Nathu accepts five rupees from the influential Murad Ali and kills a pig in a stone room through the night.

Richard and Liza ride horses on a hilltop, and Richard explains that Hindu-Muslim tensions prevent them from attending a nearby fair.

Richard receives a City Report detailing growing communal unrest while showing Liza his collection of Buddha statues.

A dead pig is found on the steps of a mosque at dawn, provoking outrage among the Muslim community.

The Hindu Executive Committee votes to stockpile weapons, train fighters, and boil mustard oil to pour on attackers from rooftops.

Ranvir is formally initiated into the Hindu Youth Group after killing a hen and receiving a blood mark on his forehead.

Bakshiji leads a Citizens' Committee deputation to visit Richard and urge him to intervene before violence erupts.

A man arrives to report that a Hindu has been murdered on the bridge while the deputation is still meeting with Richard.

Rioters set the grain market on fire and the temple warning bell begins ringing across the city.

Nathu breaks down and confesses to his wife that he killed the pig for Murad Ali.

Harnam Singh and his wife Banto flee their home as rioters arrive and set their tea shop ablaze.

Women from the besieged gurdwara march to a deep well and jump in one by one, some clutching infants.

A British military plane flies over the fighting, tips its wings, and signals that the army will intervene.

Richard orders the contaminated well disinfected and commands that two refugee camps be established for displaced people.

A peace meeting in the college hall dissolves into arguments about committee representation, achieving nothing.

The novel begins with Nathu accepting money to kill a pig, an act that inadvertently provides the spark for communal catastrophe. When the pig's corpse appears on a mosque's steps, both Hindu and Muslim communities begin openly arming themselves, and a civic delegation visits the British Deputy Commissioner Richard to beg for intervention. Richard proves evasive, and a murder on the bridge confirms that violence has already arrived. Open rioting engulfs the city, forcing families like Harnam Singh and his wife Banto to flee their burning home with nowhere safe to go. The crisis reaches its most devastating point when Hindu women trapped in the gurdwara throw themselves into a well rather than face capture. The British military finally intervenes, but a closing peace meeting dissolves into the same petty quarrels that preceded the riots, making clear that nothing has been learned.

The headline events that drive Tamas from a single hired killing to full-scale riots and their hollow aftermath.

Nathu walks home through the Muslim neighborhood, steps in dung as a good omen, and hides behind the singing party to avoid Murad Ali.

Mahmood blocks the singing party's path and forces Muslim members Azis and Hakimiji to stay behind.

The General climbs a rock and makes a fiery political speech, declaring Pakistan will only be established over his dead body.

Vanprasthiji ends a peace prayer meeting and calls the Executive Committee to stay behind for an urgent security announcement.

Ranvir and the Youth Group demand a cauldron from a sweetmeats shop owner, and Ranvir slashes the man's face with a knife.

Khuda Baksh the tailor notices someone climbing the temple wall across the street to repair the warning bell.

Nathu sits in a goldsmith's shop, hears spreading rumors about the pig on the mosque steps, and fears his own involvement.

Nathu gets drunk at the bazaar, approaches Murad Ali who ignores him, then returns home to see a red glow from fire.

Lalaji searches his house for an axe and sends a letter to his in-laws asking for help evacuating the family.

Shah Nawaz retrieves a jewelry box for a friend but inexplicably kicks the servant Milkhi down the stairs, breaking his back.

Devdutt convenes a tense multi-party peace meeting that produces only a symbolic Peace Appeal everyone knows will change nothing.

The General is struck and killed instantly by a man wielding a club while making political speeches in the street.

Ranvir sends Inder outside to intercept a Muslim perfume vendor, and Inder stabs the man fatally in the street.

Harnam Singh opens his mynah bird's cage before leaving home for the last time, but the bird refuses to fly away.

The Records Clerk tries to gather riot statistics but is overwhelmed by traumatized refugees who want only to tell their stories.

Before the riots ignite, small acts of intolerance accumulate across the city: a singing party is blocked on the road, a Youth Group steals a cauldron by force, and a spy is quietly posted at the temple wall. Characters like Nathu drown their guilt in drink while the Communist activist Devdutt scrambles to broker a peace deal that everyone knows is worthless. The loudmouthed General, who swore Pakistan would only exist over his dead body, is casually killed by a single club blow during one of his street speeches. Young radicals commit casual murders, and Harnam Singh's faithful mynah bird — offered its freedom before the family flees — refuses to leave its open cage. In the aftermath, a harried Records Clerk discovers that both sides suffered nearly equal casualties, rendering the entire catastrophe senseless and all the more devastating.

The overlooked moments and secondary characters whose choices reveal the full human cost of the riots.

Richard teaches Liza to distinguish between Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus, revealing his clinical detachment from the Indian people.

Bakshiji discovers a dead pig on the mosque steps and secretly drags it away behind a pile of bricks.

Lalaji urges the Executive Committee to petition the Deputy Commissioner for help before they begin stockpiling weapons.

Richard deflects the Citizens' Committee deputation and demands they make a joint public appeal rather than relying on British intervention.

Richard tells Liza that as long as Hindus and Muslims fight each other, they will not turn against the British government.

Teja arrives at the gurdwara wielding a sword overhead and declares that God demands blood and sacrifice from the Sikhs.

Sohan stands in the gurdwara and publicly accuses Teja of lying about his attempts to contact Muslim leader Ghulam for peace.

Sikh spy Gopal is discovered hiding behind a curtain in the Muslim meeting house and barely escapes through a hail of thrown spears.

Baldev rushes out of the gurdwara in a panic and kills blacksmith Karim Buksh with his sword, irrationally convinced his mother is already dead.

Harnam Singh offers no resistance when Ramzan commands him to come out of hiding and kneel to be executed.

Ramzan recognizes Harnam Singh as a familiar tea-shop customer and finds he cannot bring himself to kill the man.

Muslim rioters stone young Sikh Iqbal in the sand dunes until he agrees to formally convert to Islam.

Muslim men gather and brag openly to each other about the Hindu women they raped and murdered during the riots.

Richard tells Liza about hearing a lark sing beautifully near the well where the women's bodies still lie.

After Richard leaves, Manoharlalal tries to rouse the Relief Committee to further violence, but the exhausted audience ignores him.

The novel's turning points begin with Richard's cold, instructive tour of Indian religious differences for his wife Liza, exposing the colonial indifference that allows the violence to fester. Bakshiji's quiet removal of the pig from the mosque steps and Lalaji's plea for diplomacy over weapons show that some characters do attempt to prevent catastrophe — but their efforts are overwhelmed by those who prefer war. Richard's admission to Liza that Hindu-Muslim fighting protects the British government crystallizes the empire's calculated negligence. Inside the gurdwara, Teja's call for blood silences a young man's plea for peace, and a discovered spy sends the community into open battle. The novel's most surprising turning point arrives when a Muslim man named Ramzan, axe in hand, recognizes his intended victim as a familiar shopkeeper and finds he simply cannot kill him — a brief, fragile proof that hatred is not inevitable.

The key decisions, discoveries, and moral failures that expose the true nature of every character in Tamas.