Chapter 27: Famine Relief and Clashes

1943

By the scorching middle of July 1943, Ram had effectively dissolved his public presence.

The transition was quiet, almost invisible to the wider commercial world of the North. Devendra Meena, a young man with a sharp mathematical mind, an unflappable temperament, and one of Ram’s brightest former students, was formally elevated to chief operational manager of Ram’s public business holdings. To the regional British administration and the local chamber of commerce, Ram was merely a wealthy industrialist showing typical native laziness after having amassed a bit of wealth.

In reality, his true enterprise was operating in deep darkness, and it no longer required his daily hand on the wheel to sustain its momentum.

The private manufacturing network, hidden across subterranean foundries, reinforced brickyards, and disguised agricultural tool factories spanning Northern India, was now fully self-sustaining. What had begun years earlier as a discreet gunsmithing operation had matured into a sophisticated, compartmentalised arms ecosystem. The steady production of sidearms, bolt-action service rifles, heavy revolvers, submachine guns, shotguns, and standard-issue ammunition ran on standardised, interchangeable tooling.

The real development during these months, however, lay in their new ordnance division.

Inside a subterranean vault beneath an innocuous timber yard in Kanpur, which used to be a part of the manse of a wealthy noble, Ram leaned over a heavy teak assembly table lit by a single hanging lantern. Beside him, Shaktidas held a blueprint drawn in Indian ink, while the foundry’s master machinist, a grey-haired veteran named Shivram, adjusted a brass micrometre.

On the table sat rows of freshly cast fragmentation grenades, compact aluminium smoke canisters, and heavy steel cylinder housings designed for high-intensity flashbangs.

"The serrated cast-iron body yields predictable fragmentation patterns now," Shaktidas said, tapping the dark metal shell of a hand grenade with his fingernail. "We moved from the old centre-fire impact ignition to a spring-loaded delay lever assembly. The fuse delay is consistent at three point eight seconds. No pre-detonations in stress tests."

Ram picked up one of the smoke canisters, feeling its balanced weight. "And the chemical composition for the smoke and flash units?"

"Potassium nitrate, sulphur, and fine dark powder for the smoke," Shivram answered, stepping up to the table. "The flashbangs rely on a tightly packed mixture of magnesium powder and potassium perchlorate. They produce a deafening acoustic shock and an intense white burst without lethal shrapnel, ideal for breaching enclosed structures or breaking up a perimeter without leaving high-explosive residue. We are producing two hundred of each unit weekly across three separate locations."

"Keep the production entirely decentralised," Ram instructed, setting the canister down. "No single workshop receives all raw components. Final assembly must only occur at regional distribution points immediately before storage. If Special Branch stumbles onto one shed, they find nothing more than pipe fittings or agricultural fertiliser."

"And most importantly, make sure everything is quality controlled. We do not want skilled workers to lose limbs because we did not test things properly." Ram directed in a soft voice.

Shivram nodded, writing a quick ciphered note on his pad.

"And the public accounts, Ram? The British tax assessors are pressing for an audit of the factory’s coal consumption," Shaktidas asked.

"Let them audit," Ram said calmly. "Shaktidas, you will show them the invoices for our railway spring manufacturing contracts. The Crown wants steel for its war trains; we provide it, and we charge them a premium that covers our private coal reserves. Keep your public ledger clean, your tone polite, and your door open to their clerks. The best place to hide a mountain is in a range of mountains."

He looked at the iron shells on the table. Outside, beyond the thick underground masonry, the skies over Eastern India were already darkening with the first bitter whispers of human catastrophe.

By late 1943, the Bengal Famine had tightened its suffocating grip across the eastern provinces. Millions were succumbing to starvation, their plight exacerbated by wartime scorched-earth policy, provincial grain hoarding, price gouging, and the relentless requisitioning of river transport by the military authorities.

Ram did not hesitate. Drawing on his deep Marwari trade connections, a silent, web-like network of grain merchants, riverboat captains, warehouse proprietors, and rural moneylenders, he initiated a covert, large-scale relief and logistics operation.

Tonnage after tonnage of wheat, millet, and coarse rice was systematically bought up through third-party agents in surplus districts, routed away from British military procurement centres, and smuggled along night routes directly into starving villages across Bihar and Bengal.

It did not take long for the Imperial administration and the Intelligence Bureau to notice the statistical impossibility. Food supplies were vanishing from controlled railway freight yards and official granaries, only to reappear in remote rural districts without government permits or official relief stamps.

The inevitable confrontation occurred on a misty, moonless night in November 1943, near a muddy crossroads three miles outside a district town near the Hooghly.

A convoy of eight heavy bullock carts, their wooden wheels wrapped in burlap to deaden the sound, moved slowly through the fog. The carts were laden with sacks of unhusked rice and dried pulses intended for three nearby villages that had gone three days without food.

Suddenly, headlights cut through the gloom. Two British military trucks and an open touring car roared down the access road, blocking the tree-lined route. A squad of fifteen armed Indian police constables spilt out, led by a stern British Intelligence Bureau inspector named Hallowell, accompanied by a senior Special Branch officer, Captain Henderson.

"Halt! Stand where you are!" Hallowell bellowed, drawing his Webley service revolver as he stepped into the mud. "By order of the Governor of the Province under the Defence of India Rules, this entire shipment is impounded for military requisition!"

The cart drivers, poor villagers hired for the night, froze in terror.

From the treeline thirty yards away, a four-man counter-surveillance team sent by Ram’s organisation watched the road. They were equipped with dark canvas jackets, suppressed submachine guns, and flash grenades hidden in their satchels. Their orders were clear: protect the grain, avoid bloodshed, if possible, but never allow the network to be unravelled.

Before the team’s commander could give a signal, an unexpected rift opened on the road itself.

Inspector Hallowell marched up to the lead cart, driver trembling in his seat, and turned to the Indian police sergeant standing behind him. "Sergeant Subhash! Have your men seize the bullocks and turn these carts toward the district depot at once."

Sergeant Subhash, a veteran policeman from Bihar whose own family lived in a famine-affected district, looked at the cart, then at the skeletal figures of two women who had emerged from the shadows of the road, cradling emaciated children. He remained standing still.

"Did you hear me, Sergeant?" Hallowell snapped, his voice rising. "Seize the shipment!"

"Sir," Subhash said, his voice flat, carrying a cold strain that made the other constables quiet down. "This is not military grain. This is seed and food stock for the village elders. If we take this to the depot, these people will be dead by Monday."

"That is none of your concern, Sergeant! You are under military discipline!" Hallowell roared, pointing his revolver at the lead driver. "Obey the order, or I will have you stripped of your uniform and placed in irons for sedition!"

Sergeant Subhash slowly unslung his Lee-Enfield rifle. But instead of aiming it at the cart drivers, he lowered the butt of the weapon to the muddy road and stood firm.

Behind him, nine of the eleven Indian constables exchanged silent glances. One by one, with deliberate slowness, they stepped back from the trucks and grounded their arms.

"No, sir," Subhash said quietly, looking Hallowell dead in the eye. "We will not starve our own brothers for your depot."

"This is mutiny!" Hallowell shouted, his face flushing crimson. He raised his Webley directly at Subhash’s chest. "You treacherous dog-"

Pop.

A sharp, metallic whip-crack echoed from the dark treeline. A single high-velocity round tore through the muddy ground an inch from Hallowell’s boot, spraying wet dirt across his trousers.

Before the British officers could react, two flashbang canisters landed with a metallic clatter on the bonnet of the touring car. A blinding flash of magnesium light burst through the fog, accompanied by a staggering bang that shattered the night and sent Hallowell and Henderson reeling back, clutching their ears, temporarily struck blind and disoriented.

Out of the misty forest emerged four shadowy figures moving with disciplined, military precision. They did not fire into the panicked British officers. Instead, two of them formed a defensive arc with submachine guns raised, while the third gestured to the cart drivers and the mutinous constables.

"Move the carts! Now! Take the northern track through the marsh!" the lead operator commanded in a steady, disguised voice.

Sergeant Subhash did not hesitate. "You heard him! Move!" he ordered his constables. The policemen joined the cart drivers, physically hauling the heavy wooden wheels out of the mud and escorting the grain convoy into the darkness before the British officers could regain their senses or sight.

By the time Hallowell’s vision cleared, the road was empty. The grain was gone, the police squad had deserted into the night, and the forest was silent.

A/N: Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Stone me?