Later, he has Iqbal stripped and sees that Iqbal is circumcised, a sign of being Muslim. The subinspector then goes to see Hukum Chand and tells him about the arrests. The subinspector asks the head constable about Iqbal, recognizing him as the same man who got off the train with them the day before. The policemen, however, suspect that the men are innocent. Ten constables also arrest Jugga, surrounding his house with rifles. The peasants will merely go from being the slaves of the English to the slaves of educated Indians or Pakistanis.Īfter the men leave, Iqbal is skeptical that he can do much in a land in which people’s heads seem full of “cobwebs.” He doubts himself as a leader and thinks that he should make a grand gesture-going on a hunger strike or getting himself arrested-to prove himself. Imam Baksh says that freedom is for the educated. The visitors talk favorably about the British and ask why they have left India, which annoys Iqbal, who resents the British and asks the men if they want to be free. Later at the gurdwara, Iqbal meets Banta Singh (the village lambardar) and a Muslim man (implied to be Imam Baksh). The priest is perturbed not by the murder, but by Jugga robbing his own village. Jugga has run away, he says, which makes it obvious that the budmash has committed the crime. Meet Singh assumes that Iqbal is a Sikh and identifies him as “Iqbal Singh.” Meet Singh learns that the police have sent for Jugga to be arrested for the dacoity, and says that they have found some of the stolen money and the broken bangles in Jugga’s courtyard. The priest obliges and asks the young man for his name, which is Iqbal. The young man goes to the gurdwara and asks Meet Singh if he can stay for a few days. His manners suggest that he does not belong in the village. From the other end of the train, a young man steps out. When the train from Delhi to Lahore arrives, twelve armed policemen and the subinspector disembark. The next morning, the railway station is crowded. While Chand is alone with her, he hears one of the gunshots from the dacoity. That evening, an old woman and a young girl wearing a black, studded sari arrive at the rest house. Chand asks if arrangements have been made for him to have a prostitute that evening, and the subinspector assures Chand that he will have his entertainment before returning to the police station. When Chand then asks if there are any bad characters in the area, the subinspector mentions Jugga, but says that Nooran keeps him out of trouble. Some know who Mahatma Gandhi is, but the subinspector doubts that anyone knows of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Mano Majrans may not even know that the British have left or that India has been partitioned. He asks the subinspector of police if there has been any trouble between the religious groups and the latter assures him that there have not been any “convoys of dead Sikhs” as there have been in a nearby town. Hukum Chand, the magistrate and deputy commissioner, arrives to Mano Majra the morning before the dacoity. Jugga recognizes one as Malli-the gang’s leader. While the couple lays in the dark, they see the five robbers pass on their way to the river. Jugga, meanwhile, is having a tryst with Nooran when they hear the shots fired during the dacoity. While fleeing Ram Lal’s house, the robbers pass by the home of former robber Juggut Singh, known as the most dangerous man in Mano Majra and often called “Jugga.” One of the robbers throws stolen bangles into Jugga’s courtyard to implicate him in the crime. A tiny place with only three brick buildings-a gurdwara, where Meet Singh presides as its resident bhai a mosque led by the mullah and weaver Imam Baksh and the home of the Hindu moneylender, Lala Ram Lal-Mano Majra becomes the site of a notorious dacoity, which results in Ram Lal’s murder. Northern India is in turmoil, though the isolated village of Mano Majra remains, for now, at peace. In the summer of 1947, ten million Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs flee from their homes on each side of the new border between Pakistan and India.
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