On my own I indulge in the thumbs-up, thumbs-down game with our politicians. A few I usually give thumbs up no matter what party they belong to. In this category are men like Atal Behari Vajpayee, Jyoti Basu, Chandrababu Naidu, Digvijay Singh, R.K. Hegde, Madhavrao Scindia, Manmohan Singh, Mamata Banerjee, Rajesh Pilot, Madhii Dandavate, Bansi Lal and a few others. What they have in common is their positive approach to problems; they are builders, not destroyers. They are also clean and honest; they do not lie.
The thumbs-down list is much longer and keeps on getting longer. All whom I suspect had a hand in the killing of Sikhs in 1984, the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, and the anti-Muslim violence that followed, I automatically put in this category along with Bal Thackeray and Ashok Singhal who head the list. I also put unprincipled party-ditchers like Sharad Pawar, Buta Singh and S.S. Ahluwalia with them. Their approach to problems is negative; they are breakers, not builders.
High on my thumbs-down list is Kalyan Singh, erstwhile chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. He has many minus points against him: a hand in the destruction of the Masjid, stabbing his party boss and his party in the back, arousing communal passions again over building a Ram mandir on the site of a demolished place of worship. We do not have to turn our thumbs down on a character like Kalyan Singh; he is the victim of hubris and author of his own political hara-kiri. There are far too many of his ilk around us. The sooner they eliminate themselves from the political arena, the better it will be for the nation.
18 December 1999
Farewell to 1999
In the last week of the year, I go over my diary to refresh my memory of what I have done in the past twelve months. My diary is fairly detailed: I write about the weather, trees, migratory birds and butterflies, people who came to see me, parties I attended, scores of tennis sets I played, India’s showing in international sports. The last items are devoted to political upheavals, earthquakes, cyclones, air and rail disasters, murders, miscarriages of justice and so on. It gives me a fair idea of what the world, India and I went through in the year.
January began on a grim note. Smog in the mornings, flights delayed, every third person down with viral fever, most people coughing and spitting phlegm. Three ghastly murders took place in the space of one day: that of the sprightly newspaper reporter Shivani Bhatnagar in Delhi and those of the Australian missionary Staines and his two sons in Orissa. Shivani’s killer remains untracked. Of the Staines killers said to be members of a Bajrang Dal gang, the leader, Dara Singh, is still absconding.
In February, three eminent men died. Ashok Jain, chairman of The Times of India group died of cancer in America. He was at one time my employer and later sacked me without ceremony. The wonderful thing about the Jains is that they do not mourn death but regard it as a cause of celebration. So no fuss was made over Ashok Jain’s departure. On the other hand, the demise of King Hussein of Jordan was turned into an international event with the heads of many States attending the funeral. The third to go was General Sundarji, controversial commander of ‘Operation Blue Star’, who often promised to write his version of the tragic episode but never got down to doing so. However, the legacy of mismanagement of the Golden Temple took a decisive turn with a split in the Akali party with Badal heading the majority group against Tohra who had reigned supreme for twenty-five years. Badal sacked Bhai Ranjit Singh, nominated by Tohra as jathedar of the Akal Takht. He also appointed Bibi Jagir Kaur, the first woman to head the SGPC. The Badal-Tohra split was to have disastrous consequences for Akalis of both factions.
March saw the demise of Yehudi Menuhin, the greatest violin maestro of our times; a friend of the Nehrus and India. An IAF transport plane crashed near Palam airport killing twenty-three; a jhuggi-jhopri fire near Vijayghat took fifty lives, and in Bihar, confrontation between Ranvir Sena (land-owning militia) and Naxalites resulted in scores of vendetta killings.
For April I have only two items of national interest—the rest are cricket matches with India levelling scores with Pakistan and getting the better of England at Sharjah. Of importance to the Sikhs were the 300th anniversary of the Foundation of the Khalsa Panth at Anandpur Sahib. I have never seen a larger gathering of Khalsas in my life—there must have been about thirty lakh present. Less cheerful was the defeat of Vajpayee’s government by one vote, for no reason that made any sense to me except political chicanery. The country was plunged into unnecessary general elections with Vajpayee assured of a massive sympathy vote.
It is hard to fathom the reasons why Pakistan decided to indulge in military adventurism against India. In February, Prime Minister Vajpayee had gone by bus to Lahore on a goodwill mission and extended a hand of friendship to the people. Unknown to us, by then, Pakistani army units and foreign mercenaries hired by them or financed by Osama bin Laden had surreptitiously occupied bunkers on snow-bound heights built by our army and vacated for the winter months.
Our intelligence had obviously failed: we had to pay a very heavy price for its failure. It took our army and air force two months to drive the Pakistani infiltrators out of our soil. As one would have expected, Vajpayee came to be looked upon as the saviour of India. And in Pakistan, the civilian-elected government of Nawaz Sharif began to be looked upon with suspicion by the Pakistani army topbrass, for bringing the disgrace of defeat on their country. The one cheerful item of news during the bloody confrontations was Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati winning the French Open and the Wimbledon men’s finals. Never before had India attained such heights in the game.
While we became insensitive to the killings of innocents by terrorists in Kashmir, Bihar Orissa, Assam and Andhra Pradesh, the passing of eminent men left a deeper sense of loss. Hakim Abdul Hamid, founder of Hamdard and the university of the same name, a good God-fearing man, died in the end of July. He was followed a week later by Nirad C. Chaudhuri, who died in Oxford at the age of 101. Reviled by his countrymen all his life, he was paid handsome tributes by his traducers in every journal of the country. Meanwhile, people of lesser renown fell victim to man-made disaster: 400 were killed in a head-on collision between two trains in Bengal. An earthquake near Izmir (Turkey) accounted for 50,000, followed by another in Taiwan that killed over 2000.
By the first week of October, all the results of the general elections had been announced. The BJP and its allies won a comfortable majority over its chief rival, the Congress, which was reduced to its lowest-ever representation. It did do well in some states however, including Uttar Pradesh, which caused much heartburn in ruling party circles. It was forced to expel Kalyan Singh, as committed a Hindu communalist as any, who threatened to humble Vajpayee, raised the Ram mandir issue in Ayodhya no matter what the courts had to say on the subject. Kalyan or no Kalyan, Vajpayee was back in the saddle firmer than ever before.
Though I have strong reservations against many of his colleagues and allies who keep on fooling the people with garbled phraseology of the ‘Mandir not being on their agenda’, I have a gut feeling that Vajpayee has shed the khaki knicker mentality and become a world statesman with a broad vision. He has also rid himself of trouble-making allies like Jayalalitha, and should be able to give the country a stable government for five years. His first challenge came when a cyclone of unprecedented fury struck the Orissa coastline, taking about 30,000 lives. This was followed by a flood in Venezuela which took over 50,000. Such God-made disasters make me question those believers who claim that God is not only all-powerful but also just and merciful. Would all these holy men who spout pravachans on various TV channels and write columns in daily papers, answer simple question like the one I have posed?
Early last month went two eminent industrialists—Harish Mahendra and Darbari Seth. Darbari had a passion for Urdu ghazals. One night we sat up till 3 a.m. listening to Mehdi Hasan on one of his visits to Bombay.
While thousands of victims of the Orissa cyclone were still untracked, Bihar and UP celebrated two weddings on a regal scale. Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi for their daughter, and Mulaya
m Singh Yadav for his son, organized receptions as princely families of yesteryear used to do. These are self-proclaimed leaders of the poor and downtrodden, and have no doubt exhorted their followers not to waste money on marriages. So must have Jayalalitha in her innumerable election campaigns. They are by no means the only three to preach one thing and practice another. More painful is the fact that leaders of all parties, including Communists, attended these vulgar displays of unearned wealth. The only words I can think of using for them are besharam and beyhaya—without shame and without propriety.
The year came to a tragic end with the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Delhi with 189 passengers aboard. It was the saddest Christmas I have ever had which was spent alternating between outbursts of anger and tears. What kind of security checks the Kathmandu airport police and Indian Airlines carry out before passengers boarded the aircraft can be gauged from the fact that five heavily-armed men were cleared. Why was the aircraft allowed to leave Amritsar? The nightmare will haunt everyone for many nights.
Last of all, I speak of myself. 1999 brought me a bumper of awards and an honorary doctorate. My last novel, The Company of Women, which I did not rate very high myself and was panned by literary critics, remained on top of India’s bestseller list for over four months. To hell with critics; long live my readers! I wish them good health and prosperity.
1 January 2000
Biased media
There was a time, not so long ago, when if anything went wrong in the country, our netas and following them our patrakars, immediately put the blame on America’s CIA. If you dared to question them on their sources of information, they promptly dubbed you ‘a Washington patriot’.
The CIA has now become neta- and media-friendly. It has been replaced by Pakistan’s ISI. There can be little doubt that this agency has a lot to do with sustaining anti-Indian terrorism in Kashmir, Punjab and elsewhere, but the way our politicians and the press portray it as the source of all mischief that takes place in our country—communal riots, fake currency notes, bomb blasts etc.—it gives ISI more credit for mischief-making than it is capable of.
It is much the same in Pakistan. All that goes wrong is promptly ascribed to our secret agency, RAW. What Pakistani politicians, its state-controlled radio and TV and a section of their press have to say about RAW is highly complimentary but hardly believable. However, both ISI and RAW are used in our countries to keep already existing ill-will at fever pitch. I am sure if anything happened to people like Kuldip Nayyar or me (who are periodically condemned for pleading for friendlier relations with Pakistan), RAW would hold the ISI responsible, and the ISI would claim that it was done by RAW just to give ISI a bad name.
This kind of mud-slinging would be comic if it was not tragic. It is unworthy of the media of both our countries, particularly ours which claims to be entirely free of meddling by the State. Our print and electronic media must not rely so much on Government handouts, wire services and foreign media.
This brings me to a disgraceful instance of reckless irresponsibility in reporting, committed recently by two independent TV channels which following every newscast, claim to being free, unbiased, objective and based on experience. When the first news of the hijacking of our plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar was reported, following perhaps a report in the Washington Post, both these channels said that the hijackers were Sikhs. The Washington Post was quick to correct its error and apologize for it. However, neither of our TV channels that made this blunder bothered to do so, despite the many protests sent to them. They should have known that naming a community for a criminal act committed by one of its members is unethical and can have dangerous repercussions. Not only did these channels get their facts wrong and transgress the unwritten code of news broadcasting, but they refused to express regret for having done so. Now what should we make of their self-righteous claims to truthfulness, objectivity and experience?
5 February 2000
Down with bigotry
The most disturbing feature of present-day India is the growing spirit of intolerance— religious, social and cultural. The blame can be laid squarely on the resurgence of religious fundamentalism among all communities save Christians and Parsis. Semi-literate mahants, mullahs and granthis take it upon themselves to decide what is good and what is not good for the country. Opportunist politicians bray their support. And if they happen to be in positions of power, they impose their will on others regardless of their legal rights.
So hukamnamas, fatwas and denunciations flow from the mouths of people who have little concern for the democratic rights of others and even less respect for the law of the land. They are enemies of India; a contemptible lot. It is the duty of the administration, be it of the central or the state governments, to restrain them, detain them, take them to court and punish them. It is also the duty of citizens to confront them on public platforms and in the streets and try to knock some sense into them.
The fate of Deepa Mehta’s film Water is the latest instance of religious bigots getting away with murder because the authorities failed in their duty to curb them. The film script was okayed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Thereafter, it was the duty of the Ministry to see that no one was allowed to obstruct the shooting. And if anyone did, the duty of the Home Ministry was to arrest them and bring them to trial. As it transpired, the state government let vandals get away with it.
Nothing better could have been expected from the waffly chief minister of Uttar Pradesh whose left hand does not know what his right hand is doing, and who describes the destruction of the Babri Masjid as a peaceful occurrence. It was a good opportunity for the Vajpayee government, chiefly Home Minister L.K. Advani, to act swiftly and come down with an iron hand on lawbreakers. However, both the state and the central government failed miserably in maintaining law and order. It is a shame that Deepa Mehta had to amend her own script approved by the I&B Minister to pander to the view of the pandas of Varanasi.
The basic role of a democracy is respect for the opinions of people who differ with you. No one is entitled to thrust his views on others. Banning or burning books, films or paintings is medieval barbarism. If you dislike what you have heard about a book, don’t read it. If you don’t approve of a film, don’t go to watch it. If you don’t like a painter or the themes of his paintings, don’t see them. But in a cultured society, you have no right to prevent others from reading those books or seeing those films or paintings. It is as simple as that.
12 February 2000
Religion to serve the people
Many readers accuse me of harbouring anti-religious sentiments. That is not correct. I respect all religions as well as people who subscribe to them. My grouse is that all religions as practised in India today have become time-wasting exercises that do not benefit society nor make an individual a better human being. No people on earth spend so much time in prayer, meditation, rituals, pilgrimages and listening to so-called spiritual discourses as we Indians do. Nor do any other people enjoy as many religious holidays. For a country left far behind others in the race for prosperity, this pattern of behaviour must change, and the sooner the better.
Religious institutions and preachers can be very effective in solving our nation’s problems provided they shed their traditional roles of only performing rituals and singing bhajans. It will be hard for them as they have vested interests in doing what they have always been doing—ringing bells, chanting mantras, singing hymns and getting paid for it. Their activities do not benefit society in any way. I make bold to make the following suggestions:
1. No place of worship should be granted land or permission to build on unless it has provision for a primary school and teaching staff to go with it.
2. No priest should perform the sacred thread, amrit or marriage ceremonies of boys and girls unless he is assured they have studied up to the tenth standard.
3. At every marriage ceremony, the priest should make the marrying couple take an oath that on the bir
th of their second child, both will voluntarily undergo sterilization.
4. Hindu and Sikh priests should inform people that there is nothing in their religions which forbids the disposal of the dead by burial under the earth or in the sea. They should emphasize that killing a living tree to use its wood to get rid of corpses is an irreligious act. Local authorities should provide space close to all towns and villages where the Hindu and Sikh dead can be buried. No monuments may be built on their graves. Only a tree may be planted to mark the site or the land be returned to agriculture every five years. Many Hindu communities of the south bury their dead; many eminent Hindu leaders including Swami Chinmayananda were buried in recent years.
5. Preachers of religion must emphasize the value of working and earning one’s own livelihood. Guru Nanak made work an article of Sikh faith: Kirt karo (work), vand cbakbo (share what you earn), naam japo (take the name of the Lord). Note the order of priorities—work comes first, charity and prayer come later. It is from his teachings that I have coined the slogan for modern India: Work is worship, but worship is not work.
27 February 2000
The Comeback Kid
Everyone had written him off as a political washout—rival politicians, poll forecasters, print media, television channels, expert psephologists, the lot. Laloo has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the entire bunch of self-proclaimed analysts of Indian political trends are no more than a bunch of bewakoofs. Only one man, Shahir Hassan, a Bihari, who had toured his home state before the elections and has been working with Sitaram Kesri for many years, told me, ‘don’t write off Laloo Yadav. He has a strong hold on the lower castes and Muslims who can sway the elections in his favour.’ I did not believe him then. Now I do. I also do not believe the explanations now being given by soured losers as to how and why Laloo got the better of them. It was not the misalliance of disparate parties, not divisions in their ranks, not the lack of campaigning nor the absence of national leaders (Atal Behari Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi and George Fernandes were there). I am convinced it was Laloo’s one-man army that won the battle of the hustings in many parts of Bihar. In India, we can’t ignore the role of charismatic leaders in winning elections.
Big Book of Malice Page 16