by Kuldip Nayar
I detected an element of racism in the UK towards the non-white population. This was the time when one conservative MP made the most provocative statement that people from India and Pakistan settled in the UK were not Britishers because they cheered cricket teams from their respective countries playing against the English national team. Innumerable instances of discrimination against people of Indian origin were brought to the high commission’s notice, but the Commission preferred to distance itself from such complaints because the people settled there were British citizens and it was for London to attend to their grievances.
I must admit that my contact with British foreign office was very limited. Salman maintained the link on regular basis but we both went one day to a briefing on how Iraq was attempting to arm itself with weapons of mass destruction and defying world opinion. I could see that the UK was building up a case against Saddam Hussain.
Gujral stopped off in London on his way to the US. He had met Saddam Hussain and his impression was that Iraq had ‘something’ up its sleeve and would not be an easy target for the West. Saddam Hussain had told him that the war was over oil and had pointed out how the West had manipulated everything: oil was cheap but the technology expensive because it came from the West.
I had invited the top journalists and experts on Iraq to meet Gujral over lunch. He made out that Iraq would not be easy to occupy. This surprised them because their information was that Saddam Hussain’s surrender would be just a matter of days. The experts got the impression that India was standing behind Saddam Hussain. Notwithstanding our efforts to dispel such an impression, British journalists did not hide their contempt for Gujral’s assessment. I was so confused that I checked with the high commission’s bright air attaché Vinod Patni whether Saddam Hussain was as powerful as Gujral had made him out to be. Patni said that Saddam Hussain’s surrender would occur under a week after the attack. He too had been surprised at how differently the Indian foreign minister viewed the situation.
One person with whom I did not discuss politics but everything else under the sun, was the writer, Nirad C. Chaudhuri. He was past ninety and lived in a modest house in Oxford. Chaudhuri was as much part of the UK as were memories of the Raj. I delayed calling on him till I found a rare vintage wine selected by Salman, a connoisseur. I could see Chaudhuri’s eyes light up when I presented it to him. Clad in dhoti and kurta, he was at the gate to receive me. (I had become punctual to a fault in the UK.)
Chaudhuri was justifiably indignant about the letter he had received intimating him about my proposed visit. A junior bureaucrat from the high commission had written that ‘he had the privilege of informing Chaudhuri that the high commissioner had kindly agreed’ to meet him. In fact, it was the other way round. The truth was that I had wanted to meet him and he had kindly agreed to do so.
Chaudhuri was, however, even more indignant about the substandard quality of the stationery used by the high commission. The officer concerned was not to blame for this because that was all the high commission had to offer given the niggardly budget. I had brought my own hand-made paper stationery from India at my expense. We had just begun talking when his wife walked in. She wanted to be there because, as she told me, she had read my writings for years in the Statesman. Unlike Nirad Chaudhuri, she seemed ill at ease in the UK.
‘I am writing in Bengali these days,’ Chaudhuri said. ‘Whatever I write is being lapped up by the people of West Bengal.’ By no stretch of the imagination could he be described as a modest individual but he was highly respected in the UK. His impeccable use of the English language and his knowledge of British history were the envy of educated and the knowledgeable Englishmen. A few days before I met him, he had admonished the British in a letter to the editor of a London daily for succumbing to Europe’s dictats on unity and integration.
He told me he felt as much at home in the UK as in India. The ‘hypocrisy of Indians’ still bothered him but he was no longer an angry man; only a saddened one. Laughingly, he wondered why India was always referring to a conspiracy to dismantle it. Time had mellowed him. Like most men of his age, he was fond of his grandchildren and spoke at length about them. What struck me about him was his child-like dependence on his wife. After every sentence he looked towards her as if seeking her approval for everything he said.
Another person I recall meeting while I was in the UK was Salman Rushdie. I found him much more interesting than his books. He was so natural, not having to tailor his expression and views to suit anyone. He is better reflected in conversations than in his writings because, face to face, he does not say anything just for effect. My judgement may, however, be faulty because we spent only three hours together.
The threat to his life and two years’ hiding following the publication of his book, The Satanic Verses, had affected him but not broken him. When I met him, he was planning moves to make peace with the liberals in Islamic society, particularly in Egypt.
‘I thought I would buy a house in Bombay and spend more time there than in London,’ he said, ‘but what do I do now with Hindu chauvinism taking over India?’ He added, ‘I can predict India’s disintegration if it jettisons secularism.’
He blamed Indira Gandhi for having compromised over secularism. ‘Looking back, it is she who pampered Hindu chauvinism for votes.’ I told him that there might be a spurt of religious frenzy among the Hindus but it would not last long. ‘All this is just for the elections,’ I assured him. ‘As soon as they are over, the tide of fundamentalism will subside.’ Rushdie was not convinced that my reading was correct. ‘Indian society is becoming increasingly intolerant and communal,’ he stressed.
He concurred with my view that fundamentalism was the greatest threat to democracy. I told him about the discussion that I had had with Margaret Thatcher when she had said that ‘Islamic fundamentalism was the greatest threat to the world after the defeat of communism.’ Rushdie took pride in having taken on some fundamentalist Muslim beliefs and chided Hindu liberals for not having done the same in relation to Hinduism.
Khushwant Singh, was quite high on the list of people who Rushdie felt had let him down. He was referring to Khushwant’s advice to Penguin not to publish The Satanic Verses. Subsequently when I asked Khushwant about it, he said: ‘As a consulting editor to the publishing house, I told them that the book would offend Muslims and create problems.’ He said he was not discussing the merits of the book when he spoke about religious susceptibilities. Khushwant felt hurt that Rushdie had misunderstood him.
Rushdie was uncompromising about Kashmir. He wanted India to concede the right of self-determination to Kashmiri Muslims. When I tried to advance the argument that if Kashmiri Muslims opted out of the Indian union this might adversely affect the Muslims in the rest of India, he said that Indian Muslims were not hostages; they were Indian citizens who were entitled to equal rights. He did not believe that Kashmiri Muslims wanted to join Pakistan; they sought independence.
Farooq Abdullah met me in London when I was high commissioner. I advised him, in the presence of his entire family which I had invited for lunch, not to return to the Valley for at least ten years because it was possible that he could become relevant after the passage of that time. George Fernandes, railway minister in the V.P. Singh government, took him back almost directly from my house, where they held protracted discussions, to Delhi. I was proved correct. He had returned too early to the same type of politics.
I was recuperating from a minor operation in 1990 when India’s Chief Justice Sabyasachi Mukherejee arrived in London on his way back from the US. On his arrival he suffered a heart attack at a friend’s house where he was staying. The high commission took him to the Royal Free Hospital, one of the best in London. Justice Mukherjee suffered another severe heart attack and died in hospital on 25 September 1990. The high commission sent Salman Haider to accompany the body to Delhi and my wife accompanied Mukherjee’s wife to provide her with solace during the long journey.
There was a concerted att
ack on me in the Lok Sabha for Mukherjee’s death. Subsequently, Rabi Ray, the Lok Sabha speaker, told me that he had no idea that the permission granted to the BJP MP, Ghuman Lal Lodha, to make a reference to Mukherjee’s death would turn into a full-scale attack on me. Chandra Shekhar, who called me ‘a social climber’, took over from Lodha and then it was a free-for-all.
It was a god-sent opportunity for the Congress, which was licking its wounds inflicted by my vehement indictment of the Emergency. Vasant Sathe, Dinesh Singh, and Jaffer Sharief were all staunch defenders of Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule which I had defied.
Arrogant P. Chidambaram, whom I had described as ‘a whiz kid’ during Rajiv Gandhi’s stewardship, was the angriest of all. K.K. Venugopal, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, was instrumental in having a resolution passed by the general body of the association, condemning the Indian high commission’s ‘indifference and negligent’ treatment of Mukherjee during his illness.
I asked Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when he was staying with me in London, why the criticism from the BJP had been feeble. He said that he had told his party men that the Congress was playing politics and they should not become party to it.
Chandra Shekhar’s grievance, as he explained later to his friends, was that on two occasions I had stood in the way of his becoming prime minister, once in 1977, when the Janata Party assumed office, and then when the Janata Dal, a new party that he and some Janata party members cobbled together in order to form a government. Though his assessment was correct, he overestimated the extent of the influence I wielded.
He could not have become prime minister in 1977 because at that time the choice was between Morarji Desai and Jagjivan Ram. Chandra Shekhar was not even in the picture. True, I knew many Janata leaders, particularly Jayaprakash Narayan, who played a decisive role in choosing the prime minister, but it had been a problem just to get Chandra Shekhar elected as the president of the Janata Party. He could not conceivably have become prime minister in 1990 because the loyalty of members was split between V.P. Singh and Devi Lal.
Dhirendra Singh, an IAS officer, attached to Mukherjee, wanted to cover up any blame accruing to him. He told the one-judge inquiry commission that the high commission was differentiating between private and official visits. Such matters do not come up before the high commissioner and are dealt with by the high commission in accordance with instructions received from Delhi. In Mukherjee’s case, the Supreme Court said that he was on a private visit to London. The high commission did not, however, draw any distinction between official and private, providing all the facilities he and his wife would have enjoyed had they been on an official visit.
This is my diary noting of the time:
Apart from my sense of personal hurt – and that was very strong – what was painful was to see how politics in India was being trivialized for party purposes. At a time when the Congress government was collapsing, the economy going to pieces, Kashmir and Punjab burning and of course, the Ayodhya dispute heading for a showdown, it was unbelievable that parliament should spend three days on a non-issue. However, one lesson came through clearly to me: it is all too easy to criticize the bureaucracy from outside but the reality within can be very different.
I insisted on an inquiry although the then Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar was not overly keen on one and reportedly remarked: ‘the purpose has been served.’ Judge Chinappa Reddy was appointed and I appeared before him in Delhi. He exonerated me and the high commission from providing ‘inadequate medical facilities’ to Mukherjee. In fact, the judge commended the high commission for all it had done and dispelled the impression that the Royal Free Hospital was a second-rate medical institution. The only stricture, if it can be so called, of the judge was that the deputy high commissioner and high commission should have helped Mrs Mukherjee to properly express herself because she had only a limited knowledge of English. The case eventually came to the Supreme Court where Chief Justice J.S. Verma held that there was nothing against Kuldip Nayar.
I was still in London when V.P. Singh announced (1990) the implementation of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission Report on Other Backward Classes (OBC). V.P. Singh was one of the most controversial politicians, and though his impact on politics might have stirred division, his tenure led to the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations which Indira Gandhi had kept under wraps. For the first time, the educationally and socially backward classes, also referred to as OBCs, got reservation in government jobs and admission to institutions of higher education. V.P. Singh had, however, to pay a price as the upper castes and the intelligentsia, who felt threatened by the Mandalization of politics, came out on to the streets in protest against his policies. His critics averred that his sudden love for the OBCs was a panic reaction to the threat posed by Devi Lal, who was uncomfortable under his leadership.
V.P. Singh never wavered in his commitment to the Mandal cause. He told me that he might have ‘lost a leg but had scored a goal’. His credibility among the minorities, particularly Muslims, was very high.
The truth is that political considerations compelled V.P. Singh to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations. Both he and Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal had been at loggerheads from the very outset. Devi Lal wanted to have an equal say in key appointments and share the discretionary powers which the prime minister enjoyed. Devi Lal announced a political rally at India Gate and threatened to bring lakhs of people to demonstrate his strength.
To counter the demonstration, V.P. Singh, on the eve of Devi Lal’s rally, played the Mandal card, i.e. announced reservations for the OBCs. The upper classes, however, felt that a gauntlet had been thrown at them and they picked it up and replied with ferocity. Delhi was engulfed by disturbances. During that time it was difficult even to drive a car without a sticker declaring: ‘I am not an OBC’.
When I returned from London, I was approached by some young men with an anti-Mandal agenda who asked me to lead them against reservations for the OBCs. I was aware that V.P. Singh had brought in the reforms for purely political reasons but declined to join the anti-Mandal agitation. I thought the reforms represented a churning in society and might help it vomit out the poison in the body politic. I kept aloof from the issue, neither supporting nor opposing the pro- or anti-Mandal elements. I was however disappointed by the way in which the OBC leaders, once in the forefront of the JP Movement, fattened themselves in the name of their community; the ‘creamy layer’ which the Supreme Court has debarred from the benefits of reservation who have by their actions trivialized the issue.
When the OBC question was raised on the pretext of enumerating castes in the 2011 census I was furious. I failed to understand the argument that by counting the number of OBCs, the nation would learn the number of ‘poor’ in their caste. Poor is poor, regardless of caste. For me, the eradication of caste from our lexicon is essential for India in its attempts to establish a democratic, pluralistic nation. Gandhi, Nehru, and JP have all fought for a caste-less society.
The implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations projected V.P. Singh as a veritable messiah of social justice in the eyes of the marginalized castes. At the same time, it generated unrest with upper-caste youth taking to the streets of north India, a few even attempting to immolate themselves in protest against what they considered the ‘darkening of their future’.
This aspect came to light during the proceedings of the Liberahan Commission which was examining the demolition of the Babri Masjid. In fact, V.P. Singh, the author of the Mandal reforms, said in his deposition that L.K. Advani undertook the rath yatra in 1990 to counter the Mandal Commission’s report because the BJP was apprehensive that it might lose the support of the middle classes if the party did not oppose the report. It preferred to play the religious card which V.P. Singh believed the BJP regarded as a proper riposte to the repercussions of the Mandal issue.
V.P. Singh was not at all equipped to run a minority government, particularly becaus
e he had powerful detractors like Chandra Shekhar within his own party. I have reason to believe that he asked Lalu Prasad Yadav, chief minister of Bihar, to stop the yatra and arrest L.K. Advani. Hearing this, Atal Bihari Vajpayee went to the president to withdraw the BJP’s support to the V.P. Singh government. V.P Singh did not resign even then because he expected the Congress to support him when he was fighting a battle to sustain secularism, but the Congress did not oblige. V.P. Singh lost the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha in November 1990.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee gave me a different reason for his withdrawal of support to the V.P. Singh government, as not being precipitated by the arrest of Advani. He said that had V.P. Singh not implemented the Mandal Commission recommendation the BJP would have continued its support. ‘If there had been no Mandal we would not have used kamandal [a vessel used for prayer],’ said Vajpayee.
I resigned from my post as high commissioner as soon as I heard that the V.P. Singh’s government had fallen (10 November 1990). I was a political appointee and had no business to continue after the government which had appointed me was no longer in power. News of the fall of V.P. Singh’s government and my resignation were broadcast by All India Radio in a single bulletin.
On my departure, the House of Commons, in an unprecedented gesture, passed a resolution to commend my services.
That this House notes the contribution of the retiring High Commissioner of India, Shri Kuldip Nayar, to the enhancement of good relations between the people of India and Britain; warmly congratulates him on his initiatives in reducing the visa fees for persons who wish to visit India; commends the energetic and enthusiastic way in which he forged bonds of friendship with the communities of India origin living in Britain; hopes that these positive measures will be continued by his successor.