Eleven Things I Love Most About The Chhattisgarhi Summer

1. Buckets of chilled water filled with small sucking mangoes (choosni aam)


2. Drizzles that make earth smell like heaven


3. How the speed of life turns to slow motion


4. Afternoon siestas


5. Pre-dawn strolls across the countryside & late night drives to nowhere


6. Rhythmic whir of a ceiling fan as it slices lazily through the still air (beats the silent humming of a modern air-conditioner anytime)


7. Endlessly soaking about in a water-body (pond, pool at the foot of a waterfall, rivulet), like a water-buffalo


8. Constant complaining about the heat & plotting retreats to the hills- that seldom materialize



9. Cold, cold water from an earthen pot


10. Bohar bhaaji cooked in curd with fresh raw-mango chutney


11. Sleeping naked in wet white cotton bedsheets under clear, starry-skies in open-courtyards of old homes (thandi saféd chhadaron mein jage der tak, baithé rahein tassaworein jana kiyé huyé, dil dhoondta hai fir wohi fursat ke raat din…)

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Film Review (D): Namasté London

Note: You can also comment on this post at the IMDB website.
Namasté London is a tedious film: it seeks to readapt Manoj Kumar’s “Purab aur Paschim” [East and West] to our times but the outcome is a yarn based on highly improbable and unbelievable premises.

For one thing, no first-generation NRI-Londoner [Rishi Kapoor] can possibly trick his remarkably liberated and fiercely independent adult-daughter [Katrina Kaif] into marrying a desi Punjabi [Akshay Kumar] while ostensibly “taking a journey across India to see the Taj Mahal”. Moreover, no self-respecting hot-blooded desi Punjabi is going to hang around London watching his ‘wife’ paint the town red with her fiancé- a spoilt and thrice-divorced heir of a British tycoon- in the hope that she will eventually come running back into his arms. As things turn out, that is exactly what happens.

Only two sequences stand out: first, the family’s hilarious interviewing of suitable matches for their daughter, including a lap-top yielding software-analyst from Hyderabad who demands to have a premarital ‘physical compatibility’ test with the prospective bride-to-be, and another loony from Delhi who thinks he is a character in an Ekta Kapoor soap-opera; secondly, a quiet family scene at the dinner table, which stands out for Rishi Kapoor’s efforts at suppressing his laughter. Apart from this, there is nothing else to the film.

Watch it only if you haven’t got anything better to do. Or, as in the case of the incorrigible Mohit Singhania, if your world begins and ends with Ms. Kaif!

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Lessons from Rajnandgaon

Note: No part of this text shall be published without the author's prior and explicit consent.

In many ways, Rajnandgaon is my ‘Achilles’ heel’: while visiting the city for the first time in June 2003, I was accused of murdering someone I didn’t know previously existed; when I next returned to the city after a lapse of almost four agonizing years to campaign in a parliamentary bye-election, my father was arrested on the same trumped-up charge. In both cases, we fell victim to the worst sort of political vendetta, arising chiefly out of an absolute bankruptcy of issues: after all, as Christians living in a culture that venerates the giving of one’s life for the sake of others (see, John 3:16), what can be more slanderous or hurtful than to be accused of taking another human-life? Not a moment passed by in my 10½ month-long incarceration when I didn’t feel like the principal character in Tolstoy’s short story, “God Sees The Truth But Waits”.

The sole objective behind my father’s cathartic arrest at Gandai, some seventy kilometers from Rajnandgaon, became apparent during the Government’s submission filed before the hon’ble sessions court two days later: “even if the accused is to be enlarged on bail,” the Government Pleader (GP) pontificated, “he must be explicitly forbidden from campaigning in Rajnandgaon.” [The GP was dismissed shortly afterwards.] Despite this Freudian slip, the chief minister and his party went on to term this arrest as “part of the judicial process”. Not surprisingly, my father’s principal detractor within his own party, Motilal Vora, journeyed all the way from Delhi to Somni, a village on the Durg-Rajnandgaon border, to join chorus with the BJP. This, more than any other factor, led to my father’s subsequent public outburst against Mr. Vora: it hurt him that a senior leader of his own party should condone his arrest when it was so obviously politically motivated. Infact, the popular perception of Papa as a ‘calculating, shrewd politician’ is totally misconceived: what most political commentators don’t realize is that he has more often than not allowed his heart to dictate his politics.

The second part of the chief minister’s underhand tactics involved secret support, possibly even funding, of the BSP campaign under the mistaken belief that this would eat into the Congress’- and my father’s- dalit support base. Consequently, a senior IAS officer of the state administration, Aman Singh, was deputed to liaison with the BSP candidate, a notorious Raipur-based 'businessman' whose diatribe against my family grew increasingly ridiculous with every passing day so much so that he filed an affidavit stating that my mother, “Dr. (Mrs.) Renu Jogi, had threatened his life if he didn’t withdraw in favor of the Congress party” (!). As things turned out, he lost his deposit despite spending a large fortune on a very high profile campaign. The only surprising thing about this episode is the people he kept in touch with, as may be discerned from his telephonic call details, especially during the period of my father’s arrest [8th-15th March]: they included not only members of the BJP, including the chief minister and his candidate, Leelaram Bhojwani, but also the complainant, Satish Jaggi, and quite a few prominent state Congress leaders who I prefer not to name here.

In any event, Papa’s arrest, particularly the manner in which it was executed, catapulted as the predominant election issue at Rajnandgaon. A day after my father had been taken into custody by a 500-member armed contingent of the Raipur police led by its SSP Marawi, a television news crew visiting a remote hilltop Baiga village in the constituency was confronted with belligerent tribals demanding to know why Ajit Jogi had been arrested? Following his return to Rajnandgaon against medical advise, there was a fourfold increase in the number of people attending his public meetings. Editorializing about the Rajnandgaon mandate in the state’s largest circulated newspaper, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’, the noted journalist, Diwakar Muktibodh wrote:

“The arrest of former chief minister Ajit Jogi is proof of [the BJP’s] political bankruptcy. Which of the BJP’s political strategists thought that the party would gain from Ajit Jogi’s arrest? It is a simple matter and everybody knows that when Ajit Jogi’s name has not been mentioned in the CBI’s investigation-report and the matter is in court, then what is the meaning of arresting him immediately after a lower court issues a non-bailable warrant on the private complaint of Satish Jaggi? The political motives of this can be very easily understood. Similarly, the registering of the offense of dacoity against Jogi in the Dongargarh police station just one day before polling is also laughable. How can such serious charges be leveled against a man who is on a wheelchair? Nobody believes this, not even the voters of Rajnandgaon. This move of the BJP also backfired, and far from turning the people against Jogi, it generated an environment of sympathy for him.”

[Dainik Bhaskar, Raipur, 2.04.2007, page 1, translation mine]

Done by Duryodhana?

As things stand, the people’s verdict confirms Mr. Muktibodh’s opinion. Indeed, the plot to keep Papa out of the campaign backfired on the ruling BJP and its chief minister, who rather humiliatingly, lost both in his home constituency, Dongargarh, and his hometown, Kawardha, where the chief ministerial couple had taken a hectic door-to-door campaign in a last-ditch effort to save face. His post-electoral attempt at justification is at best, feeble: “Operation Duryodhan,” he rationalized shortly after the result was announced, “prevailed over Inflation.” This contention, which is in total reversal of what he was saying earlier, is easily countered by posing two questions:

• How did his party’s candidate, Leelaram Bhojwani, manage to retain his hometown, Rajnandgaon, by a margin of more than 5000 votes despite Duryodhan? Here, ‘the son of the soil’ factor seems to have overridden every other factor, at least in the township. The indisputable surmise that Mr. Bhojwani remains more popular in his home constituency than the chief minister is in his makes the chief minister’s defeat even more shameful.

• Why didn’t the RJD lose Palamu in neighboring Jharkhand even though its MP had been implicated in Duryodhan? To say that Duryodhan presented incumbent political parties with a fiat accompli- that its candidate will ipso facto be ousted in the ensuing bye-elections- is therefore incorrect. If anything, Palamu is indicative of a rather unfortunate trend: the downplaying, even acceptance, of corruption as an issue among the nation’s electorate.

It is obvious to me that the BJP has learnt little from Kota; in all likelihood, it will learn even lesser from Rajnandgaon. At a polling booth in Virendranagar, a puzzled presiding officer was confronted by angry women voters demanding that a complaint be registered against the local BJP workers for giving them ‘german’ (germanium) earrings while misleading them into believing that they were made of pure silver (!). Likewise, many BSP youth workers were disappointed upon learning that they will now have to make hefty installments of monthly payments on motorcycles ‘gifted’ to them, failing which these will be repossessed by the finance companies. Even more shockingly, a journalist recently emailed me a photograph of the chief minister’s wife, Veena Singh, handing a huge wad of thousand-rupee notes to one of her party workers from an overstuffed purse at Rajnandgaon, even as onlookers continue to stare at her (see below). It is a telling picture with a very clear message: people’s hearts- and votes- can’t be bought with money.

The other, much more pertinent, lesson concerns the tribals of the state. The BJP suffered its biggest defeat- of a whopping 22000 votes- from the Lok Sabha’s sole tribal constituency, Ambagarh-Chowki. Personally, I can discern three factors that contributed to this: first and foremost, it is a reaction against the atrocities perpetuated by the state-sponsored Salva Judum (SJ) movement, in which hundreds, if not thousands, of tribals have been killed; secondly, the numerous high-profile deaths of tribals and scheduled castes in police custody; thirdly, the abject failure of this state government to keep its election promises to the tribals vis-à-vis giving a cow to every tribal family, waiving of farmers’ debts and a monthly stipend of Rs. 500 to every unemployed youth. Taken cumulatively, it reveals an increasing awareness among the state’s tribal electorate.

AJ

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CHITRAKOTE: THE THREE TRAGEDIES OF CHHATTISGARH TOURISM

Note: Very curiously, excerpts from this entry were published in Naxal Revolution.

Diary entry of 17.02.2007
This author strikes a pose at the Chitrakote waterfall.

The site for the log-huts camp overlooking the Chitrakote waterfall takes its dying-gasp: this summer, the huts, all of which have withstood the test of time with remarkable fortitude and very little maintenance, are to be dismantled to make way for a hideous brick-and-cement ‘tourist complex’. An attendant confides to me that tourists aren’t exactly happy: “if we wanted air-conditioned buildings of concrete,” they lament, “we would have stayed back in the city.” In my opinion, the worst thing about the ‘new master plan’ are the four closely clustered cement ‘cottages’ at the edge of the cliff, which rather senselessly block what used to be the Fall’s majestic view from the rest of the (now) proposed lodges: with the exception of those lucky few allowed to stay in those four cottages- the absentee landlords of the GOC- none of the other residents will be able to enjoy the panorama of Chitrakote (see photograph below). Indeed it will not be farfetched to say that the sine qua non of why people would want to stay here in the first place no longer exists.


Under Demolition: The Log Huts Campsite at Chitrakote (can you see Chitrakote?)

Chitrakote is an ideal case study of what’s happening to Chhattisgarh Tourism- and culture- under the tutelage of its high profile- but in my opinion, misguided- minister, Brij Mohan Agrawal. The way I see it, there are three definitive shifts in the ministry’s policy.

1. OVER-BUREAUCRATISATION: During my father’s regime, the mantra was privatization: the scant tourism infrastructure we had inherited from MPTDC (Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation)- its only notable property being the ruinous Chhattisgarh Hotel at Raipur- was slated for disinvestment; likewise, parent departments of various ‘rest houses’ littered all over the state- Irrigation, PWD and Forest- most of which were built during the heydays of the Raj, were instructed to hand them over to private parties, to be run on commercial lines.

Papa’s policy was clear. GOC was to confine its role to Publicity: its job was to attract potential tourists to come to Chhattisgarh; once here, private parties, functioning with minimal bureaucratic interference, were expected to take over. Bastar of course was to be Chhattisgarh Tourism’s mascot, but other areas- Bhoramdeo, Achanak Mar and Barnawapara (all three are designated wildlife sanctuaries); Bagicha and Mainpat (both ‘virgin’ hill stations); Sirpur, Sonmuda, Dongargarh, Rajim, Chandrapur, Dantewada and Ratanpur (temple sites)- were also identified for promotion. Since ‘eco-tourism’ and ‘ethno-tourism’ constituted the very core of GOC’s policy, the departments of culture, forest and tourism were placed under one Principal Secretary to enable better synergy between them. Jai Tilak, an IAS officer from Kerala who was instrumental in putting that state- God’s own country- on the world tourism map, was ‘poached’ from his parent-cadre, and given what might be euphemistically called ‘a free hand’. All of this, it would seem, has been reversed. For one thing, Mr. Jai Tilak had been unceremoniously shunted off to Excise, where he soon tired of formulating the state's Liquor Policy.

Meanwhile, CTDC, the government-run state tourism corporation, is on a construction overdrive: tourist lodges, much like the one here at Chitrakote, have mushroomed along highways, and at various other places à la Bansilal’s Haryana. That’s all very well. What I fear- and I believe the lessons of past experiences to be on my side- is the likelihood of their falling victim to the gross mismanagement, corruption and nepotism that are the bane of most, if not all, ‘public sector undertakings’: it will not be long before they are reduced to little more than contemporary ruins. At the rest houses I halted at enroute to Jagdalpur- Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon- I was told that the rooms were all booked for ‘guests of hon’ble ministers’ although none of these haloed guests, with the exception of the hon’ble home minister’s wife (who spent all of five minutes at Kondagaon), had bothered showing up. In my opinion, the most sensible thing to do now would be to hand these properties over to private parties, who will, motivated as they are by profits, ensure that they are well maintained. Also, all future ‘projects’ should be organic to the state’s underlying cultural sensibilities: right now, they resemble cheap matchbox-style motels.

This in fact brings me to my second and far more serious point: the de-Chhattisgarhisation of Chhattisgarhi culture.

2. DE-CHHATTISGARHISATION: Not too long ago, I was having lunch with a journalist from the German publication, Focus. She had just been to a cultural evening organized by the Department of Culture, and her surmise of what she saw was as follows: “Chhattisgarh’s culture,” she mused, “is very similar to Rajasthani culture.” Had it not been for her local guide, who had thankfully accompanied her to the luncheon, I would have taken this comment to be symptomatic of an outsider’s total lack of cultural sensibility to distinguish a bison-horn Maria peacock dance from the Kalbeliya. He quickly clarified that the song & dance routine that my distinguished guest had seen was indeed staged by a troupe from Rajasthan, and it had nothing to do with Chhattisgarhi culture. “What else can we expect,” he said, “when the minister for culture is a Marwari (a native of the Marwar region of Rajasthan) who doesn’t know how to speak [the] Chhattisgarhi [dialect]?”

A young journalist-friend from Bilaspur, who had won the local Press Club’s local badminton championship, narrated a similar anecdote to me. While presenting him with the trophy, the hon’ble Chief Minister politely asked where he hailed from. “I am a thakur,” my friend replied, “from Uttar Pradesh.” The CM’s off-hand repartee to his query is telling: “So am I.”

It is an undeniable fact that Chhattisgarhis today find themselves being ruled by a government constituted primarily by persons who do not- cannot- identify themselves with the state’s underlying cultural sensibilities. This has had catastrophic affects. In this regard, I shall cite specific examples. At the Rajyotsav celebrations, held annually to commemorate the state’s foundation day, the amount paid to a little-known dance troupe from Mumbai in 2006- Rs. 15 lakhs- was more than that disbursed to all the other local artistes put together. Likewise the Chhattisgarhi Sahitya Academy, which was headed by the state’s poet-laureate Lakshman Masturia during my father’s government, has been allowed to go defunct while a Sindhi Sahitya Academy has been formed for the promotion of Sindhi literature (Sindh is now a province in Pakistan with its capital at Karachi). While I’ve nothing against Sindhi, it is also important not to overlook other dialects of Chhattisgarh that face a very real threat of obsolescence: Sargujiya and Nathpuriya are two that come to mind, which have a very rich literature that ought to be preserved and promoted.

As far as the local artistes are concerned, an unofficial Culturocracy dominates: it has monopolized state-largesse by systematically ostracizing artistes who refuse to kowtow to the not-so-covert politico-cultural agenda espoused by the BJP’s parent-body, the RSS. During the last Vidhan Sabha elections, professional artistes hired by one Mohan Chand Sundrani, a Sindhi by sheer coincidence, to campaign for the BJP were caught unawares when they were suddenly paraded before the Press as having en mass joined that party. Not surprisingly, Mr. Sundrani now lords over Chhattisgarh’s cultural activities as head of Sundrani World Video, a Raipur-based private limited company, which releases more than 200 ‘Chhattisgarhi’ musical video-albums and CDs every year. This is more than all his competitors put together. In fact artistes not part of his ever-growing cultural stable are finding it increasingly difficult to survive. His numero uno ‘artiste’ is one Yogesh Agrawal, the younger brother of the state’s culture minister. Mr. Yogesh Agrawal’s tallest claim to fame comes from having ‘co-starred with the Bollywood superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, in the patriotic film, Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon.’ In film posters erected all over town, his beaming visage dwarfed that of Mr. Bachchan’s. Cinemagoers were therefore somewhat bemused to discover that Mr. Agrawal’s sole appearance in the movie was in a five-second non-speaking scene with the superstar. Lest the audience carelessly overlook this precious misé-en-scène, owners of theaters were advised to pause and replay it at least three times over with the caption: “in this scene, Amitabh Bachchan appears with the pride of Chhattisgarh, our very own Yogesh Agrawal ji.”

Meanwhile, the ‘music videos’, far from being representative of Chhattisgarh’s incredibly rich folk culture, have become increasingly vulgar and full of cheap double-entendres: in one number, ‘aey man chali’, the Calcutta-based starlet, Oshin, gyrates to techno-rhythms with only an iota of clothing. Culture, therefore, is being sacrificed at the scaffold of titillation. The other trend discernable in the evolution of popular Chhattisgarhi music is the growing influence of Oriya, and particularly Sambalpuri, songs. This is mainly because most of the music albums are recorded in sound studios in Cuttack; more often than not, Oriya songs are simply dubbed in Chhattisgarhi. Tonight, at the Lohandiguda madai (fete) where over ten thousand tribals from all over Bastar have congregated, we saw a ‘natt’ competition. Eight parties were simultaneously performing scenes from the Ram Lila in eight separate enclosures to a suitably enthralled squatting audience, comprising mostly women. The common feature in all these performances was that they were all in Oriya (see photo below).
Lohandiguda Madai

The only place where we came across a performance in the native dialect was outside the devi-gudi (the tribal temple): a mandali (band) of performers was singing stories from the Puranas in hybrid-Halabi (which even I could follow), interspersed with ‘prasishtis’ (adulatory songs) for paying-devotees.

The biggest sufferer, however, has been the nascent Chhattisgarhi film industry. In the years 2000-03, more than 35 Chhattisgarhi films were released; from 2004-06, their number has shrunk to less than 10. Annual state film award function, started in 2003, ‘to recognize and promote excellence in Chhattisgarhi cinema’ was summarily abandoned; subsidies announced by the previous government too have been discontinued. Instead the Department of Culture organizes ‘Film Star Nights’. Here also, the ‘politics of culture’ has ensured that the more popular of Chhattisgarh’s ‘stars’- like Shekar, Anuj Sharma and Poonam Naqvi, who attained stardom with ‘Mor chaiyyan bhuiyyan’, the state’s top-grosser ever- are kept at a distance from such events. The DoC’s chief organizer of such events is the proprietor of R.P. Films Pvt. Ltd., Rajesh Mishra, who, like Mr. Sundrani, is extremely close to Mr. Yogesh Agrawal. Any artiste who is considered close to rival political organizations- like Mr. Sharma- is not extended an invitation to participate whereas little-known starlets, who are obviously more amenable to the state’s designs, are given prominent billings.

I was recently asked to preside over the closing ceremony of a statewide Gammat Nacha competition. This, as I later learnt, is an annual event organized by the Tarun Chhattisgarh newspaper. It is indeed unfortunate that although we have several dance-forms in the state, the state government has not deemed it fit to promote any of them. The solitary exception, the Panthi Nach competition announced belatedly this year (2007) as part of Guru Ghasidas Jayanti celebrations, is seen as little more than a political gimmick to woo the ‘Satnami votebank’. The prize money announced for this competition, however, was inexplicably reduced when it came to actually rewarding the winners. This laxity is understandable considering that rather than a particular 'caste' like the Satnami, the principal target of the present government’s cultural policy is indeed the ‘Hindu votebank’. This then brings me to my third- and most sensitive- point.

3. RELIGIOUS EMPHASIS: By far, the single biggest ‘event’ in the DoC’s calendar is the ‘Rajim Kumbh’: glitzy hoardings displaying smiling photographs of the state culture & tourism minister and the CM alongside that of the deity, Rajiv Lochan, are erected at strategic places all over the state; double-page advertisements are placed in every minor and major publication of the nation; sadhus (godmen) from all over the country are extended state-sponsorships to attend. While I find nothing particularly wrong with this- after all, both the Rajim Kumbh méla and the Bastar Dusshera (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the tale of Lord Ram) were popularized during my father’s regime- it is most objectionable that these religious events are being used not only to further votebank politics but also for shameless self-promotion: only last year (2006), some of these godmen were persuaded to confer, in violation of all established precedence and norms, the religious title of ‘Mahamandalesvar’ (great lord of the universe) on the personage of the state culture minister, Mr. Brij Mohan Agrawal.

Taken together, the above-described three trends have led to an unfortunate paradox: the way this present administration sees it, tourism and culture in Chhattisgarh today have very little to do with the Chhattisgarhi identity. Even more worrisome is the fact that both the existence and evolution of this identity have come under grave threat, and there is nobody to speak against it.


AJ
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The Oscar Postscript

Of my three predictions, only one- the Best Actress award for Ms. Mirren- has materialized. Mr. Forest Whitaker’s award winning portrayal of the ousted Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin- his artful depiction of shades of humanity in what is unquestionably the Face of Evil à la Herr Bruno Ganz's characterisation of Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang (2004)- confirms my previously-voiced suspicion regarding “the Academy’s penchant for rewarding reel-life portrayals of real-life figures”. As far as this year’s Oscars go, General Idi Amin has waltzed away with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (which is probably what happened at the customary post-Oscar Governor’s Ball).

Most intriguingly, The Departed, the one film I had expected not to win, was awarded Best Picture, while its director, Mr. Martin Scorsese, has walked away with the Best Director trophy. I attribute this to two possible factors: first of course is the sympathy Academy members must have felt towards Mr. Scorsese, who hadn’t won a single Oscar despite being nominated at least six times; secondly, the fact that of the five nominated films, only The Departed- ‘my first film with a plot,’ as its director describes it- told a truly all-American tale, and one that felt closest home to members of the Academy: a story of convoluted LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) cops. The Rest- especially my choice, Babel- might have been, well, a bit too exotic. Ironically, this undermines the much-touted claim of the 2007 Oscar as having been ‘a celebration of international cinema’.

Sympathy also accounts for Ms. Jennifer Hudson’s winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She might not have become the ‘American Idol’ but that didn’t stop her from gaining the nation’s sympathy as the hit show’s most loved underdog contestant. In my opinion, Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) was by far, the best choice: her understated performance as an undersexed deaf-mute teenager, especially when juxtaposed against the alienation of contemporary Tokyo, powerfully epitomizes the angst of youth everywhere. Mr. Alan Arkin's role in Little Miss Sunshine, as an over-the-top nymphomaniac Vietnam war veteran heroin-addict 'Grandpa', fits well with the edgy-humour style perfected by him at the Second City Comedy troupe at Chicago. It is well worthy of the Best Actor in a Supporting Role award.

As far as Ms. Ellen DeGeneres’ performance as the show’s hostess went, I think it was just a tad too edgy: vacuuming the red carpet in the middle of the ceremony might make for good slapstick; but it also hints at an unwarranted desperation for getting laughs out of an equally desperate 'we're-here-to-enjoy-the-evening' audience that is only too willing to oblige. Hopefully, she should have several more Oscar nights lined up to hone her comical craft.

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SNT!

SNT turns 42 today (although I overheard him tell someone that he's hit the half-century mark). I surprised him last night- at the precise stroke of the midnight hour- with an impromptu cake (courtesy: Mr. Monty) the moment we returned home after attending a wedding at Pallari, some sixty kilometres away.

The first photograph shows SNT cutting the cake, with a little help from Papa and me.

In the next one, the birthday baby is force-feeding the first slice- and a very large slice at that- to Papa. I can be seen trying to save Papa from an otherwise inevitable bout of indigestion. (SNT's rather skewed version is that I was trying to steal a piece for myself before Papa could eat it!) Manoj, Papa's attendant, can be seen beaming in the background.

The following evening witnessed heavy-duty partying at SNT's hideout by a very select gathering. While photographs were taken by the incorrigible Girish, it's for the best if they are not displayed here for fear of evoking the censor board's- not to mention, the ever-trusting Mrs. SNT's- wrath!

In any event, I wish SNT all the very best.

AJ

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Obituary: Shyama Charan Shukla: End of An Era

Note: This article was published in the Daily Chhattisgarh newspaper on 25.02.2007, on the eve of Mr. Shyama Charan's teravi (thirteenth-day ceremony). Its Hindi translation, done with assistance from Mr. SNT, was printed in Haribhoomi on 02.03.2007.

The Absent Writer
As a rule, all statesmen upon turning 65, more so those who have borne witness to, or participated in, what Arjun Singh once described as “the cavalcade of History”, should document- in most cases, this would simply mean, dictating to their longtime secretaries- their memoirs, both as a Testament to a bygone Era and as a Beacon for Posterity. Never before in the five-year young history of Chhattisgarh has the breach of this normative-rule been felt more acutely than in the passing away of Shyama Charan Shukla, thrice chief minister of the erstwhile state of (undivided) Madhya Pradesh. The fact that it was not uncommon for his contemporaries to do so- D.P. Mishra, his sometime adversary and R.P. Noronha, his first chief secretary, to name two, did indeed pen riveting, even brutally honest, accounts of their ‘Days under the Sun’ (in the latter’s case, this was titled ‘A Tale told by an Idiot’)- makes the paucity of Mr. Shukla’s would-be memoir even more unfortunate.

The most obvious question then is this: why did Mr. Shukla not leave behind his memoir, not even a diary? The answer, in my opinion, cuts to the core- the sine qua non- of his life and politics: to the very end, he remained a never-say-die fighter. “I shall return,” he told his grandson, Bhavani, some four days before he was finally airlifted back to Raipur, “walking on my feet.” In retrospect, that sounds overtly optimistic, even naïve. The carcinoma of prostrate had been detected some four years ago; back then, it was in its early- curable- stage. However, discounting allopathic treatment for fear of its ‘side-effects’, he opted for a regimen of ayurvedic herbal remedies. This is in sharp contrast to my father, who would gladly become a guinea pig for an as-yet-untested therapy in order to be able to walk again.

To me, this signifies the major difference in their respective approaches to statecraft: for Mr. Shukla’s generation of khadi-clad Gandhi-topi politicians, principles, even discredited ones, prevailed over pragmatic considerations. (Why else refuse treatment against sound medical advise?) After a late-night meeting with ‘Shyam Bhaiya’ to discuss the blueprint for Raipur’s master plan, Papa came out fuming: “he wants to me to bulldoze every building from the airport to Shankar Nagar (the place of his residence) to make a road!” Indeed, Mr. Shukla’s proposed roadway would have been the shortest one but it also meant uprooting thousands of citizens from their homes.

Bhagirathi, the Giver of Water
Yet, it was this same sense of impracticability, when fused with his remarkable Vision, which led him to propose the construction of Madhya Pradesh’s largest irrigation projects that were, in the words of his close associate and a former irrigation minister, Ram Charan Singh Deo, “to forever transform the rural economy of central India.” Anybody visiting the site of the Gangrel dam near Dhamtari would know exactly what this means: Gangrel has become the single most important lifeline of Dhamtari, Kurud, Rajim, Raipur and Bhilai. In this respect, he was no different from Pandit Nehru.

Not too long ago, I remember sitting next to him on a flight to Delhi. He said that it was regrettable that of the two projects he had proposed- Sardar Sarovar (involving as it does the displacement of tens of thousands of tribals) and Bodhghat Hydel- the latter was shelved by the Planning Commission of India because it was felt that it would ‘endanger the environment and anthropology of the Bastar tribes’. What this really did, was to ensure that Bastar remains frozen in time, as a perpetual human-zoo. In his opinion, the cost-benefit analysis of both the projects is such that while the main beneficiary of the former is Gujarat- with all the submergence area falling in M.P. even as canals pump water into the dried bed of Sabarmati, paving, among other things, the way for a Narendra Modi victory in 2002- in the case of Bodhghat, the principal beneficiary would have been Bastar. In fact, without Bodhghat, there is every chance that Bastar, what with the shifting of the Indravati’s course, might well turn into an arid zone. If at all good sense prevails, and the project is revived, then it is only fitting to name it after Mr. Shukla.

The other, even more telling, aspect is that he had decided to keep his illness a closely guarded secret. “It wasn’t as if medical science didn’t have a cure for his illness,” opines a family doctor who happened to accidentally stumble upon Mr. Shukla’s test-reports while treating him for what he thought was a simple case of benign enlargement of prostrate (which happens with age), “it’s just that Bhaiya didn’t give us a chance to cure him.” The reason for the shroud of secrecy was to ensure that ‘leaks’ about his medical condition did not hinder his political career. Till at least one year before his death, he could be seen in Delhi, lobbying for a gubernatorial assignment (something which my father wholeheartedly supported). For a man who had never tired of electoral politics, why the sudden fascination with ‘the politics of dole-outs’?

Warrior against Time
The answer probably lies in Mr. Shukla’s post-Chhattisgarh politics. It cannot be denied that at the time of his death, all the three members of his family in active politics, including him, had recently been ousted in elections with unprecedented margins: both he and his younger brother, Vidya Charan Shukla, lost their respective last Lok Sabha elections by over 100,000 votes each from Raipur and Mahasamund (2004) even though they contested from opposing parties; his son, Amitesh Shukla, lost his paternal assembly seat, Rajim, by almost 30,000 votes (2003).

Mr. V.C. Shukla is quick to explain these multiple losses in terms of ‘a breach of understanding’ that was reached between the two brothers during the lifetime of their father, Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla. “During Kakka ji’s time,” he once told me, “it was decided that Shyam bhaiya would be in state politics while I remained in central politics.” That agreement was broken at the fin de siècle (1999) when Mr. Shukla contested from his younger brother’s parliamentary seat, Mahasamund, and gave his assembly seat, Rajim, to his son, Mr. Amitesh Shukla. In short, Mr. V.C. Shukla was left ‘high and dry’, and with no option but to leave the Congress. I, for one, cannot subscribe to such an exclusively dynastic- feudal-interpretation. The reason has got to be deeper, more fundamental, than that. Here, I will quote from my ‘brief history of Chhattisgarh’ (a candid work-in-progress):

“Historically, they (the Shukla Family) had been opposed to the very idea of Chhattisgarh, and it was not until the very end- when Mr. VC Shukla had been totally marginalized under Sonia Gandhi’s leadership (he had been denied a party-ticket in the previous Lok Sabha), and Chhattisgarh had become an inevitability- that that family finally succumbed to the demand for separate statehood: typically, he decided to grab the mantle of its leadership. With not more than seven MLAs (the rest were with the Raja of Raghogarh) he floated his ‘Chhattisgarh Sangarsh Morcha’, and declared himself the Founder of the new state. The only other person who saw him as that was Charan Das Mahant- a one-time Raja loyalist who had served as his Home Minister, and when he had become too big for his boots, was booted out of state politics, to Parliament, where he was a small-fish in a very big ocean. Mr. Mahant, as possibly the only Congress speaker from Chhattisgarh, gave him full credit for the creation of the state, during the debate on the Bill.”

The association of the Shukla family, therefore, isn’t so much with Chhattisgarh as it is with the erstwhile (undivided) state of Madhya Pradesh. To put it bluntly, most Chhattisgarhis do not- cannot- identify with them. The reasons are obvious: our ways of life have very little in common; they do not speak our language, eat our food, or participate in our festivals; their sons and daughters do not marry into families here; what is more, in the over seventy years that they have been our rulers, they have never made efforts to do so. In short, it is clear that they have not been able to adapt to the changing times.

It can always be argued that at Mr. Shukla’s age- he was already touching 80 when the state was formed- it would have been unreasonable to expect him to change. Yet, there are reports, unconfirmed of course, to suggest that he did in fact endeavour to do precisely that. It is said that a Chhattisgarhi-dialectician was engaged to teach him the nuances of the vernacular. But linguistic obstacle wasn’t the sole impediment. When finalizing the list for NSUI (National Students’ Union of India) district presidents, he was asked to name his choice for Mahasamund. The name he suggested created quite a scandal in the press: the ‘student’ in question was well past 50. It would appear that just as the tide of History over-swept his family, the Ravages of Age had finally overtaken Mr. Shukla.

However to his credit, I believe that Mr. Shukla, unlike his younger brother, conducted himself with remarkable dignity, grace and poise even in the face of humiliating losses. That, in my opinion, proves his true mettle: that he was indeed ‘made of sterner stuff’.

Unfortunately, the Time of such men is past, and in the absence of memoirs, even echoes of their voices shall be heard no more.

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......