Notes On the Great Indian Circus Read online

  Khushwant Singh

  Notes on the Great Indian Circus

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  About the Author

  The State of the Nation

  Requiem for 1984

  Punjab Problem

  New Parliament

  Filmstar MPs

  Vision of India

  Scenes Behind the Accord

  Thanedar Sahib Bulatey Hain

  Being One People

  Analysing Terrorism

  Falsifying History

  What Constitution?

  Time For a Change

  Mandal Mess

  Looking for the Right Words

  Mathura Was Not Ayodhya

  Indian Pantomime

  Princely Parasites

  Men of Straw

  The Dilemma: Whom to Vote For

  Events

  Komagata What?

  Canada and the Air India Disaster

  Kumbha

  Golden Temple

  Anniversary Seminars

  Dihi Kalighata to Kolkata

  Janam Ashtami

  Random Thoughts on Independence Day

  Thoughts on Children’s Day

  Not the House of God

  The Third Gandhi

  British Loot from India

  Baisakhi of the Khalsa

  The Way we Are

  To Fit the Crime

  Neither Heaven Nor Hell

  Swastika

  Murder by Moonlight

  Paradise through Pornography

  The Chaudhry Obsession

  Family Planning: Punjab Style

  Central Hall Chit Chat

  Bombay Revisited

  A Tale with a Moral

  Dear Madam/Sir

  Animal Sixth Sense

  Separating Religion and Politics

  Murder of Mount Abu

  Mama’s Darlings

  Teaching the World about India

  Boobing on Foreign Words

  Bandicoot

  Yuppies, The Future of India

  Tamilian Connection

  Killing Business

  Censored

  Turning Shit into Gold

  No Common Festival

  Karuata Not Kentucky

  No More Birthdays

  A Nation of Sycophants

  Problems of Old Age

  Greening of Dharma

  Profiles and Personalities

  Maker of Modern India

  Clean But Confused

  Lady of Kasur

  The Other Ali

  Allama Iqbal on Pakistan

  Gunter Grass and Calcutta

  Martin of La Martiniere

  The Confidence Trickster

  The Rise of Bhindranwale

  With Baba Amte

  Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna

  Kanpur

  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

  Sweet Smell of Success

  Saintly Sublimation

  V.P. Singh

  Bhagwan of the Godless

  Stumbling on Yoga

  Inauspicious Start of the New PM

  World’s Largest Sari Store

  Comrade Sripad Dange

  Tagore’s National Anthem

  Bala Sahib Rejects God

  Life at 100

  Talking about Mir

  The Master Builder

  Chetan Anand

  Balwant Gargi

  Inder Sain Johar

  Prem Kirpal

  A.G. Noorani

  Bharat Ram

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  NOTES ON THE GREAT INDIAN CIRCUS

  Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. He was educated at Government College, Lahore and at King’s College and the Inner Temple in London. He practised at the Lahore High Court for several years before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in 1947. He began a distinguished career as a journalist with All India Radio in 1951. Since then he has been founder-editor of Yojna (1951-1953), editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India (1979-1980), chief editor of New Delhi (1979-1980), and editor of the Hindustan Times (1980-1983). Today he is India’s best-known columnist and journalist.

  Khushwant Singh has also had an extremely successful career as a writer. Among the works he has published are a classic two-volume history of the Sikhs, several novels (the best known of which are Delhi, Train to Pakistan and The Company of Women), and a number of translated works and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature and current affairs.

  Khushwant Singh was Member of Parliament from 1980-1986. Among other honours he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 by the President of India (he returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the Union Government’s siege of the Golden Temple, Amritsar).

  The State of the Nation

  Requiem for 1984

  It’s been India’s worst year since Independence. And the worst ever for the Sikhs since they lost their kingdom 133 years ago. The fortunes of the two are closely interlinked; if one sinks, there is little hope of survival of the other. You may think that Sikhs are a miniscule minority of under two per cent of the population and what happens to them should not have much bearing on the fortunes of a country of 700 million people. I wish that were so. But I know it to be otherwise. Let me elucidate from personal experience.

  I spent some time visiting Sikh refugee camps in the city. Early November they had upwards of 50,000 inmates, mostly poor artisans of the Labana subcaste. Within a fortnight the administration ordered them to return to their homes or whatever was left of them. Most of them refused to go back to areas where they knew killers were still at large, and either moved to make-shift shelters provided by a few Sikh gurudwaras or migrated to Punjab where they had no roots (99 out of a hundred were refugees from Pakistan), no homes, no lands, only distant relatives. The same happened to Sikhs who fled from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, mainly Kanpur, where killing, looting and arson were as savage as in Delhi. None of the assurances given by Rajiv Gandhi and the chief ministers of Bihar and UP created any confidence in them for the simple reason that they felt that if these people had wanted to prevent anti-Sikh riots and had acted in time, they would not have occurred in the first place.

  Those who subscribe to the theory that Sikhs deserved to be taught a lesson should now feel satisfied that Sikhs have in fact learnt some kind of lesson. But it is not the lesson Sikh-baiters hoped to teach them. They should visit some refugee camps and ask any of the 900 or more widows who lost not only their bread-winning husbands but their young sons as well how they feel. They should talk to men with limbs in plaster, their long hair and beards forcibly shorn off and scores of young girls who were dishonoured whether or not they feel they deserved what they got. They could also derive satisfaction from the fact that the number of Sikhs seen on the roads of Delhi has visibly decreased; that the once ebullient and extrovert people now look sullen and downcast; loudspeakers which blared forth from gurudwaras to the annoyance of their neighbours have fallen silent; attendance at gurudwaras like Sis Ganj and Bangla Sahib where one had to jostle one’s way through the throng is very thin. The Gurubani Keertan is as mellifluous as ever but it floats across half-empty halls. I asked myself, ‘Have the Sikhs run their course in history and will they now like Indian Muslims become a community of hymn singers?’ Allama Iqbal proclaimed on the rise and downfall of nations in the following words:

  A tujh ko bataaoon main taqdeer-e- umam kya hai!

  Shamsheer-o-Sanaa avval, taoos-o- rabaab aakhir

  (Come let me tell you of the rise and fall of nations;/It is the sword and the dagger in the first phase/The viol and the lute in the last.)
r />   What happens to the already communally surcharged atmosphere of Punjab when this cargo of bitterness is off-loaded and scattered in different towns and villages? Unless defused in time, it could be as lethal as the MIC gas that enveloped Bhopal. Can we afford to have the most sensitive border of our country and our only land-link to Jammu and Kashmir become permanently destabilised? Let all Indians ponder over this as the year ends. I would also like to suggest a few New Year’s resolutions for 1985. For the Sikhs: make unequivocal reaffirmation of your Indianness; denounce Khalistan, ostracise Khalistanis and condemn people who argue with guns, bombs and pistols. Give assurances to your Punjabi Hindu brethren that as long as you live you will not allow a hair on their heads to be touched by evil-doers. For all other Indians: do not regard all Sikhs as Khalistanis, but fellow Indians; give back to the Sikhs the place of honour they had before their downfall in 1984. If you want to save your country from disintegration, you have no other choice. If the Sikhs sink, India will sink with them.

  Sunday, 19 January 1985

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  Punjab Problem

  Rajiv Gandhi made an excellent impression as prime minister in his broadcast to the nation over All India Radio and Doordarshan. It was not great oratory but his speech was coherent, lucid and had a ring of sincerity about it. It is obvious that he is a more gifted speaker than either his mother or his grandfather, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. His masculine good looks as well as the gift of the gab are inherited from his father, Feroze Gandhi, who made quite a mark in the Lok Sabha as a forceful debater. I have little doubt that in due course he will become a spellbinder. However, it will take more than spell-binding oratory to keep the mustangs in his chariot in running order. At the moment none of his partymen left out of the ministry are likely to show disaffection for the simple reason that they have no one to defect to. But no sooner crises come, as they are bound to, than he will need all the cunning he can muster and all the muscle-power he has to keep a grip on the reins.

  Rajiv has given Punjab and Assam top priority. I am more familiar with the Punjab problem than I am with the Assamese and will confine my observations to its possible solutions. The issues are no longer restricted to Chandigarh and distribution of river waters. They now include the rise and fall of Bhindranwale, Operation Blue Star, military activity in the Punjab countryside, special courts, the assassination of Mrs Gandhi, the massacre of Sikhs in towns of northern India and migration of large numbers to the Punjab. The main trouble is that we still do not know the full facts. The government’s attempt to whitewash events leading to Operation Blue Star and its aftermath by the issue of the White Paper have been discredited by the prime minister himself. An even more important pre-condition to a settlement will be the government’s amoral slithering over organized killings of innocent Sikhs in the first week of November 1984 and exonerating its partymen whose names have been published amongst the guilty. It must overcome its reluctance to institute a judicial inquiry which will identify the culprits and punish them. Unless these hurdles are overcome, there can be no lasting settlement in the Punjab.

  Sunday, 26 January 1985

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  New Parliament

  I wish the opening of the new session of Parliament was televised. It is a colourful ceremony when each one of the 700-odd members of the two houses is dressed in his or her Sunday best and is at his and her best behaviour. This is for the simple reason that those present are meant to be seen and not heard. The rostrum of Central Hall is beautifully decorated with masses of gladioli. Six giant-sized lancers of the President’s bodyguard dressed in blue-and-gold flank the throne chair holding their ribboned spears aloft. On the stroke of eleven, the fanfares sound and everyone stands up. Pigeons take fright and fly around the hall. Led by six-footer bodyguards come secretaries of the two houses, the President, vice-president, the prime minister and other officials—all save the prime minister look very diminutive in contrast with their uniformed escorts, and all very conscious of their inability to march in step. They take their seats and stand up again as the band strikes up the national anthem. The President clears his throat, takes a sip of water and begins to read the address in Hindi prepared for him by the government. It takes him 40 minutes and two gulps of water to go through the text. Vice-President Venkataraman takes less than 19 minutes to read its English translation. It’s all over in one hour. And once more the national anthem strikes and the President, vice-president, prime minister and secretaries troop out painfully out of step with their gigantic bodyguards.

  The opening day in both houses was a sad affair devoted to tributes to the late Indira Gandhi. It was an opportunity for members to say something which could be quoted for times to come. Alas! Not one speech in either house came up to expectation because no one had taken the trouble to think of something memorable to say. A Jawaharlal Nehru or a Radhakrishnan would have spent hours polishing bejewelled phrases to use at the occasion. Here we had lost one of the most remarkable women in the annals of world history in a classic betrayal of sacred trust, a woman who had been chosen by a nation of 750 million people to hold the reins of their destinies in her hands for over 14 years. And all these second-raters could do was mouth banalities and boast how close they had been to her. Indira Gandhi and any comparisons with her would be odious. Not one of them had the boldness to say that before her the Caesars of Rome and the Tsars of Russia, the Bonapartes of France and the Monarchs of England, the Presidents and prime ministers of our times dwarf into littleness. She was not of this age but for all time. We will not see the likes of her again. She will be for ever honoured, for ever mourned.

  Mrs Gandhi had no political philosophy nor did she subscribe to any dogmas. She could be petulant. She could be petty. But she was committed to any ideal to keep the country united. She had convinced herself that only she or one of her sons could ensure that. That persuasion and belief ripened into faith and became a passioned intuition.

  Since the nation has chosen Mrs Gandhi’s son as her successor, whatever reservations the more educated of us may have about dynastic succession, we have to accept it as the will of the people. We have also to admit that he has made a promising start. If he treads the right path, it is our duty to support him. At this stage our prayer should be:

  ‘Today he puts forth the tender leaves of hope.

  Tomorrow may he blossom and may the fruits of honour come thick upon him.’

  Sunday, 9 February 1985

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  Filmstar MPs

  Filmstars make winning candidates but very rarely good parliamentarians. In my five years in the Rajya Sabha, I have known six of them: Nargis Dutt, Sivaji Ganesan, Amitabh Bachchan, Sunil Dutt, Vyjayanthimala and Jayalalitha. Nargis did not live long enough to prove her worth. Sivaji Ganesan made a dramatic appearance when he came to take the oath. Thereafter, he has rarely been seen in the House. Amitabh, Sunil and Vyjayanthimala are new-comers and haven’t yet had the opportunity to contribute anything worthwhile. For one, they are members of the ruling party and the Lok Sabha has so many of them that they will not be given many chances to speak; they would have done better with the Opposition. For another, they do not seem to have decided on their priorities. Their shooting and dancing commitments cut into Parliament’s sessions: shooting and dancing are evidently more profitable than the Rs 75 per diem given for attendance in the House. Only one, Jayalalitha, seems to have finally opted for politics against continuing stardom. Right now she has the best of all the worlds. With the eclipse of M.G. Ramachandran she has become Tamil Nadu’s biggest vote-catcher. She has her feet in both camps: as a member of the AIADMK, she is more than acceptable to the ruling Congress. And being nominally a part of the opposition, she gets more opportunities and more time to speak. She exploits them to the full. She is a rare combination of beauty, brain and talent, tenacity and ambition. I heard her speak twice on the budget. The last time she followed Prof. Nirmal Chatterjee and ex-finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee. After these formidable exponents of
budgetary problems, I feared Jayalalitha would come a very poor third. She was the picture of self-confidence. Her good looks assured her of undivided attention, her mellifluous voice and the solid stuff in her speech commanded respect for over half-an-hour. She smiled her way through topics like abolition of excise on soap and relief for the fishermen of Rameshwaram.

  This lovely lass has taken her place in the centre of India’s political stage and, being a Hindi-speaking Tamilian, is assured of a central role for many years to come.

  Sunday, 13 April 1985

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  Vision of India

  Our historians have done a devilish job creating stereotypes of different communities. Since Muslims ruled over the country for several centuries they distorted their image to suit their themes. Deep inside the non-Muslim psyche was embedded the conviction that most Muslim rulers were bigots and vandals who smashed idols, destroyed temples, slaughtered infidels as well as cows. A few exceptions like Akbar and Zainul Abedin are highlighted as exceptions to the rule. Now read this testament written by a Muslim monarch to his son and heir to guess the name of its author:

  ‘Oh son! The kingdom of India is full of different religions. Praised be God that He bestowed upon thee its sovereignty. It is incumbent on thee to wipe all religious prejudices off the tablet of thy heart, administer justice according to the way of every religion. Avoid especially the sacrifice of the cow by which thou canst capture the hearts of the people of India and subjects of this country may be found up with royal obligations.

  ‘Do not ruin the temple and shrines of any community which is obeying the law of government. Administer justice in such a manner that the King be pleased with the subjects and the subjects with the King. The cause of Islam can be promoted more by the sword of obligation than by the sword of tyranny.’

  It was written by Babar to his son Humayun.

  Sunday, 27 April 1985