Page 43 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
‘Of course,’ said Fluffy. ‘It’s the twenty-sixth tomorrow. I wonder who will be speaking.’
‘They get bolder every year,’ Boz said. ‘No doubt there’ll be some bigwig sent from Delhi to put fire in their bellies and stir up the coolies from the hill states.’
‘The Praja Mandal movement, you mean?’ asked Fluffy. ‘Is it having any success?’
‘Aye, there have been disturbances up in Dharmi and Nerikot. It’s just a matter o’ time before the rulers bow tae pressure.’
‘Pressure to do what?’ Adela asked.
‘They want changes like abolishing the old serfdom,’ explained Boz, ‘where the rajas’ people have tae work for free so many months a year.’
‘Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it?’
‘Aye.’ Boz dropped his voice to a murmur. ‘But the government doesnae like anything that rocks the boat with the princely states. We like to have good relations wi’ them.’
Adela gave him a knowing look. ‘So you can extract their timber and employ their coolies I suppose.’
‘Exactly,’ Boz agreed.
Adela gazed down at the covert activity; she could just make out the Ganj, the open area in the heart of the bazaar, where a platform was being decorated. ‘Will it be quite a spectacle? We weren’t allowed to go anywhere near it when I was at school.’
‘I’ve never been,’ said Boz. ‘It’s frowned upon for government servants to be seen there– CID keep an eye on who goes to listen. You’d better steer clear, in case Bracknall gets tae hear about it. That’ll be the end of your wee job at the office.’
‘Well, no one can stop me,’ Fluffy declared, ‘from going to listen to the speeches.’
Adela hadn’t intended to go– it was a raw day with a biting wind and flurries of sleet– but returning at lunchtime for tiffin, she found Fluffy on the point of leaving for the Ganj.
‘You’re not going on your own.’ Adela was firm.
‘I don’t want to get you into trouble, my dear,’ Fluffy was anxious.
‘I sort out camp beds and file post.’ Adela laughed. ‘No one’s going to worry about a minion like me.’
They skirted the Mall, taking the steep steps opposite the theatre down to the Lower Bazaar. They could hear the demonstration before they saw it, a cacophony of drumming, singing, shouting and horns. The streets were crammed with Indians come to take part or watch the procession along the lower road. A phalanx of young men and a few women (dressed in homespun cotton under woollen jackets that marked them out as Gandhi’s followers) carried aloft the tricolour flags of the Congress Party, while behind them pressed scores of hills men in their bright caps. Many of the town’s porters and a smattering of office workers swelled the crowd too.
‘It’s a bit of a scrum,’ Fluffy faltered.
‘Are you sure you want to go on, Auntie?’
‘I’m still keen to hear the speeches.’
‘Come on then; we’ll just stay for a little longer.’ Adela linked her arm protectively through her guardian’s and they jostled forward towards the Ganj.
They couldn’t get near enough to hear what the speakers were saying, apart from a few snatched words of Hindustani aboutswaraj, which Adela knew to mean freedom, and how soon the Britishers must leave India to the Indians. Adela saw a stocky youngish man take to the stage dressed in simple Punjabishalwar kameezand a black beret.
‘Looks like a communist,’ Fluffy surmised.
He raised his fist in the air and saluted the crowd, his face animated. He shouted above the hubbub and soon they were cheering and repeating his slogans. There was something oddly familiar about him, but Adela couldn’t possibly know him.
‘Oh dear,’ Fluffy said, tugging on her arm. ‘Looks like trouble.’
Adela tore her gaze away from the speaker and his mesmerising performance and looked round. Blocking the steps from where they’d come were dozens of police armed with their long baton-like lathis. Her stomach tensed. Abruptly the officer in charge raised a loudhailer and bellowed out commands in Hindustani for the crowds to disperse. He repeated them in Urdu.
‘Go home! Your demonstration is over. This meeting is breaking the law. Go home now and no one will get hurt!’
The fiery speaker made some riposte, standing his ground, but at the sight of ranks of police, the crowd began to break up. The other activists on the stage spoke urgently to the communist, who remonstrated with the police in their attempts to close down the meeting. But soon his supporters were bundling him off the stage.
At this the police officer barked an order, and his men began to push forward, cutting a line through the melee towards the stage. Adela and Fluffy were elbowed and shoved as people tried to get out of the way. Pandemonium broke out.
