The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous

by Khushwant Singh

  When Bhindranwale shifted to the Golden Temple and his goons began killing innocent people, his admirers dismissed the allegations as government propaganda—to them, he was a good guy. Even as Hindus were being pulled out of buses and shot and transistor bombs were going off in crowded markets all over northern India, Sikh pride was at its height.

  As tension mounted in Punjab and the killing of innocents at the behest of Bhindranwale increased, the Central Government realized that its options were closing; it had to somehow get hold of Bhindranwale again (he had been arrested earlier on charges of murder and released at a time and place of his choosing). By now, Bhindranwale and his military advisor, General Shahbeg Singh, had converted the Akal Takht into a fortress and a variety of arms had been smuggled in by trucks carrying rations for the gurdwara kitchen. The government had left it too late, and a violent confrontation was fast becoming inevitable.

  On many occasions, I warned the government against sending the army into the Golden Temple because it would rouse the wrath of the entire Sikh community. ‘You don’t know the Sikhs,’ I once told Home Minister P.C. Sethi, a peace-loving Jain. ‘They can be like a swarm of hornets. You put your head in their nest and you will be stung all over your face.’ He assured me that the government had no intention of sending the army into the temple. So did Mrs Gandhi, more than once.

  It is not known for sure when Mrs Gandhi came around to the view that she had no option but to order the army into the Golden Temple, and who her advisors were at the time—though the names of Rajiv Gandhi, Arun Nehru, Arun Singh and Digvijay Singh have come up. There is no doubt that President Zail Singh was kept in the dark. When Mrs Gandhi persuaded him to put Punjab under military rule, she did not tell him that she had decided to order the army to clear the temple of Bhindranwale and his armed followers—when it came to Punjab or Sikh affairs, she did not trust Gianiji.

  It is also unknown who chose the date when operations should commence. Without the foggiest notion of Sikh traditions, they settled on 5 June 1984 as the day to launch the operation—it was the death anniversary of Guru Arjun Dev, the founder of the Harmandir Sahib, a day when hundreds of thousands of Sikhs were expected to come on pilgrimage from remote areas.

  Alternative methods of getting at Bhindranwale were not considered seriously. He could have been overpowered by a band of commandos in plain clothes; the temple complex could have been cordoned off; the people inside deprived of rations and access to potable water and forced to come out into the open to surrender or be picked up by snipers. It would have taken a couple of days longer but would have been comparatively bloodless.

  As it happened, the army stormed the Golden Temple with tanks, armoured cars and frogmen, with helicopters hovering overhead to give directions. The battle that ensued lasted two days and nights. In the crossfire, almost 5,000 men, women and children perished. The Akal Takht was reduced to rubble by heavy gunfire; the central shrine, which both parties had declared hors de combat, was hit by over seventy bullets; the entrance had a large portion blasted off; archives containing hundreds of handwritten copies of the Granth Sahib and hukumnamas (edicts) issued under the signatures of the Gurus were reduced to ashes. Even Mrs Gandhi, who had been assured that the operation would not last more than two hours, was horrified at the extent of damage caused to sacred property and the horrendous loss of lives.

  I regarded Bhindranwale as an evil man who deserved his fate. But Operation Blue Star went well beyond the slaying of Bhindranwale: it was a calculated and deliberate slap in the face of an entire community. Despite my indifference, and even hostility, to religion, I had no doubt in my mind that I should reaffirm my identity with my community—I decided to return my Padma Bhushan to the government.

  In light of the Indian Army’s actions, I was willing to concede that Bhindranwale had met his end like a warrior, but I also heaved a sigh of relief—I hoped that we had heard the last of him. But I was wrong.

  A few months later, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was slain by one of her Sikh bodyguards. Terrible results followed. In towns and cities across the Indo-Gangetic plain and down to Karnataka, frenzied mobs, often led by Congress leaders, took a heavy toll of Sikh life and property. In Delhi alone, over 3,000 Sikhs were burnt alive and over seventy gurdwaras wrecked.

  For years, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s portrait at the Golden Temple has drawn large crowds. Photographs of him and cassettes of his speeches sell by the thousands. To a sizeable section of Sikhs, he has become an ‘amar shaheed’—eternal martyr—who laid down his life for the Khalsa Panth. He continues to be venerated as Sant Baba Jarnail Singhji Khalsa Bhindranwale.

  It will not be easy to exorcise Bhindranwale’s ghost from the Punjabi mind.

  JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

  (1889–1964)

  Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, it must be said, fully answered the poet Allama Iqbal’s requirements of a Meer-e-Kaarvaan—leader of the caravan:

  Nigah buland, sukhan dilnawaz, jaan par soz

  Yahi hain rakht-e-safar Meer-e-Kaarvaan ke liye

  Lofty vision, winning speech and a warm personality

  This is all the baggage the leader of a caravan needs on his journey.

  Nehru should have been the role model for the prime ministers of India. He was above prejudices of any kind: racial, religious or of caste. He was an agnostic and firmly believed that religion played a very negative role in Indian society. What I admired most about him was his secularism. He was a visionary and an exemplary leader; the father of Indian constitutional democracy, of universal adult franchise, the five-year plans and giving equal rights to women, among other things. He was better educated than any of his successors, with the exception of Manmohan Singh, and spent nine long years in jail reading, writing and thinking about the country’s future.

  But being human, Nehru had his human failings. He was not above political chicanery. Having accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan to hand over power to a united India, he reneged on his undertaking when he realized that Jinnah might end up becoming prime minister. Nehru had blind spots too. He refused to believe that India’s exploding population needed to be contained. He refused to see the gathering strength of Muslim separatism, which led to the formation of Pakistan. He failed to come to terms with Pakistan and was chiefly responsible for the mess we made in Jammu and Kashmir. He was also given to nepotism and favouritism. And his love affairs with Shraddha Mata and Lady Mountbatten are well-known. I have been often asked whether the central character of my novel Burial at Sea was based on Nehru—you could say that the inspiration for the character was Nehru.

  I first met Nehru in London, when I was a press officer at the Indian Embassy, and my first impression of him was that he was short-tempered. He could also be ill-mannered. I once had to host a lunch so that the editors of leading British newspapers could meet him. Halfway through the meal, Nehru fell silent. When questions were put to him, he looked up at the ceiling and did not reply. He then proceeded to light a cigarette while others were still eating. To make matters worse, Krishna Menon fell asleep. It was a disastrous attempt at public relations.

  Another time, Nehru arrived in London past midnight. I asked him whether he would like me to accompany him to his hotel. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘Go home and sleep.’ The next morning, one of the papers carried a photo of him with Lady Mountbatten opening the door in her negligee. The photographer had taken the chance of catching them, if not in flagrante delicto, at least in preparation of it, and got his scoop. The huge caption read: ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Midnight Visitor’. Nehru was furious. On another occasion, he had taken Lady Mountbatten for a quiet dinner at a Greek restaurant. Once again, the following morning’s papers carried photographs of them sitting close to each other. Our prime minister’s liaison with Lady Edwina had assumed scandalous proportions, and I knew I was in trouble.

  I arrived at the office to find a note from Krishna Menon on my table, saying that the prime minister wished to see me immediately.r />
  I gently knocked on the prime minister’s door and went in. He was busy going through some files.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, raising his head.

  ‘Sir, you sent for me.’

  ‘I sent for you? Who are you?’

  ‘I am your PRO in London, sir,’ I replied.

  He looked me up and down. ‘You have a strange notion of publicity,’ he said curtly.

  I thought it best to remain silent.

  KRISHNA MENON

  (1896–1974)

  After the Partition, I found myself back in London with a job as an information officer with the public relations department of India House. I was to stay with Arthur and Sheila Lall in Knightsbridge until my family arrived and we found a place of our own. Arthur was very taken with Krishna Menon. He assured me that Krishna Menon was the finest brain he had ever met and compared favourably with Stalin (who was not known to have a particularly fine brain). I had briefly met Krishna Menon in my college days and had not detected any signs of genius in him. He was a sour-tempered barrister without briefs and spent his energies building up his India League and paying court to Pandit Nehru whenever he was in England. His appointment as high commissioner was badly received in India and the Indian community in England; people considered it gross favouritism. But after hearing Arthur go on about him, I thought I had perhaps been wrong in my estimate of Menon, or perhaps he had matured into a better man.

  I reported for work at India House and introduced myself to Sudhir Ghosh. He didn’t seem very pleased to see me. Beneath the glass slab of his working table were a number of photographs and originals of letters exchanged between Gandhi and Sir Stafford Cripps, Gandhi and Prime Minister Attlee, all praising Sudhir Ghosh. It was quite evident that Sudhir was having trouble with Krishna Menon and was not on good terms with Indian journalists. He showed me to the tiny cubicle I was to occupy and introduced me to an English girl, Pamela Cullen, who was to be my assistant. He did not tell me what I was to do. ‘You can ask Menon when you meet him,’ he said. He studiously avoided calling Menon high commissioner, or even adding a mister to his name.

  I had no idea what public relations meant, nor what I was to do to promote them. Not having been briefed or charged with a specific task, I decided that perhaps the best I could do was produce booklets on India—its people, resources, flora, fauna, etc. For the first four days after my arrival in London, I reported for work at India House every morning. I signed the visitors’ book and reminded Sudhir Ghosh to introduce me to the high commissioner. He didn’t think it was urgent. I asked Arthur. He said it was not for him but Sudhir to do so. However, he told Menon that I had wanted to call on him. On the fifth day, Sudhir Ghosh took me up to Menon’s room.

  I had a broad grin on my face when I greeted Krishna Menon and extended my right hand. He brushed it aside with his claw-like fingers. Instead of a smile of welcome, he had an angry frown on his face. I cheerfully reminded him that I had once travelled with him and Rajni Patel to Paris. He ignored my self-introduction and barked, ‘Sardar, haven’t they taught you any manners in India? You have been here four days and haven’t had the courtesy to call on me. I am the high commissioner, you know!’ My smile froze. I protested I had done my best—signed the visitors’ book, and asked both Sudhir Ghosh and Arthur Lall to get me an appointment. Sudhir interrupted to say that it was his fault. ‘I’ll send for you later,’ said Menon, dismissing me. ‘I want to speak to Mr Ghosh.’

  I returned to my cubicle very shaken. No one had ever spoken to me the way Menon had done and without any reason whatsoever. I was determined not to put up with it. I swore to myself that the next time Menon said anything harshly I would hit back, put in my letter of resignation and tell him to stuff it up his dirty bottom. I was out of sorts all afternoon. Instead of doing any work, I took a long stroll along the Thames embankment till my temper came down a little.

  In the evening, there was a tea party in the main reception room. I went, took a cup of tea and sat down in a corner. Menon breezed in; I pretended not to have seen him. He came up to me and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Sorry for ticking you off this morning,’ he said. ‘I hope you had the sense to realize it was not meant for you.’ I stood up, somewhat flabbergasted at the change of tone. ‘I was a little taken aback,’ I replied. ‘If you don’t have that much common sense, you’ll never do as an information officer,’ he said to me. He then patted me on my back and went to shake other hands. I was utterly deflated. The fellow obviously meant to be friendly towards me; it was Sudhir Ghosh he was gunning for. Menon had a convoluted mind.

  It did not take me long to get a hang of India House politics. Krishna Menon had his coterie of faithfuls. At the top of the list was Arthur Lall, his trade commissioner. His other favourites were junior members of his staff; some, like his personal secretary, Captain Srinivasan of the Indian Navy, he savaged till they proved their loyalties to him. Menon had scant respect for the deputy high commissioner, R.S. Mani, also of the ICS and his number two man. Mani was a flabby man with a flabbier Belgian wife. He did his best to ingratiate himself with Menon and suffered being treated like a doormat—he remained a doormat. Menon was also allergic to men in uniform and treated his military, naval and air force attachés with unconcealed contempt. His bete noire was Sudhir Ghosh, who was determined to run the public relations department as an independent establishment of his own.

  Sudhir regarded himself as Gandhi’s personal envoy to well-meaning Britons who had sided with the freedom movement. Most of them were Quakers. He entrusted them with official missions without consulting Menon. ‘Let Menon do his job and let him leave me alone to do mine,’ he often told me as he gloated over the photographs and letters on his table. ‘I have spent many years with Gandhiji. I have no hatred in my heart against anyone,’ he assured me over and over again. Then he resumed his tirade against Menon.

  Menon had an eye for good-looking women. He treated the husbands of good-looking women as friends. If he sensed tension between the couple, he became especially considerate towards them—he had great understanding for misunderstood wives. Sheila Lall and my wife (after the family joined me) fell in that category. Arthur and I became his number one and number two favourites. But topping us was young Kamla Jaspal, who had joined his clerical pool.

  Kamla was a Sikh—light-skinned, with curly black hair and a charming squint in one eye. She came to office dressed as if she were going to a cocktail party. She wore bright-coloured chiffon saris, with blouses that left most of her middle, including her belly button, exposed. She wore bracelets of silver, gold and glass; they covered most of her forearms and jingle-jangled whenever she brushed her untidy locks from across her face, which was often. Being scantily clad, she often caught colds and had a running nose. She dropped names of English poets, and she danced a few steps of Bharatanatyam badly; she also wrote bad prose and poetry. She was loud and aggressive in asserting herself. But she worshipped Krishna Menon as if he were an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Like a good Hindu wife she never referred to him by his name or as high commissioner but as HE—His Excellency. To Krishna Menon, who had been away from India for several decades, Kamla Jaspal represented modern Indian womanhood. He responded to her adoration with flowers and favours, including the use of his Rolls Royce to take her home. He was tiring of his ageing English mistress, Bridgette, who looked after the India League, and was on the lookout for a replacement. For a while Kamla courted Bridgette and soon discovered that she could oust her. In India House, everyone knew that in order to get on with Krishna Menon one had to get on with Kamla Jaspal. During that posting in London, I cultivated both Bridgette and Kamla.

  Menon had reason to trust me more than Sudhir Ghosh and decided to use me as an instrument to get rid of him. He did not have to wait long for the opportunity to do so. I first discovered how bad things were when I chanced to see a confidential letter Menon had written to Pandit Nehru. He described Ghosh as a ‘Patelite’. Evidently, Nehru’s relations with his deputy
prime minister, Sardar Patel, were strained. He also argued that foreign publicity should be under the foreign minister (Nehru) and not under the home and information minister (Patel). Before Panditji could respond to this letter, the incident of the missing chit occurred, which proved Sudhir Ghosh’s undoing.

  One morning, Menon sent a note to Sudhir Ghosh on a scrap of paper in his own hand, asking him to send me up to see him as soon as I reached the office. Sudhir took no notice of it till a couple of hours later, when Kamla Jaspal came down to check whether or not I had arrived. I went to Sudhir’s office to find out what it was about. ‘Oh, yes, Menon wants to see you without me,’ he said, reading the chit. He crumpled it and threw it into his wastepaper basket. When I went to see Menon, he asked me why it had taken me two hours to come up. I told him I had known nothing about it till Kamla told me and I had then gone to Sudhir’s room. Sudhir was summoned. He blankly denied having received any message from Menon. I left them going at each other, returned to Sudhir’s room and pulled out the crumpled chit from his wastepaper basket. Through Kamla Jaspal, I had the chit handed over to Menon. I do not know how the Gandhian Sudhir got out of the blatant lie he had told. The next day, he left for India; Menon followed him a few days later.

  While they were away, I received telegraphic orders transferring me to Canada. P.L. Bhandari, whom I had known as a junior reporter with The Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore and who regarded himself as an expert in public relations, was named Sudhir’s successor. A few days later, Menon and Sudhir returned to London. The latter made only one appearance in India House, to take away his pictures and testimonials from his table. His parting kick was to host a large luncheon party at the Savoy Hotel for his English friends. He did not bother to invite me or any other colleagues. At that one party, he blew up the entire year’s entertainment allowance of the public relations department.