Sunday, September 27, 2009

An Angry Genius Called Sasthi Brata

Although he is a forgotten figure now, Sasthi Brata was a big name in the field of Indian Writing in English from the late 1960s to the mid-80s. He introduced a certain sort of freshness to the genre. The didactic novels of Mulk Raj Anand, the heavy philosophical content of Raja Rao's works, the all-too-predictable style of R.K. Narayan and the turgidity of Nirad Chaudhuri's prose were the order of the day. Excellent writers like Manohar Malgoankar, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Sudhin Ghose and Kamala Markandeya had already started to fade away from public memory. A void was created and there was a strong desire to hear a new voice. It was at that time that Sasthi Brata made his appearance in the Indian literary scene.
His first success came with the publication of his autobiography My God Died Young in 1968. He was only 29 years old. This irreverent book attracted attention both for his elegant prose and for his unequivocal rejection of superstition-laden practices of Indian society. He earned notoriety as Bengal's angry young genius who much rather preferred to live in exile in London than offer criticism as an insider. In later years he continued publishing books and in each one of them he carried on his attack on what he believed were the hypocritical aspects of Indian culture and society. A bold treatment of the subject of sex also came to be regarded as a regular feature of his writings.
My father was a college-going man when Sasthi Brata's books began to appear in print. I don't think he was much into reading but I could see Sasthi Brata's books in his meagre collection. I believe an anthology of Tagore's love poems, Nirad Chaudhuri's To Live or Not to Live and Ruskin Bond's Love is a Sad Song were the other books in his collection. Except Encounter he had all the major books by Sasthi Brata. I say this just to show how popular the writer must have been during the heydays of his creativity. I was too young to read his books. But I remember very distinctly the covers of his novel She and He and his collection of stories A Search for Home. The first one had a photo of a man and a woman with their backs turned against the gaze of the person holding the book. Remarkably, the couple had no piece of clothing on them. The second book had a painting which showed a naked couple entangled in an erotic posture. Salacious? Yes, of course!
I must confess, in the earlier half of this year, I purchased one of his books because I found the title simply irresistible. I later learned that this book was banned in India immediately after its publication in England. But now things have cooled down and the ban has been lifted. Confessions of an Indian Woman Eater, that's the title of the book I am referring to. On reading the book I was struck by its lucid prose, its unconventional plot (the book was published in 1971), and its philosophical depth. The titillating content is there all right, but that should not undermine the creative achievement of the text. I borrowed all his other books from my University library --- I couldn't have waited to go back home and read them --- and devoured them like a maniac. What a brilliant writer! What devilish wit!
I started researching on him and somehow managed to get his London telephone number. On a whim I dialled the number and found Sasthi Brata himself on the line. When I said I wished to interview him he readily agreed and asked if I wanted to do it right then. I didn't have the questions ready and we decided to do it a couple of days later. When I called him on the appointed day a woman --- I think she was either his English wife or his step-daughter; I am not sure who --- answered the phone and informed me that Sasthi Brata had to go out on an urgent business and would call me back as soon as he returned. Would I leave my phone number with her? I did. He rang me up after three hours.
The interview began and I discovered that he spoke with an RP accent. Why I didn't notice it on the first day, I can't tell. I also realized that he was not an easy person to interview. He is sharp, vigilant and, sometimes, throws questions back at you; the last one is extremely disconcerting for an interviewer. At one point I cited some critics who said that he "commodified" women in his books and invited his response on the issue. He asked me to explain the meaning of the word "commodify". Now, I have this compulsive habit of trying to act smart. So I explained the meaning of the word by using a culinary metaphor. I could sense that he got furious but soon regained his composure and refuted the charge. But I had learned a valuable lesson. One shouldn't throw words around casually without really knowing their meanings. Except this one instance the interview concluded amicably. He argued that he is not read anymore because reading is a matter of fashion; what he had written then are no longer fashionable now. Since the last 20 years or so he has been writing a novel Damned by the Rainbow and he is no longer sure if he would live to finish it. After I had turned off the recording device we spoke for about 15 minutes on various things. I remember asking him a question in Bengali but he chose to answer me in English. I don't know whether it was because of his temporal and geographical distance from India or because of his characteristic nonconformism. I didn't persist. He wanted me to send him a copy of whatever I would write on the basis of the interview he had just granted me. Even if I wrote an unflattering piece he wouldn't mind, he assured me. He is against any kind of censorship.
A few days ago I wrote to tell him that I was busy with a few other projects and couldn't complete the piece I intended to write on him. I promised to finish the task before the year was out. He never wrote back!

An Augustan Pastoral Poem

Profuse apologies for the minor errors of spelling in my last two entries. Some of those who have taken the trouble to read my blog have advised that I shorten the length of my posts. An absolutely valid suggestion, I should think. But brevity has never been one of my virtues; my writing rambles, meanders and swells like a river in its lower course. I find myself unable to offer any apologies on that count. We live in a world where leisure and slow-pacedness are much frowned upon. So it is only to be expected that one would feel the acute necessity of taking a quick look at something and then hurrying on to something else. There is no dearth of choice. It is true I have laid out my writings as one variety of food item in a huge platter of exotic delicacies to be consumed by a selective but busy population of internet browsers. Therefore, I have no legitimate right to complain. However unique and tasty the preparation might be, it has to catch the eye of hungry monsters who do not know better. I am not so unthinking as to call my well-wishers 'hungry monsters'. By 'hungry monsters' I mean my prospective readers. A writer who I rate very highly has said, "I am a personal writer. I wouldn't like a big audience. I write because I want to write and I couldn't care a damn what other people think." I share his sentiment completely.
In any case, I would like to share a poem with you. Since living in an industrialized, technologically-advanced and urbanized world has become a fait accompli with many of us, we are bound to miss those simple pleasures of life that come only from Man's rootedness with Earth and Nature. "A Harvest Scene," an Augustan pastoral poem by William Pattison, highlights this strong connection between Man and Nature, and, by extension, between Man and Religion and the concepts of community-feeling, prosperity and happiness. It should be noted that the poem was composed in 1728, nearly 3 decades before the Industrial Revolution made its appearance in the West. Here it goes:

Behold ---
The Green Fields Yellowing into Corny Gold!
White o'er their Ranks, an Old Man half appears,
How hale he Looks, tho' hoar'd with seventy Years;
His Prospect mounts, slow-pac'd, he strives to climb,
And seems some antient Monument of Time;
Propt o'er his Staff the reverend Father stands,
And views Heaven's Blessings with up-lifted Hands;
Gleeful in Heart computes the Year's Increase,
And portions out, in Thought, his homely Race,
His homely Race before, his Hopes improve,
And labour in Obedience for his Love;
Sweepy they Cut, then Bind the Sheafy-Grain,
And bend beneath the Burthen of the Plain;
His chearful Eyes, with silent Praises crown
Their Toils, and Smile at Vigour once his own;
Till the Mid-Sun to second Nature's Call,
Noon-marks the distant Steeple's Ivy'd Wall,
Thence warn'd, he waves his Arms, with giddy Haste,
The circling Summons to a cool Repaste.

The poem appears in The Penguin Book of English Pastoral Verse, edited by John Barrell and John Bull (Allen Lane: London, 1974. 290-91.).

Friday, September 25, 2009

Remembering King Khan

If you thought from the title that I am going to write about Shah Rukh Khan, you are wrong. I prefer not to talk of megalomaniacs. The subject of my essay is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, affectionately known as Badshah (King) Khan. Historians and politicians, mostly on the Indian side, call him, somewhat patronizingly, the "Frontier Gandhi", and for the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani administration he was the enemy number one. I am writing about him because he is a unique figure in the history of the Indian subcontinent. He spent thirty years of his life in prison: 15 years in British Indian jails and, after 1947, another 15 years in Pakistani jails. This is more than the duration of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment for anti-apartheid activities. A scholar has calculated that he spent nearly 52 years of his life imprisoned or in exile. It is a real shame that Badshah Khan has been practically forgotten not just in India and Pakistan but also among his own people, the Pathans of the North-West Frontier Province and Afghanistan. The region which he wanted to build into the free and peace-loving nation of Pakhtunistan is now ravaged by war and hatred. The very forces he wanted to defeat in his lifetime have now become deeply entrenched in those beautiful mountains and valleys. From Peshawar to Jalalabad it is a story of violence, destruction and shattered dreams. The religious bigotry of the Taliban, Pakistani excesses and American 'intervention' have left no stone unturned to wipe out the legacy of Badshah Khan. "It fills my heart with sadness to think that our country which, at different periods in history, was the cradle of learning and culture could, under unfavourable circumstances, and because of the ignorance of the mullahs, sink into a state where there was no room left for such good work as education and learning," said Badshah Khan in his autobiography.
Indeed, the 'difficult' (I use the term both in a geographical as well as in a present-day political sense) terrain of NWFP and its surrounding areas were once a seat of high learning, a melting pot of cultures and India's gateway to Central Asia and Europe. The Aryans had made the place their first home in India. The teachings of Buddha found roots in the culture of the region with the establishment of two great Buddhist universities at Ada and Taxila. The Gandhara School of Art flourished there for centuries. Pannini, the great Sanskrit grammarian, and even Prophet Zoroaster are said to have been born there. By the time Islam reached, the spiritual fervour of its flag-bearers had diminished considerably. Nevertheless, the inhabitants adapted themselves to the situation and achieved new heights of "scholarship in Islamic philosophy, learning, and mysticism."
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a true inheritor of the tolerant spirit and the composite culture of the land of his birth. He was born in 1890 in Utmanzai in the Peshawar Valley. His father was Khan Bahram Khan, a local chieftain. At a very young age Ghaffar Khan learnt the Holy Quran by heart. Despite opposition from the mullahs, he and his elder brother were sent to school. While in school he realized that it was only through education that the fate of the Pathans could be improved. After his schooling he was chosen to join the British Indian Army but declined the offer on seeing the humiliation of "native" soldiers at the hands of their White officers. His chance of going to England for education was vetoed by his mother. So he dedicated himself enthusiastically to the task of opening schools.
The separation of NWFP from Punjab in 1901 and the Rowlatt Act of 1919 kindled patriotic sentiments in Ghaffar Khan. He threw his lot with many of his compatriots and joined the nationalist struggle. The on-going Khilafat Movement also added to the excitement. During one of his prison terms he learnt about Gandhi and his non-violent stuggle. He was convinced that this was the right way to fight the British. In 1928 he met Gandhi in Lucknow during one of the Congress meetings. This was the beginning of their friendship which lasted till Gandhi's death in 1948. It is obvious that the two men had a similar outlook towards life and politics. Ghaffar Khan eventually founded the pacifist movement Khudai Khidmatgar. Its basic objective was social reformation among the Pathans, and to promote religious harmony and achieve political independence by non-violent means. He told the Pathans, "There are two ways to national progress: one is the path of religion, and the other is the road to patriotism.... If we are on the road to ruin, it is because we have neither the true spirit of religion, nor the true spirit of patriotism, of love for our nation, nor have we developed any social consciousness." It was a daunting task to tame the hot blood of the Pathans but his reasoning that Islam is a religion of love, service and forgiveness struck a chord with them and they energetically recruited themselves as Khudai Khidmatgar volunteers. It vindicated Badshah Khan's belief that the British deliberately kept the Pathans illiterate, sowed seeds of disunity between them, let them kill each other and then maligned them as a lawless and warring tribe. Moreover, NWFP was a buffer zone between two imperial powers: the British in India and the advancing Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The British favoured a volatile and unstable NWFP to safeguard their own interests in India. An example of the typical way in which the British perceived the inhabitants of NWFP can be found in the much-anthologized poem "The Ballad of East and West" by Rudyard Kipling.
Anyway, at the peak of its popularity the Khudai Khidmatgar movement had upwards of one hundred thousand volunteers. They wore a red uniform to hide the dust whirling constantly in the air of the mountainous region from showing. This earned them the name "surkh posh" or "red shirts". Their adherence to the principle of non-violence and their championing of Hindu-Sikh-Muslim unity have no parallel in history. Some scholars would say that the positive changes the "red shirts" introduced in NWFP are a practical triumph of Gandhism. It must be pointed out that although Gandhi and Khan worked together closely enough and, at times, drew inspiration from each other, the Gandhian and the Khudai Khidmatgar movements were not exactly the same. Khan was an ally of the Congress Party and not a Congressman. He was asked to preside over the important session of the Indian National Congress in Karachi in 1931 which ratified the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. He politely refused. So the post went to the indomitable Sardar Vallabhbai Patel. The influence of Khan's movement so gripped the province that his elder brother was elected Chief Minister and remained in office until Mohammad Ali Jinnah dismissed his government after the formation of Pakistan. Khan Saheb, as Badshah Khan used to call him, was later eliminated by the Government of Pakistan.
Gandhi, sometimes, did not enjoy the unanimous support of the colleagues in his party. But Badshah Khan always stood by him. When the slogan for Pakistan swept across the country like a violent storm and drenched it in a pool of human blood, the Congress Working Committee met in Delhi to discuss the issue of Partition. Gandhi and Badshah Khan vehemently opposed the idea of carving out a separate Muslim state. "I cannot say what the other members felt about it, because I had not talked to them yet. But Sardar Patel and Rajagopalachari were in favour of partition and they were putting pressure on others," recalled Badshah Khan. Ultimately, the members voted with Patel and Rajagopalachari. The Committee also agreed that a referendum be taken to ascertain whether NWFP wanted to join India or Pakistan. Badshah Khan was devastated and felt an acute sense of betrayal. After all, it was he alone who had checked the tide of Muslim League's influence from spreading into NWFP and supported the Congress unreservedly throughout the phase of the nationalist struggle. As if that was not insulting enough, Maulana Azad, the Imam-ul-Hind, who was sitting next to him, uttered a scathing remark: "You ought to join the Muslim League now." Badshah Khan and his men kept away from the referendum and, naturally, the Muslim League had a free run of the field. It soon became clear that NWFP had decided to join Pakistan. He said bitterly, "Pakistan was created by the grace of the British in order that the Hindus and the Muslims might forever be at war and forget that they were brothers." He had been momentarily defeated but another phase of his struggle was to begin shortly.
Pakistan came into being on 14 August 1947 and Badshah Khan took his oath of allegience to Pakistan in the Constituent Assembly. But the rulers of Pakistan could never get over their suspicion of him. On his part Khan saw that the same sort of oppression of his people continued under the new regime. Even General Ayub Khan, a Pathan himself, did nothing to better the plight of the people of NWFP. Rude and arrogant Punjabis had a monopoly over the Government, Bureaucracy, Judiciary and Army. They threw Badshah Khan in jail and harassed thousands of his followers. "If the British were cruel to us it was because they were our enemies. But I cannot understand why and for what crime the Islamic Pakistani Government kept me and thousands of Khudai Khidmatgars in prison for so many years," he wondered. His disillusionment was complete. He was given sub-standard food in jail and his health deteriorated to such an extent that in 1964 he had to be sent to London for treatment. Resilient as always he came round and sought asylum in Afghanistan which was promptly granted. He lived in Jalalabad and dreamt of Pakhtunistan, a separate homeland for the Pathans.
In Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles Ved Mehta, the noted New Yorker reporter, describes his meeting with the "patriarch of the Pathan". He writes: "I seek out Badshah Khan in Jalalabad, a town near the Khyber Pass, in Afghanistan, where he now lives in a low, nondescript house. He is sitting in a wicker chair in a bare room buzzing with flies, its windows looking out onto a wildly overgrown garden. Beyond the garden is the main road connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan --- cutting through the mountains and valleys where the Pathans have always lived. He is over six feet tall and, despite his age (he is in his eighties), has the rugged, powerful military bearing of a proud Pathan.... Badshah Khan's mouth is set in a determined expression, and his forehead is furrowed, but his eyes are gentle and sad. He has short white hair and a short white beard, and he wears a long, loose shirt and pajamas, both dyed dark brown-red --- a color that gave the Khudai Khidmatgars the popular name Red Shirts.... He seems indifferent to the flies that settle on him, never bothering to flick them away --- perhaps because he has always had to live with them."
In 1987 Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan became the first "non-Indian citizen" to be decorated with the Bharat Ratna. The next year he passed away in Peshawar. When he died was under house arrest. His dreams may have remained unfulfilled but his life and his struggle have special relevance to our times. We have recently witnessed poinless controversies surrounding Jinnah, Nehru and Patel, but it is dismaying that no serious work of research has come out on Ghaffar Khan. (Rajmohan Gandhi's book is perhaps an exception.)We will do well not to forget his memory.
Those who are interested in knowing more about this extraordinary personality may refer his autobiography My Life and Struggle (as narrated to K.B. Narang and translated by Helen H. Bouman; Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1969). Certain sections of the book may not please the modern-day politically correct reader. For instance, his belief that homosexuality, as he saw it happening in jails, is a "vice". Again, he tells us very little about his wives or his married life. One will also come across his biographies written by Pyare Lal and D.G. Tendulkar. Those who want to read a scholarly analysis of his life Rajmohan Gandhi's Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pakhtuns (New Delhi: Penguin, 2008) is a useful text.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Homeless in Delhi

Shashi Tharoor, currently the Minister of State for External Affairs, has shown extreme adeptness in creating national headlines for himself. One might add as an afterthought, for all the wrong reasons. First of all, it was his decision to quit the United Nations (after he lost the high-pitched battle for the post of the Secretary General) and to contest the 2009 Indian General Elections on a Congress Party ticket from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency where he was dubbed as an outsider by the Leftists and other "sons-of-the-soil". The allegation was levelled against him on the ground that he had never lived in Thiruvananthapuram and, until very recently, did not even own a house there. He "nativized" himself adequately by shedding the three-piece suits of a diplomat and by wearing a loose white shirt on a spotlessly clean dhoti. The effect was completed with a tricolour angavastram, proclaiming his patriotism and his loyalty to the Congress Party, perching delicately on his shoulders. The TV news channels showed him dabbing his heavily perspiring face with the ends of the angavastram every now and then during the election campaign. I was extremely relieved to note that he did not kilt up his dhoti like other members of his entourage. Defeating all obstacles, negative publicity, and the scorching Travancore heat, he won the seat and went to New Delhi as a first-time parliamentarian. His formidable reputation as a writer and a diplomat ensured him a ministerial berth in the Central Government.
Now, as we all know, it is difficult to find proper government lodging in the national capital at any given point of time. Retired or trashed public servants find it ever so difficult, despite repeated reminders from the Estate Department of the Urban Development Ministry, to vacate the comfortable white-coloured bungalows hidden behind the tree-lined avenues of Luyten's Delhi. So, given the state of affairs, where could Tharoor have gone? Accustomed to world-class comforts of living he moved into a suite in a five star hotel. His immediate boss, Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna, too had to go for such an arrangement. When they were cosily housed in their hotel suites, outside --- in the vast plain fields of India --- drought struck. Standing crops wilted away and agricultural production ran a downward course. The Indian Economy, already reeling from the impact of last year's global recession, went for a toss.
Presiding over the Indian Economy is the erstwhile pipe-smoking barrister from Calcutta and Congress Party's man of all seasons, Pranab Mukherjee. Resourceful as ever he launched the Government of India's austerity drive with the full-hearted support of the lady of 10 Janpath. The two started flying out as economy class passengers. They asked other ministers to follow suit. Initially there was some grumbling but ultimately their example proved to be too inspiring to be ignored. Even Sharad Pawar fell in fine. But nothing could ever miss the hawkish eyes of the Finance Minister. In his Bengali-accented English he roundly ticked off Krishna and Tharoor for living in such pomp and grandeur. They pleaded that they were not spending public money but that they were digging into the enormously fat bank balance of their own. Mukherjee wasn't impressed. Knowing pretty well that adamancy could cost them their jobs, they meekly checked out of their hotel rooms. The hotel staff and management must have shed buckets of tears on their departure. But we don't as yet know their part of the story.
Anyhow, Tharoor was asked to stay at Kerala Bhawan but he stubbornly refused. Being a self-respecting and self-financing man he couldn't degrade himself any further. After all, hadn't anybody heard the Mahatma Gandhi story that Sarojini Naidu had related? It cost the Congress Party and the Colonial British Government in India a fortune to keep Gandhi in poverty. But unlike Tharoor the men and the women in positions of power and authority hardly read books. They are only capable of shooting from the mouth. A fresh recruit into Indian politics Tharoor knows better. He doesn't shoot from his mouth unnecessarily; he has a stronger weapon, he writes, er.., he rather "tweets". The problem with writing in social-networking sites is that you can be as frank as possible. You can't be too formal or politically correct there; the medium simply doesn't permit it. You will be called a bore and your friends would pay little attention to what you are saying. So he ridiculed the austerity drive undertaken by his senior colleagues in the government in no uncertain terms and referred to economy class passengers, deridingly enough, as "cattle class". This is unpardonable and it appears to me that by using such an expression he has animalized the middle class Indians. Mr. Tharoor, middle class Indians are not bovine, you know!
If he thought such an utterance would go unnoticed, I am tempted to say he doesn't know the ABC of politics. He couldn't or shouldn't have imagined that such pronouncements would be accepted as poetic license. Even leaders from his own party bayed for his blood. The outrage he had created was too much. The Prime Minister himself had to step in to control the damage. Tharoor rushed to meet the Prime Minister, Congress President and Finance Minister to explain what he actually meant by that remark. Some news reports suggest that he apologized, but I can't be certain. When things had relatively cooled down he made another faux pas. He complained about his immense professional workload. What was he expecting when he accepted the offer to join the Union Government? A five year long picnic with five star accommodation and enough leisure to write fictional and non-fictional pieces? One the one hand, you have Rahul Gandhi who works overtime and travels the length and breadth of the country with a charming smile on his face, and on the other there is his complete antithesis by the name Shashi Tharoor. I am really surprised he has not yet been given the sack. Tharoor may have written some good books on India, my personal favourite is The Great Indian Novel, but he is totally unfit to serve the Indians as a minister. I am sure many politicians become ministers with the object of grabbing power and enjoying the comforts attached to it, but no one makes such a distasteful and vulgar exhibition of obsession with the self. What offends me is his reckless elitism. Is this how you present yourself as a liberal of the Gandhian and Nehruvian mould? All I can say at the moment is that he has set a very bad precedent.

(The title of this piece is a pun on Shashi Tharoor's Bookless in Baghdad.)