Nationalism is everywhere! Political parties, films, sports, the media, corporate houses and even religious establishments celebrate nationalism as the prime marker of India’s collective identity. The State wants us to behave as responsible citizens to achieve a truly committed nationalism while the opponents of the regime evoke their patriotic integrity by rejecting this official version. Nationalism, in fact, has become the dominant narrative of our politics and policy. This overwhelming presence of nationalism in public life forces us to re-examine issues that deviate from the straightforward imagination of an ideal-pure nation and its perfect community. The powerful story by the Urdu author, Saadat Hasan Manto, “1919 ki Ek Baat”, is very relevant to unpack this slightly enigmatic side of nationalism.
“1919 ki Ek Baat” is based on a conversation between two passengers in a moving train. The first passenger is a narrator, who describes an event that took place in 1919. The second passenger is an attentive listener. He does not merely pay close attention to the story but also raises a few pressing questions that makes the narrator highly uncomfortable.
The narrator begins the story by introducing the political environment of Punjab during the Non-cooperation movement. Amritsar becomes a hub of political activism that provokes the provincial government to take authoritarian measures to establish law and order: M.K. Gandhi’s entry is banned, religious gatherings are prohibited, and the people are forced to keep away from all those activities that may be considered as anti-Establishment. This long introductory account serves as a background to introduce the main character of the story: Thaila Kanjar. According to the narrator, the real name of this person is Mohammad Tufail. But he is known as Thaila Kanjar, a name rooted in his socially marginalised background. Born into a family of prostitutes, his sisters, Shamshad and Almas, were actually two of Amritsar’s most celebrated courtesans.
Thaila is also known as a ‘baddie’; he fell for wine and gambling early in life. Even his prostitute sisters become so annoyed that they eventually disown him. But Thaila knows how to get things done and often manages to get money from his sisters for his needs. Despite these habitual weaknesses, Thaila is a good-looking young man — he is decent and sophisticated and has a good sense of humor.
In the meantime, a peaceful public gathering is forcibly dispersed by the police in Amritsar. In retaliation, the crowd also becomes aggressive. Thaila leads a group of youngsters to fight back. Although his momentary radicalism encourages others to give a fighting reply to the British, he is killed in this one-sided battle. The assassination of Thaila turns out to be a symbol of protest in Amritsar. The narrator himself is very impressed with Thaila’s bravery. But he is a bit upset that Thaila’s name is not going to be included in the list of martyrs in the future. He emphatically asserts: “I have read somewhere that during the French Revolution the first bullet had hit a prostitute... Thaila, that is Mohammad Tufail, was the son of a prostitute. No one has bothered to find out if the bullet which hit Thaila during the freedom struggle was the first bullet or the tenth or the fiftieth, perhaps because the poor boy had no social status; I am sure that Thaila’s name is not even listed amongst those killed in Punjab during those bloody days; but then, who knows if a list of martyrs was ever made.”
This part of the story could be read as a standard nationalist saga of unknown sacrifices. However, exactly at this point, the second crucial moment begins. The narrator tells the listener that amidst this atmosphere of mourning, Thaila’s sisters are called to perform a mujra to entertain British officials. In the narrator’s opinion, this invitation is sent intentionally to humiliate the family as well as the people of Amritsar. Eventually, the sisters decide to go.
At this stage, the narrator becomes emotional and says: “they (the sisters) ripped off their glittering dresses, and stark naked, they said, look at us... We are Thaila’s sisters... Sisters of the martyr whose body you riddled with your bullets only because he loved his country with all his soul... We are his beautiful sisters... Come, pierce our perfumed bodies with the hot irons of your lust... But before you do that let us spit on your faces once.” The narrator becomes somber and informs the listener that, finally, Thaila’s sisters are also killed.
The listener is not fully comfortable with this simplistic conclusion. He provokes the narrator for the first time and asks him to tell the truth. This is the climax of the story: “Then the train had pulled into the station. When it stopped, he called a coolie and asked him to carry his luggage. As he was about to leave, I said: ‘I suspect you invented the end of the story.’ Startled, he looked at me: ‘How did you guess?’ I said, ‘Your voice was firm, but full of anguish...,’ My fellow-traveller swallowed hard and said: ‘Yes... Those damn… he stopped himself from cursing them. ‘They blackened the name of their martyred brother...’ Then he stepped down onto the platform.”
So what is the moral of the story? The narrator wants to construct an undeviating, idealistic and principled version of nationalism. For him, Thaila’s sacrifice was meant to revolutionise the ethical universe of his prostitute sisters; yet they remained trapped in their immediate circumstances. This unwanted inconsistency makes the narrator’s version of nationalism awkward, unrealistic, and indecisive. The listener, on the other hand, is not satisfied with the tidy and morally perfect climax. In his view, “1919 ki Ek Baat” should not be commemorated as a decisive moment that produces a simplistic nationalist lore. This generates a productive tension between the ideal and the actual, contrasting what occurred with what ought to have transpired. The suggestion of the political philosopher, Sudipta Kaviraj, thus, becomes very relevant: one must always disbelieve the autobiography of nationalism and the ideal kind of history it gives to itself.
Hilal Ahmed is a political scientist and an author. Views are personal