5.14
WHEN they got to the Chief Minister's house fifteen minutes later, they were immediately admitted to his office, where he was working late.
After the usual salutations, they were asked to sit down. Murtaza Ali was sweating - he had been bicycling as fast as he could, considering the safety of his cargo. But Hassan looked cool and crisp in his fine white angarkha, if a little sleepy.
'Now to what do I owe this pleasure?'
The Chief Minister looked from the six-year-old boy to the Nawab Sahib's thirty-year-old secretary while nodding his head slightly from side to side as he sometimes did when tired.
Murtaza Ali had never met the Chief Minister in person. Since he had no idea how best to approach the matter, he simply said: 'Chief Minister Sahib, this letter will tell you everything.'
The Chief Minister looked over the letter only once, but slowly. Then in an angry and determined voice, nasal but with the unmistakable ring of authority, he said:
'Get me Agarwal on the phone!'
While the call was being connected, the Chief Minister ticked off Murtaza Ali for having brought the 'poor boy' with him so long past his bedtime. But it had clearly had an effect on his feelings. He would probably have had harsher things to say, reflected Murtaza Ali, if I had brought Abbas along as well.
When the call came through, the Chief Minister had a
378few words with the Home Minister. There was no mistaking the annoyance in his voice.
'Agarwal, what does this Baitar House business mean?' asked the Chief Minister.
After a minute he said :
'No, I am not interested in all that. I have a good understanding of what the Custodian's job is. I cannot have this sort of thing going on under my nose. Call it off at once.'
A few seconds later he said, even more exasperatedly :
'No. It will not be sorted out in the morning. Tell the police to leave immediately. If you have to, put my signature on it.' He was about to put down the receiver when he added : 'And call me in half an hour.'
After the Chief Minister had put the phone down, he glanced at Zainab's letter again. Then he turned to Hassan and said, shaking his head a little:
'Go home now, things will be all right.'
5.15
BEGUM ABIDA KHAN (Democratic Party) : I do not understand what the honourable member is saying. Is he claiming that we should take the government's word on this as on other matters? Does the honourable member not know what happened just the other day in this city - in Baitar House to be precise - where on the orders of this government, a gang of policemen, armed to the teeth, would have set upon the helpless members of an unprotected zenana and, if it had not been for the grace of God -
The Hon'ble the Speaker: The honourable member is reminded that this is not germane to the Zamindari Bill that is being discussed. I must remind her of the rules of debate and ask her to refrain from introducing extraneous matter into her speeches.
Begum Abida Khan : I am deeply grateful to the honourable Speaker. This House has its own rules, but God too judges us from above and if I may say so without disrespect
379to this House, God too has his own rules and we will see which prevails. How can zamindars expect justice from this government in the countryside where redress is so distant when even in this city, in the sight of this honourable House, the honour of other honourable houses is being ravished?
The Hon'ble the Speaker: I will not remind the honourable member again. If there are further digressions in this vein I will ask her to resume her seat.
Begum Abida Khan: The honourable Speaker has been very indulgent with me, and I have no intention of troubling this House further with my feeble voice. But I will say that the entire conduct, the entire manner in which this bill has been created, amended, passed by the Upper House, brought down to this Lower House and amended drastically yet again by the government itself shows a lack of faith and a lack of responsibility, even integrity, with respect to its proclaimed original intent, and the people of this state will not forgive the government for this. They have used their brute majority to force through amendments which are patently mala fide. What we saw when the bill - as amended by the Legislative Council - was undergoing its second reading in this Legislative Assembly was something so shocking that even I - who have lived through many shocking events in my life - was appalled. It had been agreed that compensation was to be paid to landlords. Since they are going to be deprived of their ancestral means of livelihood, that is the least that we can expect in justice. But the amount that is being paid is a pittance - half of which we are expected, indeed enjoined, to accept in government bonds of uncertain date!
A member: You need not accept it. The treasury will be happy to keep it warm for you.
Begum Abida Khan : And even that bond-weakened pittance is on a graduated scale so that the larger landlords many of whom have establishments on which hundreds of people depend - managers, relatives, retainers, musicians -
A member: Wrestlers, bullies, courtesans, wastrels -
Begum Abida Khan : - will not be paid in proportion to
380;
the land that is rightfully theirs. What will these poor people do? Where will they go? The Government does not care. It thinks that this bill will be popular with the people and it has an eye on the General Elections that will be taking place in just a few months. That is the truth of the matter. That is the real truth and I do not accept any denials from the Minister of Revenue or his Parliamentary Secretary or the Chief Minister or anyone. They were afraid that the High Court of Brahmpur would strike down their graduated scale of payment. So what did they do at a late stage of the proceedings yesterday - at the very end of the second reading ? Something that was so deceitful, so shameful, yet so transparent, that even a child would be able to see through it. They split up the compensation into two parts - a non-graduated so-called compensation - and a graduated so-called Rehabilitation Grant for zamindars and passed an amendment late in the day to validate this new scheme of payment. Do they really think the court will accept that the compensation is 'equal treatment' for all - when by mere jugglery the Revenue Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary have transferred three-quarters of the compensation money into another category with a long and pious name - a category where there is blatantly unequal treatment of the larger landlords ? You may be assured that we will fight this injustice while there is breath in our bodies -
A member : Or voice in our lungs.
The Hon'ble the Speaker : I would request members not to interrupt needlessly the speeches of other members.
Begum Abida Khan : But what is the use of my raising my voice for justice in a House where all we meet with is mockery and boorishness ? We are called degenerates and wastrels but it is the sons of Ministers, believe me, who are the true proficients of dissipation. The class of people who preserved the culture, the music, the etiquette of this province is to be dispossessed, is to be driven through the lanes to beg its bread. But we will bear our vicissitudes with the dignity that is the inheritance of the aristocracy. This chamber may rubber-stamp this bill. The Upper Chamber
381may give it another cursory reading and rubber-stamp it. The President may sign it blindly. But the courts will vindicate us. As in our fellow-state of Bihar, this pernicious legislation will be struck down. And we will fight for justice, yes, before the bench and in the press and at the hustings - as long as there is breath in our bodies - and, yes, as long as there is voice in our lungs.
Shri Devakinandan Rat (Socialist Party) : It has been very enlightening to be lectured to by the honourable member. I must confess that I see no likelihood of her begging for her bread through the lanes of Brahmpur. Perhaps for cake, but I doubt that too. If I had my way she would not beg for her bread, but she and those of her class would certainly have to work for it. This is what simple justice requires, and this is what is required also by the economic health of this province. I, and the members of the Socialist Party, agree with the honourable member who has just spoken that this bill is an election gimmick by the Congress Party and the government. But our belief is based on the grounds that this is a toothless bill, ineffectual and compromised. It does not go anywhere near what is needed for a thorough overhaul of agricultural relations in this province.
Compensation for the landlords! What? Compensation for the blood that they have already sucked from the limbs of a helpless and oppressed peasantry ? Or compensation for their God-given right - I notice that the honourable member is in the habit of invoking God whenever His assistance is required to strengthen her weak arguments their God-given right to continue to gorge themselves and their useless train of unemployed relations on the ghee of this state when the poor farmer, the poor tenant, the poor landless labourer, the poor worker can hardly afford half a sip of milk for his hungry children ? Why is the treasury being depleted? Why are we writing ourselves and our children into debt with these promised bonds when this idle and vicious class of zamindars and taluqdars and landlords of all kinds should be summarily dispossessed without any thought of compensation - of the lands that
38zthey are sitting on and have been sitting on for generations for the sole reason that they betrayed their country at the time of the Mutiny and were richly rewarded for their treason by the British ? Is it just, Sir - is it reasonable that they should be awarded this compensation ? The money that this government in its culpable so-called generosity is pouring into the laps of these hereditary oppressors should go into roads and schools, into housing for the landless and land reclamation, into clinics and agricultural research centres, not into the luxurious expenditure which is all that the aristocracy is accustomed to or capable of.
Mirza Amanat Hussain Khan (Democratic Party) : I rise to a point of order, Sir. Is the honourable member to be permitted to wander off the subject and take up the time of the House with irrelevancies ?
The Hon'ble the Speaker : I think he is not irrelevant. He is speaking on the general question of the relations between the tenants, the zamindars, and the government. That question is more or less before us and any remark which the honourable member now offers on that point is not irrelevant. You may like it or not, I may like it or not, but it is not out of order.
Shri Devakinandan Rai : I thank you, Sir. There stands the naked peasant in the hot sun, and here we sit in our cool debating rooms and discuss points of order and definitions of relevancy and make laws that leave him no better than before, that deprive him of hope, that take the part of the capitalist, oppressing, exploiting class. Why must the peasant pay for the land that is his by right, by right of effort, by right of pain, by right of nature, by right, if you will, of God ? The only reason why we expect the peasant to pay this huge and unseemly purchase price to the treasury is in order to finance the landlord's exorbitant compensation. End the compensation, and there will be no need for a purchase price. Refuse to accept the notion of a purchase price, and any compensation becomes financially impossible. I have been arguing this point since the inception of the bill two years ago, and throughout the second reading last week. But at this stage of the proceedings
383what can I do ? It is too late. What can I do but say to the treasury benches : you have set up an unholy alliance with the landlords and you are attempting to break the spirit of our people. But we will see what happens when the people realize how they have been cheated. The General Elections will throw out this cowardly and compromised government and replace it with a government worthy of the name : one that springs from the people, that works for the people and gives no support to its class enemies.
5.16
THE NAWAB SAHIB had entered the House during the earlier part of this last speech. He was sitting in the Visitor's Gallery, although, had he wished to, he would have been welcome in the Governor's Gallery. He had returned from Baitar the previous day in response to an urgent message from Brahmpur. He was shocked and embittered by what had happened and horrified that his daughter had had to face such a situation virtually on her own. His concern for her had been so much more patent than his pride in what she had done that Zainab had not been able to help smiling. For a long time he had hugged her and his two grandchildren with tears running down his cheeks. Hassan had been puzzled, but little Abbas had accepted this as a natural state of affairs and had enjoyed it all - he could tell that his grandfather was not at all unhappy to see them. Firoz had been white with anger, and it had taken all of Imtiaz's good humour when he arrived late that afternoon, to calm the family down.
The Nawab Sahib was almost as angry with his hornet of a sister-in-law as with L.N. Agarwal. He knew that it was she who had brought this visitation upon their heads. Then, when the worst was over, she had made light of the police action and was almost cavalier in her assumption that Zainab would have handled things with such tactical courage. As for L.N. Agarwal, the Nawab Sahib looked down onto the floor of the House, and saw him talking
