‘And. . and. .’ he hesitates, uncharacteristically dithering and insecure, ‘I’ve been so inattentive, and absent. . the situation in the village worsens daily. .’
‘What situation?’
He appears to think for a long time before answering, weighing up his words, ordering his thoughts before summarizing an immensely complicated issue.
‘How do I even begin to tell you about it? You know that my childhood friend Sandip, Mr Banerjea, is staying here with us. He’s using ‘Dighi Bari’ as his centre for swadeshi activities in the neighbouring villages and districts. As you may have noticed, he’s a charismatic man, it’s difficult, no, impossible, to say no to him. What he wants, he usually gets. He arrived with hardly more than a dozen activists, mostly students. Now it seems that every young man in eastern Bengal is part of his movement.’
Miss Gilby looks up sharply at the use of ‘his’. ‘His movement? I thought swadeshi was something to which every Bengali had dedicated his life.’
Mr Roy Chowdhury gives a wan smile. ‘If only, Miss Gilby, if only.’
‘Are you saying that it is not as unanimous as it appears to be?’
There is a long silence, so long that Miss Gilby is about to rephrase and repeat her question but before she has had a chance to do that, Mr Roy Chowdhury says, ‘Do you know that all my tenants are Muslims, that the villages here, most of the villages in what is now East Bengal, are comprised of a Muslim majority?’
‘Well, I hadn’t thought about it but now that you mention it, yes. .’
‘You have been reading the papers, following the whole crisis with this partition for some years, haven’t you? It won’t come as a surprise to you then if I tell you that one of the biggest motives behind the division of Bengal was to drive a wedge between the Hindu population and the Muslims.’
Miss Gilby involuntarily straightens her back and moves forward to the edge of her chair. It sounds familiar, she has come across this somewhere other than in the newspapers, but she cannot quite put her finger on it at this particular moment. Outside, the luminous winter afternoon is dying in a final blaze of pink and gold.
‘The infamous “divide and rule” policy?’ Miss Gilby asks lamely for want of anything more substantial to say.
‘Yes, basically it is that. When Lord Curzon was on his short tour of Bengal nearly three years back, he gave a speech in Dacca which declared that the partition — still more than two and a half years into the future — would invest the Muslims in eastern Bengal with a unity they had not enjoyed since the days of the Mughal rulers. It was a carefully calculated speech, designed to shore up Muslim support for the division of Bengal.’
She clears her voice and asks, ‘But surely it’s in the interests of the two races to stay united?’
‘One would have thought so’ — that dry smile again, hardly visible in the gathering dark inside — ‘but it’s been considered before. The troublemakers — troublemakers according to our English rulers, that is — in Bengal are the Hindus. They were solidly opposed to the partition, still are, they are also the better educated, the more eloquent. In short, they are the noisy opponents with a political voice. There is no such equivalent in the Muslim community.’
Miss Gilby interrupts, ‘So if Bengal was divided along Hindu-Muslim lines then the opposition could be fragmented and therefore weakened?’
‘ “Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different ways.”Famous words,’he says wryly. There is another long pause. ‘Well, the plan seems to be working. Despite isolated shows of Hindu-Muslim unity in rallies and gatherings here and there, the truth is quite different. The Muslims have always been poorer, their interests always neglected, their education overlooked, their voices ignored. It’s not surprising they don’t think very highly of the Hindus who are their landlords, or bureaucrats or government servants. So if a separate province is promised them where Mohammedan interests would be strongly represented, if not predominant, how can we blame them for falling for it?’
‘But I still don’t understand how this relates directly to your village.’
‘You see, because the Hindus of Bengal have been traditionally the political voice of the region, for obvious reasons of class and education and opportunities, the Muslims think swadeshi is another Hindu conspiracy and therefore they look on it with great suspicion. They are not wholly wrong.’
Mr Roy Chowdhury moves in his chair to get more comfortable. The last light of the sun, amber dark, catches his glasses and makes them into bright, blind mirrors. ‘If it’s a choice between the Hindu babu, who has traditionally been known to be indifferent to Mussulman interests, and the English governor, who dangles the idea of a predominantly Mohammedan province, I too would choose the chance for a change. My villagers now see these Hindu boys, clad in orange, going around the place, calling for boycott of English goods that provide these poor Muslims a livelihood. Is it that extraordinary they should think this whole swadeshi business as another Hindu ploy to keep them poor and downtrodden?’
This is the first time Miss Gilby has heard anger tint his voice; it is a cold, reasoned fury, disciplined and measured, like the rest of the man.
‘Sandip’s boys are getting a bit carried away in their enthusiasm. It is pointless asking Sandip to rein them in because he clearly believes in what his activists are doing. There is talk of forcible seizure of English goods and burning them, even talk of burning down shops and houses of those who stock or sell English goods. This is terrorism, not revolution. I cannot stand by and see this happen.’ His voice nearly breaks.
Miss Gilby is appalled. ‘But, Mr Roy Chowdhury, to appear divisive myself for a moment, this is your house, you are letting him use it as a base for his activities.’
‘And that seems to be the reason why my tenants, my villagers, with whom my forefathers and my family have had cordial relations for the best part of two hundred years, now appear to think that I am behind all this. They think that without my sanction these Hindu nationalist boys wouldn’t have dared go so far. ’
The encroaching dusk collects in pools in the room; Miss Gilby can hardly see him put his head in his hands. The mosquitoes have started arriving in whining droves, circling above their heads in little vicious columns.
Miss Gilby continues her train of thought, ‘You can surely ask him to leave?’
There is another silence, a long, weighted one. There is a catch in Mr Roy Chowdhury’s voice when he answers, ‘I cannot do that. I cannot.’ The words are barely a whisper. For some reason, the servants have forgotten to bring lights into this room. It is so dark now that to anyone who entered the room it would be impossible to tell if it was inhabited at all. Miss Gilby wishes she could have seen his face, his eyes, to read more, to understand more, because she cannot ask him why and because she has a sharp hunch that there is more going on than is revealed to her.
Bimala starts attending lessons again and this is exactly what their morning meetings have now become — duty-bound, obligatory lessons. When Miss Gilby had first arrived at ‘Dighi Bari’ years ago, it was like that — a tutor-student meeting — for the first few months but that had changed subtly, giving way to a much more intimate and informal meeting of two friends who lived under the same roof. The lessons had become subsidiary, the company of each other, the principal. Sometimes there were no lessons at all for long stretches, just gossiping, looking at books, exchanging recipes, games in the garden. All that has suddenly reverted to the dry, strictured atmosphere of the classroom now, a chore, not spontaneous pleasure.