It’s Time To Invite The Dead To Populate Our Novels

Sometimes, to grapple with the present we have to engage with the past. I don’t mean a rehash. (Woh to ho raha hai.) What I have in mind is a close scrutiny of tradition, an exploration of myths, a deep dive into historical archives. Why? you ask. 

Because, for one, in India, the past is forever intruding upon the present. And yet, it is a syncopated vision of the past with its tropes of glory, communal harmony, ahimsa… Bapu spun us a story to which we could all cohere — how, after all, do you defeat a Raj whose toolkit was entirely dependant on dividing us? (Besides, ahimsa was such a pish posh way to illustrate to the world that Western civilisation would be a good idea, eh!) The historical truth however is that despite Gandhi’s successful experiment we are a people whose history is mired in cataclysmic violence. What we are also very good with is historical amnesia. Not our fault entirely: mass violence is numbing. Which is where the novelist steps in. (Reason two, if you’re keeping count.)

The task of the novelist is to transform general loss into a specific loss, to give us characters and their stories we can care about. I am at work on a novel set in the months leading up to the independence of India in 1947. Set in two parallel threads, in the two great cities of colonial India, Lahore and Delhi, this is a behind the scenes look at the negotiations, the give and take and the political skullduggery that gave India its freedom via the price of division. Consequently, it is also an intimate look at the friendships destroyed, the loves lost and the carnage that occurred in the sticky hot months of India’s hottest summer ever. Hopefully, the narrative will allow readers to make up their minds about topical assumptions of Nehru’s contributions and the Sardar-Pandit rivalry. (Reason three, and counting.) 

The past is never dead, Faulkner said, it’s not even past. (Who knew Faulkner was a closet Desi!) Khair, general elections 2019 have just got over, the journey ahead is long, and I invite my fellow writers, and readers: Why not reckon with that past, and invite the dead to populate our novels? I have been wining and dining and sharing multiple cuppa chais with Dickie, Jawahar and Vallabh, and it’s been one helluva ride! (Reason four, and ending. For now.)

Patel Bhai Bhai Chhe - Or How Not To Honour Sardar Patel

31st October. 

When you live outside India, you know it as Halloween. However, when you are also an Indian who grew up in Punjab, you remember 31st October as the day your college was abruptly closed and you were ordered to scoot home, pronto. The Sikh bodyguards of Mrs Gandhi had assassinated the Prime Minister and Punjab, indeed entire India, was teetering on a precipice wondering what would unleash. And, when you are, additionally, a writer researching her next book, which is set around India’s independence, then it is the day when Sardar Patel was born.

This year, for me, 31st October comes with a certain poignancy because Vallabhbhai Patel, revered in a token fashion in India but otherwise relegated to the dusty annals of yore, has been in acrimonious focus in India. With general elections a few months away, a Gujarati aspirant to Prime Ministership has begun posthumously allocating Patel’s political affiliations to saffron. 

Perhaps he is emboldened by the fact that Patel came from Gujarat, which, in turn, allows for a certain casual camaraderie that permits a blurring of details - Patel bhai bhai chhe.

Or he is trying to get some of the sheen of Sardar Patel, Loh Purush, or the Iron Man of India, to reflect off him? What else explains Narendra Modi’s planned building of the world’s tallest statue at a cost of $340 million in honour of the Sardar? The fact that that money would serve a majority of India - he is aiming for PMship, right? - better if deployed for providing essential services, pales in the game of one-upmanship.

Two things are clear. 

One, the casual abrogation of all freedom fighters except for Pandit Nehru and Bapu by dynastic Congress has created a vacuum for the appropriation of those very leaders. 

Two, the animosity between the two main political parties - BJP and Congress - is queering the historical pitch, falsely representing the freedom fighters, who were members of Congress, as divided along a progressively fundamentalist Hindu faith. A bit like pitching Patel as a tea party activist amongst the Republicans.

The problem with this scenario is the blatant lies at the heart of it. Mr Modi, in his fervour to be seen as a xerox copy of the Sardar - The fool doth know he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool - has stated that Pandit Nehru, as the Indian PM, did not even attend the funeral of Vallabhbhai Patel. 

Digvijay Singh of the Congress promptly refuted him and uploaded a video which shows a solemn Pandit Nehru at the funeral. In turn, the PR-savvy Mr Modi damage-controlled his folly by tweeting the blame on a Gujarati newspaper for allegedly misquoting him.

Well, all’s well that ends well, eh? Hopefully, now that his poor knowledge of history has been brought publicly to his attention, Mr Modi will pick up some history textbooks and pore over them? I have another suggestion - this indeed applies to both NaMo and RaGa equally. 

Use the spare time during your campaign trail to read the letters between Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel. One, it will shore up your historical knowledge, always an advantage in a land with a blessed five millennia of that subject under its belt. Two, it will demonstrate that it is possible to work with those who think differently, as long as “the paramount interests of our country and our mutual love and regard, transcending such differences of outlook and temperament as existed, have held us together ...”

Mr Modi, the biggest honour you could pay Sardar Patel would be to attempt, sincerely, to fill his very big shoes. Do that, and you will realize what a tall man he was, and how the world's tallest statue ain't gonna do no justice to him.

Gandhi, Patel & Nehru: The Triumvirate that Made India

On the happy occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, let's remember the team of men who made India. The triumvirate of MK Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru was the architect of independent India. At a time when the right wing in India wants to appropriate Patel - the Iron Man as a symbol of their vision of a 'strong' India, when Nehru's legacy is in tatters because of ossified dynastic politics, and Gandhi remains relevant largely because of his mug on INR notes, it'd be good to remember that as a people we are capable of rewriting our own future, provided we work together as a team, despite our differences. 

While Nehru was popular with the masses and could engage with the world polity, Patel had the craft and cunning to meld the princely states into a newly partitioned India. In Patel's words to Nehru: "We have both been lifelong comrades in a common cause. The paramount interest of our country and our mutual love and regard, transcending such differences of outlook and temperament as existed, have held us together."

Pay heed, for beyond NaMo and RaGa, lies India.