“So now it comes to threats.”

“I asked my aides to bring you to me so I could help you understand what will now happen to you. There is nothing for you in India. Sooner or later you will leave and make a life for yourself somewhere else.”

“I will never leave.”

“Only on the day you leave will you begin to understand Satyagraha.”

“Peaceful noncompliance?”

“Willingness to suffer, yourself and in person, for a cause you believe is right. Only when you are willing to embrace Satyagraha will you begin to atone for what you have done to India. Now you should go.”

Chapekar did not realize anyone had been listening. He might have stayed to argue, but the moment she said those words, a man came into the hut and drew him out.

He had thought they would let him go, but they didn’t, not until they led him into the town and sat him down in the back room of a small office and brought up a notice on the nets.

It was his own picture. A short vid taken as the young man tossed dirt onto him.

“Tikal Chapekar is back,” said a voice.

The picture changed to show Chapekar in his glory days. Brief clips and stills.

“Tikal Chapekar brought war to India by attacking Burma and Thailand without any provocation, all to try to make himself a great man.”

Now there were pictures of Indian victims of atrocities. “Instead, he was taken captive by the Chinese. He wasn’t here to help us in our hour of need.”

The picture of him with dirt being flung on him returned to the screen.

“Now he’s back from captivity, and he wants to rule over India.”

A picture of Chapekar talking cheerfully with the Muslim guards outside the gates of the compound. “He wants to help our Muslim overlords rule over us forever.”

Again with the dirt-flinging.

“How can we rid ourselves of this man? Let us all pretend he doesn’t exist. If no one speaks to him, waits on him, shelters him, feeds him, or helps him in any way, he will have to turn to the foreigners he invited into our land.”

That was when they ran the footage of Chapekar turning the government of India over to Wahabi.

“Even in defeat, he invited evil upon us. But India will not punish him. India will simply ignore him until he goes away.”

The program ended—with, of course, the dirt-flinging picture.

“Clever set-up,” said Chapekar.

They ignored him.

“What do you want from me, so you won’t publish that piece of trash?”

They ignored him.

After a while, he began to rage, and tried to fling the computer to the ground. That was when they restrained him and put him out of doors.

Chapekar walked down the street, looking for lodging. There were houses with rooms to rent. They opened the door when he called out, but when they saw his face, they closed the doors again.