Where have all the comrades gone?

A few days ago, I had travelled to Bathinda to meet my colleagues in the Malwa region. This trip was my first exposure to rural Punjab.

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A certain amount of rural prosperity was evident. But somehow, it appeared that this prosperity has not worked itself into a better deal for the people. The basic grid of amenities certainly could be much better. 

Though the Malwa region is as fertile as central and north Gujarat, Gujarat has managed its rural prosperity imaginatively. Maybe, because Gujarat has a five-decade-old tradition of cooperatives and a comparatively more robust civil society.

Two major urban centres — Bathinda and Patiala — exhibit all signs of decay, neglect and poor governance. Bathinda town looks like a classic case of haphazard growth inspired more by the calculations of real estate developers than any city planner’s vision. 

En route to Bathinda from Patiala, I observed a very colourful wall poster. Its vibrancy was rather arresting. It was an invitation to observe (last month) Shaheed Udham Singh’s death anniversary. 

Was it just a ritualistic salutation to a revolutionary hero or an attempt to keep alive the region’s spirit of defiance and protest?

I learnt this area once was the stronghold of the Communist Party of India. The party had a sizeable presence, politically and electorally. 

A question, immediately, presented itself: where have all the comrades gone? There is no Satyapal Dang, there is no Avtar Singh Malhotra, striding Punjab’s political scene. The communists do not matter, they do not count anymore. 

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the communist argument of a better life, of a different age has lost its bite. In recent decades, the Chinese have recklessly, but very successfully, converted themselves into a new religion of economic growth. Maoism is no longer attractive, neither in China nor in India. The Chinese economic growth has strangely robbed the promise of a revolutionary change of its romance. 

The communists also lost ground during the period of militancy. The Khalistan movement made demands on senses and sensibilities that left the people too tired and too exhausted to chase a distant dream of an egalitarian social order. And, to complete the circle, the Badals have managed to convert anti-Centreism into a new religion.

The Akali Dal and the Congress do not represent real alternatives. It was only natural that the Aam Aadmi Party should have filled some of the vacuum in polity. Though the Communist Party and its articulate leaders always punched above their weight, they did introduce a note of political morality. Their increasing enfeeblement leaves Punjab’s political discourse markedly unenlightened.

Perhaps it is too late for the comrades in Punjab to recover the lost ground. Maybe they can still recover their voice — provided they are willing to realign themselves to the realities of a new India. 

I was persuaded by a colleague to have a look at a new book: Andrew Duff’s work titled Sikkim — Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom. The colleague even arranged for me to have a copy of the book. And, I am grateful. 

The merger, in May 1975, of this Himalayan Kingdom as a full-fledged state in the Indian Union has been a subject matter of considerable controversy and continued debate.

Andrew Duff’s book seeks to revive the debate. It’s a racy and breezy account of those intriguing days before and after the Sikkim merger. 

Duff’s grandparents had, it seems, trekked through Sikkim in 1922 and had kept notes and maintained a diary. The grandson was curious and undertook to revisit the state, as if to retrace his grandparents’ steps. The Sikkim that Duff’s grandparents had visited was a closed kingdom, wrapped in its queer and quaint isolation. The Sikkim the grandson finds is a totally different place: a lively society, throbbing with connectivity, and contented with access to Indian markets and participation in the Indian democracy, with all its temptations. 

The Sikkim merger — or “annexation”, if you will — was the consummation of a larger Cold War offensive, imposed on India by the Americans. Messers Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had the run of the White House and they thought there was no corner of the world which could be left un-manipulated and un-interfered with.

 India, fortunately, had Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister at that time. A maximalist leader who was a supreme deshbhakt, uncompromising in defending India’s national interests. She had the nerves of steel, and with grit, she went about checkmating the American game in Sikkim. 

Duff has an easy pen. He provides a wonderfully readable account of the machinations at work. Perhaps, the game began when 19-year-old American beauty Hope Cooke ensnared the king and became the queen. 

As Duff reminds the reader, the first stone was cast by Hope when she suggested that Darjeeling district was only leased to the British East India Company. The implicit subtext of this mischievous formulation was that it should revert to Sikkim. 

No one in India was amused. The Indian press retaliated with colourful headlines: “CIA Agent on Borrowed Plumage” and “American Trojan Mare in Gangtok”.

The mid-1970s was also a time when the entire region was in a flux, inviting and enticing classic realpolitik practitioners to finesse their craft. Borders were in a flux, changing, being reorganised. That period also saw a China-Pakistan-US convergence of interests. 

And, to complete the tableau of global intrigue surrounding Sikkim, the CIA was rampant the world over. India was no exception. Young and beautiful Hope was suspected to have come under the influence of the American spymasters. American influence was also suspected to have lodged itself in the JP movement. 

Andrew Duff has connected many dots. A thoroughly readable account. 

Last Wednesday, I was informed by my colleagues that some people claiming to be members of the Shiv Sena were staging protest dharnas in Pathankot and Bathinda against The Tribune. They apparently felt they had a reason to be unhappy with a story published in the paper. The story was about the inadequacy of police preparedness at the time of the terror attack in Gurdaspur. 

Now, this was curious. If anybody had any reason to be displeased by the report, it should have been the Punjab police. However, the Punjab police leadership is too battle-hardened to be bothered by newspaper reports.

It was suggested to me that the protests were inspired. I was not very convinced. Political parties and groups are not so easily amenable. And, in any case, gone are the days when newspapers and media in India could be allowed themselves to feel intimidated by such tactics.

Many readers have felt animated enough to join the conversation about the idea of the pursuit of truth. Bhagwan Singh from Qadian in Gurdaspur district has sent three 

Urdu couplets:

Apney bhee khafa mujh sey hain begaaney bhee nakhush/Main Zaihr-e-hilaahal ko kabhi kha na saka qand 

— Allama Iqbal 

(The relatives are angry, and strangers unhappy with me, because I could not call the deadly poison sugar). 

He adds: the poets of the other two 

verses are not known.

Haq baat taih-eitegh-o-sar-e-daar kariengey/yeh jurm jo zinda hain to sau baar kariengey 

(We will speak the truth under the sword and on the gibbet. If it is a crime, we will commit it a hundred times till we are alive).

Nikal jaati ho sachi baat jis key munh sey masti mein/Faqeeh-e-maslahat-been sey voh rind-e-baada-khaar achha 

(An inebriate, who speaks the truth in a state of intoxication, is better than a religious jurist who tells a lie as a measure of expediency).

I thank Bhagwan Singh for sharing his thoughts with me and our readers. 

Coffee, with or without milk?

kaffeeklatsch@tribuneindia.com