The Story of London Tod Singh

On many television channels, the day of the confidence vote, the news coverage was accompanied by the jingle — “Singh is King” — the new movie starring Akshay Kumar coming up for release next week. Of course, many anchors were heard speculating as to which Singh was the king of the day – Manmohan Singh or Amar Singh.

But the original Singh who was “king” enough to be king maker passed away without fanfare last week. What impressed me, as I passed by the AK Gopalan Bhavan in New Delhi on Sunday where the body of Harkishen Singh Surjeet was kept for public viewing and last respects — at the CPI(M) office — was the vast number of peasants and workers who had come from far away places to pay tribute. Clearly this was spontaneous, no one had hired them to shed tears and wring their hands in mourning. The gesture from the large numbers of Sikh peasants in red turbans offering Laal Salaams was very genuine.

Harkishen Singh Surjeet was a key figure in crowning VP Singh, HD Devegowda, IK Gujral and the UPA. By default then, Manmohan Singh. Surjeet was perhaps more known as a deal maker par eminence in his latter years. However, he was still a deal maker with a difference – he personally remained spotlessly clean and though he presumably used all the methods in the book to get his job done, no gains ever personally accrued to him. His methods might or might not have been pure but in his thinking and ideology, his motives certainly were.

But going back in time, Harkishen Singh Surjeet’s early life, inspired by Bhagat Singh could be the stuff of myth, legend and cinema. After all Surjeet began his career as a member of Bhagat Singh’s Naujawan Bharat Sabha. On the first anniversary of his hanging as the Indian Express put it “… some of Bhagat Singh’s followers had decided to pull down the Union Jack and hoist the tricolor at the Hoshiarpur court. But when these people didn’t turn up, an enthusiastic teenager who incidentally had turned 16 that very day performed the act. When produced before the British magistrate, he stated his name as London Tod Singh (one who could demolish London).”

The story of Surjeet’s early life reminds us to actually take a look at the many ordinary people who took part in the freedom movement and often with significant daring but little or no recognition. Not, of course, that freedom fighters were looking for reward and recognition but the saga of London Tod Singh and many others are part of our freedom struggle and heritage which we know nothing about.

We are so fixated on leaders and political figures that we would make it appear that freedom was won by the individual acts of a few prominent figures. Obviously that was not so, but in the absence of any stories and anecdotes we do not know any better. How many more London Tod Singhs do we have in our midst? Sixty and more years after independence, certainly not many – if at all any. And then how many of us knew much about Surjeet’s extraordinary youth when he was still alive? Certainly not many.

We spend a lot of money tending to our tombs and mausoleums preserving a piece of our heritage. But clearly there is also a need to capture portions of our history while they are still amongst us. Or else they will be gone and we will be the poorer for it.

The Death of Angrezi Hatao

Angrezi Hatao was once a very potent slogan in the fiftys and the sixties and a campaign which made the destiny of many politicians of the time – both those who proposed it and those who opposed it. Prominent names who come to mind as leaders in the Hatao movement are Ram Manohar Lohia and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, then with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The country had gained independence from the British and the English language was considered the most visible symbol of that rule and one that needed to be abolished as quickly as possible. Indeed, the constitution itself stipulated that English would be in use as a transitional measure for fifteen years and from Republic Day, 1965, Hindi was to be the sole official language.

Indeed with towering figures like Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru wanting Hindi too, it would not have been difficult to impose Hindi and displace English. That it did not happen and indeed the Official Languages Act of 1963 was enacted allowing English to continue was primarily because of one man and one movement, the Tamil Nadu based DMK and the Dravidian movement which loathed Hindi and the North Indian domination that they associated the language with.

With a violent anti Hindi agitation taking a separatist turn, and the DMK coming to power in 1967, on a largely anti Hindi platform, English was finally given some place under the sun as an associate official language with the clear understanding that one day an atmosphere would be created that would allow Hindi to be the sole official language. But the Dravidian parties have held continuous sway since that election victory in 1967 and kept up their unrelenting opposition to Hindi and gradually the fire to impose Hindi died out. Hindi however enjoyed state patronage in the cow belt as did the various regional languages in their respective states, thus gradually chipping away at English by restricting its use in official correspondence, reducing its importance in school syllabi and glorification of the mother tongue.

The turning point for English probably came with Rajiv Gandhi, a man very visibly more comfortable with English than with Hindi. Although he just lived to serve one term, the changes he set in motion outlived him. The next regime to last a full term after his – that of Narasimha Rao brought in reforms that English more or less indispensable. The last nail on the Angrezi Hatao campaign was nailed by Atal Behari Vajpayee, one of the earliest war horses of the anti English movement ran an election campaign based largely on an English slogan “ India Shining” and introduced reforms and policies that has for the moment at least, English virtually irreplaceable.

All these years however, the Hindi states continued to promote Hindi, even as savvy states like Gujarat and slow moving behemoths like the Left Front in Bengal gradually abandoned the emphasis on the mother tongue they had hitherto promoted. Their interest was in playing catch up with the Southern States which promoted English instead of Hindi and where knowledge economy businesses began to flow naturally. Present chief minister Mayawati’s decision to introduce English in schools from Class I itself is in that sense the end of an era with states like Uttar Pradesh, which earlier eschewed English, having done a 180-degree switch, realising that it is increasingly the only way to transact with a wider world.

Today , Mulayam Singh Yadav is the only known figure still to favor Angrezi Hatao and is known to hold the conviction that English has been the major stumbling block in the development of regional languages in the country. He has gone to the extent of terming it as “the language of destruction, which has had a telling impact on the economy of the country”. But considering his principal lieutenants like Amar Singh are silent on the subject and are themselves quite comfortable in English, it is not known how much of Mulayam’s polemics is for the gallery. But come what may, with the silent decline and death of the anti-English movement, which was once an extremely emotive issue has definitely come to an end….. And probably very few are even noticing its passing.

Nepal : Staggering out of the Incense Curtain

Some pieces of news make for extremely sad reading. Like for instance the one about Nepalese Prime Minister, an atheistic Prime Minister of a state that was once the world’s only official Hindu State and is now slowly evolving in leaps and jerks into a secular state. Koirala, described by the Indian Express as a senile, aging leader who refused to perform religious rituals at his parents’ deaths now wants to sit on the throne on which the kings sat and have the priests recite the “Saraswati Mantra”.

When the priests who ceremonially perform the rites, the head priest and the deputy head priest did not turn up, they were suspended. The irony of the situation was that these worthies did not turn up because in one of the gyrations of Nepal becoming a secular state from a Hindu one, the priests had already been suspended and had not been receiving their salaries. Unfazed by the irony though, the bureaucrats surrounding Koirala suspended the priests all over again lest the Prime Minister be angry.

B.P.Koirala could be ageing and senile but he is only mirroring the identity crisis that his country has and is going through eroding centuries of stability. In the days of the king- despot or not, things were clear. The King was regarded, by the common people at least, if by no one else as the living incarnation of Vishnu and maintained that appearance by residing in the Narayanhiti palace named after the deity and presiding over all key religious rituals of state. The astute King Birendra managed the balancing act between statesman and spiritual head well but his successor obviously hasn’t dome so well and egged on by the Maoists, the country has proceeded to throw away the baby as well as the bath water and is now throwing away not only the monarchy but the identity of the state itself without adequately under girding itself.

Of course a secular state itself is not a bad thing. Ideally, a secular state with separation of religion and government is preferable in most circumstances; a theocratic state can be either obscurantist or fundamentalist and both of these are menaces best avoided; theocracy in government has only one purpose – to manacle and shackle its people. And so while the resolve to start upon the journey to create a secular state is a good one, without adequate preparation, Nepal’s situation will not be very different from that of it Prime Minister- confused and unprepared to face reality and hiding behind centuries of tradition.

In a nation’s history, the journey is as important as the destination and the process has to be incubated and allowed to evolve. India’s own 60 year old journey is a good example Through Nehru’s rationalism, then soft Hindutva , hard Hindutva, debates on Raj Dharma and all that, we have arrived at an Indian road to secularism… and no the process is still not finished ….. political evolution of a State is forever a work in progress.

Its is to be hoped that the Maoists in Nepal will not be in so much of a hurry to abolish religion. May be they should do away with the seedier aspects of religion but leave alone the only roots that people cling to that give them solace. The sight of an ageing Prime Minister calling for religious Pundits despite his avowed atheistic beliefs is an indication that behind the senile exterior of the Head of government, lies a Nation’s yearning.

Politics without Borders

When a couple of years ago, Sonia Gandhi became active in Congress Politics a few years ago and it began to look that she might become the future Prime Minister, all kinds of mayhem happened. The Congress split because a few who believed that Indian citizens of foreign origin should not occupy that post walked out to form the Nationalist Congress Party. It is another matter that now that platform has been abandoned. Then of course, the UPA came into power and for a while it looked that many peoples’ worst fears might become reality. I still remember Sushma Swaraj coming on television to share with viewers the mourning rituals she would go through of sleeping on the floor, cutting of her hair and easing gram and all, the day Sonia took oath. But of course that never happened and today all that looks a bit distant to us today.

But some where else in the world, perhaps some thing more bizarre is happening. Alberto Fujimori, two term president of Peru with a not too particularly distinguished record and who is currently under house arrest in Chile will run for a seat in the Japanese Parliamentary elections due later this month. He actually speaks of returning to the presidency in Peru too. Fujimori said in a telephonic interview “I will run as a proportional representational candidate for the People's New Party to work for Asian diplomacy, on the North Korea problem and for the safety of the Japanese public," Fujimori said in a conversation put on speakerphone so the audience in Tokyo could hear it. Kamei said he wanted Fujimori — who holds Japanese citizenship — to put "his knowledge, rich experience and reputation" to use in Japan.

Well this is interesting and I have not heard anything like this before in recent times. The closest illustration that can be thought of is perhaps that of the British monarch being the Head of State in countries of Australia, Canada and the like but then those countries have a long historical connection with the UK. But there is no parallel to this that some one who has held office as Head of State in one country contesting elections for a Parliamentary seat in another country in another continent and with possible political ambitions in Japan too after two terms of office in Peru. Up till now we have heard of the globalization of the economy with goods moving across borders free of tariffs and taxes but it would now look that we are beginning to see the stirrings of a phenomenon where citizenship becomes a relative concept and people cross borders and boundaries at will.

From an Indian perspective, there are several interesting points. A Japanese Political Party is prepared to welcome into their fold and offer a Parliamentary seat to some one who is not exactly a political elder statesman but is actually in disgrace and under house arrest n a third country. Fujimori said he had accepted the request to run for the People's New Party in the upper house elections in a talk with party chief Shizuka Kamei. The Party seems to feel that even such a man has some thing to offer to the country and they are happy to use the fact that Fujimori is of Japanese origins and holds a dual Japanese citizenship to put to good use.
Sonia Gandhi by any yardstick has always had a more sober public profile than Alberto Fujimori who has an array of charges lined up against him in Peru apart from the one for which he is already under arrest in Chile. Yet he is able to sit and dream of returning as President in Peru and sitting as a Parliamentarian in Japan. Now I am no Congress man or any thing but I am just wondering at the irony of Sonia Gandhi. Here is a lady who has basically lived in India all her life since she got married, has certainly conducted herself with dignity and certainly has a more acceptable public profile than Fujimori and yet finds her political life impeded at every step. Borderless politics has arrived in the world where you can contest for the Presidency in one country and sit in the Parliament of another. May be we in India need to start adopting it in small doses by to begin with getting rid of the xenophobia that we have inherited

ALTHOUGH IN THE midst of a military coup, the military junta in Fiji has set an interesting precedent by advertising cabinet posts in the press and inviting applications. The qualifications — moral, economic and professional — have been laid down and once the applications are received, they will be screened by a screening committee and after an interview, the cabinet will be appointed. This is the military regime’s way of trying to ensure that the government they provide to the Fijians is free from the taint of corruption as well as the taint of having overthrown a democratically elected legitimate government. “Applicants must be of outstanding character and without any criminal records,” the ad says. “Each must not have been declared bankrupt,” it warns, adding applications must be submitted to military headquarters by Tuesday.

In the United States system, the process of senate confirmation ensures some checks and balances in the process by which key administrative appointments are filled, and the processing can be grueling on the extreme. It is not unknown for the media to reach deep into a candidate’s past to dig out unsavory details that could disqualify one from holding a post. The scrutiny is very intense, probing political, professional and personal suitability. The confirmation process is so tough that usually any administration would do its own background checks to ensure that there are no embarrassments in the offing. Even so, there are no guarantees as the episode of John Bolton, the Bush administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, reveals. The hapless Bolton, after serving as a lame duck ambassador for more than a year, had to resign when he found that his extremely right wing views were unlikely to be endorsed by the new Democratic-controlled Congress.

India, struggling with the issue of the tainted ministers issue for a long time now, needs to adopt some such system instead of constant bickering and walkouts of Parliament, which disrupt business but keep the corrupt ministers where they are. The recent Supreme Court judgment allowing ministers and public servants to be persecuted without the government’s sanction in cases of possible corruption may help in dealing with corruption; it won’t help deal with the issues of merit.

To get a petty clerk’s job in the government, one has to appear for examinations and interviews. And, of course, the civil servants are recruited after passing the state civil service or the UPSC exam and grueling interviews. But their political masters, the actual CEOs of the states or the even the Union Cabinet have only to get votes and win elections event though popularity is no indicator of efficiency. For instance, the TRS leader, K Chandra Sekhar Rao, recently won by a convincing margin, the Karimnagar Lok Sabha by-election demonstrating his clout over the Telengana movement. Which is fine. But unfortunately, the same worthy was also the Minister for Labour in the Union cabinet for more than a year and hardly attended office. He was more occupied consolidating his base in the Telengana area for his future political ambitions.

Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while talking to civil servants, had the following questions to ask: “The civil service has to reorient itself and be trained to deliver better services to the people. To make the government more efficient, we need a new public service orientation, in the thinking of civil servants. You cannot view yourself as mere administrators. You are also managers. You have to manage change and manage efficient delivery of public services. This new orientation must begin at the very beginning. The questions that require addressing are:
Are the civil services adequately equipped to address these emerging challenges?
If not, what must we do to address these challenges?

Is the present method of recruitment appropriate for inducting the right kind of persons in to government? manmohan so

Are the performance-assessment and appraisal methods appropriate for preparing the civil services for the emerging demands on them and the government?
Should not the same questions be asked of their political masters? Maybe, the Fijian junta is playing out the theatre of the absurd by advertising out cabinet posts in the local newspapers. But the absurd is the only possible answer in our own constrained circumstances!