I had called Murad, Hussein and Din Mohammed Fakir for a brainstorming session at Rawalkot. Murad was keen to get Hussein active and touring, but had found a withdrawal in him. We thrashed out the logistics of it all, and then I discussed the same subject with some other BJP workers, looking for holes that needed to be plugged. In this, each person seems to have a solution completely contrary to what the other has, and it is very difficult to find common ground among them. The trick lies in getting everybody to feel that their suggestion is being heard and implemented.
8 April 2009
Today was a day of long hops, but not one that required me to leave at the crack of dawn. Experience has taught me to fix programmes that follow a certain geographical direction, and adjust them around night halts, so that the next day’s programmes follow on from those of the previous day. In my early days in politics, it had been one crisscross of a round after another. In a constituency as large as this, those rounds would leave me brain-dead at the end of the day. Juggling to meet everybody’s requests, today’s trip was essentially along National Highway 15, and in a north–south direction.
Negarda was the first halt, for a meeting called by Mubarak Khan. He had taken the initiative without prompting from anybody and called a number of people from both the Jaisalmer and the Barmer districts. When the introductions were made, I assumed they were his old smuggling contacts and friends. Mubarak had been a smuggler of some reputation, but with the intervention of some officials, I had got him to surrender and make a new beginning. Today was his first opportunity to reciprocate, I thought. Smuggling now was nothing like what it had been before the border fencing was put up. From alcohol, gold, silver, heroin to RDX—everything has travelled across this border.
Mul Dan, the former sarpanch, was there as well, and made me wonder if he, too, had been in the same line. So many so-called respectable members of society seemed to have a past history of smuggling that I had stopped moralizing over it long ago. A line, after all, had been drawn between villages and people who had traded with and married each other for generations—could those links be brought to an end so abruptly? Mul Dan was very voluble today and that surprised me, for I thought he had been in a state of depression the last few times I met him. He went on about how closely he had worked as some sort of a convener for the Jodhpur division with the late Rajiv Gandhi. And then, all of a sudden, he asked me what Rahul Gandhi was like. He works hard, I said. But he cannot be like his father, Mul Dan replied. I wanted to say something about fathers and sons being different in their own ways but decided against getting into that discussion. He did have everybody’s attention during all this, but spoiled it for himself by suddenly saying ‘Pir Pagaro ki jai’. However much the Pir may be held in awe and respect by certain Muslim clans of the desert, this kind of sloganeering is just not on. There was an instant silence, and it was deeply awkward. Mubarak broke that by getting up to say lunch was ready.
Mubarak’s brother Obaya was very much the man running the show for lunch, shuttling between the various rooms where people were eating. I badly wanted to ask him about Qadr Baksh, the brother-in-law in Pakistan, but restrained myself. Qadr Baksh is one of the inner circle of Pir Pagaro and, therefore, an important player among a fair number of Muslims in the Indian desert.
Adu Ram had called a meeting in Barmer of all those in charge of the Assembly segments. He had asked me whether I would attend but I had declined as it would give me more time in the field and he, as district party president, could conduct the meeting on his own. Distributing forces is always a better tactic than concentrating in one place and direction. L. R. Bishnoi was in Barmer as the in charge for Guda Mallani and, after leaving Negarda, I called him to meet me at the bypass of the highway outside Barmer.
He agreed with me that we would save time by meeting at the bypass. He has been working very hard, and had organized a number of meetings for today. The first halt was at a Meghwal dhani close to Dhorimanna. I had passed it a number of times but never stopped there as there had been no occasion for it. Since it was the last day of the mourning for the family, they had guests from as far as Sanchore. The next halt was at a dhani that was in mourning as well, at Nedi Nadi. It was a double whammy for the Bishnoi family as the father had died of shock upon hearing of his son’s death. The worst part of these condolence visits is the wailing that erupts whenever a vehicle approaches. Hearing the wails of the women makes my stomach churn, and it was the same today.
We were a very subdued group when we left the mourning dhani and headed for Sonari. This village has the biggest Jambeshwar temple in Barmer district and attracts a large number of Bishnois during the annual fair, Jambhoji being the founder of their sect. In fact, the Sonari fair was the first programme Vasundhara Raje had in Barmer in the run-up to her becoming chief minister in 2003. I had accompanied her then and in the melee had had my pocket picked for the first time ever. We laughed about it for a long time. Since then, I have never carried anything in my pockets at any of the fairs anywhere. Like all Bishnoi gatherings, today’s meeting had a large number of women in attendance. The Bishnois have been in Mallani for less than a hundred years and still carry the cultural baggage of Jodhpur from where they originally came. That accounts for the attendance of their women at public meetings. We retired to the sarpanch’s house after the meeting and the discussion soon turned to the Harpaliya matter.
During the Shivratri festivities, a procession headed for the Shiv temple in Harpaliya was stoned by some youths while it was halfway through the village. It was a potentially communal incident in an election year, and the news spread like wildfire in the Barmer district. After much effort, the issue was settled, but the embers obviously remained. Some of those who had been at the receiving end of the stones in the procession were sitting with me at the sarpanch’s house. It was important for me that the Bishnois and the Muslims should not be at daggers drawn with each other. I kept telling them to look beyond the issue and see who had benefited from it, which was the reason why the procession had been stoned only this year and never before. Daya Ram, the master, got the gist of what I was getting at but the sarpanch kept a watchful eye on me throughout the discussion. He is, in any case, close to Ganga Ram, the senior-most politician of the district, irrespective of party affiliation, and would undoubtedly be preparing his report for the old man. He would always follow Ganga Ram into whichever party he joined.
After that, I had another 100 kilometres to do before I could get back to Barmer. I think today’s total will have been over 300 kilometres. So, when the Scorpio took the final turn towards the house, I let out a groan as there were people waiting for me. This is always the trickiest meeting of the day, as the mind wants a rest even more than the body does. My mental fatigue was in stark contrast to the alertness evident in the waiting party. After all, they had not travelled hundreds of kilometres or dealt with issues that tear at the fabric of the mind. But I had to bear it with a smile when Devji and Kishenji, who are trying very hard to garner support for me from the Prajapat community, introduced me to the others. They occasionally bring new people with them for a familiarizing chat with me—a bit like what Shafi had done on a couple of nights. I was polite, but they could sense the fatigue and, after deciding to meet again another day, left. I wonder how much these meetings will benefit me.
9 April 2009
Today is Purnima, Hanuman Jayanti and Peepaji Jayanti. And an urs as well, near Barmer. That means I will return to my criss-crossing ways again, for the programmes take me from one end of the Barmer district to the other, and back again.
I began at the Peepaji temple in Barmer town, and it was crammed with people when I got there. Peepaji is regarded by the tailor community as their patron saint and, like most of the local deities of Rajasthan, he had given up his palace for a life of piety. In his case it was Gagron, in the Jhalawar district. This community function draws members from the Barmer, Shiv, Chohtan and Baytu tehsils to this temple, to bursting capacity. After the praye
rs I was seated in one corner, squeezed against the wall, with the crowd pressing all around me. This prevented any breeze from cooling the venue. There was much gratitude expressed for the help I had rendered in getting a hostel built for their youngsters who were pursuing higher education. Despite that, all I could experience was a feeling of being hemmed in and stifled. It was only after I told them that their community members at Samdhari were expecting me that I was allowed to leave.
There were three big programmes to be done at Samdhari and in the surrounding area. It was decided that the Hanuman Jayanti programme at Bhalro ka Bada would be the first halt. It was the first anniversary of the temple’s inauguration, and the havan was already under way when we reached. The local leaders wanted a temporary halt to it while we conducted our meeting, to which the head priest said nothing doing, there is a mahurat for everything and, right now it was the best one for the havan. Quite right, I thought to myself, but soon there was a break in the proceedings as even the priests took a breather. At that, the holy men sitting on the stage suggested we conduct our meeting and then proceed for lunch. They were very cordial and blessed me with garlands in a spirit that suggested sincerity.
On the way back through Samdhari village, we crossed the Congress candidate Harish’s convoy led by the revenue minister, and I waved out to Harish. They were headed to the same Hanuman Jayanti programme. We halted at Suthar Samaj, where a meeting had been organized especially for us, given our presence in the area today. The Peepaji temple at Samdhari Station is far larger than the one in Barmer, with residential rooms ringing the entire compound. Obviously, the presence of members living in Jodhpur, a large number of whom had come today, has helped this temple grow. I had been here earlier on a similar occasion and sensed that today’s was a smaller gathering, but I dared not say so to anyone.
We were already into mid-afternoon and this was the best time to be at Asotra Brahmdham. Purnima attracts Rajpurohits and other followers from across many districts. When I was doing the parikrama at Kheta Ramji’s memorial, somebody informed me that Tulsa Ramji Bapji was in the outhouse. I had thought he would be in the main temple, but I guess he went there as he gets fed up with the crowds and especially with those who want to touch his feet. He came out, having taken a nap, and I approached him, seeking his blessings. He made me sit beside him and, stroking my back, pointed towards Kheta Ramji’s memorial. The gesture was understood by everybody present, because in the side room at the main temple Mangal Singh was up to his Kaludi tricks again. Today, he was with Lekhraj, who belongs to the same clan among the Rajpurohits. They were going on and on about some slight or the other against the community, to which I didn’t respond. But when it began to be laced with heavy doses of fiction, I reprimanded Mangal Singh for telling untruths and he then kept quiet.
The phone calls from Derasar for the urs began as soon as we left Asotra Brahmdham. Every call would ask my location, and I would give the name of the village that we were approaching. This went on until we crossed Barmer, after which there is a patch without mobile coverage. It was a silence sent by the heavens, for answering hundreds of calls a day can get exhausting. This was my first urs here. Some young boys from the madrasa started the proceedings with a very touching welcome song for me. After the speeches praising me for being an MP who had been fair to all communities, I thanked them for their kind words. And then I told them that I had a dream that one day I would go personally to invite Pir Taj Hussein Shah Jilani (he lives in Pakistan) for an urs here. I meant it, just as I had at Pir ki Jaal, but I wondered whether it would ever happen. While returning to Barmer, Hukum Singh remarked that today’s drive would easily touch 500 kilometres. It certainly felt that way.
10 April 2009
I had already made my programme for the Baytu area but Chandan, the local news stringer for wire services, and his team insisted on adding a couple of meetings near Barmer. Lunu village is close enough to Barmer for the residents to commute for daily work. This proximity to the town also makes it a politically significant village, with a number of influential residents. Rahamatullah is one of them, elected to the Barmer panchayat samiti under the BJP banner. His clan is spread largely around Barmer town, but some of the members have also reached villages in the Girab area. (He is not to be confused with his clan member bearing the same name, whose marriage function I had attended a few days ago. On my mobile, I have stored their names with their villages as surnames so that I get to know the context of the conversation with whichever Rahamatullah calls.)
Getting to the Lunu meeting involved a fascinating—albeit short—drive through the hills that surround Barmer town. Some of the features, although close to Barmer, feel as though they belong to a completely different planet. I once remarked during the Hinglaj Mata pilgrimage that if Planet of the Apes had to be remade, the landscape of that part of Baluchistan would make an ideal setting. This area surrounding Barmer would be a close competitor for the sheer spectacle of the landscape, with its rocks, its dunes sliding higher into the hills and its rare plants. And it also has a silence that is unnerving, albeit in a pleasing way. Pradip Krishen, the expert on indigenous trees and plants, and author of Trees of Delhi, once told me he finds desert plants here that have died out in the other parts of the Thar.
Today’s meeting in Lunu began as a clan meeting, but then it expanded to include the others in the area, including Rabaris. When it began to disperse for snacks, I took their leave as I still had an entire day’s meetings to attend. But before that, I had to make a short hop to another part of Lunu and have a tricky chat.
Two years ago, Ibrahim’s dhani had been embroiled in a cow-slaughter storm, but it had never smelled right to me. Cow slaughter is a very sensitive issue and, as with most such issues, its roots lay in local disputes. In the end it turned out that the skeleton of a cow had been ‘planted’ to make out a case. It wasn’t even a Hindu–Muslim issue but one that involved Hindus and Muslims on both sides of the dispute. But because of the controversy, this dhani was still under a boycott from some in the village, and Rahamatullah had not even called people from the dhani for my election meeting today. I told the ones who had been most active in the campaign against this dhani that it was time to begin a new chapter, and that I would be going there. They murmured consent and, filled with that confidence, I reached the dhani. However, it turned out to be an unpleasant experience—as we talked by the side of the road in the shadow of a huge cactus plant, the same old recriminations and accusations prevailed, despite my assurances that I would do my best to ensure justice and fair play. Attitudes in such matters are determined by other factors, I guess.
The Baytu round started from Bhimda, where there was another mourning function at the house of one of the most prominent Meghwal families. The old man who had passed away had been respected in the area as an honest panch, and all the mourners gathered under the tent remembered that his advice was taken by all. What a fine epitaph to be remembered by, I thought to myself, as we left the farmhouse.
At Batadu, an impressive meeting had been organized by Kheta Ram, who is confident of returning as sarpanch in the future. But I thought it odd that the present sarpanch and her family were missing. Over the years, they had asked me for considerable support, but when it was my turn they were not there for me. I wondered how much I did not know about the undercurrents in this election.
At Rateu, Mula Ram had organized the meeting at a roadside shop at Savau Moolraj where he lives, and the next meeting was at Savau Padam Singh, at somebody’s house. These villages were at one time part of the Jasol thikana (chieftainship) and are named after our ancestors who first settled people in these villages. Some people at Savau Padam Singh clearly did not like the man who hosted my meeting—and that irritated me. I told them, as circumspectly as I could, that I didn’t see why I should pay the price for that. The next stop, Jhaak, was a sleepy affair, as it was mid-afternoon and hot as hell. There were not many people waiting for us.
Between Kanod and Jajw
a, after a gap of a couple of years, I saw my most favourite sand dune in the constituency. It is enormous and runs in an east–west direction, with a sharp bend and drop towards the end. It is so big that the road had to be constructed over it, rather than cutting through it. Many urban friends have expressed surprise at my having a favourite sand dune—they are all the same, aren’t they, is the usual comment. But they are not, each is different. This one has moved a considerable distance since I was last here, and soon it is going to gobble up the road, for sure. Primacy of nature, I guess.
Gida was a well-attended meeting and I reminded them of the loss that I personally feel in the passing away of Kalyan Singh, their former sarpanch. He had been one of my closest advisers in the constituency, and he had died in a car accident moments before reaching home. Such is fate.
By the time we reached Pareu, it was time for the evening aarti in the math. This was my first meeting here without the presiding presence of the head priest of the math. I asked Parbat Singh, the deputy sarpanch and the chief organizer of all BJP meetings in the area, if he was still sulking, and he smiled in confirmation. I need to explain to him about the hospital which he thinks has been sanctioned by the health department but whose construction he believes I am holding back. He wants one similar to Gida’s where a lot of money from MPLADS was spent, but at Pareu the hospital has been sanctioned by the health department as a partnership venture, wherein the village contributes its bit, and the balance comes from the department. In this case the village wanted me to contribute their share through MPLADS. That would defeat the whole purpose of people’s participation and ownership of a public project. But the head of the village math thinks I’m playing dodge.
Campaign Diary Page 11