Leaders, Politicians, Citizens

POLITICIANS, mass leaders, newsmakers — Independent India’s political theatre has been enriched by hundreds of people. Focusing upon 50 of them and summing up their life and times in short obituaries is a humongous task. Political commentator Rasheed Kidwai has tried to accomplish this, piecing together profiles of people as varied as politicians Jyoti Basu, Sheikh Abdullah, M Karunanidhi and Rajesh Pilot and actors Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar. If there are obits of activists Teji Bachchan and Namdeo Dhasal, also a poet, there is a telling profile of Bofors case accused Ottavio Quattrocchi too. The write-ups are well-narrated, highlighting Kidwai’s strengths as both a historian and a storyteller.

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ORIGINALLY published in Gujarati around the Golden Jubilee of Independence, Dalpat Chauhan’s ‘Vultures’ (Giddh) is based on the 1964 murder of a Dalit boy by Rajput landlords in Banaskantha district. One of the foremost Gujarati Dalit writers, his prose represents the agony of his ilk in poignant terms. Newly translated, the novel is the bitter-sweet memory of his community’s existential predicament, of the knowledge that in the midst of apparent, superficial change, nothing has changed. In a feudal society structured around caste-based relations and social segregation, Dalit lives and livelihoods are torn to pieces by upper-caste ‘vultures’. Thirty years since the writing of the book, much of this remains unchanged.

DURING the 1999 Kargil war, 23-year-old Capt Anuj Nayyar lost his life in the rocky and barren Drass, but not before killing nine enemy soldiers and destroying three enemy sangars. While leading his men to the capture of the fourth sangar, he was hit on the right shoulder by a freak rocket projectile, killing him on the spot. He was awarded India’s second highest gallantry award, the Maha Vir Chakra, in 2000. What turned him from a calm and composed boy to a rebellious lad, from a passionate athlete to a responsible cadet, from a duty-bound soldier to a respectful officer and from a valiant platoon commander to a martyr? This is his story, as penned by his mother, along with Himmat Singh Shekhawat.