Khushwantnama

by Khushwant Singh

  I am almost as old as the city I have lived in for most of my life. When I first came to Delhi, I was barely five years old and there was no New Delhi. I recall there were herds of deer, nilgais and wild boars to be seen in what are now Sunder Nagar, Kalindi Colony and Maharani Bagh.

  I saw the new city come up day by day as my father Sobha Singh received contracts to build the South Block, India Gate and much else. Most of the contractors were Sikhs and lived on Jantar Mantar Road. A railway along what is now Sansad Marg was called Imperial Delhi Railway (IDR). It brought stones and sand from Badarpur to what is now Connaught Circus. We often got free rides on the IDR.

  My father had many interesting tales about the building of New Delhi. When King George V and Queen Mary came to India in 1911 and announced the decision to shift the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, they laid two foundation stones in what is known as Kingsway Camp, where Delhi University is now.

  After World War I ended, a team of specialists came from London and examined the site. They were of the opinion that Kingsway was not a suitable place to build the city. They spent a few days riding around the countryside and decided that Raisina Hill would be the best place to build the Viceroy’s Palace, the Secretariat and Parliament House.

  It took many people to create the new city of Delhi. First, the rulers provided land and selected an architect. The architect drew the rulers’ vision on paper; the contractors collected building material and gathered masons and labourers to put on the ground what was on paper. Engineers oversaw that the architects’ ideas were properly executed. New Delhi was one of the world’s best-laid-out capitals, with wide roads and lots of greenery.

  My father’s first job as a contractor was to shift the foundation stones from Kingsway to Raisina. He hired a bullock cart, pulled out the foundation stones, rode on a bicycle alongside the cart and planted the stones at the base of Raisina Hill.

  The operation was done in the dark so that superstitious people would not take it as an ill omen. For this job, he was paid the princely sum of Rs 16.

  As New Delhi began to grow, its flora and fauna began to change. Keekars, neem and pipal gave way to jamun, sausage trees (Kigelia africana), gulmohar, banyan and other exotic trees that were brought from Africa to line the wide avenues. Within some years, vultures disappeared. Soon after, so did sparrows. Many other varieties of birds became scarce. During the monsoon, we used to hear frogs croaking all night and see fireflies flitting about in bushes. Now we have no frogs or fireflies. We heard the wailing of jackals at night and chowkidars calling: ‘Khabardar ho!’ They too have been silenced.

  Living in New Delhi was gracious, till Independence. Then, the character and culture of the city changed, with the influx of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan who flooded the city, and the departure of most of Delhi’s Muslims for Pakistan. New Delhi’s population trebled or quadrupled. New colonies sprang up everywhere, smothering ancient monuments. Huge parts of the old city wall were pulled down to make way for bazaars—independent India’s new rulers did not believe these were worth preserving, nor did they have time to plan for the future.

  The New Delhi I once knew like the back of my hand has now become an alien city in which I lose my way. It has grown out of all proportion, extending from Alipur to Faridabad, from Ghaziabad and Noida across the Yamuna in Uttar Pradesh to Gurgaon in Haryana. Lutyens had planned a city for a few thousand civil servants and staff; now it has a population of nearly nine million; he had planned roads for a few thousand cars, tongas and bicycles; now almost every family has a car or two or three, and roads are jammed from sunrise to sunset and even after. It is a city in which more than twice as many women get molested and raped than in Mumbai.

  I don’t go out anymore. The last time I had to step out to visit the doctor, I found the roads clogged with slow-moving traffic coming to a standstill every few minutes. It gave me time to look at the changes that had taken place. I noticed that there was a lot more greenery, though there were not many trees in flower—only a second blossoming of laburnums (amaltas) and remains of queen’s flowers (jarul). Many walls were covered with purple bougainvilleas in full leafy blossom. All the houses along the route had a look of clean prosperity. No hawkers, no garbage, no street dogs. I felt proud of my city and blessed Sheila Dikshit for doing such a good job as chief minister. The only negative point was the chaotic state of traffic: too many cows, a daily growing volume of cars and two-wheelers on roads which cannot be widened, and flyovers which seem to have failed to reduce the congestion. Something has to be done about this or the city will choke to death. What that something is, I have no idea. I also wonder if in the near future we can have polyclinics with doctors, dentists, opticians and medical practitioners in every locality, within easy reach of people who have no cars and are too old to use public transport.

  When my father built Sujan Singh Park (named after my grandfather), the blocks of flats I live in, he didn’t think that his sons, their children and even grandchildren would end up settling down here; he had higher hopes of large bungalows with sprawling gardens for them. These flats, designed by a Welshman, Walter George, were cheap, and the government took large chunks of it for a rent of Rs 800 per flat. Even so, many flats lay vacant and my father often gave them to any friend in need. Now it’s hard to get people to vacate, and many of them sublet their flat for a rent of up to Rs 1 lakh per month! I like the flat I live in as it’s snug, with a fireplace and patch of garden at the back. There is not much feeling of community here, and we know each other by our dogs. We usually meet only when there is a death in one of the flats.

  Nizamuddin Aulia, patron saint of Delhi, is said to have prophesied: ‘Hunooz Dilli Door Ast’ (Delhi is a long way away), referring to a ruler who intended to take the saint to task when he returned to the capital. The ruler was killed before he could get to the city. I invoke Nizamuddin Aulia’s blessings to protect us and our city from doom.

  The State of the Nation

  My biggest worry today is the intolerance I see in our country. We are a cowardly lot that burns books we don’t like, exiles artists and vandalizes their paintings. We take liberties and distort history textbooks to conform to our ideas and ideals; we ban films and beat up journalists who write against us. We are responsible for this growing intolerance, and we are party to it if we don’t do anything to prevent or stop it.

  If we love our country, we must save it from communal forces. Though the liberal class is shrinking, I sincerely hope that the present and future generations totally reject communal and fascist policies.

  If India is to survive as a nation and march forward, it must remain unified, reassert its secular credentials and throw out communally based parties from the political arena.

  A state that calls itself secular has no business involving itself in purely religious matters such as pilgrimages. By all means make provisions for the security and comfort of pilgrims, as our state governments do during the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad and the Rath Yatra at the Jagannath Temple in Puri, but it’s wrong to go beyond that. State officials have no right to associate themselves with or extend patronage to religious bodies, or to give away public land, property or money to them.

  It is high time that the government put a stop to the building and construction of any more places of worship. We have more than enough of them already. The government should also deny permission to use public places for religious gatherings. When a place of worship becomes a site of contention or is misused for political or non-religious purposes, the government should take over its control and management. Priests have vested interests in places of worship because their livelihood depends on them.

  We must also drastically reduce the number of people who wear saffron clothes and call themselves sadhus. They are parasites who live on working-people’s earnings. Men and women of religion have often tried to influence public opinion and the government. We, as a nation, are superstitious, and it is not uncommon for the most intelligent of Indians, includin
g Marxists, to consult soothsayers to find out ‘auspicious’ times before taking important decisions. In our country, both superstition and astrology have religious sanction. I am allergic to those who believe in astrology and are dictated by superstition. I feel that those who hold exalted positions, such as our Presidents, prime ministers and political leaders, should not believe in such hogwash. It is dangerous and backward-looking for a nation to indulge in such beliefs and practices.

  It is also time to reconsider facilities provided to Muslims going on hajj pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina. Islam clearly provides that only those who can afford to travel to these holy cities should undertake the pilgrimage. Nevertheless, the Government of India provides subsidies to pilgrims who can’t pay for their expenses and sends official delegations of Muslims free of cost to Saudi Arabia. There is no justification whatsoever for doing so. Most Muslims I know disapprove of such government patronage and would welcome them being withdrawn. Pandering to any one community or religion is nothing but vote-bank politics. We should have learnt by now that any secular government that meddles in religious matters only burns its own fingers.

  If the choice is between an India of the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru on the one side, and those of Vir Savarkar and Guru Golwalkar on the other, and we choose the latter, then India will become a Hindu Rashtra, and this will have dangerous consequences. We will soon have to face serious challenges from across our borders. Pakistan seems to be crumbling faster than we feared. Its government has yielded its north-western territories to diehard mullahs, allowing them to impose barbaric codes of conduct. It will not be long before the rest of the country buckles under their influence. India will be their next target. On our eastern border, Bangladesh seems to be sitting on a time bomb which may explode anytime. We have to be prepared for the eventuality and the influx of more unwelcome refugees. We should keep these things in mind when we vote for a government—it should be one that is able to cope with these impending calamities.

  All political parties have manifestos which spell out what they intend to do if they come to power: uplift the poor, ensure adequate supply of clean drinking water, eradicate illiteracy, provide a roof over every head, improve relations with other nations. But once published, these manifestos are put away in party archives to gather dust. They are taken out near the next election time, updated, and then put away again. In actual politics, as it is practised in our country, they mean very little. As election time approaches, leaders of different parties start negotiating alliances to see which one will suit them best. No one bothers about political morality. That is why even the shrewdest observers go wrong in their election forecasts. Lust for power and the lure of money lead to horse-trading. Ministers, earlier strongly critical of each other, can be seen embracing publicly, as parties go out in search of allies old and new. What is the simple-minded aam aadmi to make of this confusion? What is he to make of claims by politicians of being do-gooders when what they are all really after are their gaddis? When it comes to political morality, there is little to choose among any of the political parties we see around us today.

  We are forever moaning about corruption in our country—we are amongst the ten most corrupt nations of the world. Corruption is all-pervasive; there are no miracle cures for a disease which has afflicted our society for ages. But we can find solace in the fact that things are much worse in Pakistan, our closest neighbour and chief rival. There also seems to be a significant difference between the patterns of corruption in the two countries. In India, the creamy layer of the government, the judiciary and civil service, is comparatively clean. It becomes murky in the middle, and it is in the lower ranks that corruption becomes rampant … In Pakistan, it is the other way round. The top layer is massively corrupt; the middle and lower layers are less corrupt. Also, they have more corruption-related violence than we have. We indulge in character assassination; they dispense with niceties like characters and just get down to assassination.

  While monetary corruption has been debated threadbare, a form of the same evil which is more rampant and has not received any attention is khushamad/chaploosi or flattery. It takes many forms but the objective is the same—to promote oneself.

  First there is flattery by applause. I recall some meetings of Indian students in England, addressed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. At the end of each meeting a girl would shout at the top of her voice: ‘Tum jeeo hazaaron saal, saal ke din ho pachaas hazaar’ (Live thousands of years and may each year be fifty-thousand-days long). Panditji, who was notoriously short-tempered with his countrymen, lapped up this flattery and looked highly pleased with himself.

  Another form of flattery is to first build up a rival and then proceed to demolish him or her as best as they can. Sardar Patel was projected as Nehru’s principal political adversary and then people put him down to gain Nehru’s favour. So the word ‘Patelite’ was coined for people who opposed Nehru. This khushamad paid handsome dividends. Nehruites came to be regarded as forward-looking liberals while Patelites were portrayed as backward-looking. Though no money was spent, this sort of ‘corruption’ served its purpose.

  Of all the stigmas that disfigure the fair face of Mother India, the worst is the caste system which inflicts unspeakable indignities on lower castes designated Harijans, Dalits or Bahujans. It is sinful, and more so since we have not been able to wipe out the stigma to this day.

  However, things have begun to change. The four people who played major roles in bringing about some change are Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. Of these four, Dr Ambedkar was the messiah. He never forgave Gandhi for granting the lower castes only reservation of seats and not a separate electorate. He played a key role in drawing up the Constitution of India and was later law minister in Nehru’s cabinet. Disgusted with the social framework of caste hierarchy, Ambedkar exhorted his followers to opt for another religion and persuaded his community of Mahars to convert en masse to Buddhism. He remains the most respected icon of the Dalits and one of the greatest Indians.

  I believe a healthy democracy needs both right-of-centre leaders and socialists to function properly. By remaining a democracy, our leaders feel we have done better than our neighbours—Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka. But everyone agrees that communist China has done much better than us. They have controlled growth of population, introduced fast trains which go almost at the speed of airplanes and launched self-made aircraft carriers. The only explanation for their doing a lot better than us is that they work a lot more than us. This is where I agree with Sanjay Gandhi’s motto: ‘Kaam zyaada, baatein kam’ (More work, less talk). It is time to cut down the number of holidays we take and increase our working hours.

  There is another subject on which I agreed with Sanjay Gandhi. I shared his concern over our population explosion, and continue to do so, though I didn’t agree with the methods he implemented to promote family planning … The past few governments have paid little attention to this problem. We simply don’t have enough produce to feed the rapidly increasing mouths, and seem to be heading towards disaster. Coercive methods will have to be introduced: disenfranchise all couples who have more than two children, disqualify them from voting in panchayat, state and parliamentary elections, bar them from government jobs.

  Another essential duty of the state is to never abdicate its monopoly of punishing criminals. Crimes unpunished breed criminals. If the state overlooks its duty or delays dispensing justice beyond limits of endurance, it encourages aggrieved parties to take the law into their own hands and settle scores with those who wronged them. If we do not learn these lessons now, there will be holocausts in the years to come.

  The Importance of Gandhi

  These days, I often find myself thinking of Gandhi. Why do I admire him and claim to be a Gandhian? Three reasons: Bapu Gandhi never told a lie. Bapu did his best to avoid hurting anyone. Bapu staked his life to uphold principles he believed in, and invariably won.

>   He was the epitome of the person praised in his favourite hymn:

  Vaishnavjan toh tainey kaheeye, jo peerh paraayee jaaney ray

  (I know him as a man of God, who feels another’s pain.)

  Gandhi’s birth anniversary is celebrated every year since he was murdered, by the performance of a charade we have got accustomed to seeing on our TV sets and in the pages of our newspapers. Netas go to his samadhi in Rajghat, lay wreaths, sit on the ground for a short while, listen to the chanting of his favourite hymns and return home.

  It is a ritual that is performed on his death anniversary as well. Few people want to ponder over the question of whether or not we have even tried to follow the path he showed us.

  While I call myself a Gandhian and feel very self-righteous, I have no doubt that if I had turned up at his ashram and sought permission to stay for a few days, he would have turned down my request and ordered me to get out immediately. He believed in God. I do not. He was a strict vegetarian and when he was studying law in London to become a barrister, he spent his spare time propagating vegetarianism. I believe vegetarianism is against the order of nature and am an unabashed meat-eater, including beef and pork. He imposed prohibition on us and had it included in our Constitution. It failed, as it has in any country where rulers have tried to prevent people from drinking liquor. I believe drinking in moderation is good for you; getting drunk is reprehensible. I have always relished good wine and Scotch. He propagated abstinence. I think that sex is extremely important and is the most enjoyable experience in life while he was a great advocate of celibacy. I often tell petty lies to avoid embarrassment and hurting people. Gandhi worshipped truth. He never told a lie, however embarrassing the truth was. He equated truth with God. While the existence of God can be questioned, when translated into truth it becomes a part of human behaviour which is tested for veracity day after day till the very end. That is why millions of people around the world, who pay no attention to Gandhi’s commitment to vegetarianism, abstinence from alcohol and sex (except to produce offspring), believe Gandhi was a mahatma, a great soul, who had a new message for humanity; and they are proud to call themselves Gandhi Bhaktas.