Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Rasheed’s father said: ‘Instead of being censorious about other people’s behaviour, I hope this experience will make you examine your own. We have heard from you no word of apology so far, no admission of wrongdoing. Believe me, if it had not been for your Mamu and the Imam Sahib here, we would not have been so lenient with you. You can still continue to live here whenever you wish. Some land may still be restored to your name in time, depending on whether you show yourself to be worthy of it. But rest assured, if you close the door of trust on this house, the doors of this house will be closed to you. I am not afraid of losing a son. I have lost one already. Now go downstairs. See to your wife and child — children. We have the matter of Kachheru to discuss.’

Rasheed looked around the circle of faces. He saw sympathy in some, but support in none.

He got up, said a low ‘Khuda haafiz’, and walked down the stairs into the courtyard. For a while he looked at the pomegranate tree, then he went inside. The baby and Meher were asleep. His wife looked deeply worried. He told her he would not be having supper. In a daze he walked out of the house.

Maan, when he saw Rasheed emerge, smiled with relief. ‘I heard sounds of people talking, and thought you were never coming down,’ he said. He brought out Saeeda Bai’s letter from the pocket of his kurta.

For a second, Rasheed thought of unburdening himself to Maan, even of seeking his help. This was the son of the very author of the act that aimed to do justice. But then he turned abruptly away.

‘But this—’ said Maan, waving the envelope.

‘Later, later,’ said Rasheed dully, and began to walk away from the house in a northerly direction.

At the stroke of ten, from behind the dull scarlet velvet hangings to the right of Courtroom Number One of the High Court of Judicature at Brahmpur, the five white-turbaned, red-liveried, gold-braided ushers of the judges emerged. Everyone rose to his feet. The ushers stood behind the tall-backed chairs of their respective judges and, at a nod from the Chief Justice’s usher — who looked even more magnificent than the others owing to the insignia of crossed maces on his chest — pulled them back to give the judges room.

All eyes in the packed courtroom had followed the ushers as they moved towards the bench in what was almost a procession. Normal cases required a single judge or a bench of two, and cases of great importance and complexity might be assigned to three judges. But five judges implied a case of exceptional moment, and here were the heralds of the five in all their resplendent regalia.

And now the judges followed in their black gowns, a sad anticlimax to their ushers. They wore no wigs, and a couple of them appeared to shuffle slightly. They entered in order of seniority: the Chief Justice first, followed by the puisne judges whom he had assigned to this case. The Chief, a small, dry man with almost no hair on his head, stood before the central chair; to his right stood the next seniormost judge, a large, stooping man who fidgeted continually with his right hand; to the Chief’s left stood the next seniormost judge of this bench, an Englishman who had served with the judicial service of the ICS and had stayed on after Independence; he was the only Englishman among the nine judges in the High Court at Brahmpur. Finally, at the wings, stood the two juniormost judges.

The Chief Justice did not look at the crowded courtroom — at the famous litigants, the eminent lawyers, the chattering public and the sceptical but excited journalists. He surveyed the table in front of him and his colleagues — the pads of paper, the lace-covered glasses of water laid out on the green baize. He then glanced cautiously to right and left as if checking the traffic on a busy highway, and began a judicious shuffle forward towards the table. As he did so, the other judges followed suit, and the ushers pushed the heavy chairs in, as it were, under the seat of justice.

The Nawab Sahib of Baitar was pleasantly impressed by the grandeur of it all. He recalled the only two other occasions when he had been in the High Court. Once he had gone as a litigant, when his own presence had been indispensable. The case — a property matter — had been up before a single judge. The other occasion was when he had decided to see his son practise. He had known that Firoz would be on his feet before a division bench one afternoon. Just before the case had begun to be argued, the Nawab Sahib had entered the uncrowded courtroom without any of his retainers, and had sat down directly behind Firoz, so that he would not be noticed unless Firoz turned completely around. He had not wished to make him nervous by indicating his presence, and, indeed, Firoz had had no inkling that day that his father was sitting behind him. He had argued well and the Nawab Sahib had been satisfied.

Today, of course, Firoz knew that his father was sitting directly behind him, for it was the constitutional validity of the Zamindari Abolition Act that was under challenge before the bench. If the courts decided for it, it would stand. If not, it would be as if it had never existed.

Two dozen or so writ petitions were to be considered jointly with the main one; these covered roughly the same ground but had a few points of difference. Some petitions were submitted by religious endowments, some by landlords who had been granted lands directly by crown grants, and some by ex-rulers — like the Raja of Marh — who believed that they would be protected by the treaty provisions of the Constitution, even if the lesser fry were fried. Firoz was one of the counsel for two such subsidiary petitions.

‘May it please your Lordships—’

The Nawab Sahib’s attention — which had wandered somewhat while the Court Reader was reciting the number of the case, the numbers of the main and connected writ petitions, the names of the parties, and the names of counsel appearing in the case — was drawn sharply back to the court. The great G.N. Bannerji was on his feet at the table in the front row that was closest to the aisle. Leaning his long, aged frame against a lectern on the table — upon which were lying both his brief and a small, red cloth-bound notebook — he repeated the opening phrase, then continued with deliberation, glancing up from time to time at the bench, particularly at the Chief Justice:

‘May it please your Lordships, I am appearing in this case for all the applicants jointly. Your Lordships, needless to say, will appreciate the gravity of this case. It is probable that no case of similar significance for the people of this state has been fought in this court before, either under the emblem of the Ashoka lion or under the lion and unicorn.’ Here G.N. Bannerji glanced slightly to the left of the bench before continuing. ‘My Lords, the entire way of life of this state is sought to be altered by the executive of this state through legislation that runs in express and implied contradiction to the Constitution of the country. The act that seeks, in so striking and wholesale a manner, to alter the life of the citizenry of Purva Pradesh is the Purva Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reform Act of 1951, and it is my contention and that of other counsel for the applicants that this legislation, apart from being patently to the detriment of the people, is unconstitutional, and therefore null and void. Null and void.’

The Advocate-General of Purva Pradesh, the small, plump Mr Shastri, smiled nonchalantly to himself. He had appeared against G.N. Bannerji before. Bannerji liked to repeat significant phrases at the beginning and end of each paragraph of speech. Despite his commanding presence, he had rather a high voice — not unpleasant to listen to, however; more silvery than tinny — and these repetitions were like small shiny nails hammered in twice so that they would imbed themselves properly. This might have been a verbal quirk of his, not something he consciously attempted. But G.N. Bannerji did consciously believe in the value of repetition in general. He would take especial pains to phrase his propositions in three or four different ways which he would then introduce at different points of his argument so that, without insulting the intelligence of the judges, he could be assured that the seeds of his case would take root, even assuming that a few fell upon stony ground. ‘It is all very well,’ he told his juniors — who in this case included his bespectacled son and grandson—‘it is all very well to state something once for our benefit or for the benefit of the other side. We’ve been steeped in this case for weeks. And Shastri and I have been well briefed by others. But for the bench we must follow the prime rule of advocacy: repeat, repeat, and repeat again. It is a great mistake to overestimate the judges’ knowledge of the case even when they have read the affidavits of both sides. And it may even be a mistake to assume they have any detailed knowledge of the law. The Constitution, after all, is barely a year old — and at least one of the judges in this case probably has very little knowledge of what a Constitution is.’