Notes On the Great Indian Circus

by Khushwant Singh

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  Scenes Behind the Accord

  I have had the good fortune of learning something about the way the Punjab accord was reached. It throws new light on the painstaking methods adopted to keep the discussions secret till all points of dispute had been resolved. And the enormous stamina for work that the once-lackadaisical airlines pilot has acquired since he became a politician and a prime minister.

  Negotiations were re-opened as soon as the Akali leaders had been let out of jail. Some were understandably bitter after having been kept in detention for eleven months and remained adamant. A few felt that they should overcome their anger and give the new prime minister who had put Punjab on the top of his list of priorities a chance to resolve the problem. In the first lot were Tohra and Badal; in the second, Longowal, Balwant Singh and Barnala. Governor Arjun Singh who played a decisive role in these negotiations rightly decided to bring the Longowal-Balwant-Barnala group into contact with the prime minister and his advisers. A government plane flew them in from Chandigarh to Delhi and back to Chandigarh several times. This was invariably done at night when press hounds were not on the prowl, but busy drinking in the Press Club or fast asleep. Nevertheless, news often leaked out and people from whom trouble could be expected proved troublesome. Akali negotiators suggested that the prime minister meet them without his Cabinet sub-committee with only Governor Arjun Singh present. This delicate task was performed with some finesse which I cannot divulge. The final meeting went on from midnight to 5 am. At this meeting Bhajan Lal was summoned. When told of the proposed transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, de-linking it from the future of Fazilka and Abohar, the Haryana chief minister became melodramatic. He tore open his shirt, bared his chest, and proclaimed: ‘In that case shoot me dead.’ Rajiv asked one of his aides to take Bhajan Lal to the next room and let him cool off. Two hours later he was asked to come in again. By then his homicidal instinct had abated. He readily agreed to the accord. What happened to him during those two hours I can only guess.

  The prime minister spent most of the following day settling points of minor detail. I saw him in Parliament later in the evening. He could not have slept more than a few minutes in the preceding 24 hours. He looked as fresh as the proverbial daisy.

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  Thanedar Sahib Bulatey Hain

  A large number of citizens have come to me and complained against the way they are harassed by the police. In some instances policemen knocked on their doors late at night and simply said: ‘Thanedar Sahib nay aap ko police station talab kiya hai (you are required at the police station).’ Those who went, spent the night at the station. Many had to buy their way out of further harassment. Those who refused to go were threatened with dire consequences. And when they complied with the order the next day, they were kept waiting for hours, asked the most inane questions and before being let off, warned that they may be summoned again. One experience of this kind is enough to turn any law-abiding citizen into a rebel. Don’t the police realize their responsibility in creating animosity against the administration?

  The law on the subject is quite clear. No Thanedar Sahib has the power to demand the presence of anyone at the police station by oral communication. This can only be done through a written summons or a warrant. A citizen is within his right to tell policemen who come to fetch him to go to hell. If he decides to obey the summons he should insist that he will not answer any questions unless his lawyer is present. I am quite aware that few individuals will have the guts to face the police. I am also aware that few policemen have the guts to face men who stand up to their bullying tactics. This is one field where the press could play a positive role by publicizing instances of arbitrary misuse of power by the police and instill confidence in the citizenry that they can say ‘no’ to the almighty Thanedar.

  Sunday, 24 August 1985

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  Being One People

  Though all of us are exercised over dangers to national integrity, no one comes up with anything new to promote it. At every conference on the subject, you hear the same sort of thing: revise history books, join other communities when they celebrate their religious festivals, learn Indian languages other than your own, make matrimonial alliances outside your caste and religion etc. However, at a seminar organized in Bombay by the Maharashtra branch of the Institute of Public Administration, Dr Aloo Dastur came forward with a suggestion which deserves to be nationally debated. She conceded that though making Hindi our national language has been all but rejected by the southern states because of the aggressive ram-it-down-their-throats attitude of ardent Hindiwalas, there many not be the same opposition to making a beginning in that direction by having Devnagari as a national script. Languages like Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali have scripts which are minor variations of Devnagari: I for one am able to read Hindi without trouble because of my familiarity with the Gurmukhi script. It does not take me more than a couple of days in Bengal or Gujarat to be able to read hoardings in Bengali or Gujarati. The big scriptural divide will again be south of the Vindhyas. Will Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayali-speaking people agree to writing their languages in Devnagari script? If not, why not? An alternative suggestion was made by Dr Subramaniam, the Tamilian member of the Maharashtra Cabinet. He thought that the Roman script might be more acceptable to the whole of India than Devnagari. It would also have the additional advantage of familiarising our people with a script used in all of Europe, Canada, United States and Latin America. He cited the instance of Roman Urdu which was used by our army during British rule. It still has many enthusiasts, notably Danial Latifi who invented signs to overcome the difficulty of reproducing Indian sounds which do not exist in English. I find it easier to read Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi written in the English (Roman) alphabet than I do reading them in Arabic, Devnagari or Gurmukhi. What would you favour as a national script, English (Roman) or Devnagari?

  Sunday, 12 October 1985

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  Analysing Terrorism

  Since terrorism has reared its ugly head in the Punjab again, it is time we took a second look, an academic and objective look at the phenomenon, and see if we can devise methods to combat it. The chance encounter with a retired director general of police, N.S. Saksena, at Bangalore airport further whetted my appetite. He gave me his book Terrorism: History and Facts in the World and in India. In the two-and-a-half hour flight to Delhi I read through portions dealing with India.

  First, we must be clear on what exactly terrorism is. The facile assumption that it is organized violence against the state is disproved by the fact that far too often it is the state itself that rules by spreading terror. We are familiar with fascist and communist and other dictatorial regimes which maintain themselves in power by instilling fear among people. Even democratic societies often keep minorities under subjugation by indiscriminate use of terror or turning a blind eye towards organizations which persecute them, e.g., the Klu Klux Klan violence against blacks and Jews. In India the police is more often than not used by the administration to get rid of elements unsympathetic to it by encouraging it to organize fake encounters and kill in cold blood. Or by instructing it to remain passive spectators to violence being committed by a favoured community against another. That this has become a pattern in Hindu-Muslim riots is proved by the fact that in almost every one of these confrontations since Independence, Muslim loss of life and property has been almost ten times that of the Hindus. The worst example of police connivance with terrorism was witnessed in the two days following the assassination of Mrs Gandhi. Saksena writes: ‘The police in Delhi, Kanpur, Gaziabad, etc., was under the impression that anti-Sikh riots had the approval of the government.’ The impression was justified because the police not only remained passive witnesses to lynchings, looting, gang rapes and arson but refused to entertain complaints filed against killer, looters and rapists. The home minister admitted in Parliament that over 2400 persons were killed in Delhi alone. (The real figure is much higher). The Delhi police registered only 359 cas
es. The magistracy proved equally compliant: 99 per cent of the accused charged with these unbailable offences were in fact released on bail and are busy terrorising relatives of the very people they killed and molested from giving evidence against them. Saksena is right in saying ‘terrorism has largely been a public sector enterprise.’

  Another of Saksena’s observations explains the Bhindranwale brand of terrorism. ‘When the general population is not in sympathy with the victims of terrorism they enjoy terrorist activities in the press and on television. The kidnappings of multimillionaires and industrial magnates often fall into this category. An American psychiatrist went to the extent of calling terrorism a form of mass entertainment.’ Sikh peasantry did not have the measure of sympathy with Bhindranwale’s victims to feel nauseated with him. That sympathy is being gradually roused. First with the killing of the aged and scholarly Gyani Pratap Singh, then with the assassination of Sant Longwal and even more with the attempted murder in the Harmandir of the high priest Gyani Sahib Singh on Guru Nanak’s birthday. I am pretty certain that the final chapter of Bhindranwale terrorism has been written. I am not so sure that the police patronage of violent elements is also about to end.

  Sunday, 28 December 1985

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  Falsifying History

  All of us are worried over the resurgence of communalism. We are also agreed that amongst the many things we must do to get the better of it is to expunge religious bias from our history textbooks. Yet nobody seems to be doing very much about it. On the contrary, books written with communal malice aforethought seem to be on the increase and gaining acceptability. When P.N. Oak launched his dharmayudha aimed at proving that India owed everything worthwhile to Hinduism and only vandalism to our Muslim rulers, I thought since he was making such an ass of himself no one else needed to do any more about it. In his books he maintained that Taj Mahal at Agra and Qutub Minar at Delhi were Hindu monuments. He turned a blind eye to the suras from the Koran which festoon both monuments as well as records of contemporary historians. However, when I found Oak’s books selling outside the Taj and Qutub Minar, I concluded that Oak was no laughing matter, and wrote a few scathing articles on this deliberate falsification of history. Now I see a worthy successor to Oak in the person of a gentleman describing himself as Professor Amar Nath. His book, Some Missing Chapters of World History sets out to prove that not only is every worthwhile monument from ‘Kashmir to Kanya Kumari’ pre-Muslim but just about everything in England, including Westminster Abbey, are also of Hindu origin. Such academic audacity is truly breathtaking.

  I can give a few examples of distortions of history that I have come across personally. Close by Itmad-ud-daula’s mausoleum along the Jamuna at Agra is a garden laid out in Mughal style. It was here that Babar’s body was first interred before it was transported to his chosen resting place in Kabul. The garden was named ‘Araamgah (place of rest)’. In due course, rustics who could not pronounce the Persian word began to refer to it as ‘Raam Baagh’. ‘How can a garden named after Lord Rama be Mughal?’ people began to ask. It won’t be long before some historian of the Oak-Amar Nath brand uses the mispronunciation as conclusive evidence of its Hindu origin.

  There is an ancient building on Delhi’s Ridge known as Bhooli Bhatiyaari ka Mahal (the place of the lost potter women). A whole lot of legends have been built round this make-believe potter lady. It so happens that the building is in fact a mazaar of a not-too-well-known Muslim named Bu Ali Bhatti. Once again the source of information was entirely the rustics’ inability to pronounce the tongue-twisting name of the real builder who rests there.

  Professor (I wonder who made him one) Amar Nath follows this rustic line of argument. Christmas, he writes, has nothing to do with Christ but derives its name from Lord Krishna; it is in fact a derivation of Krishna Mass (the month of Krishna). He has come to the conclusion that English is a dialect of Sanskrit, that the Pope was once a Hindu priest and Westminster Abbey a Shiva temple.

  One would like to dismiss these kinds of ‘histories’ as laughable rubbish. But seeing what happens when monuments of one community are declared as those of another, I wonder if it is not time to suppress them before they do more mischief. I am against banning books except those that propagate falsehood or obscenity. Oak-Amar Nath books are both false and obscene because they foul the communal harmony of the country.

  Sunday, 19 April 1986

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  What Constitution?

  Quite a lot has been written about the Supreme Court judgement on the writ petition filed by Diwan Chand Wadhwa against the Bihar government’s practice of ruling by getting pliable Governors to repromulgate ordinances instead of taking the proposed legislation to the Vidhan Sabha and getting its approval. I wrote about it some years ago when Wadhwa’s book Repromulgation of Ordinances: A fraud on the Constitution of India was first published, and quoted it more than once in debates in the Rajya Sabha. The government remained absolutely indifferent to this scandalous misuse of constitutional provisions. For five years Wadhwa fought the battle single-handed, with only the press to help him. Finally, he took the matter to the Supreme Court. He was fortunate in getting Soli Sorabji, who gets very worked up over matters concerning human rights, to appear for him. Soli is probably the most expensive lawyer in the country; he appeared for Wadhwa free of charge and got him Rs 10,000 in costs.

  I would like to narrate an incident connected with this case. About two years ago a young barrister, Salman Khursheed (son of then minister Khurshid Alam Khan), organized a debate on the Constitution at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. Ex-justice Baharul Islam, MP, presided. Jagan Nath Kaushal, then law minister, was the keynote speaker. He delivered a splendid oration on how well our Constitution had been drafted and how it was the duty of all citizens to honour its provisions.

  I got the opening I was waiting for. When my turn came to speak, I said there were two ways of destroying the Constitution: the crude one practised by Akalis like Badal, who burnt a copy publicly (example recently imitated by members of the DMK party) and a more sophisticated one by praising it and then violating its spirit. This second way had been perfected by the Bihar government. Law minister Kaushal was then the Governor of Bihar.

  I was surprised to note that Kaushal’s name did not figure in the arguments nor appear in the judgement, because it was he who, more than any other Governor, flouted provisions of the Constitution meant entirely to meet emergencies. The Constitution required him to ‘be satisfied’ that the proposed ordinance was necessary. Kaushal ‘satisfied’ himself by revalidating at times 50 ordinances a day; on 18 January, 1976, he ‘satisfied’ himself by revalidating 56 ordinances on 56 entirely different subjects. It was obvious that he could not even read all of them in one day, much less be ‘satisfied’ that they were necessary.

  The trouble with us as a people is not that we don’t know that what we are doing is wrong, but that we acquiesce to wrong-doing to save ourselves from trouble.

  Sunday, 31 January 1987

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  Time For a Change

  A day before the last for filing nominations for the Lok Sabha seats, Vijay Kumar Malhotra of the BJP, himself a candidate, rang me up and asked me if I would be willing to propose the name of his party president, L.K. Advani, for the New Delhi seat. Without pausing to think, I replied, ‘I will be honoured to do so.’

  The heart-searching began as soon as I had put down the telephone receiver. I did not share the BJP’s point of view, particularly over the Babri Masjid-Ram Janam Bhoomi issue and its opposition to the recognition of Urdu as the second language. It openly flaunted its Hindu identity and its leaders had participated in the worship of bricks to be carried to Ayodhya to lay the foundations of the new temple over disputed ground. However, I also knew Advani, as well as Malhotra, to be men of impeccable character. I had seen Advani’s performance in the Rajya Sabha. He was one of the most clear-headed thinkers and a powerful orator. I knew him to be a clean and honest man. Not a breath of
scandal either financial or moral had ever touched him. And from my recollection of his performance as a minister in the Janata government as well as several talks I had with him in the lobbies, I had not detected any communal bias in him.

  What probably made me agree to propose his name with the alacrity of a knee-jerk reaction was my memory of the November 1984 massacre of Sikhs following the assassination of Mrs Gandhi. I had good reason to believe that the message, ‘teach the Sikhs a lesson’, had emanated from the highest echelons of the Congress party. The criminal inactivity of the police and paramilitary forces during those three tragic days clearly showed the complicity of the administration. Armed policemen idly watched, and at times instigated gangs of thugs to set fire to gurdwaras, murder Sikhs, rape their women and loot their property. What could have been put down by a firm hand in a few hours was deliberately allowed to go on for 72 hours. Far from condemning it, in his first public oration as prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi explained it away: ‘When a big tree falls, the earth about it shakes.’ The conduct of the Congress in the elections that followed was equally reprehensible. Its posters had a distinctly anti-Sikh bias. For example, the ad: ‘Do you feel safe in a taxi driven by a member of another community?’ In his own constituency, Amethi, where he had his Sikh sister-in-law, Maneka, opposing him, one of the slogans chanted was:

  Beti hai Sardar kee, quam hai ghaddar kee. (She is the daughter of a Sikh, she belongs to a community of traitors.)

  The Congress party won its landslide victory on a wave of anti-Sikh sentiment generated by it. Three non-official commissions of inquiry, headed by men like the retired chief justice of the Supreme Court, S.M. Sikri, Justice Tarkunde and Kothari (not one member of these ommissions was a Sikh) squarely held the Congress party guilty of instigating anti-Sikh violence. In the publication Who Are The Guilty?, several Congress members of Parliament were named as involved. Two of them, H.K.L. Bhagat and Jagdish Tytler were included in the central Cabinet. Rajiv Gandhi showed tell-tale reluctance in instituting an official inquiry. Finally he agreed to do so only after six months and as part of a deal with the Akali party. The commission headed by Justice Ranganathan Mishra took its own sweet time and recommended two other commissions to name the guilty. Then the Delhi high court struck down that commission as well. So, we were back to square one, without a single person being punished for what was undoubtedly the most horrendous killing of innocent people (the figure of 10,000 would not be an exaggeration), in the history of independent India.