Chapter 1, Dacoity, Section 2 Summary

Mano Majra has some importance among India's bureaucrats because it contains an officers' rest house and often government officials will visit. The morning before the dacoity in Mano Majra, the rest house had a guest, Hukum Chand, magistrate and deputy commissioner of the district, a large man. He invites Mano Major's head policeman, Inspector Sahib, to come in. They discuss the massacres of the summer and Sahib informs Chand that the violence has not come to Mano Majra and that the people there are largely unaware of it, even figures like Ghandi. The only 'bad' person in the village is Juggut Singh, whose father had been hung two years ago. Chand had forgotten that he had confined Juggut to the village and that he must regularly report to the police station.

However, Jugga, Sahib reported, is a very tall...