Ravana gang's extortion and arson campaign

The Ravana gang's extortion and arson campaign uses communal hatred as cover for a business model: the gang poses as an anti-Muslim movement, threatens Muslim-owned enterprises with fire, and demands a one-time payment for protection. In the pre-Partition atmosphere of religious tension, its public image makes its violence seem like another sign of sectarian conflict, while its private operations turn fear into revenue.

Public Identity and Commercial Purpose

The gang is introduced to Amina Sinai through the name her husband had kept from her. S. P. Butt describes it as a crew associated with arson; Mr. Kemal supplies the account of an organized band. The name evokes Ravana, a many-headed demon, and that image later becomes the gang's visual emblem. Yet the apparent religious fanaticism is a façade: beneath it, the gang operates as a commercial enterprise, using the threat of communal violence to extract money from Muslim businessmen.

Its public posture belongs to a period when anti-Muslim intimidation could pass as familiar background. Men sent out at night painted slogans on walls in both old and new cities, including calls against Partition and claims that Muslims were the Jews of Asia. The gang also burned Muslim-owned factories, shops, and warehouses. These acts gave its anti-Muslim appearance credibility, while making the threat to any particular business feel part of a wider, dangerous campaign.

Extortion and the Choice Offered

The gang contacted Muslim businessmen anonymously, by telephone or by letters assembled from words cut out of newspapers. Each target faced a choice: pay a single cash sum or risk seeing his business burned. The gang did not make repeat demands, a practice the narrator calls ethical in the limited sense of adhering to the terms of its own scheme. Its supposed professionalism extended to supplying references: blackmail letters were said to include a list of customers who had paid and remained in business, though the narrator marks this detail as uncertain.

The arrangement exploited the owners’ distrust of protection. Most paid rather than take the risk of relying on the police, who, in 1947, were not considered dependable by Muslims. Thus the gang's income depended not only on threats and arson, but on a climate in which targeted businessmen had reason to doubt that official authorities would keep them safe.

The Threat Reaches Ahmed Sinai

Ahmed Sinai and his partners learn about the gang while gathered at home. The possibility of an attack matters particularly because the three men share a large warehouse containing their businesses’ stock. The warehouse holds Ahmed’s leathercloth, as well as Mr. Kemal’s hoarded food commodities and Mr. Butt’s match stock. Ahmed asks why their warehouse should be targeted if they still have time to pay, inadvertently making clear that the threat has reached his household as a demand for money.

Amina, who had not been told about the arrangement, asks what her husband is being asked to pay and why. The men leave immediately for the industrial estate, trying to appear calm as they make their way through the lanes toward a taxi on Chandni Chowk. At the estate, the threat’s mechanism becomes visible: the night-watchmen have made a deal with the gang. Warned in advance of its arrival, they take sleeping draughts and move their beds away from the buildings. The gang thereby avoids violence against the guards, while the watchmen supplement their meager wages; the narrator describes the arrangement as amicable and not unintelligent.

Arson and the Gang’s Emblem

When Ahmed and his companions reach the estate, the warehouse burning is not their shared godown but the Arjuna Indiabike warehouse. Its Hindu-mythological brand name has not concealed that the company is Muslim-owned, making it a target consistent with the gang's apparent anti-Muslim purpose. The episode shows the gang’s threat enacted against another business while leaving Ahmed’s own warehouse intact on this occasion.

A cardboard mask with several snarling faces has been placed on a telegraph pole in front of the burning building. It turns the name Ravana into a literal many-faced sign, linking the gang's theatrical identity to the destruction it leaves behind. The scene also reveals the campaign's practical arrangements: the watchmen are absent from their posts by agreement, and the gang can set fire to a target without confronting them. The contrast between the elaborate communal disguise and the calculated, transactional operation defines the campaign: public hatred supplies cover, while private fear and payment sustain the enterprise.