Notes On the Great Indian Circus

by Khushwant Singh

  More fortunately, the State government under Mayawati and the Central government represented by the state minister of home affairs, Mr Rajesh Pilot, realized in good time that the only way to deal with bullies is to call their bluff. Mathura was cordoned off; black-cat commandos posted round the mosque for its protection, and miscreants warned that any attempt to enter the mosque or hoist flags on it would be repulsed by gunfire. Pilot himself flew to Mathura to oversee the bandobast. Nothing happened. Hindu pilgrims performed their worship as before; and there was song and dance to commemorate the birth of Shri Krishna (the paradigm of a divine lover). No harm was done to Muslim life, property or places of worship.

  Mayawati, Pilot and all other officers who saw to it that there was no repetition of Ayodhya at Mathura deserved the gratitude of the nation.

  We have much more to do than prevent periodic threats to Muslim places of worship. We have to persuade right-wing Hindu communal parties like the BJP, VHP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and the RSS to take mosque-breaking out of their agendas. If they refuse to do so, it is the patriotic duty of every Indian to dissociate himself from every one of them.

  The Tribune, 26 August 1995

  ▇

  Indian Pantomime

  Indian politics has become a pantomime and a comic charade. All we need is a gifted dramatist to produce a play based on the activities of our political leaders and he will have the nation going into fits of laughter. The central characters of his pantomime could be members of the ‘royal’ family because it is around them that many of our netas pirouette like puppets on strings of their own making.

  Recall the days when Rajiv Gandhi was a pilot in Indian Airlines. He was a strictly private person who assiduously kept his distance from politicians. Then recall the emergence of his younger brother, Sanjay, as the dominant figure behind his mother Indira Gandhi. And his wife Maneka striding the political stage alongside. Then one black day, Sanjay killed himself in an air crash. The scene at the Gandhi residence changed dramatically. Long queues of ambitious politicians that stood patiently for hours on the Sanjay-Maneka part of the house suddenly started queuing up in front of the portion occupied by Rajiv, Sonia and their children. Rajiv reluctantly emerged out of the cockpit of his plane to help his mother with her job. Maneka who was more into politics was unceremoniously thrown out of the house with her infant son because she had political ambitions. Rajiv, till that point abhorred politics; his wife Sonia threatened to divorce him and quit India if he joined politics. Both changed their minds. When Mrs Gandhi was assassinated, Rajiv ascended the throne. When he was temporarily dethroned, Maneka staged a comeback and became a minister in the Central government. Her government fell and Rajiv was back in centre stage; Maneka retired to comparative oblivion to look after stray cats and dogs and make speeches. Then Rajiv was tragically removed from the scene. A very reticent Sonia became the focus of attention, a kind of Rajmata or Regent till one of her children come of age to move to centre stage. Maneka and her son Feroze Varun were out of the reckoning because after Sanjay’s death, Mrs Gandhi had anointed Rajiv and Sonia as her heirs. But Maneka and Feroze Varun’s day may yet come when the Congress party is thrown out of power. Other parties will need icons from the same family; Maneka and Feroze may be their choice.

  All this went through my mind as I read of Sonia and Priyanka’s visit to the ancestral constituency, Amethi. Sonia said very little, but enough to cause deep depression in the ruling Congress heirarchy and jubilation in the Arjun Singh-Tiwari camp. She has further jeopardized the chances of Narasimha Rao’s followers returning to power. Have we as a nation grown to maturity? We call ourselves the greatest democracy in the world—when in fact we are only the largest in numbers still holding on to the apron strings of one dynasty.

  The Hindustan Times, 2 September 1995

  ▇

  Princely Parasites

  The more I read about our princely families, the more I am convinced that the world has not seen a more debauched and useless class of parasites. The oil-rich Arab Sheikhs are following their examples in wasteful spending. So are some of our newly-rich and politicians who regard public money as their private property to be squandered at their whims.

  Instances of wilful, wasteful, criminal spending of State treasuries by our princes have passed into legend. Start with the last Nizam of Hyderabad. Though he wore plain kurta-pajama and a tattered fez cap on his head, he had a paperweight, the Jacob diamond, ‘a stone the size of a lime, 280 sparkling precious carats. In the overgrown garden was a convoy of a dozen trucks mired in mud upto their axles from the weight of their load—solid gold ingots. The Nizam’s jewels, a collection so enormous it was said the pearls alone would cover all the pavements of Piccadilly Circus, were spilled like coals in a scuttle on the floors of his cellars; sapphires, emeralds, rubies, diamonds, mingled in indiscriminate heaps. He had well over two million pounds in cash—sterling, rupees—wrapped in old newspapers, stuck in dusty corners of the palace’s basement and attic. There they earned a kind of negative interest from the jaws of the rats who annually gnawed their way through thousands of pounds of the Nizam’s fortune’ (The Indus Saga).

  The Maharajah of Mysore had a palace with 600 rooms. He was also worried over his potency. Under advice of a quack he went on a diet of crushed diamonds. Ladies who were the objects of his lust were often paraded on elephants loaded with gold and diamond jewellery. The Maharajah of Baroda caparisoned his favourite elephant with gold chains estimated to be worth £ 25,000. He also boasted of owning the seventh biggest diamond, Star of the South. The Maharajah of Patiala had 27 Rolls Royces; Bharatpur had his Rolls custom-built and silver-plated. The Nawab of Junagadh had an elaborate wedding ritual for his favourite bitch.

  The Maharajah of Kapurthala (one of the smaller states), wore the largest topaz in the world in his turban with strings of pearls and diamonds round his neck. Jaipur buried much of his hoard of precious stones under walls of his forts. These fellows could do all this under the benign patronage of the British who treated them like spoilt children with too many toys. In return, the princes vied with each other to protest their undying loyalty to the British Royal family. His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad sported the grandiose titles that matched their pretensions of greatness. The Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, for instance, was ‘Rustam-e-Dauran, Arustu-e-Zaman Wal Mumalik, Asif Jah, Jawab Mir Usman, Alikhan Bahadar, Musafrul Mulk Nizam-al-Mad, Sipah Salar Fateh jang, His Exalted Highness, Most Faithful Ally of the British.’

  There is evidently a nexus between unaccountable wealth, its ostentatious display and stupidity. Some years ago a Sindhi NRI flew plane loads of baraatees from London to Bombay. They included the bridegroom’s personal hairdresser. The banquet arranged at the Taj Mahal Hotel had bottles of French champagne and vintage wines to go with caviar and other delicacies. It was their money; they had every right to blow it up as they liked. It never occurred to them that the same money would have fed a 100 million impoverished families for a decade or more.

  What appalled more was that Jayalalitha, a nice, educated woman, could have been so reckless in squandering crores of rupees at the nuptials of her foster son. The moral is that money which can keep you in modest comfort is digestable; surfeit of it acts like a purgative.

  The Tribune, 21 September 1996

  ▇

  Men of Straw

  There is nothing magical about the birthdays of persons or nations. Nevertheless we continue to celebrate them as if they mattered a great deal. Humans get older by the years; they mature, perhaps get wiser and after 50, begin to decay physically and mentally. Nations should only get more mature, learn from past mistakes and leave a legacy of wisdom for future generations. This year we turn 50 as a free nation. Preparations are afoot to celebrate this birth anniversary on a grand scale. TV and radio programmes, seminars, parades and state ceremonials are planned. Foreign media are equally excited about informing their viewers and readers what half-a-century old India looks like. I h
ave been signed on by more than a dozen European and American TV teams to record how I feel at 82 about my country. One team plans to take me to the village in Pakistan where I was born, to Lahore, from where I graduated and later practised law till Partition. What do I tell them? Despair at the division of the country? Euphoria of the first few years of Independence? Disillusionment and disenchantment beginning with the reign of Indira Gandhi and the continuing rot to this day?

  I recall the sense of outrage at the words of Winston Churchill who was doggedly opposed to the Labour Party’s promise to concede independence to India. A few months before our Independence Day, he said:

  ‘Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. Not a bottle of water or a loaf of bread will escape taxation. Only the air will be free, and the blood of these hungry millions will be on the head of Prime Minister Clement Attlee. These are men of straw of whom no trace will be found after a few years. They will fight among themselves and India will be lost in political squabbles.’

  This was arrant nonsense. Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad and Pant were not men of straw. They were men of vision with clear ideas of what they would do with India: they would make it a secular democracy with a Constitution based on the British model. They gave women equal rights as men in matters of employment, inheritance, marriage and divorce; they outlawed the practice of untouchability; they strove to make the country self-sufficient in food and consumer goods; they were careful enough not to tamper with the independence of the judiciary; they assured freedom of expression to the press, and they kept the armed services out of politics. The decay set in with Indira Gandhi. Thereafter, all our top leaders were indeed ‘men of straw, rascals, rogues and freebooters . . .’ They fought among themselves and ‘India seems to be lost in political squabbles.’

  What could be a more fitting finale to the tragic dream of 50 years of self-rule than that 19 members of the central Cabinet of an outgoing ministry should have been forced to resign on charges of corruption and their boss, the ex-prime minister stands trial for being a Char-Sau-Bees!

  The Hindustan Times, 26 October 1996

  ▇

  The Dilemma: Whom to Vote For

  Our political leaders have forced another general election on us. We did not want it. We cannot afford the luxury of going to the polls every other year. Above all, most of us are very confused and cannot make up our minds whom to vote for. Our choice: we would like him or her to belong to the party which will win a clear majority and provide the country a stable government. Personally, I am of the opinion that we should have opted for a Presidential form of government and thus avoided the expensive nuisance of periodical elections. However, this time we have to make do with the system we have and make up our minds in the next four months left to us to do so.

  The first question we should ask ourselves is who will make the best prime minister. Allama Iqbal named three characteristics that a meer-e-kaarvaan, leader of the caravan, should have: nigah buland (lofty vision), sukhan dilnawaaz (heart-winning speech), and jaan pur soze—a warm heart. I can draw up a list of men and women who have these qualities in different measures: Jyoti Basu, Manmohan Singh, Arjun Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Sangma, Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, Digvijay Singh, Madhavrao Scindia, George Fernandes, Rajesh Pilot, Sheila Dikshit and perhaps a few others. Given the chance, I am sure any one of them would make a good prime minister.

  But without doubt the majority of my countrymen and women will agree that Atal Bihari Vajpayee is better endowed than any other candidate. He has a broad vision; he is much the best orator in the country and is a very warm person totally devoid of arrogance. He was not given a fair chance to rule: thirteen days the first time, thirteen months the second time, but saddled with allies who often behaved like enemies. Seemaab Akbarabadi’s lines come to mind:

  Phir main aayaah hoon teyrey pass, ai meer-e- kaarvaan,

  Chhor aaya ttha jhaan too, voh meyree manzil na tthee

  (Once more I come to you, leader of my caravan,

  Where you left me, was not my destination.) Nothing would please me more than to see Vajpayee once again at the helm of the country’s affairs. But—this is a very big ‘but’—provided he sheds his backward-looking, narrow-minded advisers, obsessed with pointless disputes over temples, mosques, churches and gurudwaras. He must get rid of dead wood; he must not take dictation from Hindu fundamentalists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the RSS, Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal. He should pay no heed to religion-based political parties like the Muslim League and the Akali Dal. He may be surprised, pleasantly surprised, to discover how much more acceptable he will become to most of us.

  I realize I am very unrealistic. There is nothing wrong in hoping against hope that those I regard undesirable will be defeated at the polls. There is nothing wrong in dreaming of a Mahaan Bharatvarsha.

  The Hindustan Times, 22 May 1999

  ▇

  Events

  Komagata What?

  A younger preparing for his general knowledge paper asked me to test his information. He had crammed names of capitals, heads of states and what acronyms like MCC, UNO, UNICEF etc. stood for. I tried him out on events from recent history. ‘What and when was the Komagata Maru?’ I asked.

  ‘Komagata what?’ he asked very puzzled, ‘Never heard of it. It’s not in my GK cram book.’

  That, perhaps, would be the reaction of most people of the younger generation. It would surprise them to know that it was an important milestone in our freedom movement and that a play entitled The Komagata Maru Incident is currently doing the rounds of major cities of England. It is written by Sharon Pollock and produced by the Jericho Theatrical Productions. Although the theme is almost entirely Indian, the director and most of the cast are English, Canadian or Caribbean. The only two Indians amongst the actors are Rashid Karapiet, once an announcer on AI Radio and Jamila Massey, wife of poet Reginald Massey. They picked on this incident that took place 70 years ago because it was an early example of racial prejudice and has bearing on the attitude of the Caucasian races towards the coloured to this day.

  The scene is laid in Vancouver (Canada). The time is the summer of 1914. A few thousand Indian emigrants ‘mainly retired Sikh soldiers’ have found employment in lumber mills. Even the presence of this small group in a vast, unpopulated country has created hatred in the minds of Canadians of European descent. A popular song is entitled ‘White Canada Forever’.

  We welcome as brothers all white men still.

  But the shifty yellow race,

  Whose word is vain, who oppress the weak

  Must find another place.

  To Oriental grasp and greed

  We’ll surrender, no never.

  Our watchword be ‘God save the King’

  White Canada forever.

  Exactly 71 years ago this May, a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru chartered by one Gurdit Singh of Sarhali arrived in Vancouver with 376 Indians intending to settle in Canada. The Prime Minister of British Colombia, Sir Richard MacBride, refused to let them come ashore. ‘To admit Orientals in such large numbers would mean in the end, the extinction of the white people and we have always in mind the necessity of keeping this a white man’s country,’ he said.

  For two months the ship stayed in Vancouver harbour till it was forced out by Canadian gunboats. When the ship arrived at Budge Budge (near Calcutta), Indian police tried to force its passengers into railway trains. A fracas ensued: the police opened fire killing 18 and wounding another 25.

  Some years ago a Hindi film made on this episode proved to be a flop. Now the same incident has been turned out into a successful play. Some enterprising organization should get it over to India.

  Sunday, 15 June 1985

  ▇

  Canada and the Air India Disaster

  One advantage of being a Member of Parliament as well as a columnist is to be able to air views which are ruled out by the presiding officer. I had given notice of special mention on a personal letter written
by Brian Mulroney, prime minister of Canada, to Rajiv Gandhi, that Mulroney had released to the Canadian press. A clipping was sent to me by an agitated Indian national, K. Sabir, who felt that its publication in Toronto’s Globe & Mail was a violation of diplomatic propriety. Since it also deals with security measures taken at Canadian and Indian airports and goes out of its way to tender advice to our prime minister on matters which are entirely his business, I felt the issue deserved to be debated in Parliament. Vice-President R. Venkataraman who presides over the Rajya Sabha did not think so. That was his judgement. This is mine.

  It may be recalled that the flight of the Air India plane which went down in the sea with 329 people aboard and the Canadian Pacific plane which narrowly escaped disaster, emanated from Canada. Explosive devices were planted in them, in one of the three Canadian airports: Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. Canada is the nerve centre of Indian extremists from where they maintain liaison with their counterparts in Punjab. It is largely in Canada that the buffoonery of Khalistani consulates, passports and currency are to be found and where the megalomaniac Jagjit Singh Chauhan is often seen. It was after the air disaster that Rajiv Gandhi made the perfectly innocuous statement that the government of Canada ‘was not being stern enough with terrorists earlier’ and the Times of India described its attitude as ‘could-not-careless.’

  Brian Mulroney took umbrage. Canadians did care; their airport security was ‘at least as intensive as at airports, in, for example, Bombay and Calcutta,’ he maintained. ‘What more did Rajiv expect them to do within the limits of their democratic society?’ he asked. ‘In the absence of constructive advice, condemnation of this country’s (Canada’s) efforts may strike many Canadians as gratuitious,’ he added. The Canadian Prime Minister went on to write: ‘I wish to avoid mutual recriminations as well as interference in India’s internal affairs. Clearly however, the terrorism now implanted on Canadian soil has its roots in the unresolved political tensions of the Punjab.’ In short, he told Rajiv to put his own house in order before pointing the accusing finger at Canada.