Train to Pakistan (9 page)

Jugga recovered his temper as quickly as he had lost it. He forgot the incident of the bangles and the beating as soon as he stepped across his threshold. He had no malice or ill will towards the policemen: they were not human like other human beings. They had no affections, no loyalties or enmities. They were just men in uniform you tried to avoid.

There was not much point in Juggut Singh covering his face. The whole village knew him. He went past the villagers, smiling and raising his manacled hands in a greeting to everyone. The fetters around his feet forced him to walk slowly with his legs apart. He had a devil-may-care jauntiness in his step. He showed his unconcern by twirling his thin brown moustache and cracking obscene jokes with the policemen.

Iqbal and the two constables joined Juggut Singh’s party by the river. They all proceeded upstream towards the bridge. The head constable walked in front. Armed policemen marched on the sides and at the rear of the prisoners. Iqbal was lost in the khaki and red of their uniforms. Juggut Singh’s head and shoulders showed above the turbans of the policemen. It was like a procession of horses with an elephant in their midst—taller, broader, slower, with his chains clanking like ceremonial trappings.

No one seemed to be in the mood to talk. The policemen were uneasy. They knew that they had made a mistake, or rather, two mistakes. Arresting the social worker was a blunder and a likely source of trouble. His belligerent attitude confirmed his innocence. Some sort of case would have to be made up
against him. That was always a tricky thing to do to educated people. Juggut Singh was too obvious a victim to be the correct one. He had undoubtedly broken the law in leaving the village at night, but he was not likely to have joined in a dacoity in his own village. He would be too easily recognized by his enormous size. Also, it was quite clear that these two had met for the first time.

Iqbal’s pride had been injured. Up to the time he met Juggut Singh, he was under the impression that he had been arrested for his politics. He had insisted on being handcuffed so that the villagers could see with what dignity he bore himself. They would be angered at such an outrage to civil liberties. But the men had gaped stupidly and the women peered through their veils and asked each other in whispers, ‘Who is this?’ When he joined the group that escorted Juggut Singh, the point of the policeman’s advice, ‘Cover your face, otherwise you may be recognized at the identification parade,’ came home to him. He was under arrest in connection with the murder of Ram Lal. It was so stupid he could hardly believe it. Everyone knew that he had come to Mano Majra after the murder. On the same train as the policemen, in fact. They could be witness of his alibi. The situation was too ludicrous for words. But Punjabi policemen were not the sort who admitted making mistakes. They would trump up some sort of charge: vagrancy, obstructing officers in doing their duty, or some such thing. He would fight them tooth and nail.

The only one in the party who did not seem to mind was Juggut Singh. He had been arrested before. He had spent quite as much time in jail as at home. His association with the police was an inheritance. Register number ten at the police station, which gave the record of the activities of the bad characters of the locality, had carried his father Alam Singh’s name while he lived. Alam Singh had been convicted of dacoity with murder,
and hanged. Juggut Singh’s mother had to mortgage all their land to pay lawyers. Juggut Singh had to find money to redeem the land, and he had done that within the year. No one could prove how he had raised the money, but at the end of the year the police had taken him. His name was entered in register number ten and he was officially declared a man of bad character. Behind his back everyone referred to him as a ‘number ten’.

Juggut Singh looked at the prisoner beside him several times. He wanted to start a conversation. Iqbal had his eyes fixed in front of him and walked with the camera-consciousness of an actor facing the lens. Juggut Singh lost patience.

‘Listen. What village are you from?’ he asked and grinned, baring a set of even teeth studded with gold points in the centres.

Iqbal looked up, but did not return the smile.

‘I am not a villager. I come from Delhi. I was sent to organize peasants, but the government does not like the people to be organized.’

Juggut Singh became polite. He gave up the tone of familiarity. ‘I hear we have our own rule now,’ he said. ‘It is Mahatma Gandhi’s government in Delhi, isn’t it? They say so in our village.’

‘Yes, the Englishmen have gone but the rich Indians have taken their place. What have you or your fellow villagers got out of Independence? More bread or more clothes? You are in the same handcuffs and fetters which the English put on you. We have to get together and rise. We have nothing to lose but these chains.’ Iqbal emphasized the last sentence by raising his hands up to his face and jerking them as if the movement would break the handcuffs.

The policemen looked at each other.

Juggut Singh looked down at the fetters round his ankles and the iron bars which linked them to the handcuffs.

‘I am a badmash. All governments put me in jail.’

‘But,’ interrupted Iqbal angrily, ‘what makes you a badmash? The government! It makes regulations and keeps registers, policemen and jailers to enforce them. For anyone they do not like, they have a rule which makes him a bad character and a criminal. What have I…’

‘No, Babu Sahib,’ broke in Juggut Singh good-humouredly, ‘it is our fate. It is written on our foreheads and on the lines of our hands. I am always wanting to do something. When there is ploughing to be done or the harvest to be gathered, then I am busy. When there is no work, my hands still itch to do something. So I do something, and it is always wrong.’

The party passed under the bridge and approached the rest house. Juggut Singh’s complacency had put Iqbal off. He did not want to waste his breath arguing with a village bad character. He wanted to save his words for the magistrate. He would let him have it in English—the accent would make him squirm.

When the police brought in the prisoners the subinspector ordered them to be taken to the servants’ quarters. The magistrate was in his room dressing. The head constable left the prisoners with his men and came back to the bungalow.

‘Who is this small chap you have brought?’ asked the subinspector, looking a little worried.

‘I arrested him on your orders. He was the stranger staying at the Sikh temple.’

The answer irritated the subinspector. ‘I do not suppose you have any brains of your own! I leave a little job to you and you go and make a fool of yourself. You should have seen him before arresting him. Isn’t he the same man who got off the train with us yesterday?’

‘The train?’ queried the head constable, feigning ignorance. ‘I did not see him on the train, cherisher of the poor. I only carried out your orders and arrested the stranger loitering about
the village under suspicious circumstances.’

The subinspector’s temper shot up.

‘Ass!’

The head constable avoided his officer’s gaze.

‘You are an ass of some place,’ he repeated with greater vehemence. ‘Have you no brains at all?’

‘Cherisher of the poor, what fault have I…’

‘Shut up!’

The head constable started looking at his feet. The subinspector let his temper cool. He had to face Hukum Chand, who relied on him and did not expect to be let down. After some thought, the subinspector peered through the wire-gauze door.

‘Have I permission to enter?’

‘Come in. Come in, Inspector Sahib,’ Hukum Chand replied. ‘Do not wait on formalities.’

The subinspector went in, and saluted.

‘Well, what have you been doing?’ asked the magistrate. He was rubbing cream on his freshly shaven chin. In a tumbler on the dressing table a flat white tablet danced about the bottom, sending up a stream of bubbles.

‘Sir, we have made two arrests this morning. One is Jugga badmash. He was out of his house on the night of the dacoity. We are bound to get some information out of him. The other is the stranger whose presence had been reported by the headman and you ordered him to be arrested.’

Hukum Chand stopped rubbing his chin. He detected the attempt to pass off the second arrest onto him.

‘Who is he?’

The inspector shouted to the head constable outside.

‘What is the name of the fellow you arrested at the Sikh temple?’

‘Iqbal.’

‘Iqbal what?’ questioned the magistrate loudly.

‘I will just find out, sir.’ The head constable ran across to the servants’ quarters before the magistrate could let fly at him. Hukum Chand felt his temper rising. He took a sip out of his glass. The subinspector shuffled uneasily. The head constable came back a few minutes later and coughed to announce his return.

‘Sir,’ he coughed again. ‘Sir, he can read and write. He is educated.’

The magistrate turned to the door angrily.

‘Has he a father and mother, a faith, or not? Educated!’

‘Sir,’ faltered the head constable, ‘he refuses to tell us his father’s name and says he has no religion. He says he will speak to you himself.’

‘Go and find out,’ roared the magistrate. ‘Whip him on his buttocks till he talks. Go … no, wait, the Subinspector Sahib will handle this.’

Hukum Chand was in a rage. He gulped down the fizzing water in the tumbler and mopped his head with the shaving towel. A belch relieved him of his mounting wrath.

‘Nice fellows, you and your policemen! You go and arrest people without finding out their names, parentage or caste. You make me sign blank warrants of arrest. Some day you will arrest the Governor and say Hukum Chand ordered you to do so. You will have me dismissed.’

‘Cherisher of the poor, I will go and look into this. This man came to Mano Majra yesterday. I will find out his antecedents and business.’

‘Well, then, go and find out, and do not just stand and stare,’ barked Hukum Chand. He was not in the habit of losing his temper or of being rude. After the subinspector had left, he examined his tongue in the mirror and put another tablet of seltzer in the tumbler.

The subinspector went out and stopped on the veranda to take a few deep breaths. The magistrate’s wrath decided his attitude. He would have to take a strong line and finish the shilly-shallying. He went to the servants’ quarters. Iqbal and his escort stood apart from Juggut Singh’s crowd. The young man had a look of injured dignity. The subinspector thought it best not to speak to him.

‘Search this man’s clothes. Take him inside one of the quarters and strip him. I will examine them myself.’

Iqbal’s planned speech remained undelivered. The constable almost dragged him by the handcuffs into a room. His resistance had gone. He took off his shirt and handed it to the policeman. The subinspector came in and without bothering to examine the shirt ordered:

‘Take off your pyjamas!’

Iqbal felt humiliated. There was no fight left in him. ‘There are no pockets to the pyjamas. I cannot hide anything in them.’

‘Take them off and do not argue.’ The subinspector slapped his khaki trousers with his swagger stick to emphasize the order.

Iqbal loosened the knot in the cord. The pyjamas fell in a heap around his ankles. He was naked save for the handcuffs on his wrists. He stepped out of the pyjamas to let the policemen examine them.

‘No, that is not necessary,’ broke in the subinspector. ‘I have seen all I wanted to see. You can put on your clothes. You say you are a social worker. What was your business in Mano Majra?’

‘I was sent by my party,’ answered Iqbal, re-tying the knot in the cord of his pyjamas.

‘What party?’

‘People’s Party of India.’

The subinspector looked at Iqbal with a sinister smile. ‘The People’s Party of India,’ he repeated slowly, pronouncing each word distinctly. ‘You are sure it was not the Muslim League?’

Iqbal did not catch the significance of the question.

‘No, why should I be a member of the Muslim League? I …’

The subinspector walked out of the room before Iqbal had finished his sentence. He ordered the constables to take the prisoners to the police station. He went back to the rest house to report his discovery to the magistrate. There was an obsequious smile on his face.

‘Cherisher of the poor, it is all right. He says he has been sent by the People’s Party. But I am sure he is a Muslim Leaguer. They are much the same. We would have had to arrest him in any case if he was up to mischief so near the border. We can charge him with something or other later.’

‘How do you know he is a Muslim Leaguer?’

The subinspector smiled confidently. ‘I had him stripped.’

Hukum Chand shook his glass to churn the dregs of chalk at the bottom, and slowly drank up the remaining portion of the seltzer. He looked thoughtfully into the empty tumbler and added:

‘Fill in the warrant of arrest correctly. Name: Mohammed Iqbal, son of Mohammed Something-or-other, or just father unknown. Caste: Mussulman. Occupation: Muslim League worker.’

The subinspector saluted dramatically.

‘Wait, wait. Do not leave things half done. Enter in your police diary words to the effect that Ram Lal’s murderers have not yet been traced but that information about them is expected soon. Didn’t you say Jugga has something to do with it?’

‘Yes, sir. The dacoits threw glass bangles in his courtyard before leaving. Apparently he had refused to join them in their venture.’

‘Well, get the names out of him quickly. Beat him if necessary.’

The subinspector smiled. ‘I will get the names of the dacoits out of him in twenty-four hours and without any beating.’

‘Yes, yes, get them in any way you like,’ answered Hukum Chand impatiently. ‘Also, enter today’s two arrests on separate pages of the police station diary with other items in between. Do not let there be any more bungling.’

The subinspector saluted again.

‘I will take good care, sir.’

Iqbal and Jugga were taken to Chundunnugger police station in a tonga. Iqbal was given the place of honour in the middle of the front seat. The driver perched himself on the wooden shaft alongside the horse’s flank, leaving his seat empty. Juggut Singh sat on the rear seat between two policemen. It was a long and dusty drive on an unmetalled road which ran parallel to the railway track. The only person at ease was Jugga. He knew the policemen and they knew him. Nor was the situation unfamiliar to him.