The Hope of Shridula (8 page)

Hari was a good son. He did his best to be the man of the family. Hari was also a good brother. He knew what it was to be despised, and he tried hard to protect his little brother, Falak, from jeers and cruel gossip. Hari was a good worker. Though it meant spending the entire day in backbreaking labor on his hands and knees in stinking mud, he did the job assigned to him without a word of complaint.

But Hari was a terrible thief. Dinkar caught him before he even got out of the storehouse.

"I will work!" Hari pleaded. "Just give me a man's job and I will do it!"

Dinkar bound Hari's hands with coarse rope and led him back to the settlement. In the courtyard, he untied the boy and forced him to hug the trunk of a young tamarind tree so he could bind Hari's wrists together on the opposite side. Ignoring the boy's pleas, he set a guard to watch him until daylight.

"Please, please!" Jyoti begged. "My son is only a boy. Please! He did wrong, but only to get food for his mother and his brother. He did not do it for himself."

Dinkar pushed her away with his foot.

Ashish lay on the sleeping mat between his wife and daughter and listened to the weeping of the woman who sat crumpled outside the hut next to his.

"What will happen to Hari?" Shridula whispered.

"That is not your business," Zia said. "Your business is to sleep so you can work hard tomorrow."

Ashish said nothing.

All night he lay awake under the shelter of his
neem
tree, listening to the muffled sobs of the scavenger woman who now had no one with her but one hungry young child.

8

June 1946

T
he sun rose over a hot and steamy day, but the laborers could not start work. Jinraj and his band of young men barred them from both the paddies and the dairy construction site.

"What is happening?" Shridula asked.

"I do not know," her father said. Whatever it was, he was certain it would not be good.

"Look!" Shridula gasped. "Master Landlord is coming!"

Laborers who had been gathering in the courtyard since dawn quickly stepped to one side or the other, splitting the crowd down the middle. Boban Joseph's Sudra servant steered the horse-drawn cart through the open passageway, all the way through to the well. He didn't so much as glance Shridula's way. Dinkar, his face drawn, fell to his knees and bowed before the landlord. "The boy is ready, master," he mumbled.

Boban Joseph stood up in the cart and looked out at the tattered throng. "I own this land!" he proclaimed. "I own the grain that grows on it, and I own every one of you!"

Young Hari, his arms still bound around the tamarind tree, started to whimper.

"I am a fair man. I give you fair return for fair labor. But I will not abide thievery!"

Jyoti ran to the cart and fell on her face before the landlord. "Please, please, show mercy to my son!" she cried. "He is but a boy trying to be a man. For the sake of his mother and brother, show him mercy."

Boban Joseph looked at her with disdain. "Remove yourself, woman, or you shall join your son for his punishment."

Zia rushed forward and grabbed hold of Jyoti. "Come," she begged. "You will only make things worse for Hari."

As Zia pulled Jyoti away, Boban Joseph's servant climbed down from the cart. In his hand he clutched a whip.

"Do not expect mercy from me," Boban Joseph declared— not only to Jyoti, but to the entire crowd of workers. "I am not like my father!"

The Sudra servant, his eyes fixed on the trembling, sobbing boy, slowly uncoiled his whip. He cracked it in the air once, twice, then brought it down hard across Hari's bare back. The boy shrieked with pain.

"No! Please, no!" Jyoti screamed.

Another crack of the whip, another lash. Then another, and another. Hari screamed with each lash, but already his cries were growing weaker.

Jyoti's legs gave way and she fell to the ground.

Another crack, another lash. Another. Another. Tears poured from the boy's eyes. He opened his mouth, but all he could do was utter strangled, gurgling noises.

Hari crumpled and collapsed. Still tightly bound around the tree's trunk, he hung by his arms, moaning.

Ashish glanced at Shridula. She was sobbing in her mother's arms.

"Stop it!" Ashish cried to the Sudra. "How can you beat a starving boy?"

Another crack, another lash.

"Stop! We are not animals. We are people!"

Another crack, another lash. Now Hari moved only slightly at the blows. He was barely conscious. But by the look on Boban Joseph's face, he neither knew nor cared.

Ashish jumped forward, positioning himself between the Sudra servant and Hari.

"Move aside immediately," Boban Joseph ordered, "or my servant will whip the life out of both you and him!"

Ashish raised his head, stood tall, and held his ground. Shridula pulled away from her mother and ran to stand beside her father. Zia opened her mouth to protest, but instead she, too, stepped up beside them.

Boban Joseph shook with rage. "You think I will not beat you? I most certainly will!" he bellowed. "Raise the whip!"

But before the Sudra could follow the landlord's orders, Dinkar rushed up and stood beside Ashish. The young man with the old man's face pushed forward, too. Then Jinraj did the same, and the entire group of young men followed him.

The Sudra servant, forced to step back to make room for the growing crowd, looked about him in confusion. He turned to Boban Joseph, but all the landlord did was growl and sputter and grind his teeth in frustrated fury.

More laborers pushed forward, forcing the Sudra to step back still further.

Boban Joseph turned from the Sudra to the growing crowd, his look of rage fast deteriorating into desperation tinged with fear.

The Sudra had already raised his whip, but he hesitated, still holding it high in the air. Finally he dropped his arm and let the whip fall.

"Come!" Boban Joseph called abruptly. "We have taught the thief his lesson. We are finished here."

Ashish didn't dare to move.

The Sudra hurried into the cart and lashed wildly at the horse. The poor animal leapt forward and bolted up the pathway toward home. Boban Joseph did not look back.

Jyoti pushed forward to tend to her son. The laborers— looking blankly at each other—turned in silence toward their huts.

"What happened?" Dinkar asked Ashish when they were alone.

"Civil disobedience," Ashish said. "Like the Mahatma teaches."

Although Mohandas Gandhi had been irritating the British Empire for longer than Ashish had lived, Ashish had never heard the leader's name before he spent the day in the dirt beside Boban Joseph's veranda. Sitting perfectly still, remaining absolutely quiet, he learned much about the Mahatma's words and methods that afternoon. The high caste men had talked on that day, ignoring the Untouchable's presence. As far as they were concerned, he was not even there. Such a one as he was of no more consequence to them than a fly or a mouse.

Years before, when the Communist Party of Malabar had gone through the countryside recruiting members, they came at night to the settlement and whispered to the workers who sat around their cooking fires. Ashish's father, Virat, perked up his Untouchable ears and listened to their message:
Everyone will be treated the same. No one shall be privileged over any other. No more caste.
Strongly drawn to that message, Virat joined the party.

When Ashish's voice changed from that of a boy to that of a man, he had followed his father and received his own party membership card. It didn't take long, however, for him to see that Untouchables still fell victim to attacks by the upper castes. And, as always, most of those attacks went unreported. Their landowner and his son were the worst offenders of all.

"We must force them to stop!" Ashish had railed to his father back then.

But Virat simply said, "Be patient, my son. It will take time."

The Communists spoke long and loud, but they did not speak for the Untouchables. So Ashish tore up his membership card and turned his back on the Communist Party.

Nihal Amos, Saji Stephen's second son, had no idea that anyone in the settlement had the least knowledge of the Communist Party. Not only did he himself carry a membership card, but he was active in the organization and totally dedicated to it. So quickly was he moving up the ranks that he was slated to soon be awarded a place of leadership.

"You, a Communist?" his uncle Boban Joseph mocked him. "How can that be? You are from a Christian family!"

"I am a Christian Communist," Nihal Amos huffed.

Which was not as unlikely as it sounded. The area's Marxist rulers were unusual among Communists in that they did not condemn religion. On the contrary, they emphasized the areas on which they agreed with religious leaders. Over caste issues and matters of land reform, they clashed equally with Hindus and Christians.

"Actually, Communism and Christianity have much in common," Nihal Amos told his uncle. "Both fight for justice among the poor. Surely Jesus would approve of that."

"I suppose you want me to set all our workers free," Boban Joseph said. "I suppose you are offering to plow the land yourself, and then to plant the crops and bring in the harvest with your own hand."

"Certainly not," Nihal Amos answered. "As a matter of fact, I am saying that the slave castes are a different breed of people than we high castes. They are the true sons of the soil. They are the ones who descended from the earliest inhabitants of India. Therefore, they deserve our help and compensation for all that their kind has suffered at the hands of those who invaded their land, killed their kings, and stole their homes."

Boban Joseph's eyes narrowed and he glared at his second nephew. "And who is supposed to provide this help and pay all this compensation?"

"Well . . ." Nihal Amos hesitated. "I suppose . . . uh . . . well, all of us—that is, to some extent."

"I will begin to this extent," Boban Joseph said. "By the new moon, you and your family will leave my house. Whatever expense I have previously wasted on you and your wife, I will expend on my new dairy, which will provide extra work—and therefore, extra rice—for the laborers."

"Now, Uncle, do not be hasty," Nihal Amos said. "All I meant to say was that—"

"By the new moon."

"Uncle, please. This is our home. It is our only home. We have nowhere else to go."

"Join the beggars by the side of the road, then. Become one with them."

"You do not understand my point, Uncle. It is simply that—"

"You will be gone by the new moon!"

9

June 1946

C
ome Gather around and listen to what I have to say!" Nihal Amos called as he walked through the workers' settlement. "Come, come and hear!" Nihal's lean, unpretentious appearance attracted the attention of the Untouchable laborers. This could be no well-fed, pampered high caste landowner— could it?

Still balancing her water pot on her head, Shridula stopped to gape at the thin man, his
mundu
flapping around his brown legs. Not like a Brahmin, though. For with the
mundu
he wore an Englishman's white shirt.

"Come! Come!" Nihal Amos called. "Gather around. What I have to say is important to all!"

Ashish kept his mouth shut tight. He recognized Saji Stephen's second son. And he knew perfectly well why Nihal Amos had come to the settlement.

It wasn't difficult to persuade the workers to toss their plows and hoes aside and forget about the weeds that threatened to overtake the paddies. The men clumped together in groups, staying far enough back from the stranger to feel safe, but inching close enough to hear what he had to say.

"I am Nihal, nephew of the landowner."

The workers cast anxious eyes to their idled working tools. Slowly, they began to edge back toward them. But as they whispered worried suspicions to one another, Nihal Amos quickly added, "Please do not worry. I have not come here to oppress you further. Nor do I intend to force more work from your tired backs. On the contrary, I have come to help you."

The whispering hushed. Every worker fixed his eyes on the skinny man in the white man's shirt.

Nihal Amos began by telling the laborers what they already knew: "The landlord forces you to work too hard. He rests on his bed through the searing heat of the day. Why should he deny you the right to do the same? It is through your sweat and labor that the rich landlord grows richer still. Why then should you struggle to work when you are so weak from hunger you find it difficult to stand? Why should your starving children cry themselves to sleep at night? It is not fair! It is not right!"

"Yes, yes!" the workers said to one another. "Everything the man says is true. He knows. He knows!"

Nihal Amos spoke of the workers' suffering. Of their breaking backs as they stooped over in the paddies hour after hour, planting the rice seedlings. Of their hands, blistered and raw, as they hoed the ground under the scorching sun. Of their parched mouths as they cried out for water that didn't come. Of their head-swimming weariness with no rest in sight.

"Yes, yes! That is our plight!" the laborers called back. "You know! You understand!"

"And you have no hope. That is the worst of it," Nihal Amos said sadly. "With the curse of karma hanging heavy over you, how can you hope that your lot will improve? It will not. Not for you and not for your children."

"No," the people murmured. "We have no hope. No hope at all."

Ashish watched the energy with which Nihal Amos waved his twig-thin arms about and listened to the amazing passion of Nihal Amos's message. He looked around at the intensity of the crowd, too. How easily his friends and neighbors called out their agreement to this son of the landlord's brother! All the people he knew so well suddenly seemed complete strangers to him.

"It does not have to be this way!" Nihal Amos said. "You do not have to be slaves to the high castes!"

The crowd grew hushed. Ashish could tell they did not quite believe what Nihal Amos had just said, even though they badly wanted to believe it. He could see the disbelief in the slump of their shoulders and the way they turned their eyes away from Nihal Amos.

Nihal Amos saw it too, so he quickly changed his approach. "Who of you knows of Mr. B. R. Ambedkar?" he bellowed.

The gathered workers all stared back at him with curious eyes.

"No one? But every one of you should know of this man! He is one of you—an Untouchable. But he is no slave to a landowner! He does not spend his days groveling in the stinking mud of rice paddies or his nights in the shabby hut of a laborer. No, he practices law at the Bombay High Court."

A gasp of disbelief arose from the crowd.

"I tell you the truth! This important lawyer is an Untouchable, the same as you!"

Nihal Amos paused to let the enormity of this revelation sink in.

"Mr. B. R. Ambedkar is not exactly like you, however, for he insists before everyone that the caste system is a terrible evil."

The crowd stared in shocked silence. Could the landowner's nephew actually be saying such a thing?

"Mr. B. R. Ambedkar stands up in public and calls the members of the Indian Congress hypocrites. Yes, and he says the same of Mr. Gandhi, too! Mr. B. R. Ambedkar insists that every person who is a member of the upper caste must be required to pay for what they have done to you Untouchables!"

Ashish glanced around at the rapt faces. This had to be some sort of a trick. Yes, surely the landlord's nephew was attempting to fool the workers, to get something more out of them.

"So you see, to pull free from your bonds of oppression is more than just a wishful hope. It is a real possibility! Mr. B. R. Ambedkar has made a path to freedom for you. He has shown Untouchables the way to a whole new future!"

As long as Nihal Amos talked, the workers listened eagerly. Men pushed up close to Nihal Amos while the women held back, but they also listened. Even the children, who couldn't begin to understand the concepts, listened to the words and grasped the excitement.

Finally, Nihal Amos stopped talking. He wiped the dripping perspiration from his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and gratefully accepted the cup of water a worker held out to him. To everyone's amazement, the son of the landlord's brother actually drank water from an Untouchable cup!

"Mr. B. R. Ambedkar may not know it, but in his heart he is a Marxist," Nihal Amos said. "For Marxists also believe all people should be treated the same. Everyone who expects to eat should toil in the fields and paddies, regardless of the caste of his birth. And every person who works, in whatever capacity, should enjoy and share equally in the fruits of his labor."

Yes, the workers agreed. What the landowner's nephew said was most certainly true. Every word of it!

"You, too, can be a part of this exciting future," Nihal Amos cried. "All this hope and possibility belongs to you as well! Every one of you! All you need to do is come up here to me, and join the Communist Party. I will add your name to my list, and you can seal your membership with your thumbprint. I will give you a membership card to prove which side you are on. Come and add your name! Come and help change India! Come and give power to Untouchables!"

As the men pushed forward, Ashish jumped up onto a stump and called out, "Wait! Do you not understand that this is the son of the landlord's brother? Who is he to speak to us of freedom and hope? He is part of the family of our oppressor, yet he dares tell us we should not be oppressed! We stamped our thumbprints on the landlord's sheets before—or our fathers did—and look where that got us. I beg you, do not be too quick to trust this upper caste man!"

"Do not think of it as joining with me!" Nihal Amos countered. "Think of it as joining with the great B. R. Ambedkar!"

"Is that so?" Ashish challenged. "Then let Mr. B. R. Ambedkar come and talk to us. Let Mr. B. R. Ambedkar invite us to join with him!"

At the head of the line, eager to stamp his thumbprint and join with the Marxists, was Dinkar. Young Hari, still hurting badly from the whipping, limped up behind him. Jinraj followed, and the young man with an old man's face came along behind him. Two more men stepped up, and another and another. The line grew, but it grew neither fast nor long.

"Can girls join too,
Appa?"
Shridula asked eagerly. "If they can, I want the landlord's nephew to add my name to the list."

"No!" Ashish said. "I forbid it. Even if you were a son and not a daughter, I would still forbid it."

"Why?" Shridula demanded to know.

"Because the Marxists do not really speak for us. Even if they want to, they cannot. The upper castes will continue to attack us, and the police will continue to defend and protect them. That is how it has always been and that is how it will continue to be."

"But the Communists are our only hope!"

"Be patient, my daughter," Ashish said. "Real change will come someday, but it will not be like this."