The Speech

(A Story)

BY Dr. S. CHANDRASEKHAR Ph.D.
(Annamalai University)

An old Ford sputtered along the main street of Amalpur one late evening in September. Most of the peasants and workers had returned home after a day’s toil in the nearby paddy fields and threshing sheds. In the narrow streets, the kerosene lamps on the lamp-posts flickered half alive an half dead. Since the lamp-lighter diluted the municipal kerosene oil with water–how else could he make a few more annas over his meager salary–the lamps shed only weak circles of light round the posts. The town was unusually quiet, though it was only a little past nine. There was neither moon nor stars in the sky, and the sky was dark and cloudy. The only people that had not yet gone home were the ones in the little cinema house in mark square. The air was cool and smelled of the moist earth, of the ripening crops in the nearby endless paddy fields–the peasants’ only pride.

The car stopped and the two men got out. The younger of the two who was in his late twenties switched off the engine, put out the headlights and they both walked toward a dilapidated brick-and-mortar house which stood on the main street all alone, far from the residential section of a series of low roofed, brick-and-mortar pigeon-holed houses.

The two men were about the same height, rather smallish in stature; but one was a little older than the other. The gentle, cool winds still their long, straight, dark hair. As they walked toward the two-storied house in their white khaddar dhotis, long shirts and shawls, the measured patter their sandalled feet echoed along the uneven gravel street. The younger man, who was carrying a bundle, tried to whistle an old Indian song, that faintly sounded like the first verse of the Indian national anthem, Vande Mataram. But he whistled it in such a low tone that his ignorant of the exact tune was not too obvious.

“I wish I would learn this song. After all, it is our national anthem–or it will be when we are free. Then we won’t have to sing ‘God Save The King’, even after our Hindu movies,” said Ramnath, the younger man. Th older man, who was in his forties, walked by his side with a quickened pace but did not reply. “I’ve been humming it all day, trying to catch the tune, but somehow I don’t get it.”

“Are you scared? You sound as though you’re nervous,” said Prakash, the older man, whose wan face looked a little weather-beaten, as they walked past a lamp-post, the last one on the street.

“No, I’m not frightened, Prakash,” said Ramnath in an assured tone, “though I wish I knew how this secret meeting is going to end. While I’m prepared for the worst, I wish I had an idea of what to expect if anything goes wrong.” Ramnath was quite familiar with Prakash, for despite the disparity of their ages he addressed him by his name rather than the formal, if affectionate, honorific “Ji”.

“The best way to learn all about it is to do it, and we are going to do it,” observed Prakash sententiously.

Now they reached the house–a rickety old house with a pial in front, obviously uninhabited for years. Prakash pulled out a key and, looking around rather furtively, opened the wooden door which creaked slightly on its rusty hinges. Both fumbled their way in with the aid of an Eveready torch that Prakash flashed along the floor, which was covered with a film of dust. The verandah and front room were almost bare. Prakash gently closed the door, turned the latch, and slowly walked up the stairs, followed by Ramnath, who lugged his package along with some effort.

At the end of the stairs they reached a large room. As Prakash’s flashlight swept the darkness, he saw rows of little brown jute mats spread all over the floor like chairs in a classroom, and a little table, a foot above the floor, in a corner meant obviously for the presiding figure. There was a score or so of palm leaf fans scattered about, and in another corner was an oddly assorted pile of literature in Hindi and English. Most visible was the pile of orange-colonred pamphlets titled, “Can We Indians Get Together?” by Jawaharlal Nehru. His eye was caught by dust-laden stacks of old pamphlets with screaming headings: “Swaraj is Our Birthright”, “Freedom Through Non-Violence”, “Our War Without Violence”, “This Is Our 1776” and so on.

While Ramnath began to unpack the bundle of leaflets that he was carrying, Prakash lighted two old hurricane kerosene lanterns and lowered their wicks to shed only a little light. They burned so low that no one from the street could notice the light upstairs. Ramnath scattered the leaflets on the mats on the floor. They were “India and the War”, “Gandhi and Nehru”, “How to Sabotage the British Rule”, “Down with the British”, and “What Does Jinnah Want?”

On the white plastered walls hung large, soiled and uneven portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Azad, Lincoln, Sun Vat Sen, and Lenin. A large frayed map of India on the wall, behind the chairman’s seat, fluttered gently in the breeze from the nearby window. There were posters and the two that caught Ramnath’s eye read, “Hindus and Moslems Are Brothers “, “British Imperialism Is Our Enemy, Not the British People”.

“You will make the first speech, won’t you?” asked Ramnath, breaking the silence and hoping Prakash would answer in the affirmative.

“No, you make it. As I know the crowd, I shall watch them as you speak and size them up. In case your speech misfires, I can mend matters,” explained Prakash, who looked a little tired as his swarthy face turned toward the narrow circle of light cast by the hurricane lantern. Ever since he gave up his lucrative legal practice at the behest of Mahatma Gandhi during the 1931 Civil Disobedience Movement, he had given all his time to the national cause, “to rid the country of the British scourge”‘, as he put it. He was the ever-busy Secretary of the Provincial Congress Committee. Though he was married, he was childless and had fewer financial worries than most Indians. Educated at the University Law College, he had mastered the intricacies of the Indian legal procedure and was feared by the Administration and the police, both for his legal knowledge and forensic eloquence. He was fluent both in his mother tongue and in the English language, which stood him in good stead to sway the people in the national cause. His health had become indifferent of late, for he had spent some years in and out of jails. Only three months ago he had come out of the Pellore Central Jail–not a pleasant place for political prisoners–and had nearly recuperated from the effects of having been so recently a guest of His Majesty’s Government. Now, active again, he was working in his own silent way to organise a new but revolutionary group at Amalpur.

“Do you know what you are going to say?” asked Prakash. “Let it be brief and mean something to the people here. Forget your American studies.”

“Sure, I know what I’m going to say. In fact, I wrote down every word of it. I don’t want my maiden speech to fall flat. Once at a Columbia University Students’ meeting I got up to speak on India. My head was full of ideas, and yet, for minutes I couldn’t say a word. Was I embarrassed! Then, suddenly, words began to rollout of my lips like the Niagara Falls. I think I spoke almost like a Radhakrishnan! But I wasn’t going to take any chances this time, so I wrote down my speech for tonight.”

“Don’t use too many big words or English words,” advised Prakash.

“Do you want to see the manuscript?”

“No, it’s all right. Since you have just returned from America, I thought you might be more at home in English than in Hindustani.”

“That’s true. I would prefer to speak in English. I wish this were Madison Square Garden in New York. What a thrill it would be!” Ramnath seemed to have forgotten for a moment his burning passion to contribute his mite toward the liberation of his country, in his juvenile anticipation of the mere emotional effect of his speech. Just then he seemed to be thinking of only one thing, and that was his speech.

“It is not for the thrill of making a speech that I want you to talk to these people,” chided Prakash, “but to persuade them to our point of view of the importance of freedom right and now.” There was a pause, and Ramnath was embarrassed.

“What is Madison Square Garden?” asked Prakash as a disinterested, after-thought. Prakash had never left India, though when he graduated with honours from the local university, his father-in-law had urged him to go to London to study for the Bar. Even then it was only to England and not to the United States.

“Madison Square Garden is the biggest meeting place in New York. It accommodates about thirty thousand people. It is built and equipped so wonderfully that addressing a packed house there means that something is being accomplished,” proffered Ramnath.

“By the way, don’t decry Gandhi or his methods,” advised the older man, “whatever your personal opinion about non-violence may be. Do refer warmly to Nehru by all means but don’t criticise Gandhi by any means–his ideology or his methods. Don’t forget that Gandhi, because of his non-violence which you younger men pooh-pooh, is the greatest soul since Buddha who has made us all men out of dust.” As an after-thought he added, “This is a conservative crowd though many are young men.”

Ramnath didn’t answer for a while. A goods train hooted mournfully as it laboured its way beyond the paddy fields. Now, as the train turned, the engine’s headlights became almost invisible from where they sat, though the puffing sound of the engine continued to reach the little house.

“What time is it?” asked Prakash.

“It’s twenty of ten,” answered Ramnath, raising the wick of the lantern a tiny bit.

“That’s right,” said Prakash. “That train was the 9-40 to Golpur.”

“Do you think there will be any trouble?” inquired Ramnath in a brave tone.

“What do you mean?”

“Since we are holding the meeting against the District Magistrate’s orders, do you think–?”

“If we are found, there is jail for us. Nothing more than that,” interrupted Prakash.

“I don’t mind the jail….” Ramnath paused. “But how will the police find out that we are meeting here tonight?” he wondered.

“Now, don’t tell me that you have forgotten our British Gestapo, the C. I. D. After all, you have been away in America for only five years.” There was a look of painful surprise in Prakash’s eyes.

“Oh, yes! I haven’t forgotten the C. I. D. But I can’t imagine our own people being so unpatriotic as to betray us.”

Prakash did not answer.

“Do you suspect anyone?” continued the younger man. “I can’t think of any sane Indian being pro-British. Even a Moslem-Leaguer wouldn’t do it.”

“You would be amazed,” replied Prakash. “If three years of Nazi occupation could produce hundreds of European Quislings, 170 years of British rule could produce thousands here. And it has.” He paused. “Our nation is demoralised. People want jobs. They are hungry and they want to eat. Who but the British Raj can give them jobs–petty jobs, big jobs, any job. It is jobs that lure our fellow-Indians and they become traitors to their own country. Sooner or later they become unconscious little cogs in the vast imperialistic machine. We may always have such Indians!” Prakash had a distant and sad look in his eyes as he spoke.

“Do you mean there will be a C. I. D. officer in mufti in tonight’s crowd?” asked Ramnath, without concealing his surprise.

“Possibly, though I wouldn’t expect him to join the crowd. If the news about this meeting has leaked out, the police will come after the meeting has begun and break it up.”

“Will there be any violence?” wondered Ramnath.

“Perhaps there may be a lathi charge. It depends on who comes to break up the meeting and arrest us. If the Indian police comes, there may be quiet and even dignified arrests, like Gandhiji’s arrest. After all, even the wretched police-wallahs feel the way we do, way down in their hearts, though they have to keep their jobs. But if some hot-headed British idiot comes, there may be a lathi charge or even shooting, broken skulls, and what not.”

“Well, if there is violence, we shall hit .” Ramnath forgot his creed.

“For God’s sake, forget your American education. You are in India! You are a member of the Congress! You are a follower of Gandhiji! That means non-violence above all else!”

“Even under provocation?”

“Under all circumstances. Don’t you remember Gandhi’s statement that we must be prepared to sacrifice even India’s freedom on the altar of non-violence?” Prakash was about to reach for the latest instruction from the Party’s Working Committee on this point; but just then they heard the patter of sandalled and bare feet at the door downstairs.

“Here they come,” said Prakash, as he picked up the lantern and walked downstairs to let the crowd in. Thank heaven, they were punctual! Young Ramnath, slightly nervous, distributed more leaflets on the mats on the floor. He smoothed his hair with his little comb, and pulled out the speech from his pocket.

Prakash led the men–the youth members of the local Congress Committee and prospective members, men between twenty to thirty–upstairs. After brief introductions, they squatted on the mats. The lantern wicks had been raised a little and the small hall was now lighted better. Prakash, who seemed to know almost everyone in that group of about forty or so, asked a gentleman in a Gandhi cap who carried a number of files, “Shall we begin? Is everybody here?”

The man looked about and, after a moment’s scrutiny, said, “I think so.”

Prakash sat in front of the little low presiding table and began to speak.

Ramnath, seated near Prakash’s feet, felt a little nervous and at the same time happy. Happy, because Prakash had opened the meeting instead of calling on him immediately to deliver his speech.

“Brothers, I welcome you here tonight,” began Prakash. “As you know, we are meeting here tonight under special instructions from the Working committee of the Central Congress. You have no doubt read the special instructions of Mahatma Gandhi and his now famous ‘Quit India’ movement. I don’t want to take up your time, but we must discuss a plan–a course of action to make the ‘Quit India’ resolution take life and become a mass movement in Amalpur, as it is becoming in every other village, town and city. You know how dangerous the task is. There is a war going on, both in the East and the West. You know that the British Government has already declared that it would tolerate no interference with its war effort, and it will crush our movement–no matter what the cost. If necessary, the British are prepared to hang everyone of us, in the name of crushing Hitler and saving democracy in Europe. Already our National Congress has been declared illegal. The arrest of our leaders is imminent. You know what that means.”

A distant cry was heard. Prakash paused, and there was a moment of tense silence, but the noise faded away. It was only the fading wail of a pariah dog.

“Before we take up our discussion to plan a working mass movement, I want you to listen to a special talk tonight by a brilliant young friend. He has very recently joined the ranks and is our latest asset. He is from our Province and he recently returned from America after a brilliant academic career there. His foreign education has not made him a prig. On the contrary, his travel and education have made him more patriotic and nationalistic. He arrived this morning from Allahabad where he met our beloved leader, Panditji. He has a special message for us. He will explain to us how our struggle for freedom is a part and parcel of the grim world struggle for a better world, a world where no tyranny, be it British, German, or Japanese, can flourish. Before I call upon Ramnath, I must beg you not to forget the secret nature of this meeting and not to applaud, or in any way express your appreciation. I don’t think anyone, beyond those of us here, knows that we are meeting here tonight. But our enemy is powerful and he is sparing no efforts to crush us. While I am confident that there are no informers in our patriotic Amalpur, we must be extremely careful.” He paused, looked at the eager and bright face of young Ramnath. “Shri Ramnath.”

Ramnath, who had been squatting near Prakash, rose, pulled out his manuscript and took a few steps toward the low table on which the hurricane lantern stood. He began, “Comrades, I want to tell you how happy and proud I am to be here tonight before such a distinguished band of workers, and standing right next to our devoted and inspiring leader Prakash. As I want to say quite a few things, I have written down my thoughts so that they may be coherent and precise. I have shown them to Narain. He thinks my plan deserves a trial. With your permission I shall read it, and I hope all of you will be able to discuss it at the end.”

He raised the wick of the lantern a tiny bit, bent over the little table and began, “Fellow Indians....” when suddenly sounds of scurrying feet, loud knocks and shouts at the main entrance downstairs broke loose. Could they be real?” No, it must have been his fevered imagination. But it was not his imagination alone, for everybody seemed to have heard it. Ramnath stopped and looked at Prakash, who in turn looked at the confused but silent group in the little hall, and advised, “go on”. But the banging on the door downstairs continued with such vehemence that all knew it was not imaginary. Somebody, if not the enemy himself, was at the door. The next minute they heard a shot fired in the air!

“We might as well open the door and see what this is about. If it is the police we’ll let them in, for they will break the door anyway,” said the man with the files with a look of incredible composure. But the furious pounding downstairs continued and, before Prakash could decide what was to be done, the door downstairs gave way with a bang and a crash, and in a moment the criss-cross flashes of a bevy of torches flooded the stairs and the small hall. A posse of Indian constables, C. I. D. officers in mufti, and two British officers ran upstairs. In the flashlights’ glare, the kerosene lantern paled into nothingness.

Everyone was on his feet by now, but no one seemed to know what to do. To escape? To jump out of the window or to fight or scream? What..?

“This meeting is declared illegal. All under arrest. Don’t move!” rasped the gruff, cockney voice of Sergeant Harrison.

“May I see the warrant?” It was Prakash’s voice.

“The Deuce with the warrant! How dare you ask for a warrant?” shouted Harrison. “Don’t you bloody well know that the Congress is declared illegal?” “Don’t you know that this meeting is a flagrant violation of District Magistrate Hilton Brown’s orders?” added Deputy Superintendent Stanbury’s more rasping accent.

“Damn explanations! The beggars know what the damn thing is about,” Harrison shouted, as if he were addressing an audience of fifty thousand deaf mutes. It was not really Harrison, but too many glasses of chota peg, thought Prakash. Ramnath, dazed in the melee, wondered how a European could behave like this.

“What authority have you to break up this meeting and arrest us? Every Englishman in a pair of khaki trousers can’t have the right to arrest anybody,” cut in Ramnath.

“Some Englishman in a pair of khaki trousers, indeed!” Harrison screamed. “Arrest!” he snapped. But when the constables and Stanbury began to clink their handcuffs, a scuffle ensued. Torches, lanterns, mats, paper, or whatever one could find began to fly through the air of the crowded room. “Lathi charge! Lathi charge!” the voice of Harrison kept shrieking and yelling. His lathi and those of the Indian constables began waving right and left, beating and bruising the men as they scrambled about in the now darkened hall. In the confusion of beatings, shrieks, shouts and groans, pandemonium reigned. No one could be sure who beat whom. There seemed to be more policemen than the men in the room. Someone cried, “You Indian police, can’t you see that you are Indian just like us?–” There was a pause and then the thud of a body falling on the floor. “Don’t you see what you are doing? It’s all for you. Don’t you want our country to be free–?” Somebody rolled down the stairs, hitting each step with a thud. A dark figure jumped out of the window and landed on the gravel of the sidewalk with a crunch, followed by a groan.

In the darkness Harrison’s gruff voice continued to re-echo. “Beat the Congress bastards! Kill the bloody Congress-wallahs!”

Someone shrieked in agony. The sound continued until it faded into a hysterical giggle. “Call the doctor. Call the doctor–the doctor,” somebody moaned over and over again.

II

When Prakash returned to consciousness, he realised with some effort that he was lying in the hospital, his body swathed in heavy bandages. As he slowly regained his senses, he became conscious of aching limbs–and of the events that had led to where he was now.

His eyes travelled around the room, and he discovered himself to be in a semi-private ward of the hospital of the Central Jail–not an unfamiliar place, for Prakash had been there at least once before. He wondered when and how he was transported all the distance from Amalpur. He noticed the limp bodies on two adjoining beds. They were strangers–perhaps criminals and not political prisoners. Slowly and painfully he turned his head to see whether there were any other patients in that ward–victims of the previous night’s raid. As he now recalled more clearly the events of the previous evening, he became less conscious of his physical pain and more anxious for the welfare and whereabouts of his fellow-patriots.

He wondered what had happened to them and to young Ramnath specially. Had any escaped, or were all under arrest? He was anxious for an answer–an answer above all to the question about Ramnath.

While these questions raced through his confused mind, a young Indian nurse walked in from the corridor with a tray of medicines. Depositing the tray on the little table next to the bed, she smiled at him.

“Good evening, feeling better?” she asked.

“Yes, much better, thank you, but my head and ache awfully.”

“You will be all right. It’s nothing serious.” She didn’t tell him, but she knew that the police had broken a couple of his ribs. There was a nasty cut on his left, temple. The police brought him in last night unconscious and bleeding.

She took his temperature. “Your temperature has come down. It’s normal now. You should be well enough within a week to stand trial.”

“What about the others?” eagerly asked Prakash.

“I believe all but two escaped with slight injuries. They are in the police lock-up. One Amalraj was badly beaten. He is in the General Ward. He needed a blood transfusion, but he is all right.

“How is Ramnath?”

“Oh yes! you mean the American-educated young man. I am sorry to say he is in bad shape. He is in the Emergency Ward; I’ve just come from there.”

“But he will be all right soon?” Prakash’s voice was not hopeful.

“I’m sure he will be,” she assured him, though she felt like bursting out that he had been badly beaten and had a fractured skull. She knew he was still unconscious, and the doctors disagreed about his chances to live.

Prakash lay silent, but deep in thought about young Ramnath and the hopes he held for him in his country’s political life. He had a strange premonition that something was wrong. Suddenly he felt feverish and wanted to rush out to Ramnath’s side and nurse him to life and health. But he lay helpless, thinking of all that Ramnath wanted to do for India and the impatient purpose and lofty idealism of his young mind. The twitching pain at his temple began to increase and his head ached terribly. As the nurse straightened the sheets over him, Dr. Mitra, the jail doctor, a distinguished-looking, elderly physician, walked in with his genial smile. Prakash knew the doctor, for every political prisoner in that Province had sometime or other been under Dr. Mitra’s expert and tender care.

The nurse greeted the doctor with “Temperature normal, doctor,” and, walked away to the next bed.

The doctor bent over Prakash and whispered as he felt his pulse, “Who was the renegade that informed the police about the meeting?”

“I have no idea. I would certainly like to know,” muttered Prakash.

“When you discover the informer, we must give him a private hanging,” advised the doctor in a low voice.

“How is Ramnath?” inquired Prakash.

“I don’t want to worry you, but his condition is very serious. In fact, he is in a rather critical condition. He hasn’t yet recovered consciousness. If he hangs on until tomorrow, there may be a chance of recovery.

“May I see him?”

The doctor did not answer for a minute or two. He looked away, far out into the almost endless stretch of barren ground, where the huge, massive walls of the prison rose toward the grey and cloudy sky.

“I feel a little better,” added Prakash eagerly.

“Very well. If you wish, you can see Ramnath, but I am afraid we have lost him.” Even the old doctor, who had witnessed countless deaths, seemed to be brooding over young Ramnath’s battle for his life. He still looked away and seemed a little lost.

A nurse walked in hastily. “Case number eight is critical, doctor. You are wanted in the Emergency Ward.” No sooner had she finished her summons than the loud speaker on the wall began to wail, “Dr. Mitra, Dr. Mitra, wanted in the Emergency Ward.”

“Anyone there now?” Dr. Mitra asked the nurse.

“Only two internees, doctor,” she replied.

“I am going there straightaway. Bring this patient–I mean Mr. Prakash–to the Emergency Ward. Case number eight.” Dr. Mitra walked away briskly.

Ramnath lay on the hospital bed as if he were in a deep sleep. His calm young face was partly covered with a slight stubble and a spate of bandages was wrapped around his head.

The young internee bent over Ramnath, rose after a minute, and whispered to Dr. Mitra, “I am afraid he is sinking.”

Another internee felt Ramnath’s pulse. “Very low,” he murmured.

“Any chance?” asked the first internee.

“Can’t say,” replied Dr. Mitra.

Prakash, supported by the nurse, slowly walked in and stood near Ramnath’s bed. Everybody was silent, but suddenly there was a gasp and a moment’s heavy breathing. Ramnath opened his eyes and surveyed the room and the people in it for a split second. The corners of his mouth quivered for a minute as he tried to say something. Prakash bent low and could barely hear Ramnath’s whisper, “The speech–will you–read–the speech.…?” Then his mouth became still and his eyes closed weakly. Prakash continued to bend close to the young face, hoping Ramnath would speak again, until Dr. Mitra gently pushed him aside and bent to examine Ramnath. After a minute he stood up and pulled the white sheet over the inert face. He turned to the nurse with a vacant look. “Inform the mortuary, the police and the press,” he said.