The Sub-Inspector mumbled something about the weapon not having been discovered.
The magistrate looked at him severely. ‘Do you think these injuries’ – he looked down at the medical certificate – ‘these lacerations of the intestine and so on were caused by a stick?’
The Sub-Inspector said nothing.
‘I think you should, well, investigate further,’ said the magistrate. ‘And re-examine your own evidence and the charges that suggest themselves.’
Maan’s lawyer-stood up to propose that such matters were within the discretion of the investigating officer.
‘I am aware of that,’ snapped the magistrate, who was disgusted with the proceedings. ‘I am not telling him what charge to prefer.’ He reflected that if it had not been for the medical certificate, the Sub-Inspector would probably have put forward a charge of simple hurt.
Glancing at Maan, the magistrate noticed that he looked unaffected enough by events. Presumably he was one of those criminals who learned nothing from their crimes.
Maan’s lawyer asked that Maan be let out on bail, since the only present charge against him was bailable. The magistrate granted this, but it was clear that he was very annoyed. Part of his annoyance stemmed from the lawyer’s reference to ‘my client’s grievous distress consequent on the demise of his mother’.
Maan’s lawyer whispered: ‘Thank God you won’t be tried by him.’
Maan, who had begun to take an interest in his defence, said: ‘Am I free?’
‘Yes; for the moment.’
‘What will I be charged with?’
‘I’m afraid that isn’t clear. This magistrate for some reason is after your blood, and is out to – well, to do you grievous hurt.’
The magistrate, however, was not interested in Maan’s blood but merely in upholding the law. He would not be a party to the subversion of justice by influential people, and that is what he suspected this to be. He knew of courts where this might be possible, but his was not one of them.
17.33
‘NO PERSON shall vote at any election if he is confined in a prison, whether under a sentence of imprisonment or transportation or otherwise, or is in the lawful custody of the police.’
The Representation of the People Act, 1951, was quite unambiguous about this, and so it happened that Maan was not able to vote in the great General Election for which he had fought so hard. He was registered in Pasand Bagh, and elections for the Brahmpur (East) constituency for the Legislative Assembly were held on the 21st of January.
Curiously enough, had he been a resident of Salimpur-cum- Baitar, he would have succeeded in voting; for, owing to a shortage of trained personnel, voting in different constituencies was staggered, and the Legislative Assembly elections there were held on the 30th of January.
The fight now was an extremely harsh one. Waris was as bitter a rival to Mahesh Kapoor as he had been a doughty supporter. Everything had changed; and the Zamindari Act, rumours and scandals, pro- and anti-Congress feeling, religion, nothing was left unexploited in the mauling battle that led up to the polls.
The Nawab Sahib had not stated as such that Waris should fight against Mahesh Kapoor, but it was clear that he did not want him to support him. And Waris, who saw Maan no longer as the saviour but as the attempted murderer of the young Nawabzada, was passionate in his denunciation of him and his father, his clan, his religion, and his party. When the local Congress office belatedly sent a large number of posters and flags to Baitar Fort, he made a bonfire of them.
Waris spoke powerfully because he was so aroused. Already well-liked in the area, he now rose on a great wave of popularity. He was the Nawab Sahib’s champion, and the champion of his injured son, who even now (so it was convenient to assert) lay at the point of death owing to the treachery of his seeming friend. The Nawab Sahib had to remain in Brahmpur, claimed Waris, but if he could have campaigned, he would have exhorted the people from every podium in the district to throw the betrayer of the salt of his hospitality, the vile Mahesh Kapoor and all he stood for out of the constituency into which he had so recently crawled.
And what did Mahesh Kapoor and the Congress stand for? continued Waris, who had begun to enjoy his role as a political and feudal leader. What had they given the people? The Nawab Sahib and his family had worked for the people for generations, had fought the British in the Mutiny – long before the Congress had even been conceived – had died heroically, had suffered with the people’s sufferings, had taken pity on their poverty, had helped them in every way they could. Look at the power station, the hospital, the schools founded by the Nawab Sahib’s father and grandfather, said Waris. Look at the religious trusts they had either established or contributed to. Think of the great processions at Moharram – the grand climax of the festivities of the Baitar year – which the Nawab Sahib paid for out of his own pocket as an act of public piety and private charity. And yet Nehru and his ilk were trying to destroy the man who was so well-beloved, and replace him with what? A voracious pack of petty government officials who would eat the very vitals of the people. To those who complained that the zamindars exploited the people he suggested that they compare the state of the peasants on the Baitar estate with those of a certain village just outside, where they were sunk in destitution which aroused not pity so much as horror. There the peasants – especially the landless chamars – were so poor that they sifted the bullocks’ droppings on the threshing floor for residual grain – and washed it and dried it and ate it. And yet many chamars were going to vote blindly for the Congress, the party of the government that had oppressed them for so long. He begged his scheduled caste brothers to see the light and to vote for the bicycle they might aspire to and not for the pair of bullocks, which should only remind them of the degrading scenes they knew so well.