‘I would prefer not to,’ said the Home Minister, as if the idea was not entirely unpleasant, ‘but, needless to say, it will not come to that.’ At any rate, he added to himself, the legislature is not presently in session to take me to task about it.
‘This is like the days of the British,’ continued Rasheed furiously, staring at the man who had justified the police firing in Chowk, and perhaps seeing embodied in him the image of other arbitrariness and authoritarianism. ‘The British used lathis on us, they even shot at us, at us students, during the Quit India movement. Our blood was spilt by the British here in Brahmpur – in Chowk, in Captainganj –’
The rest of the delegation began to buzz rather angrily in response to his oratory.
‘Yes, yes,’ said the Home Minister, cutting him short. ‘I know it. I lived through it. You must have been a boy of twelve then, watching anxiously in the mirror for the first signs of a man’s hair. When you say “us students” you don’t mean yourselves, it was your predecessors whose blood was spilt. And, I may mention, some of mine. It’s easy enough to lubricate your way to office on others’ blood. And as for Quit India, this is an Indian government now, and I hope you don’t want us to quit India.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Now if you have anything useful to say, say it. Otherwise go. You may not have your books to read, but I have my files. I know exactly what this march is about. It isn’t about the salaries of primary schoolteachers. It is a way of concertedly attacking the Congress government of the state and the country, and trying to spread disaffection and disorder in the town.’ He made a dismissive gesture with the back of his hand. ‘Stick to your books. That is my advice to you as your true friend – and as the Treasurer of the university – and as the Home Minister – and as the Acting Chief Minister; and it is the advice of your Vice- Chancellor too. And your teachers. And your parents.’
‘And God,’ added the President of the students’ union , who was an atheist.
‘Get out,’ said the Home Minister in a calm voice.
12.21
BUT the evening before the day fixed for the march an incident occurred in town that brought the two sides temporarily together on the same side of an issue.
Manorma Talkies, the cinema-hall in Nabiganj that was showing Deedar, that had indeed been showing Deedar continuously to packed or almost packed houses for months, became the scene of what was almost a student riot.
The Brahmpur University ordinances forbade students from going to the second or late-night show, but this was an ordinance that hardly anyone paid any heed to. In particular, those students who lived outside the university hostels flouted it whenever they saw fit. Deedar was an immensely popular movie. Its songs were on everyone’s lips, and it appealed to old and young alike; it may well have happened that on some evening Dr Kishen Chand Seth and the Rajkumar of Marh sobbed their hearts out to it simultaneously. People saw it several times over. It had an unusually tragic ending, but one which did not make one wish to tear the screen apart or set fire to the theatre.
What caused the trouble was that on this evening the management had given exceptionally strict instructions to the ticket office not to honour student concessions if they got enough ticket-buyers at the full price. It was the early evening show. Two students, one of whom had seen the film before, had been told that the house was full. From past experience they had learned to mistrust the management. When several others who came after them were sold tickets, they began to harangue first the people in the ticket queue – when one woman told them to shut up, they told her the ending of the film – and then began to yell at the employees at the box office. The employees went about their business unperturbed – until the students, one of whom had an umbrella, became desperate enough to smash the glass panes of the doors of the cinema-hall. Some of the patrons started shouting and threatening to call the police, but the management was not keen that the police be called. The employees got the projectionist and a few other people together, beat the students up, and threw them out. The mild melee was over in a few minutes, and did not disturb too deeply the subsequent mood of the audience.
By the time the first show ended, however, there was a crowd of about four hundred angry students demonstrating threateningly against the illegal actions of the management – and particularly the manhandling of their two fellows. They had driven away from the box office all those who were thinking of buying tickets for the second show or who, having bought their tickets in advance, were seeking to enter the lobby.