And the Plot Thickens

Manu Joseph writes to provoke, so it’s no surprise Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous is filled with provocateurs. But Joseph’s often clever, sometimes wise and always entertaining new novel is surprising in other ways. Told in a series of vignettes from the point of view of different characters and closely based on the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, it combines elements of satire and the political thriller. Hinging on the revelations of a delirious man trapped beneath the rubble of a building in Mumbai, it intersperses the race to stop a possible terrorist attack with its characters’ reflections on contemporary affairs. Both aspects make it a compulsive read. You race through the book not only to find out whether Miss Laila—possibly a terrorist, possibly an innocent pawn—will be killed, but also simply to see what outrage Joseph will commit next and (finally) what he will do with the encounter case. Part of that compulsion stems from the use of real life personages, including the current prime minister, who is here called Damodarbhai—a corruption of the middle name. Akhila, the most engaging provocateur, is an equal opportunity YouTube prankster who calls herself a ‘stand-up anthropologist’. The Intelligence Bureau officer, known only as AK, and a senior RSS leader called Professor Vaid are puppet masters capable of convincing “a retired semi-literate truck driver” to fast unto death in protest of the Gandhi dynasty. The mystery man buried in the rubble may be part of a fake terror attack. Miss Laila and companion Jamal may be terrorists, or literal provocateurs—dupes like the truck driver. Even Damodarbhai may be an instigator of sorts, rather than a true-blue bigot. It’s a cynic’s world, where nothing is wholly what it seems. But it’s not a world where left, right and centre are equally amoral— though many readers have been led to that conclusion by Akhila’s pranks and some of Joseph’s own statements about the book. Rather, as much as Joseph may resist being clubbed in with them, like many books celebrated for their even-handedness by left-leaning intellectuals, it’s a scathing indictment of the right. Sure, Akhila dresses up in a fright wig to lampoon Arundhati Roy, exposes the not-so-secret ego of journalist P. Sainath (here called P. Sathya) and scorns her absent mother for neglecting her daughter in favour of fighting for the lost cause of the Maoists. But those are petty crimes compared with those of Professor Vaid, AK and Ahmedabad Crime Branch supremo ‘Black Beard’, and Akhila’s pranks are crueller than they are funny. Roy preaches against inequality but lives in a fancy house. Sainath champions the farmer but secretly wishes for a Nobel Peace Prize. Vaid, AK, Black Beard and Damodarbhai conspire to kill by remote control. Only the equivocation of the era of social media would rank idealistic hypocrites alongside sincere murderers. Far better to stand back from it all and blast away—like any good provocateur.