The Great Indian Novel (22 page)

And then there was the altogether more complicated matter of religion. Don’t get me wrong - Mohammed Ali, for all that he had earned his ‘Karna’, bore no resemblance to the robed-and-bearded ayatollahs of current Islamic iconography. He disdained the mullahs and disregarded their prohibitions. Where Dhritarashtra learned to brew his own tea in England, Karna acquired a taste for Scotch and cocktail sausages. Far from praying five times a day, he prided himself on his scientific, and therefore agnostic, cast of mind. His outlook was that of an Englishman of his age and profession: ‘modern’ (to use an adjective that has outlived more changes of connotation than any other in the language), formalist, rational, secular. It was not Islam that separated him from Gangaji, but Hinduism.

I see from the look of astonishment on your face that I shall have to explain myself. It is really very simple, Ganapathi. Karna was not much of a Muslim but he found Gangaji too much of a Hindu. The Mahaguru’s traditional attire, his spiritualism, his spouting of the ancient texts, his ashram, his constant harking back to an idealized pre-British past that Karna did not believe in (and was impatient with) - all this made the young man mistrustful of the Great Teacher. The very title in which Gangaji had acquiesced made Karna uncomfortable: in his world there were no Mahagurus, only Great Learners. And Gangaji’s mass politics were, to Karna, based on an appeal to the wrong instincts; they embodied an atavism that in his view would never take the country forward. A Kaurava Party of prayer-meetings and unselective eclecticism was not a party he would have cared to lead, let alone to remain a member of.

In other words, Karna found the Kauravas under Gangaji insufficiently secular, and this made him, paradoxically, more consciously Muslim. Gangaji’s efforts to transcend his Hindu image by stressing the liberalism of his interpretation of it only made matters worse. When the Mahaguru, in one of his more celebrated pronouncements, declared his faith in all religions with the words, ‘I am a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Zoroastrian, a Jew,’ Karna responded darkly: ‘Only a Hindu could say that.’

This doesn’t mean, Ganapathi, that Karna slammed the door on the Kauravas and went off straight away to join the Gaga’s discredited Group.

When, in his absence, the Kauravas passed the policy resolution that committed the party firmly to Gangaji’s line, Karna, humiliated and bitter, felt he could no longer return to the cause. Yet he still believed, like almost everyone else, that the Kauravas were the nationalists’ only hope. If they were going to persist in error, Karna decided, then he had no party left. He did not simply return to his law practice; he packed his bags and set sail for England.

Karna was never a man for half-measures. Once he had decided to make a break it was always a clean break, and a complete one. It was a characteristic that would have a profound and lasting impact upon the nation.

For it was obvious to anyone who had followed his career that Karna could not be kept out of Indian politics for ever. He was in London when the Mahaguru and his motley crew of Round Tablers conferred so fruitlessly, and he found himself unable to hold back in public the contempt he felt for the state of the nationalist organizations. ‘As an Indian,’ he said to an inquiring reporter, ‘I am ashamed and disgusted to see my fate and that of my country being discussed and resolved by such a collection of has-beens, never-wases and never-will-bees.’

‘If you feel so strongly,’ asked the journalist, ‘why do you not return to Indian politics yourself?’

Karna’s unblinking gaze directed the questioner to his notebook. ‘I am waiting,’ he said, ‘for the right invitation.’

The right invitation. There was the tragedy of
divide
et
impera.
If the British had not sought to split up our people along sectarian lines, the invitation Karna was so openly soliciting might have come from, say, a Conservative Nationalist Party, one differing from the Kauravas on issues of political principle rather than religion. Instead the call came from the Gaga Shah, head of the Muslim Group: a gilt-edged card requesting the pleasure of Karna’s company for tea at the Savoy.

‘So glad you could come, old chap,’ the Gaga said, half-rising, with great effort, from his capacious chair. Karna took his hand unsmilingly. ‘Sit down, won’t you, there’s a good fellow. Tea?’

Steaming cups were poured, not by a Savoy waiter, but by a menial in a cummerbund who bowed as he handed the refreshment to his master. Karna declined with a curt shake of the head the offer of a silver tray laden with pastries. The Gaga looked astonished. ‘Really?’ he asked, as he stuffed a glazed pink object into his mouth and, almost in the same gesture, helped himself to a cream puff. ‘Don’t know what you’re missing, old chap.’

Karna remained pointedly silent.

‘Must eat, you know,’ the Gaga went on bonhomously. ‘All in the cause of duty for me, of course. My followers weigh me against gold and diamonds every birthday, and it wouldn’t do to let them down by placing a sylph-like figure on the scales. Ruins the spectacle, don’t you know. And doesn’t make for much of a birthday present, either.’ He guffawed into his tea. Karna seemed incapable even of a polite smile. The Gaga decided to try again. ‘One of my wives, can’t remember which one - put pearls around their neck and they’re all alike, ha-ha - used to go on and on at me about my eating. Don’t take this, put that down, not another helping, you know the sort of thing. Till I told her that each bite of
foie
gras
meant another sapphire for her collection. Quite literally. And then I couldn’t stop her shovelling the stuff on to my plate.’ He chuckled at the memory, then noticed Karna sitting, stiff and unmoved, his cup untouched on the table by his side.

The attempt at banter past, the Gaga took an elaborate sip of tea, one pudgy and bejewelled little finger held delicately in the air. ‘S’pose you’re wondering why I asked you here,’ he said at last.

‘The question had occurred to me,’ Karna said drily.

The cup rattled in the Gaga’s hand. This was not a tone of voice he was accustomed to hearing. ‘Quite,’ he exhaled sharply. ‘Quite.’ He reached for a chocolate éclair and munched it reflectively. ‘Fact is, we’d like you back in India.’

‘We?’ Karna sat still, one eyebrow raised in interrogation.

‘The Muslim Group,’ the Gaga explained. ‘Our party needs men like you.’

‘Oh?’ Karna seemed to want him to go on. How much easier it was, the Gaga thought, to deal with men of the turf. They were content with a pat and a nod, and the occasional packet of cash. This cold, aloof lawyer with the arrogant eyes was another sort of customer altogether. And yet - he was just the sort of jockey needed to spur an overweight, complacent thoroughbred into purposeful motion. The Gaga sighed.

‘You are aware of the current political position in India,’ he began.

‘I have been following events, yes,’ Karna confirmed.

The Gaga sensed an opportunity to let the other do the talking. ‘Good,’ he breathed his relief. ‘And how do you assess the situation?’

‘I believe it is quite deplorable,’ the lawyer replied. ‘Ganga Datta and his Kaurava Party are the only actors of any consequence on the stage, and they stand for all that is retrogressive and populist in Indian politics. If they are to triumph we shall witness neither democracy nor progress but mobocracy and anarchy in India.’

‘Hindu mobocracy,’ the Gaga added.

‘Perhaps. Though rioters have no religion, as we have seen during this wretched mango business. It galls me to see the leadership of India fall into hands stained by mango juice.’

‘Well put,’ the Gaga said, thinking enviously of the mangoes wasted on the agitators. They were his favourite fruit, and he had made an annual practice of sending a basket of choicest Alphonso to every Englishman of distinction he sought to cultivate. The unusual gift, accompanied by a crested card bearing the calligraphed compliments of the Gaga Shah, had opened the doors of many a stately home for him in the past. This year, thanks to Gangaji’s bad taste, they had had a disastrous effect. Few new invitations had been prompted by what some saw as a symbol of sedition, and in two cases his baskets had been sent back to him, their contents intact. Next year, the Gaga sighed, he would have to think of something more appropriate to give.

‘I’m afraid I don’t believe any of the other parties have covered themselves with glory either,’ Karna added. ‘The Muslim Group . . .’

‘. . . is moribund,’ the Gaga completed the sentence for him. ‘Quite. But then what can you expect from a gathering of nawabs and zamindars? We have wealth, we have status, we have positions of influence. But I will be candid with you, my dear Karna, we lack energy.’ He helped himself to a madeleine. ‘That is why I have asked you here today, old chap. The Muslim Group needs you.’

Karna looked at him in silence for a long moment. ‘What exactly are you proposing?’ he asked at last.

The Gaga looked nonplussed. ‘Why, that you should come back, of course. And join the Group, dear fellow. Give us the benefit-of your perception. Your advice.’

‘Advice.’ Karna looked hard at his host, and the Gaga noticed how the half- moon glowed at him, like a third eye.

‘Yes And . . . and . . . counsel.’

Karna rose to his feet. ‘In that case, we have nothing to discuss, Your Highness,’ he said curtly. ‘Your proposal is of no interest to me. Good day.’

The Gaga, struggling free of the enveloping embrace of the cushions into which he had sunk, nearly choked. ‘But . . . here . . . where are you going? I don’t understand.’

‘I shall make myself perfectly clear. I have no desire to offer advice, as you put it, or counsel, to an ineffective covey of irrelevant old men. If you’ll pardon my language, sir. And now I shall take my leave. I have other pressing matters to attend to.’

The Gaga, to Karna’s surprise, chuckled, restraining the young man with a pudgy hand. ‘Come, come,’ he said, pushing the lawyer with surprising strength back towards the chair. ‘Pardon your language!’ he gave vent to a throaty chortle. ‘I shall do nothing of the kind. That is precisely the kind of language we need to hear more of in the Muslim Group. Sit down, dear chap, and tell me what
you
think you could do for us. Apart from giving us advice, that is.’ He laughed heartily and clapped his hands for more pastries. Karna, mollified, his half-moon fading to blend with the golden skin around it, allowed himself to be steered to a seat.

‘Good,’ said the Gaga, subsiding once again into the upholstery. ‘Now, tell me.’

‘I have given the matter some thought,’ the lawyer said. ‘At first I hesitated even to come here; I have never had a very high opinion of the political achievements of your Group, despite my personal regard for many of its members.’ The Gaga acknowledged the courtesy, and the criticism it modified, with a gracious nod. ‘In the ordinary course I would have been reluctant to identify myself solely with one community. But I do not like the direction that the Kaurava movement is taking, and I am forced to acknowledge that of the available political alternatives, the Muslim Group, which at least enjoys a certain prestige in the eyes of the Raj, has the best potential.’

He paused here to look meaningfully at the Gaga, who nodded, a lemon tart between his cheeks making other communication difficult.

‘I say potential, Your Highness, and I use the word advisedly,’ Karna continued. ‘Because I do not believe the Group as it is at present constituted has any prospect worth the name, except to serve as a forum for the landed Muslim interest and to speak for the secular concerns of the community from time to time - without, that is, wielding any real political power. The only positions the Group has gained are those to which the British have chosen to appoint its members. We must be grateful for that, but we cannot afford to be content with it.’

‘Quite so,’ the Gaga concurred, hastily swallowing a morsel. ‘Quite so.’

‘We are reasonably secure under the British, but we must think of the future,’ Karna went on. ‘A future under Ganga Datta’s Kauravas does not bear thinking about. Neither you nor I would have any place in the kind of India they are likely to construct.’