Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Yes, basically — at least on the floor, wouldn’t you say? Now that it has come back from the Legislative Council with only a few minor changes, it shouldn’t be difficult to get it repassed in its amended form by the Legislative Assembly. Of course, nothing is certain.’ Mahesh Kapoor looked into his tiffin-carrier. After a while he went on: ‘Ah, good, cauliflower pickle. . What really concerns me is what is going to happen to the bill later, assuming that it passes.’

‘Well, legal challenges should not be much of a problem,’ said Abdus Salaam. ‘It’s been well drafted, and I think it should pass muster.’

‘You think so, do you, Salaam? What did you think about the Bihar Zamindari Act being struck down by the Patna High Court?’ demanded Mahesh Kapoor.

‘I think people are more worried than they need to be, Minister Sahib. As you know, the Brahmpur High Court does not have to follow the Patna High Court. It is only bound by the judgements of the Supreme Court in Delhi.’

‘That may be true in theory,’ said Mahesh Kapoor, frowning. ‘In practice, previous judgements set psychological precedents. We have got to find a way, even at this late stage in the passage of the bill, of amending it so that it will be less vulnerable to legal challenge — especially on this question of equal protection.’

There was a pause for a while. The Minister had high regard for his scholarly young colleague, but did not hold out much hope that he would come up with something brilliant at short notice. But he respected his experience in this particular area and knew that his brains were the best that he could pick.

‘Something occurred to me a few days ago,’ said Abdus Salaam after a minute. ‘Let me think about it further, Minister Sahib. I might have a helpful idea or two.’

The Revenue Minister looked at his Parliamentary Secretary with what might almost have been an amused expression, and said:

‘Give me a draft of your ideas by tonight.’

‘By tonight?’ Abdus Salaam looked astonished.

‘Yes,’ said Mahesh Kapoor. ‘The bill is going through its second reading. If anything is to be done, it must be done now.’

‘Well,’ said Abdus Salaam with a dazed look on his face, ‘I had better go off to the library at once.’ At the door he turned around and said, ‘Perhaps you could ask the Legal Remembrancer to send me a couple of people from his drafting cell later this afternoon. But won’t you need me on the floor this afternoon while the bill is being discussed?’

‘No, this is far more important,’ replied the Minister, getting up to wash his hands. ‘Besides, I think you’ve caused enough mischief for one day on the floor of the House.’

As he washed his hands, Mahesh Kapoor thought about his old friend, the Nawab of Baitar. He would be one of those most deeply affected by the passage of the Zamindari Abolition Bill. His lands around Baitar in Rudhia District, from which he probably derived two-thirds of his income, would, if the act went into effect, be vested in the state of Purva Pradesh. He would not receive much compensation. The tenants would have the right to purchase the land they tilled, and until they did so their rents would go not into the coffers of the Nawab Sahib but directly into those of the Revenue Department of the State Government. Mahesh Kapoor believed, however, that he was doing the right thing. Although his was an urban constituency, he had lived on his own farm in Rudhia District long enough to see the immiserating effects of the zamindari system on the countryside all around him. With his own eyes he had seen the lack of productivity and the consequent hunger, the absence of investment in land improvement, the worst forms of feudal arrogance and subservience, the arbitrary oppression of the weak and the miserable by the agents and musclemen of the typical landlord. If the lifestyle of a few good men like the Nawab Sahib had to be sacrificed for the greater good of millions of tenant farmers, it was a cost that had to be borne.

Having washed his hands, Mahesh Kapoor dried them carefully, left a note for the Legal Remembrancer, and walked over to the Legislative Building.

The ancestral Baitar House, where the Nawab Sahib and his sons lived, was one of the most handsome buildings in Brahmpur. A long, pale yellow facade, dark-green shutters, colonnades, high ceilings, tall mirrors, immensely heavy dark furniture, chandeliers, oil portraits of previous aristocratic denizens and framed photographs along the corridors commemorating the visits of various high British officials: most visitors to the huge house, surveying their surroundings, succumbed to a kind of gloomy awe — reinforced in recent days by the dusty and uncared-for appearance of those large sections of the mansion the former occupants of which had left for Pakistan.

Begum Abida Khan too used to live here once with her husband, the Nawab Sahib’s younger brother. She spent years chafing in the women’s quarters before she persuaded him to allow her more reasonable and direct access to the outside world. There she had proved to be more effective than him in social and political causes. With the coming of Partition, her husband — a firm supporter of that Partition — had realized how vulnerable his position was in Brahmpur and decided to leave. He went to Karachi at first. Then — partly because he was uncertain of the effect his settling in Pakistan might have on his Indian property and the fortunes of his wife, and partly because he was restless, and partly because he was religious — he went on to Iraq on a visit to the various holy shrines of the Shias, and decided to live there for a few years. Three years had passed since he had last returned to India, and no one knew what he planned to do. He and Abida were childless, so perhaps it did not greatly matter.

The entire question of property rights was unsettled. Baitar was not — like Marh — a princely state subject to primogeniture but a large zamindari estate whose territory lay squarely within British India and was subject to the Muslim personal law of inheritance. Division of the property upon death or dissolution of the family was possible, but for generations now there had been no effective division, and almost everyone had continued to live in the same rambling house in Brahmpur or at Baitar Fort in the countryside, if not amicably, at least not litigiously. And owing to the constant bustle, the visiting, the festivals, the celebrations, in both the men’s and the women’s quarters it had had a grand atmosphere of energy and life.

With Partition things had changed. The house was no longer the great community it had been. It had become, in many ways, lonely. Uncles and cousins had dispersed to Karachi or Lahore. Of the three brothers, one had died, one had gone away, and only that gentle widower, the Nawab Sahib, remained. He spent more and more of his time in his library reading Persian poetry or Roman history or whatever he felt inclined to on any particular day. He left most of the management of his country estate in Baitar — the source of most of his income — to his munshi. That crafty half-steward, half-clerk did not encourage him to spend much time going over his own zamindari affairs. For matters not related to his estate, the Nawab Sahib kept a private secretary.

With the death of his wife and his own increasing years the Nawab Sahib had become less sociable, more aware of the approach of death. He wanted to spend more time with his sons, but they were now in their twenties, and inclined to treat their father with affectionate distance. Firoz’s law, Imtiaz’s medicine, their own circle of young friends, their love affairs (of which he heard little) all drew them outside the orbit of Baitar House. And his dear daughter Zainab visited only rarely — once every few months — whenever her husband allowed her and the Nawab Sahib’s two grandsons to come to Brahmpur.