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or Communist—was deep in it. It was fatuous to suggest that the bourgeois revolution could be turned into a proletarian one. The stage had not arrived. The proletariat was indifferent to political freedom for Hindustan or Pakistan, except when it could be given an economic significance like grabbing land by killing an owner who was of a different religious denomination. All that could be done was to divert the kill-and-grab instinct from communal channels and turn it against the propertied class. That was the proletarian revolution the easy way. His party bosses would not see it.
    Iqbal wished they had sent someone else to Mano Majra. He would be so much more useful directing policy and clearing the cobwebs from their minds. But he was not a leader. He lacked the qualifications. He had not fasted. He had never been in jail. He had made none of the necessary ‘sacrifices’. So, naturally, nobody would listen to him. He should have started his political career by finding an excuse to court imprisonment. But there was still time. He would do that as soon as he got back to Delhi. By then, the massacres would be over. It would be quite safe.
    The goods train had left the station and was rumbling over the bridge. Iqbal fell asleep, dreaming of a peaceful life in jail.
    Early next morning, Iqbal was arrested.
    Meet Singh had gone out to the fields carrying his brass mug of water and chewing a keekar twig he used as a toothbrush. Iqbal had slept through the rumble of passing trains, the muezzin’s call, and the other village noises. Two constables came into the gurdwara, looking in his room, examined his celluloid cups and saucers, shining aluminum spoons, forks and knives,his thermos, and then came up onto the roof. They shook Iqbal rudely. He sat up rubbing his eyes, somewhat bewildered. Before he could size up the situation and formulate the curt replies he would like to have given, he had told the policemen his name and occupation. One of them filled in the blank spaces on a yellow piece of printed paper and held it in front of Iqbal’s blinking eyes.
    ‘Here is warrant for your arrest. Get up.’
    The other slipped the ring at one end of a pair of handcuffs in his belt and unlocked the links to put round Iqbal’s wrists. The sight of the handcuffs brought Iqbal wide awake. He jumped out of bed and faced the policemen.
    ‘You have no right to arrest me like this,’ he shouted. ‘You made up the warrant in front of me. This is not going to end here. The days of police rule are over. If you dare put your hands on me, the world will hear about it. I will see that the papers tell the people how you chaps do your duty.’
    The policemen were taken aback. The young man’s accent, the rubber pillows and mattress and all the other things they had seen in the room, and above all, his aggressive attitude, made them uneasy. They felt that perhaps they had made a mistake.
    ‘Babu Sahib, we are only doing our duty. You settle this with the magistrate,’ one of them answered politely. The other fumbled uneasily with the handcuffs.
    ‘I will settle it with the whole lot of you—police and magistrates! Come and disturb people in sleep! You will regret this mistake.’ Iqbal waited for the policemen to say something so that he could go on with his tirade against law and order. But they had been subdued.
    ‘You will have to wait. I have to wash and change and leave my things in somebody’s care,’ said Iqbal aggressively, giving them another chance to say something.

    ‘All right, Babu Sahib. Take as long as you like.’
    The policemen’s civil attitude deflated Iqbal’s anger. He collected his things and went down the stairs to his room. He went to the well, pulled up a bucket of water and began to wash. He was in no hurry.
    Bhai Meet Singh came back vigorously brushing his teeth with the end of the keekar twig which he had chewed into a fibrous brush. The presence of policemen in the gurdwara did not surprise him. Whenever