A Small Voice In Assam

The glass panes of my mansion shattered. I screamed with terror as the satyagrahis from Bengal banged at the doors of my house, breaking windows, throwing stones, ruining the porch, and making graffiti marks on the wall. My dad; the general had partitioned Bengal merging parts of it in Assam, Orissa, and Jharkhand. This had led to considerable turmoil in all parts of the country as Bengal had been the biggest and the most revolting province of India; where we had migrated. There was an uproar in Assam as they had realized our motive of trying to break their unity and trying to curtail the influence of Bengali leaders. My dad and the other generals had introduced various laws in order to arrest the satyagrahis. BANG! I heard a screech of the latch being broken and the door falling down. All the security officials had gone to keep the rebels at bay, but they had failed. I could feel my heart racing as I hid under dad’s study the table shook and a newspaper titled “Kesari”; a Hindi newspaper edited in English fell down. I stared at the headlines “tension prevails in states”. Under that was a picture of my dad at the press conference announcing the new law to curtail the revolts. beneath that was a photo of M.K Gandhi. above that was the headline “children are the future citizens of a great nation – unite& stop Hindu – Muslim fights”. I gulped. I could now hear the voices of the rebels from downstairs.

‘They’re not going to find dad here’ I thought. The door of the study banged open and a dozen rebels stormed in as if they owned the place, which was, I guess partially true. Th

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ey did own the land, but the house was ours. One of the rebels yanked the table away leaving me exposed. “Make it quick,” I said pointing at his gun. But to my surprise, he lowered his gun and gave me a timid smile. “Leave,” he said to his commandrates pointing at me “Small girl” he added. The others nodded as they went out of the room and closing the door shut behind them. “After that, I don’t know what happened. I must have fainted” I said to the jury, giving my account on what had happened earlier that week. “The main motive of these rebels was to spend terror, not to harm. They could have killed me when they had the chance, but they didn’t, and I am sure we can avoid taking their lives just as they avoid taking mine.” I said; my voice loud and clear ringing in the ears of the people sitting in the court. “Thank you” I finished and sat down.

My eyes searched people’s faces trying to gauge their reaction and finally rested on my father’s who sat next to me. He nodded encouragingly, and pride twinkled in his eyes. the judge cleared his throat and said “well, I can’t say I’m not surprised by the testimony given by our witness but it’s time to vote. Those who are not in favor of punishing the rebel ‘s arrested from general Curzon’s property”. I sucked a breath as my dad expression hardened. For a moment I am afraid he’ll not raise his hand. t wouldn’t if they listened to me then if my own dad wouldn’t support my decision. “They did nothing to my dad. After all, we are trespassing on their country” I told my dad in a whisper. My dad looked at me and smiled slowly raising his hand as the judge announced: “excused”.