‘As a law-abiding citizen’ — and here Gangaji looks innocently up at the near-apoplectic judge — ‘my first instinct, upon receiving an instruction from the authorities to cease my activities, would normally have been to obey. However, this instinct clashed with a higher instinct, to respect my obligation to the people of Motihari whom I am here to serve. Between obedience to the law and obedience to my conscience I can only choose the latter. I am perfectly prepared, however, to face the consequences of my choice and to submit without protest to any punishment you may impose.’
This time it is our turn, the turn of his supporters and followers, to gaze at him in dismayed concern. The prospect of glorious defiance was one thing, the thought of our Gangaji submitting to the full rigours of the law quite another. Unlike its post-Independence variant, with its bribable wardens and clubbable guards, the British prison in India was not a place anyone would have liked to know from the inside.
‘In the interests of justice and of the cause I am here to serve,’ Gangaji continues, ‘I refuse to obey the order to leave Motihari’ — a pause, while he looks directly at the magistrate — ‘and willingly accept the penalty for my act. I wish, however, through this statement, to reiterate that my disobedience emerges not from any lack of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to a higher law, the law of duty.’
There is silence, Ganapathi, pin-drop silence. Gangaji folds his sheet of paper and puts it away amidst the folds of his scanty garment. He speaks again to the magistrate. ‘I have made my statement. You no longer need to postpone the hearing.’
The magistrate opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. He looks helplessly at the government pleader, who is by now completely soaked in his own sweat, and in a kind of despair at his complacent defendant. At last the judge clears his throat; his voice emerges, a strained croak: ‘I shall postpone judgment,’ he announces, with a bang of his gavel. ‘The court is adjourned.’
There are cheers from the assembled throng as the meaning of that decision becomes clear: the magistrate does not know what to do!
We carry Ganga out on our bloodied shoulders. The horses draw back, neighing; the soldiers withdraw, shamed by the savagery of their success; the fallen stagger to their feet; and our hero, hearing the adulation of the crowd, borne aloft on a crescendo of hope, our hero weeps as he sees how his principles have been upheld by the defenceless.
Ah, Ganapathi, what we could not have achieved in those days! The magistrate was right not to want to proceed, for when reports of what had happened reached the provincial capital, immediate instructions came from the Lieutenant-Governor to drop all the charges. Not only that: the local administration was ordered to assist Gangaji fully with his inquiry. Can you imagine that? The satyagrahi comes to a district, clamours for justice, refuses an order to leave, makes his defiance public, and so shames the oppressors that they actually cooperate with him in exposing their own misdeeds. What a technique it was, Ganapathi!
For it worked — that was the beauty of it — it worked to redress the basic problem. After the interviews with the peasants, the hearing conducted with the actual participation of district officialdom, and the submission of sworn statements, the Lieutenant-Governor appointed Gangaji to an official inquiry committee which unanimously — unanimously, can you imagine? — recommended the abolition of the system which lay at the root of the injustice. The planters were ordered to pay compensation to the poor peasants they had exploited; the rule requiring indigo to be planted was rescinded: Gangaji’s disobedience had won. Yes, Ganapathi, the tale of the Motihari peasants had a happy ending.
That was the wonder of Gangaji. What he did in Motihari he and his followers reproduced in a hundred little towns and villages across India. Naturally, he did not always receive the same degree of cooperation from the authorities. As his methods became better known Ganga encountered more resistance; he found magistrates less easily intimidated and provincial Governors less compliant. On such occasions he went unprotestingly to jail, invariably shaming his captors into an early release.
All this was not just morally right, Ganapathi; as I cannot stress enough, it worked. Where sporadic terrorism and moderate constitutionalism had both proved ineffective, Ganga took the issue of freedom to the people as one of simple right and wrong — law versus conscience — and gave them a method to which the British had no response. By abstaining from violence he wrested the moral advantage. By breaking the law non-violently he showed up the injustice of the law. By accepting the punishments the law imposed on him he confronted the colonialists with their own brutalization. And when faced with some transcendent injustice, whether in jail or outside, some wrong that his normal methods could not right, he did not abandon non-violence but directed it against himself.
Yes, against himself, Ganapathi. Gangaji would startle us all with his demonstration of the lengths to which he was prepared to go in defence of what he considered to be right. How, you may well ask, and I shall tell you. But not just yet, my impatient amanuensis. As the Bengalis say when offered cod, we still have other fish to fry.
The Third Book: The Rains Came
13
‘That’s the last bloody straw,’ the British Resident said. He was pacing up and down his verandah, a nervous Heaslop flapping at his heels. ‘Indigo inquiry, indeed. I’ll crucify the bastard for this.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the equerry said unhappily. ‘Er. . if I may. . how, sir?’
‘How?’ Sir Richard half-turned in his stride, as if unable to comprehend the question. ‘What do you mean, how?’
‘Er. . I mean, how, sir? How will you, er, crucify him?’
‘Well, I don’t intend to nail him to a cross in the middle of the village bazaar, if that’s what you’re asking,’ the Resident snapped. ‘Don’t be daft, Heas-lop.’
‘Yes, sir, I mean, no, sir,’ the aide stuttered. ‘I mean, I didn’t mean that, sir.’
‘Well, what did you mean?’
Sir Richard’s asperity invariably made the young man more nervous. ‘I mean that when I asked you how, I didn’t really mean how, you know, physically, sir. When I said how I meant sort of what, you know, what exactly you meant when you meant to, er, crucify him. . sir,’ Heaslop ended a little lamely.
The Resident stopped, turned around, and stared at him incredulously. ‘What on earth are you going on about, Heaslop?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ replied the hapless Heaslop, backing away. He was beginning to wish himself back on the North-West Frontier, being shot at by the Waziris. At least there he knew when to duck.
‘Well, then don’t,’ Sir Richard advised him firmly. ‘There’s nothing as irritating when I’m trying to think as hearing you go on about nothing. Sit down, will you, and pour yourself a stiff drink.’ He gestured at a trolley laden with bottles and siphons which now stood permanently on the verandah.
Heaslop sat gingerly on a lumpily cushioned cane-chair and busied himself with a bottle. Sir Richard continued to pace, his white sideburns, in need of a trim, quivering with the strength of his emotion. ‘This man has publicly confronted, indeed humiliated, the Raj. Which means for all practical purposes the King-Emperor. Whom I represent. Which means he has humiliated me.’