Tamas

Harnam asks Banto to knock on the door. He says he sees a woman inside and believes she may respond more favorably to Banto. After Banto knocks, an old woman opens the door and then lets them in. A young woman named Akran enters the room and begins to serve them. She gives them buttermilk, which causes a minor problem. As a Hindu, Banto is not permitted to take food from a Muslim hand, and Akran and the old woman are Muslims. Harnam takes the food, and encourages Banto to do the same. The old woman says that her husband will be back soon, and will not cause them any problems. Her son, however, is part of the Muslim League and may treat them with hostility. Harnam decides to leave, but the old woman asks them to stay. She tells Akran to bring a ladder. Harnam and Banto climb the ladder and hide in the old woman’s attic.

Later, they hear Akran and the old woman arguing. Akran says that the old woman should have asked their men for permission. Now, when they return, they will be angry. Besides, Akran reminds her that Harnam is armed. The old woman climbs the ladder and asks for Harnam’s gun. She says that she cannot allow him to hide while armed. Soon there are happy noises from the courtyard outside. Harnam looks through a crack in the attic wall and sees a man dragging a familiar black trunk—it came from Harnam’s shop, which has been looted. They drag the trunk inside and prepare to break open the lock. The old woman tells the men that they are hiding two Sikhs in the attic. When he hears this, Harnam immediately opens the attic door. He says he has the key to the trunk. He asks them not to break it. When Harnam appears, the old woman’s husband recognizes him. They have done business together in the past. His name is Ehsan. Ehsan wants them to leave, but he decides to allow them to stay outside in the fodder house, which is used for extra storage. After he locks them in, Harnam and Banto fall asleep in their new hiding place, but are awakened by furious pounding on the door. It is Ehsan’s son, Ramzan. He ignores his father’s pleas to leave them alone and chops through the door with an axe before commanding Harnam and Banto to come out. Harnam comes out willingly and asks Ramzan to kill him, offering no resistance.

Ramzan recognizes him. He has taken tea at Harnam’s shop several times. Ramzan finds that he cannot kill a man he knows. He rushes away in confusion and anger. The old woman walks them to the edge of the village through deserted streets. Then she gives Harnam his gun. After they say good-bye, Harnam and his wife walk into the wilderness. 

Ramzan cannot understand why he was unable to kill Harnam. Earlier that day he and some of his Muslim League allies had chased a young Sikh named Iqbal out into the sand dunes, where he had tried to hide from them in a deep hollow at the base of a hill. Ramzan and his friends had thrown stones into the hollow, pummeling Iqbal until he was almost dead. They tell him that if he comes out and participates in the Muslim initiation ritual, they will spare his life. After speaking the phrases “Allah-o-Akbar,” “Nara-e-Takbir,” and then “Allah-o-Akbar” again, Iqbal formally converts to Islam. Now Ramzan arranges for the completion of the ritual, which will take place in the home of an oilman, who is also an Imam. After cutting his hair and styling it in the Muslim fashion, Iqbal is presented to a group of men who will become his Muslim brothers. However, some of them mock him, rather than embrace him. One shoves a bloody steak in his mouth and forces him to chew, aware of the revulsion this would cause a Hindu. That night Iqbal is circumcised. By morning, little will be left of his former identity. 

For two days, there is fighting between the Hindus and the Muslims. The fighting does not stop until the combatants run out of ammunition. There are at least nine people dead, including Sohan, the young man who argued with Teja about making peace with the Muslims. A spy comes to the Sikhs in the gurdwara with news that the Muslims are sending reinforcements, while the Hindus have none. Five men form a hasty council of war and meet with Teja, who hears the conditions under which the Muslims will stop the attack. They decide to offer fifty thousand rupees, to be delivered immediately, at the river. Teja’s brother begins walking in that direction with the money.

Nearby, a group of Muslim men brag to each other about the killings they have committed. One of them tells a story about how six of them raped a Hindu woman. When it was his turn, after he had been on top of her for several seconds, he realized she was dead. They all laugh and share more stories about the Hindus they have killed and defiled.

Inside the gurdwara, Teja and the Hindus hear drumbeats. The Muslim reinforcements have arrived and are advancing on them. There is the noise of people running across the roof. Teja watches his brother, who is nearly at the delivery point at the river. Fearing a trick, Teja shouts for him to come back. There is a flash of metal in the dark and Teja shouts that they have killed his brother. He dashes out into the night. The men of the gurdwara follow him and the fighting begins outside.

The women of the gurdwara leave through another door and make their way down the street. They march to a deep well in full view of the Muslim attackers and, one by one, some of them clutching infants to the breasts, jump into the well where they either die or are maimed. In the morning, vultures gather on the lip of the well to feed on the women’s corpses. A black airplane flies overhead suddenly and tips its wings. Hindus and Muslims all look at the plane and know that it is a sign that the English military will intervene if the rioting and death continue. Some of them make their way indoors. Others move along the streets, trying to determine if any of their belongings can be salvaged. 

The British army has been deployed. Mild rioting continues sporadically in various parts of the region, but for the most part, it has finished. On the fourth day of the riots, the military institutes an eighteen hour curfew. Slowly, shopkeepers begin to reopen their businesses. Richard, the Deputy Commissioner, meets with the Health Officer of the city. He says that they must disinfect the well into which the women jumped, or risk the complete contamination of the city’s water supply. He also commands that two refugee camps be set up to provide aid for the displaced people who fled nearby villages.

Richard visits the office of the Relief Committee and gives them an update on the status of the recovery efforts. The audience comprises influential Muslims and Hindus. Richard is careful to speak neutrally and antagonizes no one. However, he notices that a man named Manoharlalal, leaning against a door, barely conceals a sneer. Manoharlalal detests the English government and it is not in his interests for the riots to stop.

After Richard leaves, Manoharlalal tries to incite the Committee to further violence. He says the English imperialists are to blame for the riots. However, the audience, weary of the violence, ignores him, with the exception of Bakshiji, who sympathizes and tells himself that Richard is indeed part of the problem. Bakshiji believes that the English army could have prevented the riots before they began. He will not praise them now for putting out the fire.

When Richard returns home at eight that evening, Liza is passed out; she has wet herself on the sofa. Furious with her, Richard carries her to their bed. She wakes as he is tucking her in and they talk about the riots, but she is too drunk to understand much of what he says. Richard is disgusted by her and wonders if he should leave her. He tells her about a lark that he heard singing, and how lovely the bird’s song was. Liza realizes that the lark was singing near the well, after the women had died. She is stunned by his callousness. How can he enjoy birdsong in the shadow of a well that is filled with the dead? He tells her that his feelings have been hardened by his experiences, and that the dead who perished are not his people. He feels nothing for them because they are not his countrymen. His loyalty is to his country. 

The Records Clerk of the Relief Committee is frustrated. He is trying to get accurate statistics about the losses accrued during the riots but the refugees will not calm down long enough to reason with him. His job is to keep the figures, but the people are so distraught that they can’t help him. They just want him to see their wounds and hear their stories. He feels that Harnam, in particular, is monopolizing his time. Harnam tells him that his shop was looted, his trunk was stolen, and his daughter was among the women who jumped into the well. He says that he wants his gun to be recovered, because it is the only thing he had which can possibly be salvaged.

The Clerk takes a walk to put his thoughts in order. As he passes through various knots of people, he overhears their conversations. Every story is one of woe and tragedy. He mourns all of their losses with them. One thing his numbers have shown him is that there are almost equal numbers of the dead on both sides. Neither the Muslims nor the Hindus conclusively won the conflict as far as casualties, which makes the riots seem even more senseless. 

A peace meeting is held in the college hall. The college is run by Christian missionaries and serves as somewhat neutral territory. There are representatives from the Muslim, Hindu, communist, and Sikh leaderships. Despite the purported need for peace, an argument—about which group should have majority representation on the committee—breaks out, and soon people are trying to leave the meeting. Others try to stop them from going. It is clear that the meeting will result in nothing but greater bitterness. As the novel ends, Richard tells Liza what has happened. She says that it does not matter what he does. Both of them know that she is right.