Not easy for the powerful either

BK Chum

It was a pleasant 1988 morning. I received a phone call from the then Haryana chief minister Devi Lal, asking me to accompany him on a two-day tour of Haryana. “Get ready. Om will come to pick you up.” I was not aware of the identity of “Om”. I was then working as the special correspondent-cum-regional news coordinator of the Chandigarh edition of the Indian Express. I spoke to the late Prem Kumar, the then Resident Editor of the paper. It was decided that I should go with Devi Lal. After getting ready, I went to leave my grandson to school. When I returned, I found Om Prakash Chautala, the favoured son of Devi Lal who later became the chief minister, waiting for me in the lawns of my house. He wanted me to get moving immediately “as Chaudhary Sahib is waiting for us at the airport and I would be reprimanded for being late”.

In the plane, besides Devi Lal and I, there were two others — his security officer and a TV cameraman. I accompanied him to his farm in Teja Khera, his native village in Sirsa district.  

We took a round of the farm and then proceeded in his car on a tour of the villages. Besides discussing the projects he had undertaken in the area, he told me the episode that prompted him to introduce the old-age pension scheme in Haryana.

“Do you know why I introduced old-age pension in the state?” he asked. Without waiting for my expectedly negative answer, he replied: “One winter morning [when he was not chief minister] while I was taking a stroll in our Teja Khera farm, where Om was tending to plants, I advised him on how to save fruit plants from the vagaries of winter. Insinuating about my old age, he snapped, ‘Budhau tu apna kaam kar, mujhe apna kaam karne dey’ (old man, do your work and let me do mine). It struck me that if a former chief minister’s son treated his aged father in such a manner, what would be the state of the elderly belonging to the poor and even middle-class families. The aged population could get the respect of their family only if they had some money to sustain themselves. Pension was a way to make the elderly an extra earning hand.”

It was not my first interaction with Devi Lal. I had developed a good rapport with him during his two-year stint as Janata Party chief minister (1977 to 1979). His term as Janata Party’s first chief minister came to an end prematurely in 1979, when his Cabinet minister Bhajan Lal, a pioneer of Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram politics, revolted against him with the help of a majority of Janata Party MLAs. 

I still have the vivid image of Devi Lal and Bhajan Lal’s parting handshake on June 29, 1979, in the chief minister’s room, with Haryana’s large map hanging in the background. 

Believing that the vanquished needed sympathy, I went to Devi Lal’s official residence. The vast front lawns that used to be crowded with people, mainly rural residents, were now deserted and only security guards remained at the entrance. Devi Lal and his elder brother Sahib Ram were sitting in the drawing room. The atmosphere inside the house was depressing.

Ever informal with me, Devi Lal invited me to lunch with his family. I, however, wished to be excused as I was in a hurry to file my report. Offering my sympathy to Devi Lal for being toppled by his protege, I left for work.