When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the foreign minister of Pakistan in 1965, he vowed that Pakistan would “fight for a thousand years, eat grass or leaves”, but build a nuclear bomb if India did so. Pakistan eventually did build a nuclear bomb, but Bhutto had been hanged much before that. After his death, was his body examined to see if he was circumcised, in a final effort to discredit him as a Hindu?

It almost certainly wasn’t, and in itself, the speculation can be distasteful for many. But in the rollicking, dark, absolutely-no-holy-cows book that is Mohammed Hanif’s Rebel English Academy, checking an important corpse for evidence of foreskin is simply procedural, a box to be ticked, a weapon to be tucked into an arsenal of rumours to counter other rumours.

The last edition of this column also spoke of a Pakistani novel, but if Daniyal Mueenuddin is desi Charles Dickens, Hanif is Joseph Heller, his tragedy, comedy, and farce all sharpened by the unique flavour of the subcontinent. The book is intelligent, irreverent, unafraid, momentous without getting ponderous. It is the kind of English book that hasn’t come out of India in a while now.

Bhutto has been hanged, Field Intelligence Officer Captain Gul has duly examined the body and been punished for not finding said foreskin, and Pakistan is seething with rumours. Was Bhutto secretly smuggled out of the jail? Is he alive and planning a messianic return? Or does he survive as an idea, being thus more dangerous? So forceful are the rumours that they reach the nondescript, unimportant OK town and set it afire, quite literally.

Captain Gul, as part of his punishment, is posted to OK town, where his life collides with the lapsed gay communist Sir Baghi, the worldly wise Maulvi Molly, and Sabiha Bano the district champion runner, who has much to run from and little to run towards.

Hanif’s prose is electric, a combination of slap-stick comedy and bleak, unsparing political commentary.

Captain Gul is bored in the small town, with few opportunities for glory and fewer of finding women to sleep with, his twin obsessions.

Sir Baghi, tortured out of his communist ambitions, now runs an English tuition centre — the titular Rebel English Academy — hoping his pupils can fight oppression if they are well-versed in the original oppressor’s language. Molly Rafique is glib and slick, operating with equal ease in the physical and metaphysical realms. He has been a loyal friend to Sir Baghi so far, though his self-serving realism doesn’t have much space for loyalty.

Sabiha Bano is the daughter of jailed Bhutto sympathisers, and Sir Baghi is hiding her at his house on Molly’s request at great personal risk. Has she also killed her husband? One doesn’t know, but she does carry a gun. Then there is Inspector Allah Ditta Malang, the success story of Sir Baghi’s academy, happy to link some causes here and some consequences there if that helps problems solve themselves.

Who in this colourful cast is helping whom? Who is hiding what and from whom? Who is hunting whom and for what? Hanif will tell you, keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout. The pace is breakneck, because the horrors are too devastating to sit with. The book will make you chuckle, but also turn your stomach.

In Hanif’s Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, I felt he tried to resolve the plot rather abruptly, all the loose threads blasting apart in a lot of violence. To an extent, this happens in Rebel English Academy too, but the end is much more satisfying.

This brings me to the point I made earlier — where is the recent Indian English novel that was brave, political, and also laugh-out-loud funny? India probably has many more English academies than Pakistan, but far fewer rebels like Hanif.

Many readable Indian novels in English have come out in the past few years, but they haven’t aspired for the soar and scope of Rebel English Academy. Is it just a bad time for political humour in India? Is the English-speaking India rather too fond of navel gazing and is refusing to look the larger realities of the country full in the face?

In the words of Sabiha Bano, while one may know “many muscular words of English lingua franca”, it takes a special type of strength to take on holy cows.

See you next month,

Yours Literary,

Yashee

yashee.s@indianexpress.com

P.S: If you love books, write to me with what work I should discuss next. If you are not a reader of novels, follow along, and maybe you will begin to delight in the wonder and wisdom, the practical value, and the sheer joy of fiction.