by Karan Thapar
The sensible thing would have been to refuse to interview him. I wish I had. Shyam, I suspect, regrets asking me. I guess we’ll both be wiser next time. Meanwhile, I hope we can remain friends.
13 June 2008
It’s Time to Say Sorry
Are we responsible for the distrust, even the alienation, Kashmiris feel when they consider their sixty-year association with India? Have we betrayed promises, mistreated our fellow citizens, trampled on their rights and brutally shattered their dreams? Did our behaviour make the insurgency ‘inevitable’?
It may seem odd to ask these questions when Srinagar is enjoying its best summer since 1989 but, I would argue, this is one reason why they need to be asked all the more forcefully. Just because the situation seems more normal doesn’t mean the underlying grievances have disappeared. And if we don’t look for honest answers we could slide back towards the precipice.
In a book called My Kashmir, recently published in America, Wajahat Habibullah suggests the answer is yes. And Wajahat should know. A Kashmir-cadre IAS officer, he served twice as divisional commissioner, Kashmir. Since 1970, when he started his career as a subdivisional magistrate in Sopore, he’s witnessed how Kashmiris were treated by both the state and central governments.
‘The first in a series of blunders,’ Wajahat writes, was the dismissal of Sheikh Abdullah’s government and his subsequent arrest in 1953. The Sheikh was not just a hero to his people, he was also the main force behind the accession. He symbolized Kashmiri hopes as well as the link with India. Even half a century later, long after the Sheikh’s days of glory, Wajahat says, ‘Kashmiris look upon his arrest as the first of many betrayals.’
However, it’s the eyewitness evidence that Wajahat presents that is the truly compelling part of his answer. During his first assignment Wajahat discovered that, unlike the rest of India, in Kashmir ‘the only active law was the Defence of India Rules, which allowed the police to keep their reasons for arrest and detention secret’. Though designed to tackle national security in wartime, in Kashmir these were used to enforce routine law and order. ‘Small wonder,’ he concludes, ‘that a feeling of subjection had begun to permeate people’s minds.’
Whilst elsewhere in India elections provided a safety valve to ventilate anger, in Kashmir they became a means of denying freedom and subjecting the people to unrepresentative rule. Wajahat recounts the four steps by which elections were undermined. First, ‘reject the nomination of the opposition’. Second, impersonation during the voting ‘with the pliable presiding officer turning a blind eye to fake identification’. Third, ‘the ballot boxes could be stuffed with ballots’. And, fourth, ‘the winning and losing numbers were simply changed to favour the “preferred” candidate’.
Two developments in the 1980s, Wajahat suggests, made the insurgency inevitable. The first was the midnight dismissal of the Farooq Abdullah government in 1984. At the heart of the problem was the clash between Farooq and Indira Gandhi. ‘She considered (him) a whippersnapper who owed her his position.’ He sought to assert his independence, hosting opposition conclaves in Srinagar. Wajahat concludes: ‘The questionable manner of the Farooq government’s ouster confirmed Kashmiri suspicions that New Delhi would only allow supplicants to rule the state.’
The other was the election of 1987, rigged by the National Conference and Congress. Wajahat confirms that the voting in Amira Kadal was blatantly manipulated to ensure Yousuf Shah’s defeat, whilst his polling agents ‘were imprisoned without bail for months under the state’s draconian Public Safety Act’. Today, Yousuf Shah is better known as Syed Salahuddin, the head of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the chief of the United Jehadi Council. Refusal to let the opposition win ‘drove a disaffected public into rebellion … convinced that freedom … was inaccessible’.
Twenty-one years later, can harmony be restored? Wajahat suggests the happy summer of 2008 could be illusory: ‘It is doubtful whether harmony can ever be fully restored.’ But if we want to try – and we must – Wajahat offers a small slender line of hope: ‘It had been clear to me from early on that resolution in Kashmir could come only with the restoration of Kashmiris’ dignity’.
With elections just three months away, isn’t it time to start? If the answer is yes, I suggest we begin with an apology. We owe them one.
17 June 2008
FF 8282 and I
I wish I had got to know him better. It’s not that I never had the opportunity, only that I threw it away. At the time I considered myself above such mundane temptation. I was obstinate, if not downright stupid. Today I know myself better and would readily concede that such men are fun to know. They add colour to one’s life, if not value.
So last week when I was sent his prison diary I read it at once and at one go. It’s not a great book but then it wasn’t intended to be. It is, however, very readable – in fact, I found it unputdownable – although it’s not profound and is hardly revealing.
Jeffrey Archer – assuming you accept every word he writes and don’t question the image he creates of himself – emerges as a man of incredible discipline, with an eye for astonishing detail, although almost no passion or emotion whatsoever. Written under his prison number, FF 8282, the book is clinical in its precision and matter of fact in its descriptions. But its details do not reveal anything of the author’s thoughts. There is no suggestion of remorse. In fact Archer’s belief that he was convicted on the basis of a mis-trial is the only mention of his court case. And what it feels like locked up in jail is never discussed. That, however, you can work out for yourself.
The book brought back memories of the opportunities I had foolishly squandered. He could have been the only convict I knew. Now I can hardly claim anything as intimate as that. Still, we did meet and he did once invite me to his home.
It was on a bright spring day in the mid-1980s that we met over lunch. I was invited by Bruce Anderson (now political editor of the Spectator) to The Beefsteak, a small innocuous-looking luncheon club just off Leicester Square. All you get to eat is steak and all the diners sit around a large oak table. Bruce was on my right. Initially the place on the other side was empty. But halfway through a gentleman pulled the chair back and, asking if he could, occupied the place.
I didn’t recognize him. I was preoccupied listening to Bruce, who was quarrelling with someone across the table. In fact, it was only when he asked for the salt that I realized he was there. Even then our little encounter might have ended inconsequentially had Bruce not guessed that I had failed to recognize the gentleman.
‘You know Jeffrey, don’t you?’ he asked as he reached across to shake Archer’s hand.
‘Jeffrey?’ I replied, failing to take the hint. I smiled to disguise my ignorance.
Archer laughed. It wasn’t often that he went unrecognized. It was even more rare for this to happen at the hands of a journalist. At the time he wasn’t just a bestselling author but also deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. And the Tories were in power.
‘Well, surely you’ve read his books?’ Bruce said, seeking to alleviate my embarrassment by deflecting the subject.
I hadn’t, although by then I had guessed the man was Jeffrey Archer. But try hard as I did to think of the names of his books I couldn’t.
‘My wife is a great fan of yours,’ I blurted out. It was the truth but it didn’t help.
‘Which one is her favourite?’
He was only being polite. Perhaps Archer had decided I wasn’t worth serious conversation but, once again, I didn’t have an answer.
Fortunately Bruce found the whole thing hilarious. ‘That must have been a blow to Jeffrey’s ego,’ he chortled as we walked across Westminster Bridge on our way back to work. Once again I smiled silently. I still couldn’t think of anything to say.
I would have forgotten about this meeting except one day, eight months later, Bruce walked up holding out an invitation.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘You’ll never believe it,’ he repl
ied. ‘Jeffrey has invited you to his Christmas party.’
‘Jeffrey who?’
‘Don’t start that again!’ he replied. I tore open the envelope to discover it was from Archer.
I wish I had gone. Archer has a flat on The Embankment with a stunning view of London. His Christmas party is famous for the Sheperd’s Pie and Krug Champagne he serves. It’s also a glorious opportunity to meet the Tory establishment. But being a Sunday I was loathe to get up early. So I stayed at home.
Archer never invited me again. Since then I’ve read several of his books and were I to find him on the same table I would recognize him at once. But, unlike his characters, fate doesn’t give the rest of us a second chance.
25 November 2002
What the Story of Delhi Means to Me
For years I’ve wanted to know the story of Delhi but haven’t really bothered to find out. When you live amidst history you begin to take it for granted. Worse, I am guilty of comparing Delhi to Canberra, Ottawa or Washington, as if that were pertinent. No doubt every time I have done so I have known I was wrong but that did not deter me. In my ignorance I thought I was making a valuable point. Until, of course, the one occasion when I got badly caught out.
‘Tell me about Delhi,’ said the pretty young lady sitting beside me on the Air India flight from London. It was sometime in the late 1980s and I was coming home on holiday. She was very attractive and I was hoping to strike up a conversation. ‘I believe it’s an ancient city with a terrific history.’
‘It is, it is,’ I replied enthusiastically but not knowing any of it I could hardly continue. So I tried to deflect the subject. ‘It’s also a lot like Canberra, Ottawa and Washington.’
‘Oh God, surely not,’ she said, sounding crestfallen.
‘Oh yes,’ I insisted but having said so I wasn’t sure what else to say.
‘Well, I hope you are wrong.’
There the conversation ended. For the rest of the eight-hour flight all my other opening gambits met with a polite rebuff. My lack of knowledge of Delhi had put a firm stop to my efforts to ingratiate myself.
Last week I discovered just how horribly wrong I was. Pavan Varma has written The Millennium Book on New Delhi and last Sunday he sent me a copy. At first glance it looks like a sumptuous coffee table adornment – not that I have anything against them – but as I sat flicking through its pages, admiring the photographs whilst dipping into the articles, I discovered that the book contains one of the most readable histories of Delhi. I now know how the city got its name, the story behind its origins, how many ‘cities’ the metropolis comprises and a lot else besides. I owe it all to Khushwant Singh. For he has written the article on which my eyes first fell and I have read it – no, devoured it – with gratitude and glee.
So permit me to show off.
The origin of Delhi lies in myth, which is so much nicer than boring fact. Once when the Ganges was in spate – today it’s too polluted to make that effort – the river threw up the Shastras. (Incidentally, the phrase ‘threw up’ is Khushwant’s although I doubt if he meant it as a pun!) The site is marked by a temple which came to be called Nigambodh. Yes, the very ghat where you and I will perhaps one day be despatched, hopefully heavenwards. ‘This,’ adds Khushwant, ‘was a good enough reason for our ancestors to choose Delhi as the abode of God. Thus arose the first city of Delhi, Indraprastha, the abode of Indra, lord of the firmament.’ Today the Purana Quila stands supposedly at the same spot.
Indraprastha was followed by several successor cities before we came to our beloved New Delhi. The number is uncertain: some say seven, claiming New Delhi as the eighth, whilst others say fifteen. In Khushwant’s essay I counted fourteen. They are Indraprastha, Yoginikpura, Lal Kot, Siri, Kilokheri, Chiragh, Jahanpanah, Tughlaqabad, Firuzabad, Qila Feroze Shah, Mubarakabad, Din Panah, Shahjahanabad and, of course, New Delhi. But which was the fifteenth? Irritatingly I still don’t know.
However the bit I like best is Khushwant’s account of how Delhi acquired its ‘odd-sounding name… pronounced by the literati as Dehlee and by the hoi-polloi as Dillee.’ There are several versions. It could be a derivative of the Persian word Dehleez, meaning threshold, because the city was the gateway to the Gangetic plains. Another version is that it flows from the word Daidalas, the name given to the city by the Alexandrian geographer, Ptolemy. However Ferishta, the sixteenth-century Persian historian, claims the name is traceable to a certain Rajan Dhilu who once ruled over the city. Whilst some scholars connect the name to the famous iron pillar close to the Qutub Minar. I am not sure if I fully understand this connection. As Khushwant writes, ‘The pillar was designed as the standard of Lord Vishnu and was meant to be implanted deep into the hood of the cobra which bears the earth on its head.’ It was said that anyone who tampered with it would be cursed. A foolish Tomar Rajput king, who wanted proof that the pillar was in fact embedded in the serpent’s head, had it dug up. When it was, the base was found to be covered with blood. The Tomar king lost his throne and his dynasty died with him. It’s a wonderful story but, for the life of me, I cannot fathom the connection with Delhi. Is it to suggest that Delhi is a city of blood? Sadly, at times it has been.
Perhaps one day Khushwant will explain things – and also give me the missing fifteenth name – but even if he chooses to leave me less than fully knowledgeable, the next time I sit beside a pretty face on Air India I shall have fewer problems keeping the conversation going. Wish me luck!
5 February 2001
To Think I Refused Him a Job
I suppose you could say he was clean-looking but that would be an inadequate description. When he first walked into my office I was also struck by his confidence and his affability. It’s not easy to affect such poise when you are presenting yourself for an interview. Yet there wasn’t a trace of nerves or diffidence in his bearing.
It was the early 1990s but I am not sure of the exact year. I think he had just finished university or maybe he had just returned from one of those television courses in America. Shobhana Bhartia, who at the time was my boss, had asked me to meet him. His father, who I have known since I was a child, had also put in a word. My curiosity aroused, I was eager to meet this young man.
‘How can I help?’ I asked, once the introductions were over. I meant my question to sound reassuring but I don’t know if I succeeded.
‘I’d like a job, Sir,’ came the firm reply. Asking for employment is never easy. Most of the time you want it so badly your own emotions or tension botch the attempt. But the young man in front of me was in full control of himself. He spoke simply, effectively and purposefully. The use of the word ‘Sir’ – a habit he still has despite the lapse of almost a decade – was a nice touch of conventional formality. It betrayed no deference or false humility.
I wish I had said yes. I could have and all I would have had to do was telephone Shobhana Bhartia to convince her. It wouldn’t have been a problem. But at the time we genuinely did not need an extra hand and I lacked the foresight to grab the young talent fate had offered me before others did. Lack of discernment compounded my initial lack of judgement.
Thus it was that Vikram Chandra joined Newstrack and embarked on a career as a television journalist. I would like to believe that Eyewitness might have propelled him further and faster but, to be brutally honest, it’s well nigh impossible to do better than he has done.
But what I did not know then – and would not have believed if I had not found out for myself – is that Vikram is also a great storyteller. This is not a quality intrinsic to television journalism. Most of us hacks who write to footage and other people’s sound- bites merely devise linking sentences. Our language may have structure but it has precious little style. We convey meaning but rarely do we evoke sentiment.
Now read the following paragraph describing the play of sunlight on the trees of the Kashmir valley as summer settles over Srinagar. It’s from Vikram’s novel The Srinagar Conspiracy:
It was a summer painted by
the sun in a hundred shades of gold. The soft light of dawn touched the treetops with a pale yellow gold, each leaf sparkling with its own highlights. In the mid-morning the brassy gold of the mustard fields waved at the farmers who rejoiced at the unexpectedly good harvest. And in the evenings the flaming red and gold of the sunset over the Dal brought lovers and honeymooners out in the shikaras for pleasure rides, and they sat back in their seats, trailing their hands in the water. It was the perfect experience in a perfect land.
There’s a certain magic in that description which goes far beyond the clever use of words or the profound conjunction of thoughts. It’s the magic of writing. It’s what grips the mind and sharply focuses the eye when you are reading a good book. It’s what makes the pages turn faster. It’s what keeps you reading late into the night, reluctant to put the book down even though it’s past 2 in the morning. And Vikram has it.
I won’t lie and claim I read the book at one go. I didn’t. It took me several days. But there was a night when I stayed up till three. That was the night I discovered Vikram’s facility with the English language. It’s present on every page although there are several where it gets buried under the burden of the story it has to tell. At first I did not realize this but once I did I spotted something else as well. Vikram’s language – and therefore his style – is most powerful when he is tracing human relationships. The way he writes of his characters, their little gestures, furtive glances or suppressed emotions, invests them with layers of meaning. Then his words tug at your heartstrings and the pages turn faster.
Where the book is less successful is in actually thrilling you. In fact there would be no need to do so but for the claim the publishers make on the back cover where they call it a thriller. Like Frederick Forsythe’s The Day of the Jackal, Vikram’s book is about a denouement that never comes to pass. The thrill lies in the planning and its ultimate avoidance. Forsythe pulled it off because that’s all there was to his book. But in Vikram’s case, because he has more to offer, he is, paradoxically, less able to narrowly thrill. At least not in the sense of a thriller.