The Salt Inspector

The night was dark and cold, and the river below the bridge was running high. Somewhere on the road, a long line of carts was creaking slowly towards the crossing.

The young inspector woke at the sound. Who would be moving goods across the river at midnight? He pulled on his coat and went out.

A father's advice

His name was Vanshidhar. He came from a family that had once been comfortable and was now very poor. When he set out to look for work, his old father gave him some advice.

Don't look at the salary, his father told him. A salary is like the full moon: it appears once a month, and then it slowly wastes away. Look for a post where there is money on the side, the kind that flows in every day like a stream. People will come to you in need. Be clever, and take what they offer.

Vanshidhar listened respectfully. Then he went out into the world.

The salt department

In those days, the government had made salt a closely controlled trade. A new department had been set up to stop people moving and selling it without paying the tax. Smuggling was common, and so was bribery. An inspector in the salt department, a daroga, could become rich very quickly if he was willing to look the other way.

Vanshidhar was given exactly such a post. His father was overjoyed. The neighbours were envious.

But Vanshidhar had his own ideas. He did his work honestly, and he took nothing from anyone.

The carts on the bridge

Now, on this cold night, he walked out onto the bridge and stopped the first cart. It was loaded with sacks. He put his hand into one. Salt.

The carts, he learned, belonged to Pandit Alopideen, the richest and most powerful landowner in the district. He lent money to half the countryside. Officials ate at his table. Everyone said there was nothing his money could not do.

Pandit Alopideen soon arrived himself, calm and smiling, as if this were a small misunderstanding between friends.

The price of an honest man

He began politely. He hoped the inspector would not trouble himself over a few carts. Then he offered a thousand rupees.

Vanshidhar refused, and told his guards to arrest him.

Alopideen was not worried. He offered five thousand. Then ten. Then fifteen, then twenty. Every time Vanshidhar said no, the Pandit raised the price, sure that the next figure would be enough.

At last he offered forty thousand rupees. It was more money than Vanshidhar's whole family could have earned in a lifetime.

Vanshidhar did not even hesitate. He refused again and had the Pandit taken into custody.

For the first time in his life, Pandit Alopideen was led away under arrest.

The court

By morning, the whole district was talking about it. People who took bribes every day were shocked that such a great man had been treated like a thief.

But in court, Alopideen's money did its work. The lawyers were his. The witnesses wavered. The officials were his friends. He was set free, and the magistrate even remarked that the young inspector had acted rashly, without good judgement.

Within a week, Vanshidhar was dismissed from his post.

He went home with nothing. His father was furious and bitter. All that education, he said, and his son had thrown away a fortune for nothing. His mother was heartbroken. Vanshidhar listened in silence.

The visitor

About a week later, as evening fell, a fine carriage stopped outside Vanshidhar's house. Out of it stepped Pandit Alopideen.

Vanshidhar's father rushed out, bowing and apologising, and began to scold his son in front of the guest. But Alopideen stopped him. He said he had known many officials in his life, and had bought every one of them. This was the first man he had met whom he could not buy.

Then he took out a paper and handed it to Vanshidhar.

It was a letter appointing him as the permanent manager of all of Alopideen's estates, with a generous salary and full authority over his affairs.

Vanshidhar's eyes filled with tears. He said he was not learned or experienced enough for such a post.

Alopideen smiled. He did not need a learned man, he said. He had plenty of those. What he needed was an honest one, a man who would say no to forty thousand rupees on a cold night by the river.

Vanshidhar took the pen, and signed.

About this story

Premchand (1880–1936) is one of the greatest writers of Hindi and Urdu fiction. "Namak ka Daroga" (The Salt Inspector) is set in the days when salt was a tightly taxed government monopoly in India, and it is still one of the most widely read stories in Indian schools. This version is our own shortened, simplified English retelling of the Hindi original.