At the factory gates there’s a brawl going on. People from Jyotinagar, right across the road, are gathered there, demanding to be let inside. About forty cops have their backs to the gates. The rusting ironwork begins to rock. People have climbed over the wall and come up from behind. They’re climbing on the gates, gripping the bars and shaking them, trying to pull them down. The gates are swaying. Guards come running from inside, but these are village oafs the Kampani has hired, the ones who sit drinking tea all day and night, they do not want to get involved. The police are screaming at them to attack the invaders, pull them off the gates, beat them, but the guards stand and watch. More and more protesters appear each minute, thin figures running out of alleys, shouting, waving their arms. I too push close, shouldering my way past knees and thighs, trying to avoid having my fingers stepped on. Rage I’m feeling, plus sorrow. I have just left Zafar, never will I forgive his death or the manner of it. I want to rend the bastard Kampani in bits, if I could attack that buffalo lawyer I would bite his cancerous tongue out and squeeze his throat till greyhounds pop out of his eyes and he feels maddened teeth tearing his heart. In this moment of anger I look up and there are placid clouds drifting across the sky. This shakes me. Outside of ourselves nothing cares.
Zafar and Farouq are far away in the old city, they have breathed their last, if this news should reach the crowd, god knows what the result will be. One of the women is shouting at the senior cop. He is afraid, I can see, though I cannot hear what is being said. She stoops, rises again with a slipper in her hand. She strikes him with it right across the face. The cop does nothing, his men are scared, now the fury of the people has been let loose who knows where it’ll stop, it’s a storm battering everything in its path, it’s an avalanche pouring down a mountain, it’s a flood that rises swiftly with no warning, it’s a fire lit by lightning on a hillside where all is dry, awaiting the spark. These things I’m saying I did not believe before, now I do, the power of nothing is unleashed, as Zafar feared it is already out of control, it will destroy what it touches because it is fuelled not just by anger but despair. The cop who was struck’s being harangued by others. The gates are rocking wildly, one’s come away from its hinges and is hanging, the men clinging to it double their efforts, others are jumping on to add their weight. Still the guards stand watching, many of them have thrown down their sticks, it’s not worth their lives to defend this place of horror, this land of cobras. The police are trying to get out from underneath, or they’ll be crushed when the gates fall. Another hinge gives way and slowly, the barred portal to the factory sags, then dhoofs flat on the ground in a cloud of dust, the police have fled, some of them too are sitting on the ground with their sticks laid down. The crowd surges into the wilderness beyond the gates, but now they’re in they do not know what to do. There is an open space, to one side of the avenue of small mango trees that leads to the guardhouse and here the crowd gathers. Many sit down, there are no leaders to tell them what should happen next, this is something they’ve done themselves. Someone has to take charge, but there is no one. “What shall we do now?” people are asking.
“Tear this place down,” someone cries. “Burn it!” yells another, so I start shouting, “Friends, do not burn anything here, or the chemicals will catch light, it’ll be that night all over again.”
This word spreads in the crowd, who by now number hundreds, with more still arriving. “Do not burn anything. Do not light matches.”
The ever-swelling crowd is full of energy, it wants to do something, but no one can agree what. The women, possessed by nothing’s power, begin their chants, “We are flames not flowers. With our brooms, we will beat the Kampani, we will sweep them out from Khaufpur. Out of India we will sweep them. Out of all existence.”
Of course it can’t last. Dark vans are pulling up by the shattered gate, many vans, maybe twenty. Out jump police wearing helmets, carrying shields and long staves. They form up in ranks, then enter the factory. The crowd, which had gone quiet, watching, now resumes its chants of defiance, louder than before the whole crowd is singing. At such moments people get carried away and say things they otherwise never would utter. They’re shouting, come on, do the Kampani’s dirty work, beat us, take our lives, what do we care, who’ve lost everything anyway? The police advance, without halting or asking questions, their long staves begin to beat. Then there’s uproar, cries of men and women being hurt, howls of anger from deeper in the crowd, which draws back, away from the zone of beating. A police general steps up, a loudhailer in his hand. His voice sounds twangy as he shouts. “Go back to your homes, don’t be led astray, the people who have organised this are Hindu extremists, they have come here from outside to sow hatred and divide your community.”
Despite the fear, there is a great shout of laughter. “Go away,” voices shout. “There are no Muslims or Hindus here, there are just humans.”
Plus one animal. I am lost in a thicket of legs, so I work my way to one side of the crowd, then I can see the fallen gates, police dragging people out, throwing them in the trucks.
“Leave us alone,” cry the voices. “Go and lick the arse of your master the Chief Minister, who licks the hole of Peterson.”
“Get out! Go!” Then the chants begin again, flames not flowers, the chant of sweeping away with brooms, the song of the people’s platoons.
Even now, the horror of that day has hardly begun. More police trucks are arriving. Out of one jumps my old enemy Fatlu Inspector, whom I caught with a stone at the CM demo, this fat bastard is entering the factory site with his gang of goons. They don’t hesitate, but go straight into the crowd and then they are grabbing people, man, woman, doesn’t matter, by any part they can reach, arm, hair, ear, and dragging them off kicking and protesting.
“Send for help,” people are yelling. “Tell everyone to come!”
Fatlu, this putain, he is a bully, he takes pleasure in dealing out pain. He loves his power to hurt. At other times I have been afraid of him, I have run away, at the CM’s demo I hid behind a tree, but today is the day Zafar died. I’m burning with a bloody rage. Fatlu has grabbed hold of a man from Jyotinagar, he is beating him with his fist. “Bastard, where is your permission to enter this place?”
“Sir, I came with the others,” says this fellow, who’s thin and weak, with all the woes of Khaufpur written in his face.
“Bastard,” says Fatlu, “how dare you speak to me? Where…is…your…permission?” During each of these pauses, the fist falls on the man’s head.
“We don’t need your permission,” a woman shouts. It’s Nisha. All in white is she, the colour a widow wears. The news is confirmed then, Zafar is dead. Fatlu continues to beat the man. Nisha grabs hold of his arm, tries to drag him off. Fatlu swings his elbow. She falls to the ground, holding her face. Blood is coming from her mouth. He has hurt Nisha, I will kill this bastard and eat his heart.
Fatlu never sees his death approach, I’ve come running up behind, he’s missed me because I’m so low to the ground, I’ve grabbed the swine round the legs and hauled him down. With a shout, Fatlu falls. Struggling he’s to get back on his feet, but I’ve got him pinned. In vain he strikes at my head, I am stronger, far stronger than he. My shoulders and arms are powerful, muscled like a wrestler’s, I’ve told you this, and now they will end this bastard’s life. My hands fasten round his throat. With what horror his eyes bulge. “No more torture for you, sisterfucker,” I shout in his ear then take the ear in my teeth, I bite until blood is running between my lips, he is screaming. I will not stop, let the ear come off, that’s just the beginning, I am going to tear out his throat and gouge his eyes, but rough hands are pulling me off, blows are falling, blows of heavy sticks, on my head, my back, my shoulders, nothing of me is there that is not being beaten. From far away, it seems, I hear Nisha’s voice crying, “Leave him alone, he was just trying to save me. Father, help him.” As the blows fall I’m thinking, Nisha darling, no use is it appealing to the father, nor to the mother, the son nor the holy ghost, for neither Christian am I nor Hindu nor Muslim, not Brahmin nor Sufi nor saint, neither man am I nor beast. I don’t know what is being beaten here. If they kill me what will die?