We were now entering the Girab area, the westernmost limit of my clan. I felt distinctly cheered because it felt like a homecoming. But my spirits soon plummeted as the effect of all the lime juice that I had been drinking got the acids working overtime in my stomach. I had to gobble some biscuits rather quickly to calm my stomach. I began to feel better; and later, when I saw Chitra in Barmer, I felt even better. I asked her where Harshini was and all she said was, ‘Your daughter!’ Harshini had not come to Barmer with Chitra, which meant I would not see her before she returned to her boarding school. Just as well, I thought, since saying goodbye to Hamir had made me miserable when he went back to school, and to see Harshini depart would certainly make me feel worse.
26 March 2009
While yesterday’s rounds had been at the western end of the Shiv Assembly segment, today’s were on the eastern side. And all the villages to be covered were on either side of National Highway 15. It was going to be a constant hopping across the highway, to the left and the right of it. There were twenty-one scheduled stops to be made, and no scope for wasting time. In this part of the constituency, with the distances involved, anything above fifteen meetings was unusual.
The first stop was at Rohili, and the programme had been arranged by Umaid Ali Fakir. His family have served the longest in this area as fakirs and are the officials of the Pir of Pagaro in Sindh. He has been in touch with me and consistently supportive since my first election. I had helped him a lot after that election but had not really kept up with him during the last few years. It was not that we had become estranged or any such thing. His son Hanif was there for the programme and wore a sour expression throughout. He is now the deputy pradhan for Baytu, which is one of the four panchayat samitis that the Shiv Assembly constituency covers.
Then it was back on the highway for Nimbla, which lies to its west. The meeting was interrupted by requests to intervene in an internal dispute that was tearing the village apart. A community hall had been sanctioned from my MP Local Area Development Scheme and two groups were contesting over the spot where it should be constructed. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, I thought to myself.
Nagarda is east of the highway, so we crossed it again to reach Qayam ki Basti, the village which has quite possibly the toughest sarpanch in the constituency. Bhavani Singh is a lawyer by training and practice and has only recently begun to contest panchayat elections. And in the process, got himself re-elected a couple of times. Not one to succumb to any kind of greed, he has had the guts to deny well-connected persons any scope for putting their fingers in the till. One of the schemes that had introduced a lot of corruption into the area is Swajaldhara, designed to provide drinking water in a public–private partnership. The panchayat is supposed to collect seed money from the people, and the government makes up the rest of the amount, which is then used to fund the development of sources of water—invariably tube wells—and their distribution across the panchayat. In practice, the local supplier of PVC pipes puts up the seed money, since his sales are then guaranteed. Various sarpanches had signed up to partake in this scheme, but not Bhavani Singh.
The meeting here was held near the compound of a temple and was attended by both Hindus and Muslims. Both need the shade equally, I thought, as all sat together, unconcerned about anyone defiling the sanctity of the temple. As the name suggests, Qayam ki Basti is almost entirely a Muslim village, and it is under the spell of Bhavani Singh. While the other villages in the panchayat get divided during the sarpanch elections, Qayam ki Basti votes en bloc for Bhavani Singh, making him one of the few persons in the area favoured by all. A large number had gathered for the meeting, and one of them said to me, ‘You fought to give our sarpanch a great medical centre, so during this tenure, give us one in Qayam ki Basti.’ Then he added, rather sweetly: ‘But right now, make do with just the shade of this tree.’ The story of that primary health centre was telling—about how personal prejudices come into play even in such a basic need, and how patronage hampers development. As part of the Border Area Development Programme, a number of primary health centres were to be set up. I was one of those who wanted a centre in Bhavani Singh’s village as there was no health facility anywhere around. But there were some who thought such allocations should be made on the basis of the way the villages voted in the elections. This is the sad and absolutely true fact of the way development happens in the country.
The meetings at Mokhab and Kaashmir were rather hurried, as I did not expect much support there. This has been the case since the first election, and none of my efforts has been able to change preconceived notions. The Undu meeting was held outside Swarup Singh’s shop which sells agricultural implements. This belt has the best subsoil water, which also means that it is the most over-extracted in the district now. In fact, water from Undu is being supplied all the way to the Pachpadra tehsil. How long this can continue is anybody’s guess, but certainly not for very long. Kanasar was next, and the meeting was held by the roadside, without fanfare. Those who were in attendance had quite clearly made up their minds in advance, one group among them saying, ‘Campaigning is not required, as you have done enough to help us meet our relatives in Pakistan. ‘I had forgotten that these people were amongst those whom I had helped.
Aarang and Chochra are areas under the influence of Girdhar Singh, a person with as solid a grip as Bhavani Singh, the Nagarda sarpanch, but with a completely different personality—gentle, quite unlike the lawyer. We had good, satisfying meetings here. The next meeting, at Bhinyad, was well organized, after which we had lunch at the house of the sarpanch. It was a new construction, and obviously he was doing rather well. He was also one of those selected by the government of Rajasthan as part of a delegation that had gone to Israel to study agricultural techniques. There is so much difference between the two countries, as regards ownership of land, access to water and capital expenditure, that I really cannot understand how such visits benefit the farmers here.
Balai is off the main road that connects all these villages to the national highway. The policeman provided as my security officer comes from here. The meeting was in a quaint community hall built decades before the government made funds available for such facilities. I thought the old one was so much better than the new, hideous Public Works Department (PWD)-designed ones that are constructed without taking light, air or heat into consideration.
In terms of its size, Bissu is a village that punches well above its weight. Despite being moderately sized, it manages to be politically high profile. It is dominated by the Rajpurohits, and my upbringing makes me deferential towards them, since they are the sect of Brahmins who are our family priests. This was also the case in Pushad and Dharvi Kala. I was surprised, though, how warm and pleasant Punam Singh Rajpurohit was throughout the tour. He is active in the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and in the campaign for reservations for Brahmins. Since I had not paid much attention to either, I had wondered how he would behave towards me. After the meetings were over, he took me aside, and I thought, oh well, here it comes. But all that he said was: ‘Now you realize who amongst the Rajpurohits has the votes and the support! It is definitely not the ones you have been supporting.’ I nodded, much relieved. I recounted this to Hukum Singh, my driver, who is also a Rajpurohit. He wasn’t convinced, since each thinks of himself as more influential than the other.
Rajdal was again off the highway, and Amba Lal took our entire group still farther away to visit a nephew of his, who was living in a hut after renouncing the world. It did look very sparse, and his nephew did not utter a word. Amba Lal is a Rajpurohit and has a master’s degree in Urdu and Sindhi, as he was educated in Sindh and moved to India after the 1971 war. I had not guessed it earlier, but noticed it today from the way he tied his safa, in the Sindhi style. Khudal and Bariyala were on the highway and populated largely by wartime refugees from Pakistan. The meeting at Goonga was held in the forecourt of the big temple in the village. Evening meetings along the highway are a risky affair as, by then
, moods are under the influence of other things. And sure enough, a prominent person of the village, who had been holding a grouse against me for some time, ticked me off for giving preference to some other people. I heard him out in silence and made a point of displaying respect to him at the time of departure.
The Shiv meeting was very thinly attended and was again in the forecourt of a temple under construction. The Aagoriya meeting did not take place at all because, by the time we reached, word had gone around that we would not be coming at all. ‘But you do not have to worry about support from this village in any case,’ those who were there assured me as I turned the car around.
Shafi began his ‘night-time raids’ today. When I returned to Barmer, I was surprised by a phone call informing me about a group brought by him. When I got to his house in the town, there were about forty-odd people sitting there, all Muslims, at least one from every village of the Ramsar tehsil. He had brought them by the jeep loads. Before the introductions began, Shafi’s neighbours—a couple—arrived to give me the traditional greeting. The woman came bearing a thali with a diya and kumkum that was applied on my forehead. I felt distinctly self-conscious and tongue-tied during the whole ritual, which was a new experience for me, and something that Shafi had planned quite by himself. Once this was done, Shafi explained his concept to the whole gathering.
He said that everyone present there appreciated my politics of dealing directly with the people rather than through intermediaries— dalals, he called them. That is why those people were here to meet me, he said, to get to know me personally and interact directly with me. I thanked all of them, and then explained to them that dalals were interested only in keeping their shops running on the business of deals between politicians and the public, in which everybody loses except the dalal. ‘I have been totally against it from the beginning, which you all know.’ I then told them that I was under pressure daily to call some important person or the other and plead with them to support me, but I have not done it and I will not do it. I would manao the poor but not the dalal, I said, ending my bit. They were very pleased and said so repeatedly.
Later, Durjan, a friend and supporter who straddles politics in the Barmer and the Jaisalmer districts, told me that he had taken the whole lot to the late-night dhabas near the railway station, where he had bumped into Govind Thori, a Congress youth activist. Govind asked Durjan who the people with him were, but did not believe his explanation that they were shawl salesmen returning to their work in Gujarat. ‘They look like netas and not shawlwalas,’ Govind said, and added that their support for me would make it very difficult for Harish, the Congress candidate.
I smiled at that. It also reminded me of the last entry made in the diary of a Pakistan army captain during the 1999 Kargil War, which was recovered by one of the Indian battalions. In a very clear hand, the entry for 3 July 1999 recorded: ‘How do you defeat an enemy who has already defeated you in his mind?’ It is a line that seems to have been permanently lodged in my mind. For this is what I am hoping to do as well.
27 March 2009
Today is the first day of Navaratra. The programme has been made in such a way as to keep time aside for the opening puja. Since the auspicious timing was mid-morning, I was able to squeeze in a few meetings before reaching the temple venue. The meetings turned out to be, essentially, visits to various dhanis, and I had to ask Ram Singh Bothiya, a prominent youth-wing leader of the BJP and particularly active in his Rajpurohit community, why he had planned them. He said it could not be avoided, as people were insistent that I come. This really irritated me. I told him very firmly that if I were to go from dhani to dhani in an area to which I have given everything, then how would the campaign reach anywhere else?
I was referring to the land-acquisition controversy that had plagued this particular area for almost the last two years. Almost 8000 hectares were to be acquired for mining lignite, and when the farmers had complained to me, I had given them my fullest support. I am essentially against thermal power plants and the lignite was required for one of them. I am also against the whole arbitrary process of acquisition. Until amendments are made in a proper manner, the Land Acquisition Act functions in a totally colonial manner, for it is rooted in that era. The news spread in all directions, and a story was even planted in a state-level Hindi daily that I was anti-development. It got to the point where the state BJP president asked me to clarify matters. All this had happened the previous year. After that, I undertook the full Navaratra fast—my first one ever, consuming only milk and fruits. I pitched a tent in the middle of the acquisition area, surrounded by shrubs, and stayed there through all the nine days, without food or electricity. Overlooking the whole area is an old Nagnechi temple, dedicated to the presiding deity of my clan who is depicted as half-woman, half-serpent, and I could not have found a more auspicious place to do the full nine days’ fast. It sits on top of a small sand dune and is surrounded by a jungle of shrubs and trees. After a good rainfall, the naadi fills up quite considerably, making a spectacular sight in the desert.
Today, I went back to the same temple for the first day’s puja. And it was the same priest as last year. I told him that those nine days last year were a high point in my political career. He is a young teacher who doubles as a priest when the occasion demands it. The naadi nearby had a lot of water in it, more than I have ever seen. During my fast last year, I used to walk through it in the afternoon to sit under one of the trees across from it and read.
The puja took quite a long time, and when it was over, we had to leave in a hurry as the other programmes were getting held up. Bhadkha is a highway village that, like many others around the country, saw progress and development when the highway—in this case National Highway 15—touched it. What was ignored, though, was its incredible heritage. The math at Bhadkha must have been quite something in its heyday. Local lore links it to the palace of Jodhpur, from the seventeenth century. But today it lies in ruins covering a vast area off the highway. It is always my first stop whenever a programme is held in Bhadkha. And that was the case again today, where I lit a jyot and then went to the meeting in the old village centre.
The discussion today was about medical services—how the male nurse was having it off with the female nurse, and the hospital was being neglected on that account. I told them I would speak with the district chief medical health officer (CMHO), and they should meet him. I did call the CMHO later and made the request. He said he had received a complaint earlier as well, but the male nurse had major political backing, whereupon I suggested posting another female nurse.
On the sidelines of the assembly, I observed some whispering and planning about stopping at some point on the way. I knew nothing about it, so when the meeting dispersed, I led the way in my Scorpio. Before Thumbli, I noticed some of the other vehicles had dropped off, and it was then that I realized they must have halted at Dau’s dhani. Dau, the local point man for the BJP, had obviously planned a meal in his dhani about which everyone presumed I had been informed. I did not want anyone taking my presence for granted and, this being the first day of Navaratra, there were other programmes to think about, so I didn’t go there.
Thumbli was another Nagnechi temple programme, and there were a large number of women today on account of the festivities. I remembered an incident from my previous visit. Soon after becoming an MP, when I had come to this temple, the local power-plant authorities had decided to show off their corporate social-responsibility contribution. They were reconstructing the temple in the form of a ghastly concrete shell. I told the officials that it was a tasteless creation and advised the villagers to carry out the repairs by themselves. They had done so, subsequently, by raising money from contributions, and raised a structure that truly reflected local art and architecture. I felt very proud of them when I went in to do my darshan. But they did say that funds were running short now, so I promised to do what I could after the elections.
The Thumbli meeting, too, was spurred on by the topic
of land, as the village has been taken over for lignite mining for the power plant constructed by the state electricity board. That it has not been able to produce any power is another story, and a scandal. The design of the power plant and its boilers cannot handle the high sulphur content of the local lignite. So, after the least combustion, the sulphur solidifies in the chimneys, choking the plant completely. It would be a pretty risible example of government planning were it not for the terrible loss of land for the farmers and the carbon emissions. Now, the remaining land was also under threat, and they requested my intervention in this as well. I gave them my sincerest assurances and, while leaving, bumped into some pamphlet-distributing youths. They were there to announce the dharma sabha of Ram Lal Sihag, a Jodhpur-based preacher.
(This dharma sabha was held a few days later, in Barmer, and Ram Lal Sihag ended the function by asking the audience not to vote for me. I have never met him in my life, so what he has against me remains a mystery to me. He may have been driven by caste politics, rather than by political or religious convictions.)
From Thumbli it was but a short drive to Akal where I was reminded about the construction of a hall, announced by someone in my name, which had not yet been sanctioned. I told them I was aware of it—albeit faintly—but could not recall having received any document with a technical and financial estimate. They admitted that none had been sent and promised it would be prepared for a post-election sanction.
Made quick stops in Jan Singh ki Beri, Aagoriya and Shiv before heading back to Barmer. These stops were essentially to inform them about my father’s forthcoming visit and explain that therefore I would not be holding election meetings there. I do not do public meetings with my father as it does not seem to make sense. Each of us doing his own separate meetings means covering more people and more places.
Campaign Diary Page 7