shone with the spirit of corrosiv
e determination that had extinguished every other spark of her being.
For decades she had been obsessed with one thought only: how to get her own back on Gangaji. When all those she approached, from hesitant rajas to reluctant hit-men, proved unwilling or unable to take on her mortal enemy, Amba turned from human help to divine doxology. She meditated, prayed, arranged for a succession of priestly rituals of increasing obscurity and malevolence. She took up Tantrism, participating in rites where blood and semen spurted into yellowing skulls as acolytes screamed their frenzied invocations of the powers of Shakti. She practised austerities, sitting motionless for days in mortifying postures, her mind concentrating solely on her overwhelming clamour for retribution. At last - and she knew not in what state of consciousness this occurred, whether she was awake or dreaming or on that translucent plane where all experience is intensely, unverifiably personal - a dark figure appeared before her, erect above her half-closed eyes, bearing a trident and a look of infinite wisdom.
‘What you want shall come to pass,’ said an ethereal voice that echoed round the spaces of her mind. ‘But know this: under the boon conferred by his father, Ganga Datta will only leave this world when he no longer wishes to remain in it. When such a moment comes, he can be destroyed - but only by a man made unlike all other men.’
And then the voice was gone, leaving only the vibrations of its message in her mind, so that when Amba opened her eyes and saw the haze swirling around her it was as if she had been touched by the intangible, as if she had been possessed by the ineffable, as if she had been filled up by an absence.
She remained as she was for many hours after that, savouring the texture of the experience through all her senses, giving herself up to the meaning of that moment. Finally, she knew, and she rose to her feet with a terrible purpose etched into her will.
The Great Indian Novel Page 23
