‘Yes, the Englishmen have gone but the rich Indians have taken their place. What have you or your fellow villagers got out of independence? More bread or more clothes? You are in the same handcuffs and fetters which the English put on you. We have to get together and rise. We have nothing to lose but these chains. Iqbal emphasized the last sentence by raising his hands up to his face and jerking them as if the movement would break the handcuffs.

The policemen looked at each other.

Juggut Singh looked down at the fetters round his ankles and the iron bars which linked them to the handcuffs.

‘I am a budmash. All governments put me in jail.’

‘But,’ interrupted Iqbal angrily, ‘what makes you budmash? The government! It makes regulations and keeps registers, policemen and jailers to enforce them. For anyone they do not like, they have a rule which makes him a bad character and a criminal. What have I . . .’

‘No, Babu Sahib,’ broke in Juggut Singh good-humouredly, ‘it is our fate. It is written on our foreheads and on the lines of our hands. I am always wanting to do something. When there is ploughing to be done or the harvest to be gathered, then I am busy. When there is no work, my hands still itch to do something. So I do something, and it is always wrong.’

The party passed under the bridge and approached the rest house. Juggut Singh’s complacency had put Iqbal off. He did not want to waste his breath arguing with a village bad character. He wanted to save his words for the magistrate. He would let him have it in English—the accent would make him squirm.

When the police brought in the prisoners the subinspector ordered them to be taken to the servants’ quarters. The magistrate was in his room dressing. The head constable left the prisoners with his men and came back to the bungalow.

‘Who is this small chap you have brought?’ asked the subinspector, looking a little worried.

‘I arrested him on your orders. He was the stranger staying at the Sikh temple.’

The answer irritated the subinspector. ‘I do not suppose you have any brains of your own! I leave a little job to you and you go and make a fool of yourself. You should have seen him before arresting him. Isn’t he the same man who got off the train with us yesterday?’

‘The train?’ queried the head constable, feigning ignorance. ‘I did not see him on the train, cherisher of the poor. I only carried out your orders and arrested the stranger loitering about the village under suspicious circumstances.’

The subinspector’s temper shot up.

‘Ass!’

The head constable avoided his officer’s gaze.

‘You are an ass of some place,’ he repeated with greater vehemence. ‘Have you no brains at all?’

‘Cherisher of the poor, what fault have I . . .’

‘Shut up!’