[Novel Excerpt] A Flag And A PhD
Where I reference Bofors, Lenin, Marx, Bhagwa, and Admiral Kanhoji Angre.
Author’s Note: My friend Bharat who’s been reading a lot of historical fiction said to me, “Make a lot of references to known historical figures and events, it’s exciting to the reader”. It is, isn’t it? So I decided to do exactly that.
This one is a long excerpt. I tried breaking it up into two or three pieces, but it’s all so exciting, I think it’s just better all read together. Keep going until the end. There’s references to Bofors there, and anyone who’s my age and Indian is going to be excited by what a word associated with scams is doing in a novel set in 1905.
I wanted to write about the first flag of India being unfurled at the International Socialist Conference, and that’s a rabbit hole by itself if you want to go down that. But the flag that Savarkar and Madame Cama designed, it was similar to a flag that Hemachandra Kanungo had flown during a protest in Calcutta a couple of years ago.
Why had he protested? Well, that is another fun story involving the Carlyle Circular, which said they would defund universities whose students were arrested for protesting. This led to Aurobindo and others establishing the National College of Bengal which wasn’t dependent on the government for money.
And then it turns out, Mr. Kanungo was in Europe, figuring out how to make bombs. And he was friends with the gun-crazy Bapat who we’ve met before. Obviously he met the rest of the people at India House, and showed them the flag he had designed. What interesting things they would have talked about, all these young people with short fuses and big ambitions!
The more I research on this, the more I’m channeling my inner Akshay Kumar and saying “Everything Is Planned!!!!!!”.
Tatya was jittery and jumpy at breakfast. I was excited we were going to meet Bhikaiji Cama who we had all heard a lot about. She had moved to Paris much before Tatya and I met, and I had only met her in passing. She was always out and about. A few months in America, a week in Switzerland, a couple of months in Bombay - she was a hard one to nail down.
There was something old-timey, angelic, and earnest about Mrs. Cama. With Shyamji, there was a bit of an old curmudgeon, but you couldn’t shake the feeling he was somehow taking advantage of you. With Tatya, it was like being under a spell, where you either did what he asked of you, or you wondered why you did all that he asked of you. But with Mrs. Cama, you just wanted to be your best, because she gave you nothing but hers. She was endlessly generous. I’d seen her casually slide across a Parker Lucky Curve after one of her trips to America over to Shyamji, with a casual “I thought of you when I saw this.”. That wasn’t something you’d ever see Shyamji do.
And she was boundlessly earnest. She would spend hours talking with you if you showed the slightest inclination toward Home Rule, and even more if you were opposed to it. But never did it feel like she was telling you how to think about things. Something about her passion for her ideas was contagious. She was so at peace with herself while pursuing her goals that you yearned to make them yours as well.
My brother knew her husband. A most stylish gentleman, with the goodness of heart and a steady diligence to match his wife’s. And great at polo. He had kept a stiff upper lip about Mrs. Cama, their living continents apart, and spoke nothing but well of her, but everyone knew they weren’t together anymore. Everyone accepted it was her fervent wish for Home Rule that drove a wedge between them.
But as a young man who had been thinking more and more about marriage, given my mother’s threats, and Eloise’s blatant hints, it rarely ever is something external like so. It’s often something deeply personal. Maybe he doesn’t like how she puts away the bananas in the pantry. Or she despises the sound of his chewing. Or she has never forgiven him for how his mother spoke to her father that once.
But, of course, any such talk was immediately dismissed. It boosted both their profiles to say unsaid that it was politics that was their undoing. His British business associates found him more of a loyal British subject, and her crowd held a deep maternal respect for her commitment to the nation.
“Tatya! Herjoat! How are you boys doing?” said a clipped accent, breaking into my thoughts. Mrs. Cama was here. She enveloped both of us in a hug, and kissed the air. As we broke apart, I noticed she was attired in a very becoming yellow silk saree, with a peacock blue blouse. I must remember to buy one such for Eloise; she always held she wouldn’t look good in a saree.
“Not too bad, how was your journey, Mrs. Cama?” I said.
“Exhausting and smoke-filled.” She declared brightly, showing signs of neither.
“How is Shyamji doing in Paris these days?” Tatya asked.
“Combative as ever,” she said, “but only in his newspaper columns. He has a lot to say about the goings on here, Tatya.”
Tatya smiled bashfully. “I do get his letters.”
“Talking of letters,” Mrs. Cama said, “He wanted some papers from his desk, and that you have the keys. Can you…?”
“Tatya rose and led her up the stairs. I followed. Mrs. Cama looked askance at Tatya and then at me, and then at Tatya again. Tatya bobbed his head to indicate I was one of them.
When we unlocked Shyamji’s study and sat down, Mrs. Cama burst out “I didn’t know Herjoat here was in the know.”
“That’s by design.” I said, “It’s potentially harmful to my family to be for Swaraj so openly. I’m sure you understand that.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Cama nodded.
“He’s the one who made sure the 50th anniversary went off without a hitch.” Tatya said, puffing his chest out.
“Really!” Mrs. Cama said.
“Ssh, ssh” I said, shaking my head at both of them.
“Anyway, which letters, Mrs. Cama?” Tatya said.
“Actually, I got one from your brother,” Mrs. Cama said.
“Oh?” Tatya said. “Right.”
“He can’t contact you, Tatya, you know that,” Mrs. Cama said sadly, “But that’s why you have us.” she reassured him.
“What did he say?”
“I don’t suppose you heard about what happened in Solapur.”
“What happened in Solapur?”
“A publisher who decided to take up your book got raided. And that was enough to scare every publisher in all of Bombay Province.”
“Cowards,” I said.
“People in India don’t have the same freedoms as we do here!” Tatya neutralized my comment.
“Rightly said, Tatya,” Mrs. Cama said, “Which is why he suggested we try getting it published here.”
“What, here, in the lion’s den?” Tatya was being facetious.
“Here, in Europe. I’m going to try getting it published in France.”
“Mrs. Cama, I cannot thank you enough for—”
“No, thank you for putting in the effort and sticking your neck out enough to write this.”
“But will it be easy to publish it in Marathi, in the Nagari script? Will we find a printer who can do that in France?”
“It’s no hardship finding a printer who can print in the Nagari script,” Mrs. Cama said, “But it sure is going to be a challenge to find someone who can do the Nagari script, and_will publish your book.” Mrs. Cama chuckled.
“Yeah, if they have invested enough resources to print in the Nagari script, they are definitely going to be doing business in India, and will probably not want the British to kick them in the bread and butter.” I said.
“Precisely,” Mrs. Cama said.
“So should I translate it into English?” Tatya said, his brow furrowed in worry.
“No, that might make it harder. And, translation will take time anyway.” Mrs. Cama shook her head, “Let’s just stick with this. See where it goes.
Tatya nodded his head, lost in thought.
“I might have to pull some strings, but I might be able to pull it off, you two,” Mrs. Cama said, “If I do, this will be my magnum opus.”
I grinned.
“And yours too, Tatya,” she hastily added.
“Mrs. Cama, I cannot thank—”
“But I need a favor of you.” Mrs. Cama added.
“Anything!” Tatya said.
“I need a hand with vexillography.” Mrs. Cama declared.
“What?” We said.
“Oh, I just need help designing a flag.”
“A flag? For what, Abhinav Bharat? We don’t do flags.”
“For India.”
“The Free India Society?”
“No, I need a flag that will represent all of India, at the Socialist Congress”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s the seventh conference of the Second International.”
“Huh?”
“Uh, okay. The Second International is an organization of all the socialist and labour parties, worldwide. It’s a relatively modern organization. Just founded seven years ago. They were the ones who declared May Day.”
“Oh. That was them?” I asked, “They are the ones who are agitating in Russia to work only eight hours a day?”
“If Mrs. Cama has to be subject to those rules, she will lose her mind.” Tatya laughed.
“Well, my friends have invited me to speak, and I feel I ought to make our voice heard about the famines all over our desh.”
“We should!” Tatya said, “But will they listen?”
“Someone will. Even if one person does, we’ve achieved our aim.”
“Who’s going to be there?” I asked.
“Mr Hyndman, of course. He’s the one that invited me. He has the support of none other than Karl Marx’s daughter, so that counts for some heft, which will hopefully spill over to me as well. And the Irish writer, George Bernard Shaw.”
“Really?” Tatya said, impressed.
“But the one I am looking forward to meeting the most is the one they call Lenin.” Mrs. Cama said.
“Oh my heavens, really?” Tatya was wide-eyed with wonder now.
“The ringleader of the Revolution in Russia?” I asked, “That’s quite impressive, but I wonder about his methods.
“Of course, it’s sad that they massacre and fight against their own countrymen,” Tatya said, “But that is such a great template for armed revolution we need to learn from.”
“Oh?”
“A small spark, in the form of the Bloody Sunday massacre of protestors, and a few weeks later, he managed to bring the Tsar to his knees and accept his demands. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have that kind of hold over the British?” Tatya said.
“Keep dreaming, Tatya,” Mrs. Cama said, “The Tsar cares about his people, though it’s hard to see how, sometimes. The British don’t care about our people. We will need to follow a whole different set of rules.”
“There is plenty to learn, though. A big part of the revolution was soldiers returning from the war with Japan, defeated and disaffected. Our soldiers form the backbone of the British empire. Without the Indian sepoy, the British empire is nothing. This makes me even more confident that the way forward is to sow discord in the ranks of the army, just like it happened in 1857.”
“You might be onto something there.” Mrs. Cama said distractedly, “Which is why it’s all the more imperative we make our case extremely strongly there. Which is where the flag comes in.”
“Right. The flag.”
“Yeah, the flag. Try as I might, I don’t think I have quite the imagination to capture the soul of a whole nation in a 3’X5’ rectangle of cloth.”
“What makes you think I do?” Tatya asked, tongue in cheek.
“Maybe you don’t. But I’d like you to take a stab at it.” she implored.
“Very well,” Tatya nodded, “You travel widely, Herjoat, do you have any ideas?”
I shrugged.
“I’ll think about it,” Tatya said, “Something will come to me. When do you need it?”
“Right away!” Mrs. Cama said, “We might have to go over a couple of designs, and then I need to go get it made large enough, and also small souvenirs for people at the conference, and then for people in Paris…”
“Consider it done.” Tatya said.
We had spent all afternoon in Tatya’s room, trying to come up with a flag. Rather, I watched Tatya try coming up with a flag design, and nodded and shook my head at the appropriate moments. So far, nothing.
“I like the flag of Baroda. They have a sword on it. We should have a sword too.”
“A Browning pistol?” Tatya said and we laughed.
“I wish the Marathas had had a flag with more symbology on it” Tatya sighed, “Just a plain Bhagwa isn’t very evocative”.
“We could adopt the shape of the flag” I suggested. The broad pennant certainly stood out.
“No, it would be a nightmare to hold” Let’s keep it rectangular.”
“It would look great on the masthead of a ship, though”.
“That it would have in the glory days of the Kanhoji Angre” he said, referring to the Maratha admiral, “but this is going to be in a sweaty conference room in Stuttgart with no wind to billow it out, and Mrs. Cama will probably have to install it herself on whatever flagstaff they give you there. Both ends, because no wind, and the swallowtail pennant won’t be easy to affix”.
“Fair. Maybe it could be one band of our flag.”
“Hmm” Tatya considered the idea.
“But should we? Is our new India the successor state to the Maratha confederacy? I mean, we could be, they did span from Attock to Cuttack.”
“They also didn’t span across several areas of Bharatavarsha”.
“True. But then what are we the successor state to?”
Tatya considered the question for a moment before he declared “Difficult questions can’t be answered on an empty stomach. Let’s go eat dinner”.
There was a giant vessel of cholar daal, along with a curry of French beans with grated coconut, and a tomato shorba. Today, somehow, there was red rice along with a pile of phulkas. I was glad Tatya had done away with Shyamji’s tasteless menu choices.
Bapat was already there, with a bespectacled man with thick, curly locks, a broad nose, and no neck. We filled our plates and sat down next to them.
“Bapat, who’s your friend?” I said.
“I’m Tatyarao,” Tatya introduced himself to the man.
“Bapat’s been telling me all about you, Tatyarao”, the man said.
“Friends, this is Hemachandra. He is from Calcutta.”
“Are you also here to be a lawyer, Hemachandra-da?”
“Oh, call me Shubho. No, I came here to learn chemistry. I study in Paris.”
“Sorbonne?” Tatya asked.
“University of Paris.”
“But most of his learning happens outside school”, Bapat laughed.
Hemachandra frowned, and Bapat touched his arm soothingly and grinned. Given Bapat’s predilections, I had an idea of what Hemachandra would be into.
“Are you visiting fertilizer factories and such places?” I ventured. I wanted to give Hemachandra an out.
“Uh, I did try visiting some of Alfred Nobel’s factories, but they wouldn’t let me close,” he said.
“The factory he is talking of is the Bofors factory” Bapat laughed.
My eyes grew so wide I was afraid they would fall off my face.
“You tried to go there?” I said, “You really tried to go there?” Hemachandra was, shall we say, a loose cannon.
“Mr. Nobel is a big idol of mine.” Hemachandra said simply.
“What’s this place?” Tatya asked.
“They make guns for armies. And navies. In Sweden.”
“Very interesting, Shubho,” Tatya said, “Where else have you tried to expand your learning?”
Hemachandra looked around. The dining room was empty, except for us.
“Well, the Russians are very advanced in practical matters,” Hemachandra said, “I’ve been trying to get in touch with this famous Russian chemist who can teach us to make bombs.”
“What’s this famous Russian’s name? Maybe we know him.”
“I don’t know his name.” he said.
We tittered.
“They call him ‘PhD’. That’s it. He teaches classes. I’ve been trying for months to gain entry into one of those classes.”
“Tatya, wouldn’t Aldred know someone?”
“Yeah, we ought to ask him.” Tatya said, eager to bring Hemachandra into our fold with offers of help.
“Guy Aldred?” Hemachandra said, “No need, he wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know. I’ve been in touch with that network of people. They have no idea, and don’t really care.”
Multiple anarchist networks. Not surprising, but it was still intriguing.
“Why do you care, though?” I said.
Hemachandra turned to me with the practiced air of a kindergarten teacher who was used to answering basic questions a hundred times a day.
“So you know our Anushilan Samiti, I suppose. Very like your Abhinav Bharat. We have higher ambitions than you jokers. We want a bomb factory. What are you guys up to, more meetings?”
“Yes, meetings about how we’ve given you folks some Browning pistols and your mothers are making boroi-er achaar with them.” Bapat chuckled.
“Ah yes, the new panch phoron - kalonjira, mustard, methi, saunf, and gunpowder.” Tatya said, rising up. We all rose up too, and put our plates away in the scullery.
“Picric acid is the new mustard oil” Hemachandra chuckled. “That’s what we want. The recipe for bombs. And you won’t believe how hard it is to find one.”
“Not surprised at all,” Tatya said, “It would be great to establish a bomb factory, and then several more.”
“If it works, we can put a picric acid bomb on the flag of India.” I chuckled, washing my hands.
“Oh, uh, the flag.” Tatya groaned, as he looked for a towel to dry his hands.
“What’s this about a flag?” Hemachandra asked, spooning some of the red mukhwas into his hands.
“Oh, you know Madam Cama? She’s attending the International Socialist Conference in Stuttgart, and is going to represent India. She needs a flag.” I said.
“I might be able to help.” Hemachandra smiled.
“Oh?” I said.
“Let’s get comfortable then,” Tatya said, and seated himself on the large common room sofa. He was just sleepy from lunch and his mind was slow.
“Shubo-da, I hope we are not taking you away from more pressing matters,” I said. He had this nervous, frustrated energy about him and I didn’t want to stress him out any more than he already was. Rather, I didn’t want to be around him because I was afraid I’d make him explode.
“No, I’m glad there’s something else to take my mind off things. Something that makes me feel productive. Seriously, it’s impossible to even get to meet someone here.”
“These things take time. How long have you been here?” Tatya said.
“Six months.”
“Don’t be surprised if it takes six more,” Tatya said comfortingly. “But do come to our meetings. That’s how you meet people. It’s in the name. Meet-ings.”
“Back when I was in Ripon College,” Hemachandra began, “the Government of Bengal told magistrates and collectors to come down hard on students who were in politics.”
“What does that mean?” Tatya said.
“Slavery.”
Hemachandra could be frustrating to talk to if you were attempting to extract information from him. He was used to being cagey, and that spilled over into his manner even when he wasn’t talking about sensitive topics.
“You need to be more clear” I said.
“Well, so there was the Carlyle Circular. It said government-funded schools are colleges had to prohibit their students from participating in protests.”
“Like that would work.” Tatya scoffed.
“Precisely. That’s why he added ‘If any college violates the government order, and the student leaves the college, no more assistance will be provided by the government to the institute”.
“That is so heavy-handed!” I said.
“That’s what the British do.” Tatya said, stretched out fully on the sofa, “This is why we need to set up our own independent colleges.”
“And we did. Aurobindo Ghosh started the Bengal National College that’s why. He’s the principal there. But my story is different.”
“Go on” I said.
“Anyway, to protest the circular, we started the Anti-Circular Society.”
“And you had protests?” I said.
“Obviously.” Hemachandra said.
“That’s just a typical day in Calcutta. What’s your point?”
“For our protest in Greer Park, we wanted to have a flag. But not just any flag. We made a flag that represents the future of India.”
“Do go on,” said Tatya who was now sitting up, rapt with attention.
“A drink first?” Shubho said.