Absolute Khushwant Read online

  There are not too many people I am in awe of. The most knowledgeable person I’ve known was Nirad C. Chaudhuri. I haven’t come across any person with such deep knowledge of just about anything.

  Nirad was a small, frail man, a little over five feet, who led a double life. At home he dressed in dhoti-kurta and sat on the floor to do his reading and writing. When he left for work, he wore European dress: coat, tie, trousers and a monstrous sola topi. Nirad babu was not a modest man. But he had great reason to be immodest. No Indian, living or dead, wrote the English language as well as he did.

  Nirad had written in Bengali for many years. But it was not until his first book in English, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, was published, that he really aroused the interest of the class to which he belonged and which, because of the years of indifference to him, he had come to loathe—the Anglicized upper middle class of India. This class of people was more English than Indian but proclaimed their patriotism at the expense of the British. Having lost their own traditions and not having fully imbibed those of England, they were a breed with pretensions to intellectualism. He dedicated the book ‘To the British Empire . . .’ People in India took the bait and sent up a howl of protest. However, many discovered to their surprise that there was nothing anti-Indian in the book. On the contrary, it was the most beautiful picture of East Bengal (where Nirad was born and spent his childhood) that anyone had ever painted. And India had produced a writer who could write the English language as it should be written—and as few, if any, living Englishmen could write.

  Nobody could afford to ignore Nirad Chaudhuri any more. He and his wife Amiya became the most sought-after couple in Delhi’s upper-class circles. Anecdotes of his vast fund of knowledge were favourite topics at dinner parties. Nirad babu could talk about any subject under the sun. There was not a bird, tree, butterfly or insect whose name he did not know in Latin, Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali. He also had a phenomenal memory. Long before he left for London, he not only knew where the important monuments and museums were, but also the location of many famous restaurants. I’d heard him discuss stars with astronomers, recite lines from obscure fifteenth century French literature, and advise a wine dealer on the best vintages from Burgundy.

  If Nirad was immodest, he could also be very angry. And he had much to be angry about. The Government of India had issued a fiat to its various departments not to publish anything by him. He was dismissed from service as political commentator on All India Radio by the half-baked I&B Minister Dr B.V. Keskar, because the Government prohibited employees from publishing memoirs. With his job gone and three growing boys, life was hard for the Chaudhuris. Years later, when the Government of India wanted him to write a series of articles on the plight of the Hindu minority in East Pakistan and offered him a blank cheque, he refused, in spite of his financial plight. When I conveyed Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari’s proposal to him, he told me, ‘The Government may have lifted its ban on Nirad Chaudhuri, but Nirad Chaudhuri has not lifted his ban on the Government of India.’

  Life in Oxford was difficult for Nirad in his last years. It was not easy living on his royalties. When I wrote about this in my column, K.K. Birla sent me a letter asking me to tell Nirad babu that he would be happy to give him a stipend for life for any amount in any currency he wanted. When I sent Nirad Mr Birla’s letter, he wrote back asking me to thank Birla for his generous offer, but refused to accept it. However, he did accept a CBE from the British Government, though it was a peerage he deserved because he was genuinely a peerless man of intellect and letters.

  I believe Manmohan [Singh] is the best prime minister we have had. I would even rate him higher than Nehru. Nehru had vision and charisma, but he had his faults. He was instinctively anti-American and blindly pro-soviet and socialist. He could also be impatient with people and had favourites. Manmohan has a free and extremely good mind. He can’t be accused of nepotism. Nehru could, Indira could. No one would say that of Manmohan Singh.

  He had the courage to disagree with Nehru’s socialist vision and turn away from Mrs Gandhi’s legacy. He pursued a pro-America policy. He opened India to the world, championed the private sector and set us on the path of economic progress without compromising India’s interests. He has completely turned around our sick economy.

  He is also very humble and simple. He grew up in a small village in a family of very modest means and struggled to get an education. Initially his ambition was only to be a college professor, find a small flat and settle in Chandigarh. Then chance changed the course of his life and took him to Cambridge and Oxford, the UN and the highest positions in India’s financial institutions; and now he is prime minister. But he remained grounded.

  I really got to know him at the election he lost from South Delhi. This was in 1999. I was surprised and impressed because his son-in- law, whom my family knew, came to borrow some money—just two lakhs—to hire taxis that were needed for the campaigning. They didn’t even have that much to spare! I gave the money, in cash.

  Only days after he had lost the election, Manmohan Singh called me himself and asked for an appointment. He came to see me with a packet. ‘I haven’t used the money,’ he said and handed me the packet with all the cash I had given his son-in-law. That kind of thing no politician would do!

  When people talk of integrity, I say the best example is the man who occupies the country’s highest office.

  Two people who have had a great impact on me are my Urdu teacher Maulvi Shafiuddin Nayar at the Modern School and Manzoor Qadir, my lawyer-friend in Lahore. Two of the finest human beings, they left a deep impression on me and influenced me greatly. And it’s probably because of my teacher, Manzoor and Ghayoor that I have such a special fondness for Muslims.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Nehru answered 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).

  He 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, 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 Jinnah might end up becoming prime minister.

  He 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.

  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 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, he arrived in London past midnight. I asked Nehru whether he would like me to accompany him to his hotel. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘Go home and sleep.’ The next mor
ning one of the papers had a photo of him with Lady Mountbatten opening the door in her negligee. The huge caption read: Lady Mountbatten’s Midnight Visitor. Nehru was furious. On another occasion, he’d 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. When I was summoned, Nehru asked, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m your PRO in London, Sir,’ I replied. ‘You have a strange notion of publicity,’ Nehru said curtly.

  I thought it best to remain silent.

  Indira Gandhi

  I first met Indira Gandhi in Lahore when I must have been around eighteen. She was very young and looked very shy and, if I remember correctly, she had come with Kitchlew [Saifuddin]. Years later, when I met her again in Delhi, she didn’t remember our first meeting.

  There were many who were bowled over by Mrs Gandhi’s looks. I found her good-looking in a cold, haughty sort of way.

  She never forgave anyone who said anything negative about her. She never forgave her aunt Vijayalakshmi Pandit—or her daughters, for that matter—for making derogatory remarks about her looks and her intelligence. She was also touchy about her health. She had been suspected of having tuberculosis when she was a girl and doctors had advised her not to have children. ‘If it had been up to me,’ she’d said, ‘I would have had eleven.’ To prove her doctors wrong she rode on horseback, on elephants and walked vast distances, maintaining punishing schedules. ‘Tiredness is a state of mind, not of the body,’ she would say.

  Those who described her as a ‘goongi gudiya’ or a ‘chhokree’ were wide off the mark. She was dictatorial and, like her father, indulged in favouritism. She overlooked corruption and undermined democratic institutions. She manipulated and gagged the press. And she wanted dynastic succession. Power went to her head. This is why her public image changed from goddess to vindictive despot.

  I know the majority of Indians feel that Indira Gandhi was the strongest leader we have ever had. They see her as Durga. There was a reason why they called her the only man in her cabinet. She certainly knew how to use power and appeal to huge crowds at her election rallies. But my instincts are against her.

  She was stern, severe and cold, and would impose her wishes on people, often wrongly. Mrs Gandhi had very strong likes and dislikes. She could be vengeful, extremely critical and even petty. She had many shortcomings; I suppose it was these that made her human. But what I found most disturbing about her was that she could be rude and vindictive towards even those who were close to her. I think it was because she was very insecure. I learned that soon after I got to know her, and then I kept my distance.

  I was never close to Mrs Gandhi, though I’d met her several times. On a few occasions my wife and I had invited the family over for dinner and they’d accepted our invitation. She came to our home often when she was out of power after the Emergency, sometimes with Sonia or Maneka. Later, when she was having trouble with Maneka, she’d even sent for me and told me to talk to her, to tell her to behave herself. But in the years that followed, when relations really soured between them, Mrs Gandhi thought I was supporting Maneka. When I tried telling her this was not true at all, she just wouldn’t believe me. I decided after that, to stay away from both of them, and avoided meeting either. She never visited us after she returned to power. And much later, when Mrs Gandhi invited me on two or three occasions, for some function or the other, I didn’t go.

  But when she was assassinated I felt shock. I was upset, because I had made an equation with her despite difficulties and differences. She had been foolish and bungled badly in Punjab. She had made enemies. But she did not deserve the kind of death she had. It was a sad day.

  You can’t doubt Mrs Gandhi’s patriotism. And I can vouch that there was nothing anti- Sikh about her. On Blue Star she was misled by her advisers, one of them a Mona sardar!

  She surrounded herself with very suspect and cynical advisers. She was also very tolerant of corruption. She may not have been corrupt herself, but the suitcase culture and massive corruption started in her time. She took no action. She did great harm to the country.

  Indira Gandhi’s greatest moment was the Bangladesh war. She did it with great skill, by deftly isolating Pakistan and supporting our armed forces completely. She backed the right people. The world was rightly impressed when she stood up to American pressure and would not be intimidated by American warships in the Indian Ocean. It was all over very quickly. Maybe she would have given in if the war had lasted more than a few days.

  But more than the war, her biggest achievement was how the country responded to the refugees from East Pakistan. Millions of refugees were given shelter, food and medicines. We were a poor country but they were all taken care of. The Bangladeshis now won’t acknowledge Indira Gandhi’s or India’s role in their history. Everything begins and ends with Mukti Bahini. That is not true. They have a lot to thank Indira Gandhi for.

  Sanjay and Varun Gandhi

  I met Sanjay in the mid 1970s and found him to be reasonable and courteous. He was the one who called the meeting. He wanted to talk to me about his Maruti car business and wanted me to write about it. I went with him to the factory site. I was disappointed; it looked like the workshop of a lohar. I was not impressed. He drove around the site, driving fast and talking about how important the project was.

  It was being said that Bansi Lal had given Sanjay land for free for his factory. I found these allegations to be false. Sanjay had paid a fair price. I wrote this in my story on Maruti. That was how our association began.

  I have been criticized for supporting Sanjay and his mother and the Emergency she’d imposed. I don’t deny that I supported them and I have no regrets. Even now, after all these years, I think it was necessary at the time. I had no idea then that it could and would be misused and abused. Sanjay was always extremely courteous to me. When I first met him, he really did seem like a committed man. The opposition had unleashed chaos. Nothing in the country functioned, and he appeared to be a no-nonsense man who liked to get things done. But a year or so into the Emergency he had become dictatorial and very unpopular because of the forced nasbandi programme and censorship.

  Maneka and her family used and exploited me. I think she’s a no-good politician but Sanjay, I must say, was always true to his word. He had a conscience. And he was a man of action. He was a doer and was impatient to bring about changes. Many said he had the makings of a dictator—because of the demolition drives that razed slums to the ground overnight and the family planning methods he forced on people—but I feel that he was keen to bring about rapid changes. He had a vision and this was not really understood.

  Sanjay came to see me in Bombay shortly after the Emergency. There were mobs in the streets baying for his blood. I had to drive him to the airport at some risk.

  If he had lived, this country would not have been a democracy. There would have been order and much faster development, but no democracy, of that I am sure. Would I still have supported him? Oh, I don’t know. He would probably have got around me. He could be a real charmer. He had been good to me. He put me in Parliament. Even The Hindustan Times—it was he who called up Birla and told him to give me the editor’s job!

  Varun should never have been allowed to contest in the recent elections. He should have been banned from contesting and people should have had the sense to keep him out. Such men are dangerous for the very unity of the country. His abusive language and the venom he spilled against Muslims showed his very poor upbringing. It’s shocking, because if we have politicians of this sort—who openly abuse Muslims from public platforms—you can well imagine the future of the country. What also worries me is that many others speak with the same venom [as he did] against the minorities of this country. The only difference is that they confine their hatred to their drawing rooms.

  Maneka had invited me to launch Varun’s collection of poetry some years ago, and I’d accepted. I had read his poems, liked them and given the coll
ection a favourable write-up. I thought a young man who was into poetry would be above dirty politics. I was wrong.

  The language Varun used on that platform was the language of the gutter which is absolutely unpardonable. It made me wonder when such anti-Muslim sentiments entered the boy’s mind. During his grandmother’s time a permanent fixture in their home was a Muslim, Mohammed Yunus. Both his parents called him ‘Chacha Yunus’. They were married in his house on Tughlak Road. I never heard Sanjay or any other member of the Gandhi family use derogatory words for Muslims. The term bara bajey for a Sikh is even harder to understand. In short, Varun Gandhi has, as the saying goes, cooked his own goose.

  Rajiv and Rahul Gandhi

  We tend to build a legend around Rajiv Gandhi, glorifying him. But Rajiv had made more than a couple of mistakes in his time, call them grave errors of judgement if you will.

  Rajiv was bullied into a position he wasn’t equipped to handle. He was pleasant enough, and had some good ideas, but none of them extraordinary. He wasn’t really a leader. And I don’t think he was cut out for politics. He followed in his mother’s footsteps and made many of the same mistakes. Even the positive things he did, like telecom and computers—the plans had started in Indira Gandhi’s time. He bungled in Sri Lanka; he even fired a minister at a public conference! His role in both the Shah Bano case and in the Babri Masjid incident cannot be denied. Both were big blunders that were irreversible and did long- term damage.