I have no regrets about Narasimha Rao. He proved to be a second-rate prime minister, and an unmitigated disaster for the Congress party. His reluctance to quit the post of party president and leader of the parliamentary party only went to show that he had less concern for the party and the country’s future and more for himself. Calculated political cunning is not the same as leadership. What India needs today is a statesman dedicated to achieving certain goals for the people he leads. Rao was singularly lacking in these qualities.
There can be no doubt that the BJP has established its right to be the first to be called on to form the government. But at the moment it seems there is little chance of its getting sizeable support from smaller parties to gain a majority in Parliament. The President may soon have to call upon the commonly-chosen leader of other parties to form the next government. The mantle should have fallen on the shoulders of Jyoti Basu. Although over eighty, he is mentally and physically fit enough to discharge the duties of a prime minister. He has many other plus points. His record in office as chief minister of West Bengal for nineteen long years is untainted: no charges of corruption or nepotism (not even of favouring his own son Chandan Basu) have been levelled against him. Having a Marxist background, he has never descended to exploiting religious sentiment to gain popularity, never kow-towed to godmen or sought the advice of astrologers. This cannot be said about any other contenders for the top post. Above all, Jyoti Basu is better qualified to turn back the tide of Hindu fundamentalism represented by the BJP, VHP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and the RSS, than anyone else. The new prime minister must know that there are many more important things to be done than building a Ram mandir at Ayodhya. There is, for instance, the task of building the nation. Jyoti Basu is our best bet for heading an enlightened, forward-looking government. It is a thousand pities that his party has decided not to field him.
Now that Atal Behari Vajpayee has been sworn in as prime minister, I wish him well. He is a good, honest and able man, but in the wrong party. He has the charismatic qualities of Pandit Nehru, is a much better orator and poet, and could, if he won the confidence of the Muslims, Christians and other minorities which his coalition partners do not enjoy, make a truly great leader of the calibre that India deserves.
German yatra: Travel travails
They say travel broadens people’s minds. If that is true, my mind should be as broad as the mighty Brahmaputra in flood. I have been just about everywhere in the world and seen all there is to see. I feel like a man who has been in a picture gallery one hour too long, and it is time to depart. My motto now is ‘travel only if you must.’ However, whenever an invitation from a foreign country comes my way, without thinking twice, I accept it. And as immediately, regret having done so. The first daunting problem is the business of getting visas: many forms to fill, photographs to attach, fees to pay and queuing up in front of visa counters to wait your turn to answer questions. All foreign embassies assume that you mean to flee your country and settle in theirs. You are made to feel utterly unwelcome. Many a time after I have got all my travel documents in hand, I remind myself of the times one had to do a lot more—small pox and yellow fever injections, income tax clearances and permits to go abroad. I look forward to the day when visas will be abolished and we will be treated like citizens of the world.
Another off-putting feature of going abroad is that all international flights from Delhi take off (and arrive) at unearthly hours between midnight and dawn. With having to report three hours before the flight time, one’s night’s sleep is lost. It’s too late for dinner, too early for breakfast, and one is in no mood to watch the movies they put on for your entertainment.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport gets more crowded by the day. Other airports like the ones in Singapore and Bangkok are now much swankier than the airports in London, Paris or Frankfurt. Not Delhi. When many flights come in or leave about the same time, there is hardly any place to sit. For the first time I whiled away my time in Air India’s Maharajah lounge. It is located alongside two more brightly lit and more frequented lounges. Our Maharajah lounge is as decadent as the tribe that bears its name. The atmosphere was funereal: dim lights, dilapidated sofas, nondescript paintings on the walls. I gulped down a glass of Pepsi cola (it would have been sacrilegious to taste good Scotch in the morgue) and went down to the general waiting room full of Japanese, French and Sardarjis. There was much more raunaq there than in the VIP lounge. And as if to brighten up the hall, the Indian cricket team led by Azharuddin and his boys came in trailed by autograph hunters. They were led past the queue to board their flight to London. No grievance: such privileges should be accorded to the nation’s heroes. It only occurred to me that these young men who look so formidable on the TV screen are really like chokras still in college.
Air India does not have much of a reputation for punctuality. But my flight to Frankfurt left on the dot. I was dismayed to see that more than half the seats were empty. But the airline has prettier air hostesses than any other international airline. And they are ever so winsome and courteous.
I had a night of nine long hours ahead of me strapped iri a chair with nothing to do except eat, drink, watch films or listen to music. Instead, I chose to watch the immense stretch of darkness beneath me. Six hours later, the darkness was frequently broken by the lights of the cities over which we flew. I realized we were over European air space. More reading lights were switched on, queues began to form outside the few lavatories, children began to bawl for attention. Air hostesses looking as fresh as ever hustled around with trays of glasses of fruit juice and hot coffee. Breakfast was served. Frankfurt was only an hour away.
I changed planes to get to Hamburg, its largest sea port, the most important on the Baltic Sea. The river Elbe flows through the city. It is full of waterways and gardens. I also recalled it as being a wicked city with its notorious Reeperbahn lined with brothels where middle-aged prostitutes eke out a living from sailors and foreign tourists. This is where I had seen my first live sex show. I also recalled its unique from of greeting: one man greets another with ‘Humel Humel’, the other replies, ‘Morse, Morse.’ Humel, I am told, was an ungainly water carrier who carried buckets balanced on his shoulders. Street urchins would pursue him calling out his name. He would reply in the local dialect with ‘Morse, Morse’ which means ‘Kiss my bum.’
25 May 1996
New netas, new problems
For four days the entire nation was glued to their TV sets listening to debates on the two motions of confidence—one moved by the BJP and the other by the United Front coalition. Despite the rowdy behaviour of a large number of MPs, it has to be conceded that the standard of debate was higher than it has ever been in living memory. The star performers in support of the BJP were Atal Behari Vajpayee (a bit too histrionic, and addressing Hindu supporters outside the House), Jaswant Singh and Sushma Sawaraj, supported by George Fernandes and Surjit Singh Barnala. From the other side there were splendid orations by Chidambaram, Pilot and, believe it or not, P.V. Narasimha Rao. There was much give and take on both sides. BJP and its supporters quite rightly focussed on the charges of corruption against ministers and civil servants during the Congress regime; the United Front focussed on the menace of Hindu fundamentalism sponsored by the Sangh Parivar. The debate clearly proved that the two problems uppermost in the minds of our legislators as well as the people are corruption and exploitation of religious sentiments for political gains. I am not sure which is the greater evil, but I do know, as does everyone else, that unless this two-headed monster is crushed once for all, we can say goodbye to stable governments and development.
The nation has run out of patience with corrupt politicians salting money away in foreign banks. Every morning we read of thousands of crores disappearing into the pockets of ministers and their relations. They are named by investigative agencies; FIRs are lodged against them, warrants of arrest issued, some go to jail, most get bail—and then we forget all about the affairs. Vajpayee was
right when he said we do not care whether or not these felons are put behind bars, but we must get the money (our money) stashed away in foreign banks back into our country.
The debate also clearly showed the sharp division between the supporters of Hindutva and secular India—the two are not compatible. I sensed that the Sangh Parivar has realized that although exploiting the name of Sri Rama and breaking the mosque at Ayodhya may have won them the votes of illiterate, misguided Hindus, it has cost them the support of the educated and enlightened members of their community. It is not Hindu versus Muslim, Christian or Sikh but the backward-looking Hindu versus the forward-looking Hindu. If the Parivar hopes to come into power, it will have to do a lot of introspection and make radical changes in its political programme.
22 June 1996
Wife-bashing, Indian style
One evening, there was a lot of screaming, shouting of abuse and sounds of fisticuffs from the servants’ quarters behind our block of apartments. We ran to see what was going on. A man was beating a woman with a stick calling her a randi (whore) and kaamchor (shirker) among other things. The woman was screaming ‘Hai! hai! bachao!’ (Save me). The circle of men and women that had collected round the couple were pleading ‘Bas kaafee ho gayaa; ab is se maaf kar do (Stop, that’s enough; now forgive her). I burst in on the scene, caught the fellow by the scruff of his neck and shouted, ‘Besharam! Aurat pe haath utthatha hai!’ (Shameless creature, how dare you raise your hand on a woman?)
The reaction of the man, the woman he was beating, and the spectators, took me by surprise. ‘Meree aurat hai; tumhara kya lena dena hai?’ (She is my wife; what business is it of yours?) asked the man. The woman seemed to acquiesce. So did the crowd. ‘Sardarji, aap is mein mat paro; ghareyloo jhagra hai, aap niptaa leyngey’ (Sardarji don’t get involved in this; it is a domestic quarrel, they’ll resolve it themselves.)
I was made to feel like an interloper. I found out that all the woman was guilty of was having cooked a bad meal for her husband who had returned home late and somewhat drunk. It had happened before; she took the chastisement as punishment she deserved. All said and done, she was his gharwalee (home-keeper), and if she failed him in any way, he had the right to punish her. I had no business interfering.
In India, being beaten is accepted as a hazard of being married. It is a common phenomenon among the peasantry and the poor. If a wife goes to a police station to lodge a complaint, in all probability the policemen, who also regularly beat their wives, will throw her out. She also gets no sympathy from her husband’s family. On the contrary, her mother-in-law and sister-in-law thoroughly enjoy her discomfiture.
It would be an error to assume that wife-beating is confined to the illiterate and the poor. It is common enough among the educated and well-to-do. It is only when a woman is driven to desperation, or when in addition to beating his wife, a man consorts with other women, that the ill-treated wife will report her husband to the police, take her case to a woman’s court, ask for separation or divorce. The odds are weighed heavily against her. Married men prone to sadism literally get away with murder.
I have no bright ideas of how to combat wife-bashing except that I do not accept it as a ‘ghareyloo mamla’ It should be a matter of concern for the entire society. Personally, I have a strong revulsion for men who abuse or beat their women. I cut such men out of my life because I regard wife-beating barbarous and unforgivable. Men who hit their women have no right to be admitted in civilized society. They should be expelled from all clubs, and people who feel as strongly on the subject as I do should share no hookah-paanee with them. Unless we can raise strong public opinion against wife-beaters, wife-beating will continue.
29 June 1996
How silly can we be?
Do you think that increasing the number of women members in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha from the present 20-40 to 130-140 will really better the lot of women in our country? Will it reduce the incidence of female foetus abortions? Will it reduce the numbers of female infanticide? Will it stop discrimination at home between boys and girls? Will it lessen demands for dowry, maltreatment of daughters-in-law, wife-bashing, deaths in contrived accidents and neglect of widows? The answer to everyone of these questions will be no, no, no, no. Then why this silly exercise to amend the Constitution and ensure that in the future, a third of our MPs should be women?
The answer is simple: It is a cheap way of earning credit as a champion of women’s rights in the hope of getting their votes. If the amendment proposed is passed, you can be sure about who will reap its benefits. Take a look at the sitting lady MPs, MLAs and ladies who contest elections: a sizeable proportion are wives, daughters, daughters-in-law, and at times mistresses, of politicians in power. Their numbers will multiply. To the rest of the world we will have a window display of more women legislators than any other country of the world; behind the facade, there will be very little to show in the way of having improved the wretched lot of our women. Take a look at the number of women in the British House of Commons, the French, German, Italian or Spanish parliaments, the US Congress or the Senate. They are less than one-tenth the number of men. And yet, the lot of their women is a hundred times better than that of ours. Our women have the same rights as the men to vote and stand for elections. If they want to become MLAs or MPs, let them do so in the same way as their men folk—without wanting reservation of seats.
If we really want to raise our women from their present lowly status to equality with men, we have to provide them free education up to the highest levels, subsidize their feeding, clothing and accommodation. Thereafter let them fend for themselves and show that what men can do, women can do better.
21 September 1996
Old age and leadership
A sizeable proportion of the American population is of the opinion that Bob Dole at seventy-two is too old to be President of the United States. The average American in his seventies is a lot fitter physically and mentally than the average Indian in his sixties. On TV you can see sprightly Americans of Bob Dole’s age group going up and down the steps of an aircraft or jump up to podiums to make speeches. Then compare them to those of our leaders who are younger than them. Notice President Shankar Dayal’s ungainly, duck-like waddle as he walks to the microphone; his mind may be as sharp as ever but he is evidently not as fit as he should be. Our ex-prime minister, Narasimha Rao (75), has had heart bypass surgery; so has Sitaram Kesri (80) who has taken over as president of the Congress. He may be a shrewd and honest politician but does he have the physical energy to revitalize a party which seems to be afflicted with terminal cancer?
There are other instances of physical lethargy amongst our leaders. Our new prime minister, though he claims to come from robust rustic stock, is evidently finding desk work too much for his constitution. His chronic irritability, particularly when facing the media, confirms this suspicion. More than once he has been photographed yawning with his mouth wide open or in deep slumber at public meetings. Atal Behari Vajpayee, so alert and lively as a debater, is known to nod off while presiding at meetings when others are speaking. It’s not boredom, it is physical fatigue. The only senior Indian leader who is an exception to the rule of ageing debility and who is all there in body and mind, is the octogenarian chief minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu.
It is time younger politicians took over command of their respective parties. There are many waiting in the wings: Chidambaram, Sharad Pawar, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Madhavrao Scindia, Mamata Banerji, Margaret Alva, Girija Vyas, Renuka Chaudhuri, Vasundhara Raje, Jayanti Natarajan, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj, Rajesh Pilot, Bansal, Bitta, Ambika Soni and others in their forties and early fifties.
The concept of ageing has undergone dramatic change since the days of Shakespeare. For the bard it meant ‘mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’ He was wrong in holding ‘when age is in, wit is out.’ Today we have the phenomenon of the ‘robust elderly’ which makes seventy-two-year-old Bob Dole almost a spr
ing chicken. While his own countryman Mark Twain would have disqualified anyone who had crossed the scriptural statute of ‘three score years and ten’, a majority holds that age brings wisdom. And wisdom is what we expect from our leaders. There is no reason why we cannot combine the wisdom of elder statesmen with the youthful vigour of the younger generation.
5 October 1996
Bapu Gandhi’s legacy
My favourite story about the Gandhian legacy that I concocted during the Emergency goes somewhat as follows: Bapu in heaven was much perturbed that few people in India even remembered his name. He sent for Pandit Nehru and asked him ‘You were prime minister of India for many years. What did you do to perpetuate my memory?’
Panditji replied: ‘I did the best I could. I made a samadhi where we cremated you. On your birth and death anniversaries, we assemble there and sing your favourite hymns: “Vaishnav jan to tainey kahiye jo peerh paraayee jaaney ray and Ishwar-Allah terey naam, sabko sanmatee dey Bhagwaan”. So I ensured that at least twice a year we recall your memory.’
Bapu then sent for Lal Bahadur Shastri and put to him the same question. Shastri replied: ‘Bapu, I was prime minister for only a very short time. I had your writings and speeches translated into all Indian languages and widely distributed. I had your statues put in prominent places in all cities, towns and villages. I had your birthday declared a public holiday. What more could I do in the time I had?’
Bapu then sent for Indira Gandhi who was ruling the country and asked her the same question. She replied, ‘Bapu, I’ve done more than Shastri or my father to make your name immortal. I’ve made all your countrymen like you. I’ve left them with nothing but a langotee to cover their nakedness and a danda to help them to walk.’
Big Book of Malice Page 5