Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  In the face of the government’s preference for violence against the Maoists over action against vested interests, the problem has become extremely intractable. A more reasoned strategy would be to ensure that the issues are debated as thoroughly and widely as possible and that the social and cultural life in the tribal areas is not disrupted and uprooted. Above all, the crazy rush to set-up industrial plants there in the name of development has to stop. Tribes-people are entitled to seek clarity on concerns, interests, and grievances, the root causes, and areas of possible future political solutions. They are also entitled to learn about and comment on the laws and policies that are ostensibly intended to safeguard their security and the national interest. Limiting the free circulation of ideals not only diminishes plurality and diversity, but entirely undermines democracy itself.

  I have written and spoken about the environment at several seminars but never realized the reality of the imminent threat to it until one day I woke up to its destruction in the area where I live. My house is in Vasant Vihar which I built in the 1960s after getting land from a government servant housing society when I was information officer in the home ministry.

  The government’s proposal was to connect the road on which schools were situated with the airport. How could the authorities have taken such a step without thinking about the schoolchildren affected? I complained to the police but they did not react, and were in fact in favour of the suggestion. I was horrified when I learnt that the road was part of a plan to construct seven five-star hotels on the forest land in the locality which later came to be known as Vasant Kunj. I wrote a letter to the CJI under a PIL plea pointing out how the road and hotels would destroy the ecology encompassed by the centuries’ old ridge in the area. I also pointed out the low groundwater level in the area.

  Taking notice of my complaint, officiating Chief Justice Kuldip Singh, a judge literally worshipped by environmentalists, issued a stay order in my favour. The authority was also required to provide an assurance in writing that they would never construct the proposed road. Lawyers were irritated and one of them said that I would be responsible for the ‘biggest slum in Asia’. Nearly twenty years later that small patch of forest land is an oasis amidst a concrete jungle.

  The builder mafia did not however relent in their efforts. They were able to get the Supreme Court to release a portion of the forest for which I had obtained a stay order. Why Justices B.N. Kripal and J.C. Verma permitted the destruction of forest land is beyond me. However, some of us constituted a group of environmentalists and held demonstrations and sat in dharna to stop high-rise buildings mushrooming in that area. The government appointed a committee which endorsed our argument that there was insufficient water in the area to support such construction.

  This notwithstanding, malls and a range of other buildings have mushroomed despite the stay order and the case we fought in the Supreme Court. Justice Ajit Pasayat did not initially agree to stop the building until our objection was disposed of. Later, when the malls were two-third complete he pronounced that it was too late to do anything. He, however, said that a heavy fine should be imposed on the builders for having violated environmental guidelines.

  When the construction of the malls were at full swing I discovered through RTI that the fine imposed was only a lakh of rupees. The building mafias have won. What amazes me is how, through liberal deployment of financial resources, they were able to surmount every impediment, whether judicial or other. Jairam Ramesh did not control the ministry at that time and therefore it is hypothetical to guess whether he would have done anything. The way in which he ordered the demolition of other buildings in Mumbai for not having obtained environmental clearance sustains the hope that an appreciation of green areas has begun to take root.

  Even so, the defence ministry, in my limited experience, is immune to such considerations. It built flats for accommodation of service officers on the ridge without any clearance. I have written to the last two defence ministers, first George Fernandes and then A.K. Anthony, raising objections but both have turned down my request to leave the ridge free of construction because of the forest cover it provides, and serves as one of the few green lungs of Delhi. At a public hearing, which the government had ordered, at one time the plea adopted by representatives of the defence ministry was amusing. They said they had to be in proximity to the airport to enable them to reach their planes expeditiously in the event of an external attack. Apparently, they got away with this argument because the ridge is dotted with apartments for defence personnel which is altogether illegal.

  Our group of environmentalists, headed by Vikram Soni, a scientist, fighting for clean environment, tried to have the venue of the Commonwealth Games changed because the proposed village for athletes was to be built on the bank of the Yamuna. The Akshardham temple was raised on the bed of Yamuna during the Vajpayee government. Prior to the construction of the temple I had written to Vajpayee about it but his reply was that there was no such proposal and yet the temple came up. The BJP government violated all environmental norms in permitting its construction.

  When the Commonwealth Games flats were to be built, I approached the central minister, the late Arjun Singh, who convened a meeting of a group of ministers to hear us. We demonstrated before them how the concrete poured on the banks of the Yamuna would end the prospect of drawing water from the sand, which has a quality of absorbing water as does a sponge. This water could be easily sucked out and could supply drinking water to the entire population of Delhi.

  Apparently, the government was not willing to change the site because the argument was that they had gone too far in their preparations to build the village. Jaipal Reddy, then minister for urban development, did ask me if there was any alternative. I told him that they could erect collapsible structures which could be dismantled once the games were over. This was mere talk because the venue was not changed. Too many hands had their fingers in pie which subsequently became one of India’s biggest scams.

  3

  Annexure

  Indo-Pak Relations

  For me, the partition of India is not an academic subject, which can be analysed and discussed dispassionately, but a series of incidents etched in my memory that haunt me to this day. Our house in Sialkot, the town in Pakistan where I was born and where my father was a well-known and well-loved medical physician; my father’s Muslim friends whom we referred to individually as chacha (uncle); the shops from which we bought chocolates, lozenges, and chewing gum; the school where I studied, my teachers; close friends, many of them Muslim; our affectionate Muslim neighbours; the wonderful food we ate. The searing days of Partition; the savage riots, of burning, looting, killing, when men became beasts; how we left Sialkot without knowing that we would never return to our home and how I got a few inches of space in an old army jeep driving to India. How, when we were passing Wazirabad, about 30 miles from Sialkot, we saw long lines of haggard refugees attempting to trek to India; an old Sikh, with a flowing beard flecked with grey, who tried to hand over his young and only grandson to me pleading pitifully, ‘He is all we have. Please, take him to India. At least, he should live’; the young woman who tried to thrust her child into the jeep imploring, ‘I shall locate you when we cross over to India and collect my son. Please take him with you’; how it broke my heart when we could not accommodate either of the two children because there was not an inch of free space in the jeep; the never-ending waves of refugees with terror-sculpted faces going to India or coming to Pakistan along the same road …

  Life for me has been no crystal stair.

  It’s had tacks in it,

  And splinters,

  And boards torn up

  And places with no carpet on the floor

  These lines from ‘Mother to Son’ by Langston Hughes (from Hewz), the American poet, aptly sums up the history of Indo–Pak relations.

  The course of Indo–Pak relations, like the course of Shakespeare’s ‘true love’, never ran smooth. Right from the d
ay after the constitution of Pakistan was adopted there were problems: exchange of documents, compensation, Junagarh, infiltration into Kashmir, the 1965 war, the Bangladesh war, Kargil ... and so the list meanders on endlessly. Not all the perfumes of the Tashkent and Shimla agreements, nor of the bus yatra to Lahore could sweeten relations between the two countries. As for the present, distrust and suspicion has overtaken the two countries. There is no conflict but there is no settlement either. No hostility but no harmony either. Both continue to remain, though geographically side by side, distant neighbours.

  Immediately after the constitution of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah assured its citizens: ‘You may belong to any religion or caste or creed; that has nothing to do with fundamental principle that we are citizens and equal citizens of one State.’ This was, however, an empty assurance which was never translated into action, perhaps because Jinnah died soon thereafter. Religious elements interpreted the new Muslim state in their own way.

  India, though a secular state, could not give the same status to the minorities as the majority enjoyed. The coexistence by the two principal communities, Hindus and Muslim, has developed into a way of living. The unfortunate part is that Muslims have been driven to live in separate localities, mostly slums. As the Muslim middle class had by and large migrated to Pakistan, the Hindu middle class came to develop exclusively Hindu environs uninfluenced by Muslim culture or people.

  I recall that when I met Rafaqat Ali and his professor wife Mausuma in Delhi, her first remark was: ‘We can always take shelter at your house when Hindus want to turn us out from our place.’ I realized then how insecure Muslims felt after six decades of Independence. They still suffer from the same fear.

  The sharpest thorn in Indo–Pak relations has been Kashmir. Nothing has bedeviled them more than this beautiful mountainous state. Kashmiris say that their state is ‘a heaven on earth’, but this ‘heaven’ has played hell with Indo–Pak relations from the very outset. Maharaja Hari Singh, its ruler, was more to blame than anyone else for this dispute. Had he decided on Kashmir’s accession before 15 August 1947, when Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Crown representative, had the authority to see it through, there would have been no trouble and no Kashmir problem. After Independence, both India and Pakistan claimed the state.

  Blinkered political leaders and bureaucrats on both sides, rather than bridging the gulf between the two countries, have only widened it. This is because they find that the more rigid the approach they espouse against the country across the border, the higher they rise in public esteem.

  Foreign powers have also contributed a great deal in keeping the two countries apart. Through arms and economic assistance, they have stoked the fires of enmity. They have been following a ‘keep-them-divided’ policy, either to preserve their ‘spheres of influence’ and ‘area of interest’ or to maintain the so-called ‘balance of power’ in the region.

  Another reason which may have contributed to the worsening relations between the two countries is a lack of leaders of stature. Jinnah died shortly after the constitution of Pakistan, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated within a year of India’s Independence. Pakistan had, after Jinnah, leaders like Liaquat Ali Khan, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who sorely lacked Jinnah’s stature. After the death of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in India too there were no great leaders to speak of. Had Gandhi been alive – he announced that after Partition he would live in Karachi – and had Pakistan a leader of Jinnah’s stature, Indo–Pak relations might have taken a very different turn for the better.

  I say, ‘might have’, because I am not certain that this would have been the outcome. Sometimes I think there is much truth in what Nehru said: ‘Even if Kashmir were to be handed over to Pakistan on a platter, Pakistan would think of some other way to keep its quarrel with India alive because Kashmir was only a symptom of a disease and that disease was hatred of India.’ I have a feeling that Pakistan seeks to keep that hatred alive because it is that which provides it with its ethos, its raison d’etre. This is evident to me in the textbooks the students are taught.

  Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman, the Bangladesh leader, once told me in an interview: All along Pakistan has preached four things: one, Islam is in danger; two, the Hindu is a kafir; three, India is the enemy; and four, Kashmir must be conquered. The Pakistanis have been fed on this propaganda for many years. The hate campaign unleashed in that country is even against the tenets of Islam. Unless there is a change in the mentality of the people of Pakistan, they cannot get out of their make-believe world.

  The political parties in India with a communal outlook have been muddying the water. There is a limited liberal opinion which understands the plight in which Pakistan is enmeshed. A very few in the government are willing to provide some flexibility to improve relations with Pakistan. There is no point in arguing about who is responsible for the situation. The moot point is that the situation must change, and the easing of visa restrictions, preferably its abolition, would help people-to-people contact which is currently very limited.

  Yet, relations between the two countries might have been normal had Pakistan not been taken over by the military within a few years of Independence. The country has gone through three coups and even when the army has returned to the barracks its writ has run without any opposition. India has failed to appreciate the problems that the people in Pakistan face because of army control, on the one hand, and the pressure of fundamentalism, on the other. A more liberal attitude would have helped. Both New Delhi and Islamabad have to realize that there is no alternative to peace.

  What then can bring about this change? Many things. The subcontinent can carve out its own destiny in accordance with its own genius if foreign powers allow it to do so and if the two nations are allowed to look within, not without. With time, they may be able to forget their animosity and mistrust. Jinnah himself once underscored this point: ‘Some nations have killed millions of each other’s and yet, an enemy of today is a friend of tomorrow. That is history.’ He thought India and Pakistan would be like the US and Canada.

  Normalization is the first necessary precondition to kick-start a new era in Indo–Pak relations. Economic and cultural relations will develop from there. All this means that there should be soft borders to enable the people of the two countries to intermingle freely. Such continuing contact will clear up the doubts and banish the fears that have taken root in the minds of the people of the two nations. This continuing dialogue will not only ease tension and mute jingoism but its fallout may even help restore democracy in Pakistan.

  The importance of such an interchange also lies in its strengthening our of secular ethos, because otherwise many people in India, harping on the sentiments of Partition, can transform anti-Pakistan feelings into anti-Muslim feelings. Once I told Benazir Bhutto at London a few days before her assassination at Karachi that India could give democracy to Pakistan and Pakistan to India its determination to fight against all odds to remain secular. She said: ‘I shall make the subcontinent borderless.’ She gave me a copy of document, a charter for democracy, signed by her and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

  The charter opened with words: ‘We the elected leaders of Pakistan have deliberated on the political crisis in our beloved homeland, the threats to its survival, the erosion of the federation’s unity, the military’s subordination of all state institutions, the marginalization of civil society, the mockery of the Constitution and representative institutions, growing poverty, unemployment and inequality, brutalization of society, breakdown of rule of law and, the unprecedented hardships facing our people under a military dictatorship, which has pushed our beloved country to the brink of a total disaster.’

  As for Kashmir, it is not an insoluble problem and can be resolved through mutual cooperation and understanding. Some proposals for an agreement that does not alter the existing borders have won the support of governments on both sides. What Pakistan must bear in mind is that India will never agree to another
partition on the basis of religion. I think that the state of Jammu & Kashmir can get all the autonomy, even outside the constitution but not outside the Indian union.

  Trade and commerce between the two countries must be accelerated. Communication and transport facilities should be restored and people-to-people contacts must be encouraged. If these things happen, a favourable atmosphere would be generated to sort out other problems and cut Kashmir’s Gordian knot.

  An economic common market, involving India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, is another way of easing the tension. Though the idea is good, it may not mature for quite a while in the future because India is a developed country in comparison with the other two, but the idea is worth pursuing. When I spoke to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1972, he said, that a European model of economic union would take some years to mature; not until Pakistan had developed economically.

  I feel that the charter of democracy which Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif signed in London when both were in the wilderness can be applicable to the subcontinent as a whole. It spoke of democracy without dictators or military leaders destroying or diluting it and at the same time promised a welfare state. I also hope that an economic union like that in Europe will develop one day and a single visa that will enable people to travel and trade in the entire South Asian region.

  I am confident that the high walls of fear and distrust will crumble one day and that the two nations, without sacrificing their separate identities, will work together for the common good. This is the faith that has sustained me ever since I left Sialkot, over sixty years ago and it is the straw I have clutched in the sea of hatred and hostility that has engulfed the subcontinent.