Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

Ram Singh was running a high fever and this made his brain work faster. Although he had no strength left, he was babbling on and on, stopping briefly now and then as if to check how much petrol was still left in his tank. Soon afterward he lapsed into a delirium punctuated by moments of perfect lucidity. During one lucid moment, he asked Rub Nawaz, ‘Yaar, tell me honestly, do you people really want Kashmir?’

Rub Nawaz replied in all earnestness, ‘Yes, Ram Singha, we do.’

‘No, no, I can’t believe it. You’ve been taken for a ride.’

‘No, it’s you who’s been taken for a ride,’ Rub Nawaz said emphatically to convince him. ‘I swear by Panchtan Pak.’

‘No, yaar, don’t swear.’ Ram Singh grabbed his hand as he said, ‘Maybe you’re right.’ But it was evident from his tone that he didn’t believe Rub Nawaz.

Major Aslam, the platoon commander, arrived with some of his soldiers a little before sundown, but there was no medic. Floating between semi-consciousness and the throes of death, Ram Singh was babbling about something, but his voice was so weak and broken that it was difficult to make out his words. Major Aslam had also been part of the 6/9 Jat Regiment and knew Ram Singh quite well. He had Rub Nawaz tell him the details about what had transpired and then he called out, ‘Ram Singh! Ram Singh!’

Ram Singh opened his eyes and came to attention still lying on the ground. He raised his arm with great difficulty and saluted. For a moment he looked at the major closely and then his rigid arm fell limply to his side. He started to murmur in visible irritation, ‘O Ram Singha, you pig’s balls, you forgot this is a war. . a war. .’

He couldn’t finish. His slowly closing eyes looked at Rub Nawaz with bewilderment and then he turned cold.

‘This, brother, is about an event that occurred in 1919. All of Punjab — Amritsar, to be more exact — was in the throes of awful turmoil due to the Rowlatt Act. Under the Defence of India Rules, Sir Michael O’Dwyer had banned Gandhiji’s entry into the Punjab. Gandhiji was on his way there when he was stopped at Palwal, arrested, and sent back to Bombay. In my opinion, had the British not acted so rashly, the Jallianwala Bagh incident wouldn’t have added such a gory chapter to the dark history of their rule.

‘Whether Muslim, Hindu or Sikh, everyone held Gandhiji in the highest esteem and considered him a Mahatma. The minute the news of his arrest reached Lahore, all business came to a dead stop. And in Amritsar the news led to an almost immediate general strike.

‘It is said that the Deputy Commissioner had already received orders for the expulsion of Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew on the evening of 9 April but he was unwilling to enforce them. He didn’t think anything untoward was likely to happen in Amritsar. Protest demonstrations had been generally peaceful so far; the question of violence didn’t arise. I’m telling you what I witnessed myself. It was the day of the Ram Navami festival. A procession was taken out, but no one dared take a single step against the wishes of the rulers. However, brother, this Sir Michael — he had lost his mind. Obsessed as he was with the fear that these leaders were simply waiting for a sign from Mahatma Gandhi to overthrow British rule, and that a conspiracy was lurking behind all these demonstrations and strikes, he ignored the wishes of the Deputy Commissioner.

‘The news of Dr Satyapal’s and Dr Kitchlew’s expulsion had spread through the city like wildfire. Every heart was tense with apprehension, fearing that something dreadful was about to happen. Yes, brother, there was a palpable feeling of heightened emotion everywhere. All businesses had come to a standstill and a deathly silence had enveloped the city, the kind that pervades cemeteries. However, the surface calm was not without the resonance of the passion raging beneath it. Following the news of the expulsion orders, people began to assemble in thousands, intending to march to the Deputy Commissioner Bahadur and petition him to rescind the orders seeking the banishment of their beloved leaders. But, my brother, those were not the times when petitions were heard; a tyrant in the guise of Sir Michael was the chief administrator. Would he hear the petition? Not a chance. He declared the gathering itself in violation of the law.

‘Amritsar, once the biggest centre of the freedom struggle, wearing the wounds of Jallianwala Bagh like a proud emblem — ah, what straits it is in today! But let’s not linger over that painful story. It weighs heavily on the heart. People blame the British for the ghastly events that were visited upon this great city five years ago. Maybe they were. But, brother, if the truth be told, our own hands were equally stained with the blood that was shed there. But that’s another matter. .

‘Like every other big officer and all the toadies of the British, the Deputy Sahib’s bungalow was located in the exclusive area of the Civil Lines. Now, if you are familiar with Amritsar, you would know that a bridge connects the city with this quarter. Once you cross this bridge, you come on to the Mall where the British rulers had built themselves this earthly paradise.

‘Anyway, when the procession was nearing the Hall Gate it came to be known that mounted British troops were posted on the bridge. However, the crowd marched on undaunted. I can’t even begin to describe how excited they were. But every last one of them was unarmed; no one had even a measly stick on him to speak of. They only wanted to lodge a collective protest against the arrest of Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew and press for their unconditional release. The procession kept advancing on the bridge. The goras opened fire when the protesters got close. Suddenly a stampede broke out. There were only a few dozen troops and the crowd numbered in the hundreds, but, brother, bullets can knock the daylights out of anyone. An unimaginable confusion erupted. Some were wounded by gunshots, others trampled underfoot.

‘I was standing near the edge of a filthy ditch on the right. A violent push threw me into it. After the firing stopped I pulled myself out. The people had scattered. The wounded were lying on the road and the gora soldiers were on the bridge, laughing. What my mental state was at the time I have no idea, but I couldn’t have been in full possession of my senses. The fall into the ditch had completely disoriented me. It was only after I had pulled myself out that the whole event began to slowly reconstruct itself in my mind.

‘I could hear a terrible noise rising far in the distance, as if some people were screaming and yelling angrily. I crossed the length of the ditch and, going through the tomb-sanctuary of Zahira Pir, arrived at Hall Gate. There I saw a group of thirty or forty extremely agitated young men throwing rocks at the big clock above the Gate. When the glass on the clock shattered and fell to the ground, one of the young men shouted to the rest of his mates, “Let’s go and smash the Queen’s statue!”

‘Another one suggested, “No, yaar, let’s set the police headquarters on fire instead.”

‘“And all the banks,” added a third.

‘A fourth young man stopped them. “Wait! What’s the point of that? Let’s go to the bridge and make short work of the goras.”

‘I recognized this fellow; he was Thaila Kunjar, tall, athletic and quite handsome. His real name was Muhammad Tufail, but he was better known as kunjar because he was the offspring of a prostitute. He was quite the tramp and had become addicted to gambling and drinking at a young age. His sisters Shamshad and Almas were the most beautiful prostitutes of their time. Shamshad had an exquisite voice and the filthy rich travelled great distances just to attend her mujra s. The sisters had had enough of their brother’s unseemly conduct. It was known throughout the city that they had more or less disowned him. Even so, one way or other, he always managed to trick them into giving him whatever he needed. He always looked dapper, ate and drank well, had refined tastes, and was full of wit and humour, with none of the ribald vulgarity associated with bhand s and miraasis.