‘How will the car lighten your workload?’ Gill asked. ‘I’ll at least save time, bhai. I feel uncomfortable about borrowing some vehicle ever so often from Suraj Prakash and from the owners of the Doaba Mills. It’ll also be convenient for Kanak to go to the office and the press by car.’
‘I think,’ Gill said, taking a deep breath, ‘that it certainly will be more comfortable and you will be spared the inconvenience of travelling through wind-blown dusty roads, but your workload won’t be lightened. Rather you will have to worry about earning more to meet the car’s expenses.’
Puri and Gill had a philosophical discussion about a person’s basic needs, whether he should cut his coat according to his cloth, and the meaning of real happiness.
Kanak sat thinking that after a long time Puri was talking about something other than the problems at the office or political intrigues within the Congress.
Puri and Kanak did not talk any further on the subject of Tara and Sheelo, but Kanak and Gill discussed and analysed the topic at length, particularly the role of Tara. After meeting Tara personally and knowing the opinion of so many about her, Kanak was convinced that Tara was unselfish and honest, and had borne the brunt of disparagement without rancour. It was natural that some criticism of Puri came up in their discussion.
Puri had been elected to the assembly from the eastern district of Mukerian. Very few among the voting public could have recognized his face or had heard his name before the elections. The old inhabitants of the area and the Hindu and Sikh refugees from the west who had settled on agricultural land that had once belonged to Muslims had voted for the Congress party. They had given their vote not to Puri, but to the picture of a pair of oxen, the election symbol of the Congress. The average peasant thought: The Congress and the Muslim League had divided the British Raj between them,
and eastern Punjab and the rest of India had gone to the Congress. The Congress was now the raja, and in future crop levies and taxes will have to be paid to the Congress government instead of the British government. Farmers displaced from western Punjab could retain farmland that they had occupied in the eastern part only with the approval of the Congress government. Those who had not yet been allotted land, could only hope to receive land from the Congress government’s beneficence.
In theory the Congress party and the Congress government were two separate entities, but the colours of their flags were identical. The fine difference between the emblems of the chakra, wheel, and the charkha, spinning wheel, became clear only when the flags were unfurled. According to the government decree, the administration was to remain neutral during the election. The government had begun to publicize, just before the elections, its plan to spend hundreds of millions of rupees to remove unemployment, to build a network of irrigation canals to help peasants and farmers and boost the agricultural sector, and dams to provide cheap electricity for the benefit of the people. The public had learned to express its dissatisfaction with the British by voting for the Congress party. How could the peasants now ignore the mighty Congress and vote for a motley assortment of political parties? A vote for Puri was seen as a vote for the Congress.
Sood was travelling from Simla to preside over the annual function of a school in Amritsar. The school had been unable to procure adequate financial aid from the government. With their eye on the prospect of increased aid, the management of the school had set the date for the function to suit Sood. The real purpose of Sood’s visit to Amritsar was to meet with the Sikh leaders. Puri had gone to the railway station in the morning after a cup of tea. He had said that he might have to go to Amritsar.
Jaya was riding her tricycle in the veranda, pretending it to be a train, letting out shrieks of delight. Kanak was ironing Jaya’s frilly voile frock with an electric iron in her bedroom. Heeran had not learnt to use the iron even after working two-and-a-half years for Kanak. She could lovingly massage Jaya with ghee or butter, and rub oil in the child’s ear and nose. She could comb and arrange Jaya’s hair in a plait, but puffing them and forming ringlets and tying them with ribbons in a bow was beyond her.
Suddenly Shera barked menacingly and Jaya screamed.
‘What happened, Munni?’ Kanak was startled. Jaya has fallen off the tricycle, she thought. She put aside the iron and ran to the veranda.
Shera was barking to stop some people from coming into the bungalow. Jaya was screaming out in terror. Kanak took Jaya in her arms and called Shera back.
A very tall Sikh jat, with a woman and three children in tow, walked into the veranda. The well-built jat carried in one hand a lathi taller than he was, his other hand held a bundle of two or three kitchen pots tied in a torn sheet and slung over his shoulder. It was a bitterly cold morning, but he wore no kurta but a dirty, knee-length underpants. Locks of hair stuck out of a tattered dirty turban wrapped around his head like a rope, and his copious beard and moustache were matted and grimy. The children’s noses were runny from the cold. The woman wore shabby and patched salwar-kameez and dupatta, and held in her arms a baby girl about the same age as Jaya. The baby’s nose was also runny and she was wrapped in a ragged piece of khes. A six-year-old boy wore knee-lenght underpants and a ragged cotton vest, and the little hairs on his arms were standing up because of the cold. An older boy wore a torn kurta, and his hair was tied in a knot with a piece of cloth.
The man’s eyes were bloodshot but dry. He looked at Kanak and said, ‘I want to see Puri Babu.’
Kanak was scared. There was no man in the house except Chaila. Hari had left for college an hour ago. She said, ‘He does lives here, but he has gone to Amritsar. He will return by this evening.’
‘Sit down,’ the man ordered the woman and the children. ‘If he doesn’t return this evening, he’ll come back tomorrow. He’ll come back some time. He hasn’t been to the Congress party office since yesterday morning. We can’t search all over the city for him.’
The woman looked exhausted. She sat down in the veranda, her back against the wall. The man and the children also sat down.
Jaya had buried her head fearfully in her mother’s bosom and was looking at the visitors out of the corner of her eye. Kanak tried to soothe her and handed her to Heeran.
Once in a while visitors from Puri’s constituency came to meet him and to ask him to look into some complaint or application they had made. Puri would offer them tea or lassi, and his commiseration. Perhaps the Sikh had come for a similar reason, Kanak thought.
Kanak returned to the veranda and asked the woman, ‘What is your business?’
The woman gave no reply.
The man replied, ‘I came here after writing to the tehsildar, the deputy commissioner, the Congress committee, to everybody. Puri is the member from our area. I got no answer to the two letters I wrote to him. We’ll leave this place only when something is decided about our case. If we have to die from cold and hunger, we’ll do it right here. If Puri doesn’t help us, he’ll have to cart our five bodies to the cremation grounds to burn them. Or he’ll have to answer Rabb wahe-guru.’
‘What letter?’ asked Kanak.
‘What letter?’ the man said, flying into a fury. ‘You people enjoy the benefits of membership snuggling down in your warm quilts, eating halwa made from
kun
, drinking milk and lassi. When would you have the time to read our letters? Puri Babu talked through big loudhailers to get our vote, he promised us the moon before the elections. He said that the Congress government will give land to every family, that we’ll be given loans to buy ploughs and oxen, that water will flow from tube wells run by electric power. All he did was to give us a rough deal by taking away the 12
ghuma
, each ghuma a 4,000 sq. yds, land that we were allotted, and giving it to his cronies in parcels of a hundred or two hundred sq. yds each. Either give us back our land, or we’ll die from hunger and cold right here at your doorstep. And we’ll come back to haunt you even after death.’
Kanak had no knowledge of the problems arising out of temporary and permanent allotment of agricultural lands. All she knew was that after the Partition it had been the time to plant the rabi crop, and the administration, thinking that unplanted agricultural land would exacerbate the food shortages, had allowed the refugee farmers from western Punjab to cultivate land vacated by the Muslim farmers. Now the farmers were being allotted land permanently on the basis of the land and property left behind in western Punjab. Those who were landless before the Partition were going to remain landless after the Partition.
Kanak felt compassion for the distraught Sikh, and sympathy for his anger. Jaya was wearing a wool dress that Kanak had knitted last year. She changed Jaya into one that she had knitted recently, and gave the old dress to the Sikh’s baby daughter. She sat down with them in the veranda to listen to their woes.
Bela Singh was from the Sialkot district in western Punjab. In 1947 he had taken over a plot of 12 ghuma agricultural land and a water well, the property of a Muslim family that had fled to Pakistan.
Bela Singh had been a tenant farmer in his village Naroha. Since he could not produce ownership papers for the land that he had cultivated in the district now in Pakistan, a court order for his eviction from the land was issued in 1950. His land was allotted to Dasauda Singh, who had been able to prove his ownership of 1.5
murabba
, 150,000 sq. yds canal-fed land in western Punjab.
Bela Singh had participated in the political movements launched by the Akali Dal and the Congress, and having campaigned for the Congress during the elections, knew little about politics. He was not willing to be a mere farm labourer after having been owner farmer for three years. He appealed against the eviction order. His court case had had several hearings till 1952. His appeal was turned down after the elections were over. Dasauda Singh came with the bailiff and police constables, and occupied Bela Singh’s land.
Kanak had to go to the office. Raks had a cold and cough, and had been absent from the office for the past three days. Gill was all alone in the office. Just before she sat down to have her meal, Kanak said to Bela Singh’s wife, ‘Puriji won’t be back before the evening. You people get something to eat in the bazaar. Come back in the evening. This is Puriji’s home, he’ll return here. Why should your family stay hungry?’
Bela Singh took umbrage at her suggestion, ‘We’re not going anywhere. We’ll eat or drink only after we get our land back. Babu may come back this evening, or tomorrow, or the day after, or he may not come back at all. Where would we live without our land and how would we survive? We want our land or we’ll starve ourselves to death. We’ll wait for his return.’
‘You don’t have to go out if you don’t want to,’ Kanak said. ‘I’ll give you some wheat and lentils, and wood for fuel. You can make a stove out of some bricks and cook for yourself. The children are hungry. I’ll send you some chapattis for them.’
Kanak brought about ten chapattis, some cooked daal and vegetables and gave to the woman. She repeated her offer of wheat and lentils.
Bela Singh said, shaking his head, ‘No. We’re much obliged to you, but it’s enough that you gave food for the children. We’ll eat only after our problem is solved.’
Since Jaya had begun to go to the day nursery, Kanak used to drop Jaya at the school on her way to the office, and Chaila used to bring Jaya home at 1.30 p.m. on a bicycle, with her sitting in a basket attached to the handlebars. When Kanak was about to leave at 10 a.m. with Jaya, Heeran said nervously, ‘These people are sitting in the veranda. I’m afraid of being alone.’ Heeran had witnessed the killing of her family and the looting of their house. She had been hit in the head with a
farsa
. Sikh soldiers had found her whimpering and barely conscious. She had spent four months in a hospital. Even the slightest tension gave her palpitations. Sometimes she would scream in her dreams and fall into a dead faint. Kanak could not just tell her to keep quiet. Kanak said, ‘Don’t’ be afraid. Chaila knows how to use the telephone. I’ve also asked our neighbour Himmat Rai to keep an eye on the situation. Hari’ll be back soon.’
Kanak had to tell about Bela Singh when she explained to Gill the reason for her being late. They both knew that what had happened in Bela Singh’s case was perfectly legal. But legal considerations aside, the question remained: What about the landless? There could be no two opinions that every individual had a right to earn his living. Gill and Kanak criticized the newly enacted law as they discussed the problem. Kanak wanted to write an article in
Nazir
and pose the question: Should only those who had owned land in the past be allotted land in the present situation? Couldn’t there be another, equitable method of the distribution of the agricultural land?
Gill advised her against doing so. He said that any criticism of the government will rankle with Puri. He reminded her of the time when Puri had objected to Kanak writing an article in support of the strike by patwaris. He said that there was no point in her starting another quarrel with Puri. Kanak had to keep a lid on her criticism. She said nothing to Gill, but thought to herself, ‘Puriji and I now disagree over the slightest of reasons. He has changed so much!’
When she was leaving for home, Kanak requested Gill, ‘If he didn’t return today for any reason, it will be a hassle for me. Please come to the bungalow with me.’
When Kanak and Gill turned the corner near the bungalow, they saw a crowd of onlookers gathered on the road outside the boundary wall, which annoyed Kanak. On entering the gate they saw Puri standing in the veranda. Beside Puri was Hardev, a
balisht
, space between the tips of the thumb and the little finger, taller than Puri. The young man stood, arms akimbo and
hands rolled into fists, waiting for a signal to grab the peasant by the scruff of his neck and throw him out of the bungalow. Dust and sweat caked Puri’s face, and his black pashmina weskit was covered with a fine layer of dust. Puri’s briefcase was in his hands, showing that he had just arrived. Puri was speaking patiently and sympathetically to Bela Singh, who was sitting with his back against the wall, ‘My brother, law is the same for everyone. I can’t change the law. If your complaint is that you didn’t receive justice, appeal to the law court. I’ll definitely help you if you follow the rules, but threats won’t work with me.’