Page 49 - Train to Pakistan

of anger. Meet Singh conducted the lambardar and the Muslim down to the
courtyard. He then retired to his charpai there.

Iqbal lay down once more and gazed at the stars. The wail of the engine in the
still vast plain made him feel lonely and depressed. What could he—one little

man—do in this enormous impersonal land of four hundred million? Could he
stop the killing? Obviously not. Everyone—Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Congressite,
Leaguer, Akali, or Communist—was deep in it. It was fatuous to suggest that the

bourgeois revolution could be turned into a proletarian one. The stage had not
arrived. The proletariat was indifferent to political freedom for Hindustan or
Pakistan, except when it could be given an economic significance like grabbing

land by killing an owner who was of a different religious denomination. All that
could be done was to divert the kill-and-grab instinct from communal channels
and turn it against the propertied class. That was the proletarian revolution the

easy way. His party bosses would not see it.
Iqbal wished they had sent someone else to Mano Majra. He would be so
much more useful directing policy and clearing the cobwebs from their minds.

But he was not a leader. He lacked the qualifications. He had not fasted. He had
never been in jail. He had made none of the necessary ‘sacrifices’. So, naturally,
nobody would listen to him. He should have started his political career by

finding an excuse to court imprisonment. But there was still time. He would do
that as soon as he got back to Delhi. By then, the massacres would be over. It
would be quite safe.

The goods train had left the station and was rumbling over the bridge. Iqbal
fell asleep, dreaming of a peaceful life in jail.

Early next morning, Iqbal was arrested.
Meet Singh had gone out to the fields carrying his brass mug of water and

chewing a keekar twig he used as a toothbrush. Iqbal had slept through the
rumble of passing trains, the muezzin’s call, and the other village noises. Two

constables came into the gurdwara, looking in his room, examined his celluloid
cups and saucers, shining aluminum spoons, forks and knives, his thermos, and
then came up onto the roof. They shook Iqbal rudely. He sat up rubbing his eyes,
somewhat bewildered. Before he could size up the situation and formulate the

curt replies he would like to have given, he had told the policemen his name and