The Proxy and the Rebel

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Here is another story that made an incursion into the age of the freedom movement just to sound authentic. It has no intention of writing historical fiction, but I have seen people in real life getting freedom fighters’ pension without an iota of patriotic feeling. Sometimes, one wonders how their patriotism died as they entered independent India. Anyway, it is a story out and out, standing only on imagination.

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The Proxy and the Rebel

Long, long ago, in the heyday of colonial feudalism, the zamindars—landlords without armies, without official posts, yet wielding unchecked power—were tasked with a straightforward duty: collect revenue from the peasants and deliver it to the British. In return, they enjoyed near-absolute authority over innocent rural folk. The law was said to exist, but it bent like a reed—unyielding against the poor, pliant before the rich. Between the zamindar and the peasant, the courts almost always punished the latter. Between zamindar and zamindar, the law merely mediated rivalries.

Among these lords lived a young heir, Gyan Vardhan Ray Bahadur, the son of a zamindar who had never attended school. Premier institutions in Calcutta, Raipur, Shimla, or Dehradun were reserved for those with both talent and wealth. Those without either remained confined to the care of local teachers, who taught Sanskrit, arithmetic, and scriptures at the landlord’s house.

But such pupils were often dull, unmotivated, and arrogant. The teachers, despairing at their lack of grasp, fumed in helpless rage. How could they vent their fury without risking their position? A zamindar’s son, like Gyan Vardhan, was beyond punishment. Yet there was a solution: a proxy.

A poor orphan from the village would be seated beside the zamindar’s son during lessons. His role was not to learn but to suffer. Whenever the landlord’s son failed to recite a verse or solve a sum, the orphan’s back bore the blows. He was beaten with sticks, slapped, and thrashed until the teacher’s temper cooled. He was not allowed to cry; tears only invited harsher punishment. Over time, his skin grew calloused, his spirit dulled. Still, every day he was flogged, for the zamindar’s son showed no improvement.

The zamindar’s heir, however, was a strapping youth—tall, curly-haired, and fair-complexioned. He looked better suited to acting in a dramatic troupe than to grappling with the tortures of arithmetic. The proxy, by contrast, was an emaciated child with no living family. He wore nothing but a gamcha—a loincloth—and his chest remained bare, even in winter. His name was Sukhram Das, ironically meaning “one who serves in the midst of plenty.” Whoever had named him seemed to have possessed grim foresight. Sukhram lost his childhood to his early appointment as the scapegoat of the rich.

Years rolled by. Sukhram, recruited at the age of eight, was now fourteen. He had memorised every prayer to Ganesh and Saraswati, mastered multiplication tables, and learned the alphabet—though no one had intended to teach him. The zamindar’s son, now eighteen, remained as foolish as ever, but more violent with each passing day.

One day, weary of his lessons, Gyan Vardhan ran away to a distant town. He had no plan for what to do, no vision for his future. By chance, he stumbled upon a procession of people in white dhotis and kurtas, holding flags and marching toward the seashore. Women, too, walked at the head of the crowd. Curious, he asked one of the participants what they were doing. He was told they were going to make salt.

Gyan Vardhan was puzzled. To him, salt was only a pinch in food—why would hundreds march for it? Yet his curiosity carried him to the seashore, where water was drawn in drums, wood was stacked, and earthen pots were set on hearths, filled with brine. He lingered until evening, fascinated by the gathering. Then the police platoons arrived and charged the crowd with lathis. Most dispersed, but when Gyan Vardhan tried to flee, he was caught and jailed. He learned only later that this was the Salt March of the non-cooperation movement led by Mahatma Gandhi.

He spent a year in prison. By the time he was released, his father’s zamindari had collapsed. For participating in an unlawful movement, their privileges were stripped away, and the family was reduced to a few acres of land. The grandeur of their prosperity had vanished before his return.

Years later, when India won independence, Gyan Vardhan found himself entitled to a freedom fighter’s pension. Ironically, though he had been a duffer at studies, he was now revered as a patriot, his pension allowing him to live decently without education or skill.

And Sukhram? With Gyan Vardhan gone, the little “education establishment” was dissolved. Sukhram was relieved, spared the daily torment of being a sitting target. By then, however, he had learned enough to qualify as a veranda teacher in the village. He taught children the alphabet, multiplication tables, primers, prayers, and Sanskrit slokas. In addition, he trained villagers in dramatic techniques for staging open-air theatre. Though unpaid for his drama instruction, he found joy in it.

Once, in 1972, during the Silver Jubilee of Indian Independence, someone curiously compared the incomes of both the proxy and the rebel and found the stark irony of their fate. Gyan Vardhan, once the pampered dullard, drew ₹500 a month as a freedom fighter’s pension. Sukhram, the boy who had endured years of proxy punishment, earned only ₹40 a month—five rupees per child—while his cultural service to the village dramatic troupe went unremunerated.

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By 

Ananta Narayan Nanda

Bhubaneswar

03-09-2025

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