A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) (67 page)

‘Very well. Then you moved into Burma, you said. And then across the Chindwin and into Manipur.’

‘Eventually, yes.’

‘And waged war against the King.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Not “yes, I suppose”, Sayed. Just yes. Yes. Yes. You waged war against the king. It was the unavoidable result of the decision you made. We have already dealt with that. What remains to be dealt with is your attitude at this time to the Japanese.’

‘It was the same as Netaji’s.’

‘Netaji? You mean Bose. What was Bose’s attitude?’

‘For him it was a question of wait and see. Under Netaji the lives of thousands of Indians in Asia were made better and the Japanese said repeatedly that we were allies, they’d no quarrel with India. But Netaji said many times to us in private that we must be prepared to fight them too if necessary. We should never fully trust them. Also he said they were perhaps afraid of us. I think this was why they kept us short of supplies and equipment and why in Burma they stopped us operating as a fully independent and major force. Whatever the Japanese Government said, we knew there were many Japanese officers who had their own ideas and way of dealing which wasn’t in line with the official policy. They were the ones who didn’t agree that India should be Netaji’s sphere of influence. They only wanted to see the Rising Sun hoisted in Delhi in place of the Union Jack.’

‘Good. Remember that. That could be a helpful point. But what does this mean, sphere of influence?’

‘Surely it is obvious, it was fundamental. Netaji said –’

‘I want it in your own words, not Netaji’s.’

Sayed again hesitated. He said, ‘What have you against
Netaji? He spoke to me about you with much warmth and admiration.’

‘What did you expect? For him to tell you he thought I was a bloody fool? No matter. Just that he and I never got on. Anyway he’s dead –’

‘Perhaps –’

‘Perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps Hitler did not die in the bunker. Perhaps Bose did not die in a plane crash. The world must always have its myths. Let us get back to spheres of influence. You should avoid that phrase. It is one used by journalists when they are really talking about a political carve-up. You must try not to give this impression, that Bose sat down with Togo and said, right, you keep Burma and Malaya, and all the rest. We’ll have India.’

‘What is wrong with that? It’s our own country.’

‘The British still happen to think that legally it is theirs. Just do not use that phrase. Rely more on what you said about the Rising Sun and the Union Jack. Rely entirely on the question not of what appeared to be agreed between your Netaji and the Japanese within a framework of spurious legality, but on the underlying distrust, the fear that if and when the British were defeated, which seemed imminent, the Japanese would run riot in the country, looting and raping and enslaving, and that the best way to try to stop them doing this was unfortunately to march with them.’

Sayed said nothing.

‘So now there comes the question, of whether there was any deepening of your distrust as a result of your experience of marching with them into India. Did the distrust increase?’

‘Yes, because they dealt with us unfairly.’

‘How?’

‘Over things like rations, supplies, arms and ammunition. In not giving us proper operational information. They tried to palm us off with coolie work. The men were getting browned off. I was always having to dispute with Japanese officers mostly junior to me in rank to get the men a proper deal.’

‘Morale in your battalion was not as high as you would have liked?’

‘Morale was always high. We were fed up only with the
Japanese. Among ourselves things were okay. I tried to share their hardships with them.’

‘Sometimes no doubt you had to punish some of them.’

‘Never to appease the Japanese. If a Japanese officer complained of any of my men’s behaviour I told him to shove off.’

‘I did not mean this. You were what you call a properly constituted army. You had a disciplinary code, no doubt, an army act laying down rules and regulations and punishments for infringement.’

‘Everybody accepts this necessity. Our regulations were based completely on the Indian Army Act.’

‘You cannot use the words based and completely together. Either they were a duplicate or based merely. Based with variations for local conditions and circumstances.’

‘Yes, I see. You’ve been listening to all these rumours of ill-treatment. But where do such rumours come from except from men who joined us and have been recaptured like me but are hoping to suck up to the British with tales of tortures. I know nothing of such things. The only barbarity I have ever witnessed was in my old regiment in Kuala Lumpur when the officers’ mess cook was ordered by Colonel Barker to receive six strokes of the rattan for stealing rum and selling it in the bazaar. We were all made to assemble and watch.’

‘Under the pukka Indian Army Act such punishments are prescribed for menials. I am questioning you about punishments of combatant soldiers.’

‘And I’ve already answered. I know nothing of brutal punishments. In Rangoon I ordered such things as extra fatigues, confinement to barracks, forfeiture of pay. And in the field, extra guard duties or heavy pack drill. I am not a monster. I am not a barbarian.’

‘And you know nothing of this kind and worse kinds of violence in forcing men to
join
the
INA
?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You never had a case of desertion in your battalion?’

‘No.’

‘If you had, what would have happened if the man had been caught? Come. Think of me still as your prosecutor. What punishment did your
INA
prescribe for desertion, for instance
in the face of the enemy, meaning in the face of the British and the Indian armies? Death?’

‘That would have been the maximum.’

‘In the eyes of the British who are not interested in
INA
acts or regulations, to execute such a sentence on an Indian soldier, even a traitorous Indian soldier, would amount to murder under the Indian Penal Code. You realize this? I am sorry to press you on the subject. Were such a sentence ever passed and executed, everyone concerned would be guilty at least of abetment to murder. You see how difficult things become when there is no political let alone legal recognition of the losing side by the winning side? I want to be absolutely sure there is no problem of this kind attaching to your case.’

‘I’ve told you, father. You can be sure.’

‘Because if there is any doubt, all my advice to you so far is valueless. You would have to work your case up on lines that would seek to establish the legality of what I have called Subhas Chandra Bose’s spurious constitutional framework. You would need the services of an expert on Constitutional and International Law. On full consideration, do you think after all you might require such services?’

‘All I know is that I’ve only told you the truth. What I understand of it. I am merely a professional soldier. I don’t follow all these technicalities.’

‘They are not just technicalities, Sayed. Never mind. Go back now and concentrate your mind on the situation that ended in your surrender in Manipur. But let me lead you a little. In court your counsel would not be allowed too much licence in that respect.’

He smiled, attempting to make Sayed smile too.

‘In Manipur,’ he went on, ‘you find yourself in a difficult, perhaps untenable military position. No supplies, no ammunition, no lines of communication. You are somewhere in the hills near Imphal. The Japanese are suddenly nowhere. The British and the Indian armies are uncomfortably close. Now – were there among your men any who said, Major Sahib, this is our chance. Now we can do what we really joined the
INA
to do – escape from prison-camp and return to duty at the earliest possible moment?’

Presently Sayed said, ‘Yes, there were some men who pretended to think like that.’

‘How did you deal with them?’

‘I tried to make them see what folly it was.’

‘Folly? Why folly?’

‘Folly to expect the British to swallow a story like that.’

‘Folly is not a good word. I suggest you do not use it. It would make it sound as if you were thinking what was wise and what was foolish and not of what your position really was – that you had all made a certain decision as prisoners-of-war, with a certain idea at its end, and here was the idea in ruins, with the Japanese being beaten back and not any longer looking likely to march on Delhi to hoist the Rising Sun in place of the Union Jack. Which meant that all of you were in ruins too, unless you abandoned whatever post the Japanese had left you to hold before leaving you in the lurch, abandoned it and retreated and ran back after the Japanese to share their defeat with them. Perhaps to fight another day. Perhaps not. It seems to me, Sayed, that the one thing your
INA
never took into account was what was to happen if the Japanese
were
defeated. Or were you so convinced of their superiority that the eventuality never occurred to you? Were you by any chance relying on the defection of the Indian Army, the moment they saw Indians marching shoulder to shoulder with the Japanese? Did you think the Indian Army would at once turn on its British officers and join with you and the Japanese to massacre the British Army?’

Sayed did not reply. But he got up and went towards the other pleader’s table. ‘Yes,’ Kasim said, misunderstanding. ‘Smoke if you want to. And then tell me how you tried to convince these men of yours of their folly. But I hope you were thinking not of folly but of dishonour.’

But Sayed had gone on past the table, hands behind back. For a moment he stood near the rail behind which when the court was in session the public sat. Then he came back and stood looking down at his father.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I asked them, “What folly is this? What mercy do you expect from the British or even from our own fellows who are commanded by them and dare not disobey? You will all be shot like dogs just as so many of our people
have always been treated like dogs. Isn’t it better to die here?” Then one of them said, “Major Sahib, we do not care. To surrender is our only chance now of seeing our families again, so let the British and our own old comrades shoot us if they want to, it no more matters. We do not care either about the British or the Japanese. Staying here we shall all be killed anyway, and our women and children will starve, no one will see to them or bother about them and it will all be up with them.” Then another said, “Here we are only so many, but most of us are thinking like this, that we must risk being shot, because it is our only chance. You have only to ask the others. We are all thinking the same. That it is all finished with us!” ’

‘Please sit. I cannot speak to you while you are standing up.’

‘It’s easier for me to stand, father. So let me tell you. I sent these men away and assembled the others. There weren’t many of us left anyway. I said, Well what is the decision of the majority? Who is for surrendering and chancing being shot? One hand went up and then another until there were only a few hands not up. Including mine. Then I went away to be alone for a bit. Perhaps you would have preferred me to do what it was in my mind to do. Shoot myself. A very honourable solution. But what is the good to India of a dead Indian just now? And perhaps also I wished to see my family again, only it was not even that I was allowed to see my own mother before she died.’

‘Sayed –’

‘No. Let me speak please. You are talking about a world that exists only in a court of law and I am not. In the world as it is it is necessary to act sometimes according to the heart –’

‘I do not advise this, Sayed. It is pure emotional rhetoric. It will not get you anywhere.’

‘Will not get me anywhere? Where is this place I am supposed to be going? Where is all this supposed to be leading, this advice you are giving me? The truth is that after all you don’t intend to help me. You are giving me a lot of ideas about how to placate the British. Why should they be placated? What right have they to say what I shall do and what I shall not do?’

‘I am helping you in the only way I can. I must make it clear to you that I don’t intend to make political capital out of this. I
cannot advise you to present your own case in a political framework. I do not intend to take that road. I advise you not to. I do not approve of what you have done. I do not approve of
INA.
I shall not identify myself with any committee set up for the defence nor shall I defend you in court, although to do so would be a very popular thing in the country generally. On the other hand I shall not criticize you, nor the
INA,
to anyone, which is perhaps what Government has been hoping I would do. I do not intend to commit political suicide, although you will appreciate that the situation I find myself in does not augur well for my immediate political future.’

Kasim paused; went on before Sayed had a chance to speak: ‘If you plead guilty I will continue to help you. I will help to choose and to instruct your defence counsel, but in a wholly private and confidential manner. Everything I have been trying to put into your mind this morning as the proper way to conduct your case has been to this end: that you should plead guilty to waging war against the King, and then submit a reasoned statement setting out the considerations that led you to do so. Pleading guilty is the only way you can come out of court with any kind of personal integrity left.’

Sayed, still standing, had looked away, but now turned on Kasim. ‘Integrity? What else have you ever done, father, except wage war against the King? Hasn’t this been your whole life, to get rid of the British? What is the difference between you and me except that you went to prison now and again and I carried a gun?’

‘You have just explained the difference, Sayed. If you cannot see it, then it is pointless to discuss it any further. So yes, come, come. Let us finish. We are simply aggravating one another.’

He got up.

‘You are throwing everything away,’ Sayed said.