CHAPTER 25
For the next few days Maan Singh was kept in the police lock-up and subjected to tough interrogation by the Superintendent of Police and his staff. News of this abortive coup had already spread all over the country. Some local Congress leaders had arrived in Pachmarhi to conduct their own fact-finding enquiries. The prisoner was already a hero in the entire Central Provinces, and the Congress had to show that it was concerned about his treatment in police custody. Among the visitors to the Pachmarhi police station was therefore Pratap Dubey, the leading criminal lawyer of the district and an up-and-coming Congress leader. Mr Dubey was allowed to see the prisoner and lost no time in offering to defend him in court. The prisoner was non-committal for the time being. He showed no interest in his forthcoming trail, or indeed in anything else. He seemed unwilling to talk at length with any visitor and those who did meet him later said that he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts and it was difficult to engage him in conversation.
But one thing was clear-he had not been tortured. The police were prevented from applying what are called third degree methods, by the scrutiny of the press. And the presence of so many big-wigs in the government made the SP wary. He was going to play this by the book, much as he wanted to make the prisoner feel the stroke of his baton. And the fact remained that Maan Singh had not tried to evade arrest, had in fact turned himself in without harming so much as a fly. It would not do to get rough with a person like that. Coming so soon after Amritsar, this would be seen as another instance of British brutality if the prisoner was harmed in any way. For all these reasons, Maan Singh was soon escorted to Hoshangabad Jail and placed in judicial custody-the legal euphemism for imprisonment. The local police did not ask for remand beyond the first three days and Maan Singh was therefore lucky to escape the statutory beatings which are the fate of most prisoners charged with serious crimes in India.
The important persons who had gathered at Pachmarhi soon dispersed and the district officials retuned to Hoshangabad. It was back to business as usual, except for one thing-media attention remained focused on the coming trial and the talk at the club often turned to the events that took place on the fateful night of May the 27th. What puzzled most people wasnaturally the conduct of Maan Singh. It was quite true that he and his friends had in fact taken the entire government of India hostage, if only for a moment. Of course the whole plot was the usual quixotic and ill-planned venture and it could never have succeeded in its final objective, but it could still have given a rude shock to a government already reeling after the events at Amritsar. Why then had this chap called Maan Singh suddenly turned a Gandhian and held his fire ate the crucial moment? It was this question around which most of the debate centred.
“The fellows nerves failed him, that’s all,” maintained the SP. “These Hindus are chicken-hearted at bottom. A Hindu is capable of the most frightful violence, but usually only in the heat of the moment. Ask him to kill in cold blood and he gets squeamish. That is what I have seen in dozens of cases.”
“And yet many of them have gone to their death without showing any fear,” said the District Judge Maitland. “Remember that lad Khudiram in Bengal a few years ago. I was the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Murshidabad then and had to attend his execution. I can tell you that boy didn’t bat an eyelid. He was a mere stripling, but he seemed to be almost glad to die. So whatever stripling, else they might be, these so-called revolutionaries are not cowards, not all of them. It’s your call Bains”.
“So it is. I think I’ll pass. And yes, I agree with you George. I met this fellow in jail yesterday. He is no coward. He is full of remorse for betraying his cause, as he call it, but if you ask him point blank if he is sorry he held his fire, he seems to demur. In fact it’s hard to make him out.”
The SP didn’t seem to like this line of thinking. “I think you are putting too fine a point on it, Bains, the fact is the chap is a terrorist and deserves to hand. And so he will, if I had things in my hand. But of course the matter is out of my hands. It is for the JudgeSahib to decide and he goes by the book, as we all know.” The SP looked at Maitland as he said this.
“I never discuss a case out of court Macgregor, and you know it.” The DJ’s tone carried a mild reproof. “Let the law takes its own course, that is what I would say.”
“Aye so it will. It’s your move sir.”
George Maitland, the District & Sessions Judge of Hoshangabad, was known to be ruthless but fair. He made no secret of his conservative political views, but it was his boast that when he sat on the dais, he set aside his personal opinions and became merely a dispenser of justice. There had been some talk of transferring him before the trial, but it was soon given up. It was true that a harsh sentence, if it came, would further exacerbate an already volatile situation, but a transfer at this juncture would undermine faith in British justice. So on balance, it was thought better to let things the take their own course.
The matter was also discussed hotly in the bar at the district courts. Here opinion was divided into various camps, depending on your political affiliation, and each of these camps had its own distinct view of the matter. The Congress camp-led by Pratap Dubey-maintained that Maan Singh was a misguided revolutionary who had realised his mistake at the eleventh hour. He had realised that the path of non-violence propagated by the Mahatama was the right path, and had thus abjured violence in the nick of time. He was welcome to join the Congress Party after he had served his sentence. It was hoped that this sentence would not be too harsh, but of course that depended ultimately on the District Judge and no one could take him for granted.
The anti-congress faction led by some die-hard Hindu Mahasabha followers thought the whole matter was a Congress conspiracy and Maan Singh had been a Congressman from the start, masquerading as a revolutionary. The Congress needed a stunt like this to regain some of its waning popularity and to reaffirm faith in Mahatama Gandhi’s leadership. Gandhi’s decision to suspend the non-cooperation movement after the Chauri-Chaura incident, where nine policeman were burnt alive by a frenzied mob, was considered a mere ploy to help the beleaguered Raj. The truth was – so went the argument –Gandhi was a secret British sympathiser and so was this bogus revolutionary.
There was also a pro-British faction within the bar. This was, surprisingly, quite a large number, and most of the senior advocates belonged to this faction. They had cut their legal teeth before British judges, and most of them had grown old in the service of the law, whose majesty was symbolised for them by a crusty old English judge in a white peruke presiding over the court. Their faith in British justice was absolute. These young men simply did not know what was good for them. They had seen days when a man was trampled to death simply because he had unwittingly come before some Rajah’s elephant and delayed the royal progress. Such a thing was no longer possible, even in the princely states, thanks to the British. Therefore they deplored all attempts to change of the Congress led agitation, or the random violence practised by the revolutionaries.
There was finally the bazaar view, which also had its adherents within the bar. This view was that Maan Singh had held his fire because the British padre had besought him, in the name of Lord Ram to spare their lives. Maan Singh, it was said, was not merely a revolutionary, he was also a saintly being, blessed with supernatural powers, and his crudely painted portraits were already on sale in the bazaar and were being eagerly sought as talismans.
The decks were thus being cleared for the show-piece trial when one of those unexpected events happened, that so often change the course of things in India. For many days the heat had been oppressive, and many of the sahibs had started sleeping outside their bungalows, their cots covered with mosquito nets. The lawyers carried their black coats on their arms, putting them on only just before they entered the court-room. The monsoon was expected to arrive any day now and when it came, the heat would be at an end. A few premonsoon showers-those short sharp bursts of rain-were forecast within the week.
Then one afternoon, great banks of cloud suddenly rolled up in the south. The sun still shone, but it was no longer the scorching sun of summer. Purple forks of lightening leapt from one cloud crag to another and the thunder muttered and rumbled constantly as the sky darkened and the sun was totally blotted out. Premonitory fingers of wind probed the rustling leaves, then came damp gusts, driving flocks of dry leaves and eddies of dust in front of them. The wind carried the smell of rain on dry ground-the scent of the approaching monsoon which is unforgettable for every Indian. The damp gusts gathered strength till the wind became a driving gale, bending the tops of slender trees, blowing away the rough country tiles on the rafters of mud-walled village houses and sending the rooks cawing to their shelters. The wind could not bend the giant bunyans and the stalwart peepul trees, but when it hit their crowns the leaves set up a loud murmur, like the sound of the surf on a stormy shore.
The sound of the wind was soon mingled with another sound, the sound of rain. The distant landscape was blotted out by a hazy pall as the rain descended. This haze advanced rapidly, like a column of armour in the desert and soon billowing curtains of rain enveloped the town of Hoshangabad and the hills across the river could no longer be seen. The monsoon had arrived.
This was no pre-monsoon shower but the monsoon itself. The first fury of the storm soon abated, but unlike other years, there was no let up in the rain this time. It fell incessantly in a study downpour, restlessly on corrugated iron roofs of garage sheds and makeshift offices, and on the tiled roofs of bungalows, and gushed out in thick torrents from waterspouts and gargoyles. Rivulets rushed down the hillsides, dry nullahs became raging torrents, the rain flooded the very streets of the town itself, carrying with it the detritus of a long summer. The river which had sunk to a shallow stream and split into two channels also began to rise. Very soon the water was half way up the piers of the railways bridge and the Collector began to get worried.
Hoshangabad is a low-lying habitation and many of its streets get flooded when the river is swollen. But no matter how high the river rises, the railway bridge never gets submerged. Only once before in living memory had people seen the water just touching the spans of the bridge and that was in the floods of 1881. But when the water starts frothing around the tops of the piers and touching the steel girders that form its spans, it spells doom for the town. What the Collector feared most was a repeat of the floods of 1881 when the Collectorate itself had gone under water and there were boats on the main street.
As the river rose the bathing ghats disappeared under water and the temples that lined the banks of the river were abandoned by their preists. The idol of Shiva in the Onkar temple on the Sethani ghat – the tutelary deity of the town – was already under four feet of water, and this too was considered an ominous signal by the pandits.
Distress signals were already pouring in and the Collector ordered both the life boasts at his disposal to be made ready. None of these boats, as it happened, was motorised. They were sturdy rowing boats whose planking was braced with iron hoops and whose gunwales rose a good three feet out of the water, but they were not easy to manoeuvre. The rowers consisted of volunteers from the police and the Collectorate staff. The Collector was directing the rescue operations himself and when a report came in that the village of Ratibad, a few miles downstream was completely marooned. The Collector set out himself, disregarding the protests of the SP.
“I say, Bains, there is no need for you to go yourself. The Tehsildar can take care of the matter. We need you here in the Control Room.”
“Nonsense, Tom. You can hold the fort in my absence. And Cartwright, you had better rush to Sohagpur. I am told the situation is rather bad there.” With those words the Collector got into the boat and rowed away.
By now the river was more like a sea of turbid brown water that extended right up to the mountains on the far side. As the Collector’s boas was carried downstream by the current and disappeared round a bend, the men gathered in the control room felt a sense of foreboding. “Very brave of Bains. I am sure, but if you ask me, rather foolish. This is no time for playing boy scouts. The situation in the town is bad. Thousands of people are sheltering in the College building. Thousands more have come to the police lines. People ten to be on edge at times like this. Should anything go wrong, there would be hell to pay when the floods recede. And the Congresswallas will make political capital out of it. Well, you better set off old man. You will find your work cut out. I am told the Tawa is also in spate and many villages on its banks are in trouble.”
Cartwright set out on horseback and managed to reach Sohagpur by nightfall. The first person to greet him in the Sohagpur Dak Bungalow was the Tehslidar of Sohagpur. “How are things with you Tehsildar Sahib?”
“The Tawa is still risinghuzoor, and six villages are completed marooned. We are sending them food and water by boat. I have requisitioned all the boats available, even small dinghies and coracles have been pressed into service. But there is nothing we can do during the night. Your honour must wait for daylight, before inspecting our arrangements.”
“Yes, I suppose there is no help for it,” said Cartwright, “but do keep your largest boat ready. I want to set off at first light.”
Next morning they set out early. Cartwright wanted to make a round of the marooned villages downstream from Sohagpur. As this boat also had no outboard motor, going upstream was out of the question. The big boat floated downstream with the tide. It was a broad-beamed vessel, steered by long oars which made it difficult to manoeuvre. As the sun rose, the full extent of the river became visible for the first time and all the men in the boat felt their own insignificance before the on rushing tide of fast flowing water. The village of Neelkant became visible on the right bank. Its whitewashed temples that stood along the banks were half submerged but they could clearly see a big house on a headland that still rose high above the flood. A woman was standing there and she seemed to waving a red flag trying to attract the attention of the boat.
“You see that woman by the house Tehsildar Sahib?”
“I do indeed huzoor. That is the ancestral home of Mr. Dube, the Tehsildar of Hoshangabad.”
“Is it indeed. But why is the lady waving a red flag. By the looks of it, she seems to be in a bit of trouble. I think we ought to go and investigate matters, don’t you think.”
“Certainly huzoor, it is always good to help people in distress, but I must point out that the right bank of the river is outside our district. In fact it is not British territory at all, it falls in the state of Ratangarh.”
“I know all that. All the same, I don’t think we can ignore a person in distress, notwithstanding your scruples Tehsildar Sabhib. Please ask the oarsmen to row for the other bank.”
“Huzoor, there are treacherous eddies and whirlpools in the middle of the river and it is not at all easy to reach the right bank.”
“Nevertheless, please, do as I say.”
“As your honour desires.” With this the Tehsildar gave the order to turn the boat towards the village. The boat swung her bows to the right. As they cut diagonally across the channel the current carried them past the village and they could reach the right bank only about half a mile downstream of the village. After anchoring the boat they decided to walk up to the village and this journey along the slushy river bank meant fording several small nullahs which were in spate and thus difficult to cross. Before they had gone halfway across they met the lady herself hurrying down to meet them. Cartwright recognized her at once as the woman who had been chosen as the oracle of Antara.
Cartwright was wondering how he should address the oracle-or the former oracle- when the lady herself solved the problem.
“Mr Cartwright, isn’t it.” She said in English.
“Yes, but how did you know. I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
“No, not formally, but you were present when I was chosen the oracle. Besides, everyone knows you.”
“Indeed! I am surprise.”
“You shouldn’t be. You and Mr. Bains, the Collector are the only two ICS officers, living within a hundred miles of this place, and naturally everyone knows all about the members of the heaven born service who come within our ken. They are rather like film stars, only their glamour is more real because they have real authority in their hands.”
“Well, I suppose I should feel flattered. But tell me why you were waving the flag. Is there anything we can do to help-in case there is trouble.”
The young woman’s face suddenly became serious. “Yes, there is. My grandfather is very ill and he is asking for his son-my uncle, Mr. Dube, the Tehsildar – to be brought to him. Can you send the message across to Hoshangabad so that my uncle could come down to Neelkant.
“I am sorry. But if he is really ill, should he not be shifted to Hoshangabad himself. There are good doctors there and perhaps we can find some conveyance for taking him there.” Cartwright’s concern was quite genuine. He felt drawn to this beautiful young woman and wanted to help her.
“He wouldn’t hear of it. Say’s he wants to die in his own bed and in his own house.” There were tears in her eyes as she said. They had arrived at the house by now and the young lady led them inside. “Perhaps he would listen to you. Would you like to speak to him.”
“Yes”.
Cartwright was conducted though the cloistered verandas to the old man’s room. The old man lay bare-chested on a cot, his face quite serene. He was dozing. “Baba! Baba!,wake up. Here is someone who wants to see you.”
The old man opened his eyes and squinted up at them. “See me, who is it?”
“It is Cartwright sahib, the Assistant Collector.”
“Cartwright Sahib! You didn’t tell me he was coming here.” The old man tried to sit up, but did not quite succeed. “It is a great honour sahib, that you should visit an old man on his death bed.”
“Don’t say that. You’ll soon be all right, once the doctors have a good look at you. I have come to persuade you to come with me to the Hoshangabad hospital.”
“No sahib, I want to die in this house where I was born and where I have always lived, with my loved ones around me. I have no wish to die in a hospital bed with the doctors poking and prodding my poor body.”
“Don’t talk of dying Baba, why do you keep talking of it.”
“Tut, tut my dear, this is no time for crying. It’s a time for rejoicing. I have had a long life. I have done my duty as a father and a husband. Paid off all my dues to time and fate. Now it is time to cast off this old and tired body and be one with the eternal spirit. My mind is at peace. I have only one regret, that I am leaving you, my dear child. I had hoped to see you married before I died, but the gods have willed otherwise. So be it. I know the grace of God will always be with you, whatever fate has in store for you, for you are one of his chosen ones. Come closer my dear, and no tears mind!”
But the tears still flowed as Sunanda bent over her grandfather. The old man, raised one of her hands and placed it on her head in the age old gesture of benediction, and sank bank on the pillow exhausted. His eyelids drooped and he fell back into sleep. But his even breathing showed that he was alive and seemingly in no immediate danger.
Cartwright cleared his throat gently. “We can still have him carried to the hospital.”
“No,” said Sunanda, almost fiercely. “Didn’t you hear what he said. We must respect his wishes. Besides, I agree with him.”
Cartwright was taken aback. He had been told that the lady had been taught by British teachers and was a self-confessed rationalist. He found her refusal to commit her grandfather to the care of doctors, irrational. “Well ….,” he said showing his own irresolution.
“Oh, I know what you are thinking. You believe he would be better off in the care of doctors and you find my views odd. But I look at things as a Hindu, and to me a peaceful death is much more important than mere prolongation of life. There is no point in putting off death for a few days or even weeks to eke out a vegetable existence with the assistance of drugs.”
“I see, well, in that case I will pass on your message to Mr. Dube. Is there any other way in which I can be of assistance.” Cartwright was reluctant to take his leave.
“You are not going to leave without eating your lunch. I am sure you and your men must be hungry.”
That was quite true, but Cartwright was reluctant to impose on the hospitality of family in distress. He made the usual polite refusal but Sunanda would have none of it. “You have come so far to help us. How can I let you go like this. It would be considered very rude. Beside, Baba would have wished it so.”
This clinched the matter. While food was being prepared Cartwright and Sunanda were thrown together, the others keeping a little apart out of deference. “Miss Dube, there is a little thing that I have been wanting to tell you but never got the opportunity until now.”
“Well.”
“It’s about the college debate. Do you remember the debate.”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, I just thought I ought to tell you that you were wonderful. You really have a knack for public speaking.”
Sunanda flushed with pleasure. “It’s kind of you to remember a little thing like that after so many months.”
“It’s not a little thing. It’s something that made a deep impression on me. And after that, I must say, you conduct as the Oracle of Antara, your resignation on a point of principle – all that is something that I find admirable.”
It was hard to respond to such praise. Poor Sunand could only blush and look flustered. But for the rest of the day, there was a decided bounce in her step as she went about the business of laying out lunch.
Cartwright was effusive in his thanks when the time came to leave. “Do let me know if I can be of any service, “he said in the manner of a seasoned India hand while taking leave. Then on an impulse he took one of her hands into his own. Sunanda did not snatch it away as he had half expected. Instead she smiled as she answered him. “You have already been so kind. I don’t want to tax your kindness and further, but yes, there is one more thing, and I shall tell you about it later. This is not the right time for it. Thank you Mr. Cartwright, for having answered my summons.”
The old man lingered on for a few days, Mr. Dube however wasn’t able to come in time, for an event happened that plunged the whole district in gloom – a cataclysm that overshadowed the flood itself. Bains the Collector, who had so bravely set out to rescue marooned villagers, was swept away along with his boat and lost in the flood. His body was found two days later, near the ruined fort of Joga, a good fifty kilometres downstream of Hoshangabad.
