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The Betrayal 1
When Dr Kamal closed his surgery door one Friday night, he
felt that a door had closed on his past.
He was a tall slender man, mud-complexioned, with a
balding cranium that gave him a distinguished scholarly
appearance. He was not only a physician-and a well-known
politician, but a connoisseur and collector of works of art
displaying the agony of the proletariat in fields and factories.
His entire collection was on display in his gallery-cum-study at
home. He had received his medical and political education in
India; his ability at the game of cricket had also been developed
in that country. He was a religious man and every Friday he
would dutifully attend the mosque in Newtown to genuflect in
prayer.
For days he had been enmeshed in a dilemma, which had
originated when a new political group in Fordsburg proclaimed its inaugural meeting by means of notices stuck on
walls and lamp-posts. The emergence of the group, mainly
consisting of youth, posed a threat to the Orient Front of which
Dr Kamal was the president. A successful public meeting
could be the first stage in its growth into a powerful rival
political body, a body that could in time eliminate the Orient
Front as a representative organisation. There was also a personal threat. Dr Kamal had achieved the presidency of the
Orient Front after years of patient waiting and he was afraid
that his position would lose some of its lustre with the appearance of another political body. He was also the political mentor
of the Fordsburg youth and felt that his prestige and status
would suffer a reduction if the new group drew deserters from
the Youth League of which he was the founder. There was
only one way to stop the threat: the new group had to be
crushed at its inaugural meeting. But ... how was he to reconcile this action with the fact that he had been a professed
disciple of Gandhi during his political life?
He drove in his small German car to the offices of the Orient
Front in Park Road. At ten o'clock he was to address a
clandestine meeting of members of the Youth League. He
reached the building, parked his car at the entrance, and
walked slowly up a flight of stairs.
Salim Rashid, chairman of the Youth League, was waiting
for him.
'We are ready, Doc.'
'How many?'
'Forty-two.'
'Have you explained to them what they have to do?'
'Yes. You have only to say a few words to them.'
It had been Salim Rashid's idea that he should address the
Youth League, after the doctor had discreetly suggested that
the new political group should be annihilated, in accordance
with the 'ethics of political survival', before it hatched some-
thing dangerous. Had he rejected the idea, Dr Kamal would
have given Salim Rashid the impression that he was afraid.
The young man's argument had been that a few words from
their mentor, on the eve of the clash, would be sufficient to
convince the members of the rightness of their action. In order
to keep the doctor's role a secret he would arrange a nocturnal
meeting.
Salim Rashid opened a door. It led into a large room with
many chairs and several tables. Some members of the Youth
League were talking in groups, others were outside on the
balcony. There were portraits, rather crudely garish, of Gandhi on the walls.
'Friends, attention. Dr Kamal is here to address you.'
They settled down on the chairs. The doctor began:
'One of the most important duties of the Youth League-in
fact it is part of its unwritten constitution-is to safeguard the
integrity and retain the hegemony of its parent body the
Orient Front, and prevent rival political organisations from trespassing on our
traditional ground. You have a great responsibility towards the Indian people of this country. You
cannot permit them to be divided. The despots will destroy us
if we let this happen. Let me remind you that it has always been a thesis of mine that there is no essential conflict of
principles between Gandhi and the Western political philosophers, that a violent revolt and a passive revolt are aspects
of the dynamics of man's search for freedom.'
He paused for a moment, coughed into his clenched hand,
and continued:
'You should always remember that you are not only a vital
part of the Orient Front, but also the vanguard that must
protect it from harm. Remember always that you have been
chosen by history to shape the future of this country.'
Dr Kamal had done. The youths clapped their hands, then
raised their fists and shouted a few belligerent slogans.
He left the premises immediately.
On his way home he decided to pass Gandhi Hall where the
meeting was to be held the next day. His motive for passing by
was rooted in a strange sudden notion that the new group too
had decided to hold a secret nocturnal meeting. Fear inflamed
the turbulence within him and he stopped his car, half-
expecting to see a knot of people coming up the street to attend
the meeting. But the street was deserted and the hall doors
locked. A gust of wind rushed by, carrying with it a swarm of
rasping papers. The irony of his role struck him with force. He,
the professed disciple of Gandhi, had unleashed a demon
that would profane the hall commemorative of the master's
name.
He went home and locked himself in his study. This room
had been the scene, in the early days when he had joined the
Orient Front, of weekly lectures to the youth of Fordsburg
under the title 'A Study of the Dynamics of Political Action and
Political Truth', which had gained such popularity that the
numbers swelled and he had formed the Youth League. Its
members had come to look upon him as their oracle on political
matters. In his study he had expounded to them the political
philosophy of the 'triumvirate', Marx, Lenin and Gandhi. He
had spoken with veneration of Gandhi's passive resistance
campaigns against the 'racist oligarchs' and had extolled him
as a 'Titan in the history of humanity' as he had been the first to
bring into the realm of politics the concepts of truth and
non-violence. He had also proudly told the youth of his
meetings with Gandhi while he was a medical student in India and his abandonment of radical and revolutionary ideas in
politics.
To be
continued |
