Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

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  Beyond The Lines

  An Autobiography

  Kuldip Nayar

  Lotus Collection

  © Kuldip Nayar, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means, without the prior permission of the author.

  First published in India in 2012

  First published in June 2012

  Second impression, July 2012

  The Lotus Collection

  An imprint of

  Roli Books Pvt. Ltd

  M-75, Greater Kailash II Market, New Delhi 110 048

  Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000

  Fax: ++91 (011) 2921 7185

  E-mail: info@rolibooks.com

  Website: www.rolibooks.com

  Cover photograph: Kavita Chopra Dikshit

  Also at Bangalore, Chennai, & Mumbai

  ISBN: 978-81-7436-910-9

  Typeset in Perpetua by Roli Books Pvt. Ltd

  and printed at Sanat Printers, Haryana

  Dedicated to

  Bharti, my wife, my two sons, Sudhir and Rajiv, their wives, both Kavita, three grandchildren Kanika, Mandira, and her husband Ratish; and Kartik and his wife Kanika.

  Contents

  Preface

  1. Childhood and Partition

  2. The Nehru Years

  3. Early Pangs of Governance

  4. My Training and Apprenticeship in English Journalism

  5. Govind Ballabh Pant as Home Minister

  6. Lal Bahadur Shastri as Home Minister

  7. Lal Bahadur Shastri as Prime Minister

  8. Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister

  9. The Bangladesh War

  10. The Shimla Conference

  11. The Emergency and After

  12. The Janata Party Government

  13. Operation Bluestar

  14. Rajiv Gandhi

  15. V.P. Singh as Prime Minister

  16. Narasimha Rao’s Government

  17. My Tryst with Parliament

  18. The BJP at the Helm

  19. The Manmohan Singh Government

  Epilogue

  Annexures

  1. Indian Media

  2. Human Rights and the Environment

  3. Indo-Pak Relations

  Index

  Preface

  This book, an account of my life, has taken far longer than I had anticipated. I began writing in 1990 when, as India’s high commissioner, I had some leisure. That tenure did not however, for political reasons, last long and I was back in the mill to resume work on my syndicated column.

  I wish I could have said more about myself and less about the events that were engulfing me. There were some constraints. For one, I was conscious that I was willy-nilly, writing a contemporary history of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh – countries I had seen and experienced from the time they came into existence. Two, I wished, as far as possible, to minimize the personal pronoun in order to avoid accusations of projecting myself and propagating punditry.

  I have seen the great, the despotic, and nonentities among politicians, bureaucrats, and industrialists, media magnates, and journalists. The performance of a majority has disappointed me, and my experience has been that most who occupied high positions were unworthy of them; they were authoritative but lacked substance.

  I do not claim to know of all that has happened in India, Pakistan, and subsequently Bangladesh, prior to Partition or after, but I have written honestly and frankly about all that I do know. My problem was to reduce all that I had seen, sensed, or known in a book of reasonable length, and this has meant leaving out a great deal.

  In the course of my life I have endeavoured to have as wide an experience as possible, and have tasted failure in many of my efforts. Had I had greater energy I might have achieved many more of my dreams.

  The book opens on the day the Pakistan Resolution was passed in 1940 when I was a school student of 17 years, present in Lahore where it happened. This book encapsulates much inside information which would not otherwise have been known, from Partition to the government of Manmohan Singh.

  It has taken me almost two decades to write this book because I would select an episode, write about it, and leave it at that. As I was not working to a deadline I could afford to do so until I realized a few years ago that I was not immortal. As I write in long hand it takes me time to complete a manuscript.

  It was difficult to decide when the book should begin. Should it be from the day I reached Delhi on 14 September 1947, as a refugee from my home town, Sialkot in Pakistan? However, many people I consulted, both in India and Pakistan, insisted that I should write about Partition because they wanted to know why and how India came to be divided. I have told all because I have lived through that period and have helplessly witnessed the events as they unfolded.

  I have depended largely on my memory to write my memoirs, but the notes I maintained were useful as were my articles which I have had bound, beginning in 1968 when I left the United News of India (UNI), a news agency, and joined the Statesman as its Delhi editor.

  If I were to identify a watershed moment in my life, I would say it was my detention during the Emergency when my innocence was assaulted. I began my life in India with Rs 120 which my mother gave me when I left home. Although Partition compelled me begin life afresh, I was then young and took whatever happened in my stride. The Emergency woke me up from the cocooned life I had led and obliged me to face the realities of politics, prejudice, and punishment.

  That was also the time when I began to feel for the violation of personal
liberty and human rights. The young boys interned in jail for no fault of theirs who were made to wait upon politicians in detention shook my conscience to the core. It lessened my faith in the system. I have seen how our political masters are violating it, not just the mafia who, in any event, cannot be expected to have any respect for human life or individuals’ rights.

  Readers will find much discussion on India–Pakistan relations. Improving them has been my passion as well as my prayer. Mine is a commitment, not just nostalgia. I hope one day I am able to see a region of friendly states working together for their mutual benefit.

  I have seen Bangladesh developing from the days when it was liberated. My contact with many people in Pakistan and Bangladesh are personal and I am proud to own the relationship. I believe that some day all the countries in South Asia will form a common union like the European Union (EU), without abandoning their individual identities, and this will help fight against the problems of poverty and to span the ever-yawning gulf between the rich and the desperately poor of all our countries. I am convinced that South Asians will one day live in peace and harmony and cooperate with one another on matters of mutual concern such as development, trade, and social progress. This is the hope I have clung to amidst the sea of hatred and hostility that has for far too long engulfed the subcontinent.

  I have won many awards, including one named after Lord Astor awarded to the best journalist in the Commonwealth. What I value most is my membership of the Medill Hall of Achievement, the American school from where I earned an M.Sc in journalism, and the doctorate in journalism I received from Nagarjuna University, Andhra Pradesh. I was conferred PhD in philosophy by Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

  I can honestly say that failures have not deterred me from pursuing the path I have considered correct and worth fighting for. I have suffered in consequence and I carry many raw wounds. What has sustained me is faith: Hum honge kamyab ek din [We shall succeed one day].

  I have no idea of what the art of living is. I have lived just following my usual daily routine. Circumstances have buffeted me from one situation to another, and I have tried to adjust myself to them, often wondering whether I control my life or whether life controls me. Time has passed by like an unfettered stream, just flowing.

  Occasionally, I am shaken when I pass through a slum or when a poor helpless child spreads his hand before me for alms. ‘How do they live? Why do they live?’ I ask myself. I often imagine myself engaged in a slew of activities to transform their destiny; a genie fighting against evil. Wishful thinking perhaps, but the tedium and tension involved in the very process pushes aside such cogitations and I return to a self-centred life of good meals and an air-conditioned room.

  I believe that perhaps some day everything will miraculously right itself. Some magic wand will help wipe tears from every cheek and awaken the people to something deeper and nobler. How? When? These questions gnaw at my conscience. I try to push them away but they keep reappearing, each time with greater force, like a refrain from a piece of forgotten music, leaving me feeling sad, shaken, and helpless. I wish I could find a peg to hang my worries and doubts on. If only I had faith. Those who believe the present life is a continuation of a past one and that we are now reaping what we had sown have some explanation to cling to. Others have prayers as their anchor. At least they are not a rudderless ship like me. What is the purpose of life?

  My mind goes back to the time when I had just begun life. Would I be an entirely different person were I to begin all over again? Then what about my critics and supporters? In some way, how similar they are.

  I do not think my time is up. I am buoyed up by the feeling that I still have time to do something worthwhile, and this elates me. If I only knew what would be worthwhile; and how I should go about it!

  It is beyond my capacity to describe what has goaded me to go on and on for over eight decades: destiny or determination? Could it be both? After all, the show must go on, and I concur with the great Urdu poet, Ghalib who wrote: ‘Shama har rang mein jalti hai sehar hone tak [The flame flickers in every colour until the morning].’

  I had titled the book, A Lifetime is not Enough. But the publisher preferred Beyond the Lines, taking a cue from my column, ‘Between the Lines’. I am indebted to Shyam Bhatia, Seema Sirohi, R. Ramachandran, and Manjur Ali for the valuable suggestions they have made and to Gopal who has repeatedly and tirelessly typed and retyped the manuscript. Even so, the book would not have taken the form it has but for the meticulous editing by Adil Tyabji sahab and the advice given by Nandini, my first pupil in journalism, and Mandira Nayar, my granddaughter, who alone in the family has taken up journalism.

  1

  Childhood and Partition

  Every new beginning in life is unique and my example is worth recalling because it was unplanned; I stumbled into journalism by accident. My chosen profession was law, in which I had a degree from Lahore, but history intervened and before I could enroll myself as a lawyer in my hometown, Sialkot, India was divided. Making my way to Delhi, I found a job in an Urdu daily, Anjam (meaning end). That is why I always say that I entered the profession of journalism from the end, not the beginning: Mere sahafat ka agaz Anjam se hua.

  Were the Almighty to take me back to 15 August 1947, the day of India’s Partition, and ask me what I would like to be, a journalist or a lawyer, I would choose the former. That is not because I have done well in this profession but because it has given me an opportunity to write what I have considered to be correct, notwithstanding multiple pressures. Ironically, I failed to pass a journalism diploma course in Lahore, and also the optional paper in Urdu for the bachelor of arts degree.

  After Partition, we were among the very few Hindu families who did not want to migrate to India. We mistakenly thought that as large numbers of Muslims would continue to live in India, the same would be true of Hindus in Pakistan. Our resolve was strengthened when a few days prior to Partition, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, categorically pronounced that people were free to go to their mosques or temples and practise their faith because the state would never mix religion with politics. He reinterpreted his thesis of two nations, Muslims and Hindus, to mean Pakistanis and Indians.

  Jinnah’s encouraging statement apart, there was his gesture to select a Hindu poet, Jagan Nath Azad, to compose the national anthem of Pakistan. The anthem was changed after Jinnah’s death for communal considerations: a Hindu writing the national anthem of a Muslim state appeared unthinkable.

  Moreover, our family’s lifestyle was also so comfortable that we did not wish to uproot ourselves. We had substantial property and my father was a leading medical practitioner in Sialkot. How could he, then past sixty, begin his practice afresh in a new city? He had already spent most of his savings a few months prior to Independence building a new house, a new dispensary, and an array of shops.

  I have fond memories of my home, at Trunk Bazaar, a two-storey house with a garden at the back where there was an old grave which my mother said was the kabar of some pir (saint). The grave was like a family shrine where we prayed in our own way and sought refuge from the outside world. It was here that we lit a lamp every Thursday and made an offering of sweets which we, the children, subsequently distributed amongst ourselves. A few years before Partition, some Muslims demanded a passage to the grave on the plea that they should have free access to their religious site. We had to yield to the demand but the passage, which cut through our property, was rarely used.

  Ours was a joint family, with my grandmother as the effective head. My grandfather was alive but he took a back seat. Grandmother was a great one for astrology. She had horoscopes of every child prepared by a leading pandit, forecasting the future. I recall one occasion when the pandit dropped in at the house. A visit from him was always eagerly awaited because he would also read our palms. He said that I would read the malechh vidya (a language of foreigners), thereby meaning English. He also predicted that I would travel a lot by udhan khatola (plane).
When my youngest brother Sindhu showed his hand, he was dismissed in a second with the remark that the lines on his hand had not properly developed. This was perhaps his way of saying that Sindhu would not live long.

  When my grandmother died, I rode a horse alongside the cortege of family and friends who carried the coffin to the cremation ground. Women, some of them hired, rhythmically beat their breasts. Brahmins were fed one day and the poor of the locality on another. My grandmother apparently evoked a great measure of respect because scores of people were gathered at the cremation ground. I remember I went to Haridwar with the family to immerse her ashes in the Ganga. I do not recall crying because the whole ceremony of her death wore an aura of festivity. This was the custom among Hindus when a woman died at a ripe old age.

  My immediate family comprised my father, mother, and four brothers – Rajinder, Hardip, Surinder, and a sister, Raj, who lived in Jamshedpur at the time of Partition. Sindhu had died of cholera a few months earlier. I can never forget his last moments: he passed away with his head resting on my lap. He called me bhapa (elder brother), and when his moment came, he asked me to hold him tight so as to prevent anyone from taking him away. I held him tight, but I could feel his body going limp. His last words were, ‘Bhapa leave me, I can see the light. I am going there,’ and then he was gone. His loss left me distraught for a long time.

  His parting words often make me wonder whether there is indeed a higher power controlling the universe. The light, to which Sindhu referred, represents a power which eventually leads us in our journey from life to death. Why, how, and when, I cannot say, but notwithstanding my leftist leanings I have come to believe that there is power beyond: be it god or any other name you may choose to give it. I have oscillated between faith and doubt for many years but have come to accept that there is a force which I feel within but which I cannot explain. I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic; I am a believer, but notwithstanding this I have failed to curb my doubts and misgivings, and prayer has not helped either.