A coming-of-age saga, Red River centres around the fate of three boys whose childhood friendship is strained by political upheaval and violence. Set against the turbulent shifts in power in Assam in the late twentieth century — a region overshadowed by the partition of British India in 1947 and the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War — it is an unusual exploration of survival, betrayal and shattered male bonds.
Red River took some getting into at first since I admit to ignorance of the precise historic and political context, but I gradually got caught up in the human story, the details of daily life and the impact of state-sanctioned repression, guerrilla warfare and syndicate extortion permeating private lives.
As Northeast India fractures along ethnic differences, state control and separatist rebellion, the brotherly bonds between Rizu, Samar and Rana gradually fracture. Each boy is sucked into a divergent vortex of regional brutality. Rizu is radicalised by his brother’s death and drawn into the underground world of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) fighting for independence from India; Samar and his Bengali family face mob violence and displacement as they are viewed as being ‘outsiders’ threatening the culture and rights of the local Assamese; Rana inherits the burden of state-sanctioned authority as the son of an Indian Army officer.
A Catalyst of Tragedy
The narrative opens with the Bengali Dutta family preparing a feast in Gopalpur House to host their neighbours so that they can all watch the Cricket World Cup on a new TV set especially acquired for the occasion. Lucky, Amol and eight-year-old Samar welcome one hundred people into the courtyard of their family home. The family carries the lingering trauma of fleeing into Assam in 1971.
Madhob Kalita is a respected rural school teacher and community leader in the village of Moramela. His oldest son, Romen, joins the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) which is fighting for independence from India. The young man is killed during an army counter-insurgency operation, a tragedy that affects the entire family, particularly his younger brother, Rizu.
The Indian Army officer responsible for the military operation that kills Romen is Brigadier Kabir Singh Choudhary. He is the father of Rizu’s friend and schoolmate, Rana, at St Joseph’s in Guwahati.
‘Father John had not been put out, when, last year, the armed forces arrived in his adopted state. Assam was a mess, and the local government had proved inept at cleaning it up – unsurprising since they were hand in glove with the ULFA. That outfit had to be stopped. Behind a veneer of revolutionary rhetoric, they were just hooligans after easy money.’
Rizu is on the provisional list for the Indian junior cricket team and may well go to England, leaving Samar behind facing a less glorious future. Initially Rana challenges Rizu’s dominant status among the students, but manages their potential rivalry well so they become firm friends.
After leaving school, Rana follows in his father’s footsteps and becomes an Indian army colonel, setting him against Rizu who joins ULFA but his idealistic militancy is corrupted by accepting amnesty, cash and protection from the Indian Government in exchange for laying down his arms. He builds a financial empire using his fearsome reputation and connections. Then his old friend Rana becomes embroiled in his unscrupulous business activities.
Live and Let Live vs. Kill or Be Killed
Multiple tiers of state, revolutionary, communal and criminal violence psychologically mark Rizu, Samar and Rana. It is an atmospheric condition that shifts, mutates and dictates the choices made by the three men.
For Samar, violence is existential given the way in which it becomes part of his identity as a Bengali. Army officer Rana is caught between state violence as an inherited family duty and the moral decay it engenders thanks to his illegal economic activities with Rizu, culminating in personal betrayal and murder. Rizu is radicalised by the death of his older brother, so initially violence is an act of resistance, self-determination and communal honour. But as he is corrupted, violence becomes calculated economic coercion; a standard business tool.
‘There is no place, no place on earth, that is peaceful. To buy peace in your land, you have to subdue others, kill even. Look at these mountains there is blood everywhere.’
Political conflict impacts love too: instead of offering a sanctuary from the world’s violence, intimacy is blighted, hijacked and destroyed. Ultimately, the love between Rizu and his wife, Leela (Samar’s Bengali cousin) doesn’t stand a chance.
By weaving real historical events and a nuanced exploration of citizenship into the novel’s complex study of friendship and loyalty, the author demonstrates that while rivers and borders can be redrawn by politics, no political outcome can justify the far greater human cost of the blood spilled. Fast-paced and deeply sad, Red River is a novel that makes you think about what it means to be human.
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