The Raj Quartet, Volume 1: The Jewel in the Crown: The Jewel in the Crown Vol 1 (Phoenix Fiction) (47 page)

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Imagine now that having received such a request I had a platoon of infantry standing by. The civil authority might then ask me to give support at a point where trouble was imminent or had already broken out. Let us say, for instance (to choose one of the many incidents that occurred in Mayapore in August 1942) that a threatening crowd had
gathered outside the main Hindu temple in the square upon which, having crossed the river by the main Mandir Gate bridge, there debouched the road that led from the civil lines.

The platoon of the Berkshires which had hastened by truck from District Headquarters, debussed some two hundred yards from the crowd who were crossing the bridge and hastily formed up on the road in a hollow square (there being shops and buildings on either side of the road whose roof tops or windows represented a threat to the flanks and the rear). In the centre of the hollow square thus formed by the sections of the platoon were to be found the following personnel:

    
Platoon Commander

    
Representative of the Police

    
Magistrate

    
Bugler

    
Bannermen

    
Medical Orderly

    
Platoon Sergeant

    
Signals Orderly

    
Diarist

The meaning of the word “aid” comes into clearer perspective when you remember that apart from the platoon commander there was also a magistrate present. In the affair of the crowd crossing the Mandir Gate bridge the magistrate in question was a Mr. Poulson, who was senior assistant to the Deputy Commissioner.

In the case we are considering, there were three distinct phases of operation. The first being what we might call the Testing phase, the second that of Decision and the third that of the Action which logically followed the decision.

Testing consisted first in the ordering by the platoon commander to the bugler to sound off, thus calling the attention of the crowd to the existence of a legally constituted force of opposition. The warning note having been given the first of the bannermen raised the banner on which orders in English and the vernacular were inscribed. These were orders to disperse. Sometimes the raising of such a banner was enough to make a crowd obey. After the raising of the first banner a second note on the bugle was sounded and then, if the platoon commander considered that the situation warranted it, the second banner was raised. Upon this was inscribed again in English and the vernacular a clear warning that unless
the crowd dispersed force would be resorted to. Since the crowd was usually making a pretty frightful din on its own account one could not rely on verbal warnings being heard: hence, the banners.

It was at the moment when the second banner giving warning of intention to fire was raised that both the platoon commander and the magistrate found themselves in the relative no-man’s-land of having to make a decision which the textbooks necessarily left to the man on the spot.

Fortunately, in the case of the first Mandir Gate bridge riot, the attending magistrate, Mr. Poulson, did not hesitate to give the platoon commander the signed chit requesting him to open fire once it was seen that the crowd had no intention of falling back or dispersing. By the time all the necessary drill had been completed only a few yards separated the front of the mob from the forward file of riflemen, and brickbats were being thrown. From the town, on the other side of the river, a pall of smoke showed where an act of arson had already been perpetrated. (This was the kotwali, or police station, near the temple.) At the same time, unnoticed by the troops on the Mandir Gate Bridge road, a detachment from the crowd was making for the railway station along the tracks from the grade crossing where the police had failed to hold them, and yet another platoon of the Berkshires was hastening to that area from District Headquarters to reinforce the police (commanded at that point by Mr. Merrick, their District Superintendent).

Meanwhile, to return to our platoon on the Mandir Gate Bridge road: as so often happened the mob had pushed old women to the front to inhibit the soldiers. It was the platoon commander’s job to select as targets one or two of the men in the crowd, who, by their actions, he judged to be its leaders. There are occasions when only one of the soldiers, a man who has distinguished himself as a marksman, is issued with live ammunition, but the disturbances in Mayapore had gone far beyond the stage when such an insurance against a high casualty rate was considered wise. Nevertheless, in this present instance, the subaltern in charge now spoke individually to each man of the forward file, gave two of them specific targets and told the others to fire over the heads of the crowd when he gave his order to fire. It required considerable self-discipline and composure to go patiently through such motions while under attack, but badly bruised on the shoulder by a stone as he was the subaltern did so. He had to remember not to call any man by his name in case he was overheard by someone in the crowd which would lead to
the man being identified! In the resulting volley both the marksmen found their targets and the crowd faltered, but only for as long as it took for new leaders to come forward and urge them in the Mahatma’s current phrase “to do or die.” This time the subaltern had no alternative but to order a second volley in which two civilians were killed and five wounded, including, as chance would have it, one woman. Seizing the initiative, the platoon commander ordered the detachment to advance and continue firing, but over the heads of the now retreating mob. The wounded woman was the first to be given attention by the medical orderly. The wound was found to be superficial because, no doubt, the soldier whose bullet had hit her had been sighting upon a man who had moved at the crucial moment.

Present at these proceedings there was one man, usually a member of the battalion or brigade intelligence section, whose duty was that of “diarist”; that is to say, he was required to observe and make notes for later inclusion in the war diary of the unit or formation. This was a dispassionate factual report which did not take into account the thought processess leading to particular decisions which the subaltern’s own report would do. The magistrate would also be required to submit a report on the incident to the civil authority. The representative from the police (an inspector or subinspector) would do likewise to his superior officer. In this way a number of reports on the same incident would be available if required by any court set up to investigate charges of brutality or excessive use of force. I must emphasize, however, that it was not always possible to fulfil, to the letter, all of the drill laid down for the employment of troops in these duties. As perhaps even the least imaginative of readers may judge, there could arise situations in which any one or even several of the “required” personnel were not available, and only the need for instant action undeniably present!

In going into the above details I am conscious not only of digressing but of having moved my story, such as it is, forward to the point where the reader has found himself in the midst of action without knowing the stages that led to it. So I go back now to the day in July when I had a further meeting with Mr. White, the Deputy Commissioner who, I knew, had recently received orders to combat the anti-war propaganda of the Indian National Congress, and whose attitude I felt it necessary to reassess and, if necessary, confide to my divisional commander who, as area commander also, had virtually the entire province in his military jurisdiction.

I found White somewhat changed in regard to his appreciation of the situation. I personally had little doubt but that some kind of confrontation was inevitable, and was heartened to some extent to realize that the Deputy Commissioner also now seemed to believe that the situation had probably gone beyond the point where it could be retrieved. He was, however, still convinced that the “disturbances,” when they came, would be of a “nonviolent” nature, unless the leaders of the Congress were put away, in which case, he said, he felt unable to answer for the civil peace. I pounced on this and asked him point-blank, “In the event of such arrests then, you would think it advisable to ask us to stand by?” He said at once that I had “taken him up too literally.” He was in an uneasy frame of mind and I saw that there was no sense in pressing him, much as I should have liked to come away with a clear understanding. With regard to the Congress propaganda, he said he had talked to the editors of the various local newspapers and given warnings to those whose recent tendency had been to support the “anti-war” line. This seemed to be satisfactory. I asked him to be good enough to bear in mind as often as he could the situation from my point of view—which was that of a man who was interested in the conditions obtaining in Mayapore first of all as they did or did not affect my training program and then as they affected our people.

It was at this meeting that White said something that has stayed in my mind ever since as an indication of the true sense of vocation our finest colonial administrators have always felt. “Brigadier,” he said, “please bear one thing in mind yourself if my attitude gives you any cause to feel dissatisfied. If your assistance is asked for I know I can rely on it and upon its effectiveness. To you, afterwards, it will have been an unpleasant task effectively carried out and will therefore rank in your scale of values as one of your successes. To me, in my scale, to have called you in at all could never rank as anything but one of my personal failures.” I protested that
personal
failure was putting rather too strong a point on it but he smiled and shook his head. Most of the men whom he had had to mark down for arrest if orders came from Government were his personal friends.

Then he said, “But don’t be alarmed, Brigadier. I am also a realist. I use the word ‘failure’ but I’m not a fellow to wallow in it.”

With this I had to be content, and on the whole was, because as I have said before I had come to respect White for the sense of responsibility that after several meetings I could not help but get an impression of from his very demeanour, which was reserved, somewhat
“intellectual,” but very down-to-earth and practical in terms of action. White was fairly typical, I realize, of the new race of District Officers who reached maturity just at the moment when our Indian Empire was due to come of age and receive “the key of the door” from our government at home—perhaps prematurely, but as a token of our patience and goodwill and historical undertakings.

After the failure of the Cripps Mission and the subsequent opening of Mr. Gandhi’s Quit India campaign, I recollect that the main question in the minds of most Englishmen was whether or not Mr. Gandhi would succeed in carrying the Indian National Congress (certainly the strongest political force in India) to the point where they would collectively identify themselves with his curious doctrine and so give it the force and impetus of an organized, nationwide movement. I have never been a close follower of the ups and downs of politicians, but I was aware that Mr. Gandhi had been “in” and “out” of Congress, sometimes pursuing a personal policy that the Congress endorsed and sometimes one that they did not. Mr. Nehru, who was the actual leader of the Congress, had for some time been considered by us as a more sensible middle-of-the-way fellow who knew the international language of politicians and could possibly be counted on to see sense. A lot of his life recently had been spent in jail, but as I recollect it he had been freed in order to take part in the negotiations with the Cabinet Mission and was still at large and very much a force to be reckoned with. It was clear to us that he found Mr. Gandhi an embarrassment and for a time our hopes rested upon his more practical and statesmanlike attitude winning the day.

Perhaps at this stage I should rehearse exactly what we knew was at stake and what we felt the opposition amounted to. In the first place we had our backs to the wall in the Far East and had not yet been able to regain the initiative and/or end the stalemate in Europe and North Africa. At any moment we expected the Jap to commence operations against the eastern bulwark of India. A Japanese victory in India would have been disastrous. Lose India and the British land contribution to what had become a global war would virtually be confined to the islands of our homeland itself, and to the action in North Africa, and the main weight of resistance to totalitarianism thrown onto the Americas. We regarded India as a place it would be madness (as Mr. Gandhi begged us) to make “an orderly retreat from”! Apart from the strategic necessity of holding India there was of course also the question of her wealth and resources.

So much for what was at stake. As for the opposition, this amounted in the first instance to insistent demands (inspired by Gandhi) that we leave India “to God or to anarchy” or alternatively were challenged to hold it against a massive campaign of “nonviolent noncooperation,” which meant in effect that the native population would go on strike and in no way assist us to maintain the country as a going concern from which we could train, equip, supply and launch an army to chuck the Jap out of the Eastern archipelago!

Surely, we thought, men like Nehru would resist such a suicidal design?

At the beginning of August it looked like a foregone conclusion that Nehru had, as we say, sold the pass for reasons best known to himself. He had not found in himself the political strength to resist the Mahatma at this moment. Everything now depended upon the vote of the All-India Congress Committee on Mr. Gandhi’s Quit India resolution. This was made on August the 8th. Historians since have attempted to prove that the passing of the resolution was no more sinister than words on paper and that Mr. Gandhi hadn’t even outlined in his own mind the precise course that consolidated nonviolent noncooperation was to take. My own belief was and remains that the nonviolent noncooperation movement was planned down almost to fine detail by underground members of the Congress acting on instructions from those who wished to look publicly like that famous trio of monkeys, “hearing no evil, speaking no evil, seeing no evil.”