by Jaya Jaitly
Journalist Shekhar Gupta once wrote that George Fernandes had visited him for an interview at The Indian Express office as defence minister. In response to Shekhar warning him that he had a bad cold and cough and would not shake hands, he had apparently held his hand out and said cheerfully, ‘Don’t worry Shekhar, I am not pedigreed.’ When I read this story some years later, I found George Sahib’s description of himself spot on, and realized that I had unconsciously de-pedigreed myself to a large extent as well. Sampa Das called it ‘de-glamourized’, but that didn’t fit me since I never attempted to be glamourous. In the socialist world of political activity, it would be positively incongruous, unlike many ladies in Parliament today who are hardly ever without zari-bordered saris and visit beauty parlours regularly.
Stepping out of this fairly genteel world into the midst of election campaigns was a big step. These are arenas where any committed party worker can afford to think of nothing but to work for the victory of the candidate. No sleep, no food, no questions asked, just slog from 6 am till midnight, whatever the job. Activists and politicians who demand reservations for women without any experience of actually slogging it out in a party organization only display their distaste for mingling with the good, bad and the ugly. That is real life.
~
My first election experience was at Muzaffarpur in Bihar, in 1980, where I was, in reality, a mere observer who made herself slightly useful. George, the Giant Killer of 1977, was fighting the Lok Sabha elections, this time with his back to the wall against upper-caste dons who held sway with their guns and bombs, preventing the Other Backward Class (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs) from approaching the polling booths. Having heard a lot about this politician through the experiences of Ashok, he encouraged me to see things for myself and suggested I spend a couple of days there to get a first-hand experience of what happens. I set off for Patna and was helped by parents of a bureaucrat friend to get on the boat to cross the Ganga. It was almost midnight in a chilly January. George Sahib had sent his colleagues to fetch me at the other bank. I could barely see them holding up lanterns through the fog. We reached a local supporter’s residence around 1 am. But just as I reached, the lights in the room Leila Fernandes and a friend were using, were turned off. The hosts were planning to have me share their room. A little embarrassed at this unexpected, unwelcoming reception, they ushered me in the dark to another room and told me to quietly crawl under the mosquito net. Exhausted, I crept in and slept at the very edge of the bed as it seemed there was someone else in it too. In the morning, I discovered I had shared the bed with four other family members—women and children. We all woke up in the morning looking at each other in surprise. The house was semi-complete. There was no separate space for bathing. Brush your teeth at the hand pump and bathe in a small empty storeroom with no drainage, or on the rooftop, I was told by the lady of the house. I chose the latter. As I stood looking over the rooftops of Muzaffarpur amid the cold open air, I hoped no one could see me.
For two days, I was assigned to be part of a team of women who went from house to house in the railway colony and other poor working class areas, telling people to vote for George Fernandes and teaching them how to stamp and fold a ballot paper lengthwise in half and then over, to fit in the ballot box. George Fernandes’s famous speech defending the Janata government and then leaving it, was raw. It was no longer an easy time for the man who had the second highest vote in history just two years ago. Newspapers accused him of distributing motorcycles and blankets; the Left parties said he had been a corrupt Minister of Industries. I campaigned faithfully with full knowledge that none of this was true since Ashok had spent every waking hour with him and would not have remained loyal if any such thing had happened. In fact, at a dinner one evening, a businessman, not knowing who he was, boasted he had personally handed over money to George Fernandes. Ashok called him to the Ministry the next morning and asked if he was prepared to say this in front of the minister. The man ran away!
George Fernandes won by a margin of only 30,000 odd votes. It was a huge drop. I came back to Delhi where curious friends at evening dinners were waiting to hear a blow-by-blow account of this unusual activity as if I had been to some nether world and had come back unscathed.
~
By the time the next campaign experience came along, it was 1984. I was already a changed person. George Fernandes was asked by Chandra Shekhar to fight from Bangalore North as Karpoori Thakur was non-committal about supporting him in Muzaffarpur. I felt it was a mistake to leave the constituents that loved him but he too was unsure about Karpoori at that time, and after much doubt, chose Bangalore as being ‘safer’. Ramakrishna Hegde assured George Fernandes he would have his men provide all the ground support. It was to be an easy ride. To the latter’s horror he found voters actually asking who he was and the promised ground support evaporated without a trace when money was not adequately provided. C.K. Jaffer Sharief, his opponent from the Congress, had a good hold locally and a well-organized team. Fired up and committed to taking an open stand against the Congress, I stayed at George Fernandes’s home with his mother and brothers for ten days, helping workers with slips, posters, leaflets and other Party material. In the evenings, we went in large groups to campaign door to door or address public meetings all over Bangalore North. I began to understand Kannada, especially words that were repeatedly used in political addresses like ‘sullu’ for lies and ‘prajaprabutva nashagolisu avaru’ for ‘destroying democracy’, etc. However, my timid speeches about the state of politics then had to be in Hindi to whoever in the audience could understand the language. I spoke about various issues like the ongoing problems in Kashmir and my recent experiences in Delhi to persuade voters not to vote for the opponents. On hindsight, I doubt if it resonated at all. Bangalore’s Hindi was very odd. On the eve of elections, I remember a heavily built Muslim woman, a political enthusiast who was part of the women’s team coming to me and asking for a hefty sum of money: ‘Paisa dena, stamping karko vote dalna,’ she assured me under her breath, thumping a closed fist over the palm of her other hand. Once I understood she was demanding funds to stamp ballot papers in bulk, I was taken aback.
George Fernandes was defeated by a margin of about 40,000 votes for lack of ground support and the wave that swept over the country in favour of Rajiv Gandhi after his mother’s assassination. This woman remained convinced that the loss was because I didn’t let her stamp extra ballot papers. She was disappointed in me as a woman, she said.
~
By 1985, the Party leaders who were in opposition were becoming increasingly wary of George Fernandes raising multiple issues outside the Parliament. If he created too much noise outside, they feared being exposed of inaction. It was best not to let him remain an ‘outsider’. They wanted him to fight the by-election from Banka in Bihar. For all his love for struggle, he too felt like a fish out of water when he did not have Parliament as a platform to hammer his opponents with incisive speeches, telling statistics, and a challenging audience. I was cautious, as usual. I wrote:
As far as I can gauge, the situation isn’t as it must appear to you … if the BJP doesn’t withdraw there is nothing in the Lok Dal withdrawal … I don’t view it as just a good challenging fight (which you love) and barge ahead believing that everyone means what he says at face value … all these BJP, LD, JP types saying you must go ahead. I don’t trust a single one of them. They can lead you a-dance as they did in Karnataka, swearing to support and stabbing you from behind. As for the ‘people’, we all know how they are broken down by fear, money, etc…. Everyone stands to gain by your victory and only you stand to lose if you are defeated in a three-way fight. Think coolly (Gosh, how can I be advising you!). I am taking courage because all your close colleagues here including Vinod [Vinod Prasad Singh] agree … I know you will say the answer to everyone is to ‘fight’ but when, where, how is important. Now it should be a fight to win and not your famous ‘failure is the other side of success’ phrase.
As usual, he did not take my advice.
I was put on the task of seeking Lok Dal support from Chaudhary Devi Lal, and money from Prakash Singh Badal who was never contactable as his mother was very sick at the PGI, and other small contributors apart from the Bombay unions who were providing the money for banners, posters and leaflets along with teams to work on the ground. The election agent was Yashwant Sinha who later became Union Finance Minister. A lot of coordination between him, the Party office and the workers in Banka had to be done. Jyoti Basu in Calcutta first promised a helicopter and then his secretary called to say that it was out of order. I had to frantically arrange for a helicopter for Hegde to campaign for a day for George Fernandes since Hegde refused to travel any other way because of back trouble. Chandra Shekhar finally managed a Vayudoot. On my way to meeting Hegde at the Delhi airport to ensure he travelled to Banka to campaign, since they could all change their minds at the eleventh hour, I met M.J. Akbar, our old friend who was then a Congress MP. We had always been friends and yet Akbar was sarcastic about George Sahib and our efforts. I wrote to George Sahib that it was a most unpleasant experience since Akbar often spent time with him and had even contributed a small amount for other elections. However, at this time he was playing the role of a politician opposed to us.
I took Shiraz Sidhwa, my journalist friend, and accompanied Hegde on his day’s campaign to Banka in this tiny plane. It was odd to see a pathetic Bihar Police guard of honour in place to receive Hegde at the helipad. It was completely incongruous. I also had to tackle Biju Patnaik for material help in between his ‘Humpfs’ every now and then, Syed Shahabuddin, a senior Party leader, proving extremely difficult to manage with his many tantrums, apart from trying to organize a PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties) team to go as observers to ensure the election was free and fair. In between, I would run to Madhu Limaye who had some advice to pass on regularly to George Fernandes who got thrown into Bhagalpur jail for a few days owing to having arranged a satyagraha amidst it all! It was a lot of learning at one go.
I would receive an occasional note from George Sahib through some travelling colleague, to one of which I replied:
I was happy to receive your note but not too happy at the extent of violence you hint at—because there is a limit in terms of money and muscle power we can muster to counter that. Our weapons are based on hope and idealism, honest effort and solid guts—let’s see how far that takes us—guns apart! Was chasing the Lok Dal chaps for a couple of days—lots of hemming and hawing and going around in circles but the papers today say they have declared support. I guess they couldn’t avoid it finally although Ajay Singh conveyed that Karpoori was stuck in a complicated situation since they were supporting BJP elsewhere and were getting their support too.
The media is quite excited about the’ ‘thrilling’ contest. ‘Fiery’, ‘redoubtable’, ‘colourful’ GF is giving everyone some fun. Not much sympathy for Chandrashekhar Singh [the Congress opponent] anyway. The Election Commission letter is good…. Publicize it there and I’ve asked Party Office to send out a press note on it here.
Zaidi, a party secretary, has promised to get Chaudhury’s appeal signed, printed and sent with Sharad Yadav. I’ll keep breathing down his neck from here.
I strongly believed backstage work was as important. The candidate is the actor in a play but he cannot function without all the stage hands putting everything he needs in position. I helped many Party leaders get elected through myriad efforts like badgering the Election Commission to prevent booth capture, to seeing the posters were printed and dispatched properly, to finding men and materials for their support. I expected that in return, the victorious candidates whom I had worked for, would raise issues in Parliament on matters that concerned my areas of work involving artisans and weavers. I honestly believed one didn’t necessarily have to only be a member of Parliament to be politically active or relevant. Of course, one learns that the job is a thankless one. Men believe it to be a matter of right to be served according to their wishes, but isn’t one taught to be selfless in politics? Most times I have been fully satisfied with this approach, but in later years, I have to admit to occasionally wishing I could be in Parliament too, primarily to raise issues concerning policies for India’s traditional arts and crafts. That is because my Party leaders, other than George Fernandes, showed scant interest in this sector. The attending trappings like a good salary, accommodation travel and other perks that came with being a MP, did not attract me. They were never a part of my lifestyle, and were equally shunned by my political mentor.
Coming back to polling day, Madhu Dandavate, Swaraj Kaushal, Sushma Swaraj’s husband who had been a socialist activist in his youth, Jaipal Reddy, who later joined the Congress, and others, kept phoning for news. Mobile phones were a long way away from being created. No one could get through the landline most of the time. Booking ‘lightning calls’ at three times the rate had become standard procedure since nothing else worked. The mischief was revealed the next day.
For everyone in our team it was obvious that the Banka elections were massively rigged, and of course, George Fernandes lost by around 20,000 votes to Congress’s Chandrashekhar Singh. Surendra Mohan and other senior socialists were locked up at police stations and scores of vehicles impounded, leaving the voters stranded on the roadside. Teenagers were put into voting lines, local policemen were dressed in kurta pyjamas to cast bogus votes. People said it was common knowledge that Rajiv Gandhi had set up a whole house as a control room to ensure every seat could be lost except this one. Yashwant Sinha sent hundreds of complaints to the Election Commission. I sat up nights receiving calls of impending danger which I faxed to the Election Commission. Nothing happened. The media published lengthy, detailed stories with photographs of booth capture and rigging which were openly assisted by the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.
Meanwhile, the stress knocked my back out of shape. I spent three weeks flat on my back on a hard bed at home compiling press reports of the rigging which went into a booklet called The Press in Banka where I wrote a long diatribe saying election rigging of this nature by the state was undemocratic and how the media was finally telling it like it was. The booklet was widely distributed, but that was that.
Then, Chandrashekar Singh passed away suddenly, and his widow Manorama Singh stood for election. George Fernandes opposed her but the story and the result were the same. Some colleagues were so angry that we decided to hold a demonstration against Bindeshwari Dubey, the then chief minister of Bihar. As he attended a function at Pragati Maidan in Delhi one evening, Dr Sunilam, a young socialist activist, Vinod Prasad Singh, a veteran socialist and close comrade of George Fernandes, some other Party workers and I arrived at the scene. As the chief minister was leaving we raised murdabad* slogans and threw eggs at him. Mine got him on the back of his shoulder. We ran out and no one chased us. Looking back, it was silly and childish but it gave us a lot of momentary pleasure. I told my children I had carried warm socks in my handbag just in case we were arrested and had to spend a cold night in jail. They didn’t bat an eyelid; they had got used to my crazy ways.
Apart from elections and handicrafts development work, there were sudden interludes from a different world which were thrilling. Just after the Banka elections, I had met Günter Grass, the famous German novelist, in Calcutta and invited him to visit George Sahib in Delhi. I thought it would be a fascinating interaction as I had admired his books greatly. He came to George Fernandes’s small Hauz Khas apartment for tea with his wife Ute. We talked for a few hours about life, politics, literature and many other things as if we were old friends. Later, there was an exhibition of Günter Grass’s etchings at Max Mueller Bhavan. I went there to see if I could meet him again. As soon as he saw me, he left his conversation with three Germans and took me to a corner of the room to tell me how happy he had been to meet George Fernandes and how important it had been to know he was a socialist who had been through the Emergency,
jail, electoral defeats, and was still very much fighting. Then he said something I found significant and perceptive: ‘You must make sure he uses his energies by deciding what is important. He must not try to do a hundred things at once. He must not let people misuse him.’
After that, I took my children to see a film adaptation of his novel The Tin Drum (1959) at the IIC to get them acquainted with Grass’s work. I was happy that my love for good literature had not been erased by the grittiness of electoral politics.
~
Once the Bofors scandal* erupted in the latter part of the eighties, things went downhill for Rajiv Gandhi. The rise of V.P. Singh created conditions in 1989 for the formation of the National Front. Yashwant Sinha and I were given desks at the Janata Party office to handle the logistics of the election. We had to manage a variety of people with tact, like one short-statured, goatee-bearded man in a three-piece suit who came repeatedly carrying a briefcase and visiting cards saying he was a world-renowned traveller who had visited 148 countries for which he deserved an election ticket. Suman Sahai of the Gene Campaign wanted to fight from Muzaffarpur since she had studied in Germany and her in-laws were from Muzaffarpur. I faced some angry youth from Bihar who shouted at me asking what business I had to be at the Party office, and tried to forcefully gain entry. Once, a young socialist activist from Kanpur camped at George Sahib’s office at Hauz Khas, standing on his head in a yoga pose all morning, refusing to leave till he got a ticket to fight the elections. He did not get a ticket but he did get high fever and had to be sent to the doctor. Others jumped all over the hoods of cars carrying leaders to Parliamentary Board meetings. I often had to drive George Sahib out from meetings with him hiding in the backseat muttering, ‘wretched head hunters. They have not done a moment’s work!’
