The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Taj Mahotsav
UP govt must conform to SC guidelines

Monday’s Supreme Court ruling directing the Uttar Pradesh government not to go ahead with the 350th anniversary celebrations of the Taj Mahal without the explicit clearance of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the security agencies came just in time. The apex court’s strictures against the state government cannot be faulted because the latter went to the former in a hurry and without homework. Its petition seeking permission to organise the celebrations as also allow night-viewing of the Taj may appear to be well-intentioned. But such enthusiasm should have been matched by thorough homework, including consultations with the ASI and the security agencies well before September 27 to mark World Tourism Day. It is indeed amazing how the state government failed to seek clearance from the ASI as also study the possible environmental impact on the monument and its surroundings.

The Centre too cannot be absolved of blame over the issue of Taj Mahotsav. The fact that the Group of Ministers headed by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh met only once 10 days ago reflects the lack of the will and commitment to organise the celebrations in a befitting manner. Reports also suggest the lack of proper coordination among the Union Ministries of Culture and Tourism, the ASI and the Uttar Pradesh government.

The Taj Mahal is a world heritage monument and the Centre, in close cooperation with the state government, should take every possible step to preserve and protect it from damage. This is particularly important because the Supreme Court has voiced fears that there was a “definite threat of theft and damage” to the monument in the night and that it could not pass orders permitting night viewing for well over six months without considering all possible angles. The idea of celebrating the Taj Mahal’s 350th anniversary through various programmes spread over an year is eminently sensible. But it should be planned carefully without compromising the Taj’s safety and beauty.

Dastardly attack
Pakistan must protect gurdwaras

The anger and apprehensions over the attack on Gurdwara Janam Asthan at Nankana Sahib in Pakistan are understandable. This is the first time that such a sacrilege has been committed. The intensity of the attack and systematic targeting of the business establishments of the 50-strong Sikh community in the birthplace of Guru Nanak Dev give rise to the suspicion that there was a hidden hand behind the attack. The immediate provocation was the recommendation of a committee to the government of Pakistani Punjab to return the building of Government Guru Nanak Degree College to Nankana Sahib Trust to accommodate Sikh pilgrims and shift the college to some other premises. This apparently annoyed many students of the college who were among the miscreants who threw stones at the college building and also the gurdwara. Their anger is unjustified. First, there is no firm proposal to shift the college to some other place. Two, even if such a shift were in the offing, it would be perfectly in order because the college building belongs to the gurdwara estate.

More than the attack, what rankles the community is the failure of the local administration to come to its rescue. The Pakistan Government has done well to quickly tender an apology to the Sikh sangat and also to round up more than a hundred students. Commendably, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Mr Pervez Elahi, too has condemned the attack and said that it is important to provide a sense of security to the minority community.

Local students are believed to have given a call to all the students of the district and have threatened to attack again. If at all any such violence takes place, the consequences can be exceptionally bitter. Not only would it result in disaffection among the Sikhs, but would also spoil the Indo-Pak relations which are on the upswing of late. It may also give credence to the allegations that minorities are not safe in Pakistan. Hopefully, wiser counsel will prevail and senior officials will quickly bring things under control.

Death of a social crusader
Literary world loses Mulk Raj Anand

With Mulk Raj Anand’s death on Tuesday, India has lost its Charles Dickens. This is how Anand was acclaimed when his novel “Untouchable” (1935) finally appeared in print after 19 initial rejections. The publication became possible because of E.M. Forster’s introduction. “Coolie” and the subsequent novels firmly established Anand as a writer. With Raja Rao and R. K. Narayan, he formed the troika that pioneered Indian writing in English. His Indianised English and stylistic experiments irritated the puritans. While Narayan observed the social milieu with amusement and noted its oddities and Raja Rao turned philosophical, Mulk Raj portrayed social oppressiveness of the disadvantaged, influenced by Marx and Gandhi.

His deprived childhood, volatile, often disappointing relationships with women and restless, creative mind led to a number of nervous breakdowns, one of which saw him face-to-face with Freud. He met many greats of his time ranging from T.S. Eliot to D.H. Lawrence, from Aldous Huxley to Bertrand Russel. His chance meeting with Ananda Kumaraswamy turned him anti-Raj and gave him an Indian outlook to art, literature and society. Despite his long stay in Britain during his formative years, he denounced the British for ruining traditional Indian art and architecture. He also deplored Indians’ neglect of the arts and heritage and pursuit of materialism. He championed the cause of the downtrodden, yet wrote in the language of the elite.

Mulk Raj Anand’s literary and autobiographical output is so prodigious that the quality of much of it will always be questioned. He wrote not as a disciplined craftsman, but to escape from the ravages of daily life. Quantity often impinges on quality. His reputation will rest mostly on “Untouchable”, “Coolie” and ”Private Life of an Indian Prince” because of their being early attempts in Indian English writing. Many of his works are already consigned to oblivion. After Prakash Tandon and Dr Raja Ramanna, Mulk Raj Anand is the third eminent Indian the country has lost within a week.

EDITOR'S COLUMN

Rendezvous at Roosevelt
India and Pakistan begin exploring peace
by H. K. Dua

Way back in the summer of 1972 as a young correspondent in search of a story I ran into P.N. Haksar and asked him what would happen at the talks between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. This was about three or four days before the Simla Summit.

P.N. Haksar, who was a major influence on Mrs Gandhi’s decision-making those days, wasn’t prepared to say much about the Simla meeting but chose to remark: “I don’t know what is going to happen, but it is natural under the circumstances that Bhutto wouldn’t like to go home empty-handed and Mrs Gandhi wouldn’t like to send him back like that.”

“That would be impolitic,” he added after a pause and just looked into distance.

Neither Dr Manmohan Singh nor President Musharraf would have liked to return from New York to be greeted by headlines at home suggesting that their talks had failed.

Subcontinental compulsions of peace, and behind-the-scenes nudging, if not pressures, by international facilitators, had driven the two leaders to have a one-to-one meeting at Roosevelt Hotel in New York. No one had really expected that chronic India-Pakistan problems would be resolved at this meeting, but the significance of their talks cannot be underestimated.

Until earlier this year President Musharraf’s hopes for a dialogue with India had centred on Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Like the former Prime Minister himself and his colleagues in the NDA government, President Musharraf had not envisaged that parliamentary elections in India would throw up a UPA government led by Dr Manmohan Singh. Islamabad as such has since been nursing the feeling that the Manmohan Singh government might not give as high a priority to a dialogue with Pakistan as had been given by Mr Vajpayee.

President Musharraf must have discovered at Roosevelt Hotel that Dr Manmohan Singh was no less committed to working for peace on the subcontinent than Mr Vajpayee. Diplomatic courtesies apart, Dr Manmohan Singh is said to have impressed the General with his sincerity and keenness to walk along the peace track.

Before setting out for New York, each leader might be guessing what he could offer at the talks and what he would get in return. There was, after all, the risk of going home empty-handed and being asked, “What have you got from the exercise?” A failed exercise in summitry is sometimes more worrying for the protagonists than the problems it is supposed to tackle.

Dr Manmohan Singh’s government has spent only a little over 100 days in office and is yet to consolidate its position. Surely, President Musharraf and his advisers must have known that the Prime Minister of India would not be serving Kashmir at the table. On his part, Dr Manmohan Singh would have pondered what would help him keep the dialogue alive without offering Kashmir to the General.

Neither seemed to be in a hurry to settle the Kashmir issue. Neither was sure how the outcome of an attempt to tackle Kashmir at this time and involving give-and-take would be received back home.

Essentially, neither Dr Manmohan Singh, nor President Musharraf could afford to be seen offering concessions to the other, politically placed as the two leaders are in their countries.

Dr Manmohan Singh knows that any suggestion of looking concessionary in approach to the General would be picked up by his critics within his own party and also by Mr Vajpayee’s party, which till the other day was willy-nilly backing the former Prime Minister in his attempt to make peace with Pakistan.

On the other hand, President Musharraf has his army to contend with; and many of his generals continue to be possessed by the notion that it has to and can ultimately get Kashmir for Pakistan.

Some spadework done in advance by advisers of the two leaders and behind-the-scenes diplomacy which was at play had indeed created a congenial atmosphere for the talks. But much depended on whether the two leaders would succeed in developing enough rapport with each other.

The Roosevelt Hotel meeting was their first encounter and for them to have struck an India-Pakistan deal – say on Siachen so early in their dialogue — as has been speculated in Pakistan, would be going off the mark. After Kargil, such a deal requires greater mutual trust between the two countries than is evident now.

Also, it is not in the nature of Dr Manmohan Singh to be adventurous — and so early in his prime ministerial career. While he could be aiming high for his tenure, he is not the kind of a person who would like to play around with nationally agreed policies.

The two leaders know that at this point of time they can only take their countries along only to sustain the peace process and may be to place the talks in a slightly higher gear than has been allowed in the past.

The statement they issued at the end of their labours is brief and skilfully drafted. As often seen in the world of international diplomacy, it does not compromise either India’s position, or Pakistan’s. Yet it throws up willingness to strive for peace and some hope for some better days to come.

On the surface, both sides seem to be sticking to their established positions. No policy departures have been pronounced. Dr Manmohan Singh insisted on referring to the commitment made by Islamabad in the joint statement the two countries issued on January 6 that Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used by the terrorists.

May be he was replying to some of his critics when he stated immediately on return: “It should leave no doubt in your minds that controlling terrorism is a pre-condition for a forward movement in the dialogue process. We cannot discuss confidence-building measures and substantive issues if terrorism continues”. He couldn’t be more categorical in asking Pakistan to wind up terrorist training camps and communication networks and check infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir from across the Line of Control.

All that has been agreed to in New York is carrying forward what has come to be known as “Composite Dialogue”, working out more confidence-building measures and launching purposeful talks to find a solution of the Kashmir question.

President Musharraf’s gain is that there will be substantive talks on Kashmir between the two countries — a position accepted in the January 6 statement issued after the Islamabad talks between Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf as a part of the proposal to start a Composite Dialogue. It has certainly been given a push in New York.

It is too clear from the statement that the emphasis hereafter is going to be not only on discussing the nature of the Kashmir question that has caused three wars on the subcontinent and plenty of havoc, but also how to resolve it.

The Kashmir question is too complex and no one had expected Dr Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf would resolve it at Roosevelt Hotel. But they have certainly cleared the way for substantive discussions on all aspects of the issue.

Apparently, the future rounds of talks will be at senior levels, not at the level of Dr Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf. The job of their representatives will be to discuss all available options for sorting out the Kashmir question.

There can be many routes to a solution of the Kashmir issue, which involves national sentiments, India’s views of a secular State and Pakistan’s claims to Kashmir as a Muslim State. Essentially, the solution will lie in the two sides’ capacity to resolve the territorial issue.

Whatever the official stand it might take on the negotiating table, India might ultimately agree to the Line of Control becoming the international border — a concept that has roots in the Simla Agreement. The agreement which Indira Gandhi and Bhutto signed in July 1972 converted the old Ceasefire Line into the Line of Control which, according to the Simla Agreement, can never be disturbed by either side by the use of force. Under the Simla Agreement, the Line of Control was virtually given the attributes of an international border.

It is another matter that Bhutto soon afterwards disowned the Simla Agreement and that he himself was sent to the gallows.

There are several other ideas that have been trotted out by the US and other international do-gooders. Many of these are wishful thinking. Others will be shot down by either India, or Pakistan, or both. It cannot be that both Islamabad and New Delhi have not applied their mind to some of the serious suggestions emerging out of the Track Two diplomacy.

Ultimately, a solution of the Kashmir question will have to be found by India and Pakistan themselves. It is not going to be easy to find one. And it will require a lot of time and patience and considerable political will.

There will be pitfalls and hazards on the way, but it is worth India and Pakistan taking the path which can one day lead to a durable peace on the troubled subcontinent.

OPED

Mulk Raj Anand — a life well lived
by Humra Quraishi

"Whenever I am disturbed by events unfolding around me, I write. I believe that a writer does not live in isolation and social pressures and political changes are bound to
affect him"

Dr Mulk Raj Anand, has passed away leaving behind widow Shireen Vajifdar and a daughter born from his former English wife. Last week news came of his declining health. His adopted son, Kewal, who lives in New Delhi, went down to Pune to be with him.

Mulk Raj Anand lived a full life. He had written numerous short stories, 25 novels, edited 135 issues of Marg and made several documentaries. Unfortunately, that he could not complete his seven-volume autobiography.

There was more to Mulk than writing. He had adopted a village in Maharashtra, was bringing up several Dalit children and promoting Dalit literature. A man who believed in speaking his mind, in talking aloud upheavals on his personal front, stressing that turmoil does take its toll and its best to speak or write about it. Perhaps, Mulk’s biggest contribution has been to focus on Indian writing in English, portraying Indianness to the Europeans and also to us. Never really hiding his feelings and sentiments, he believed in Indianness to the core, to the very basics and was extremely critical of the British and the imprints they’d left on our psyche and on our day-to-day living, “They (the British) have snatched from us our Indian style of living, inflicting an alien, absolutely disgusting style so unfit for our climate.”

Honours did come his way. But such men don’t really crave for recognition. He received the International Peace Prize, Vienna, in 1950 . He had been the Chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi. He had won the Sahitya Akademi Award. He also was honoured with a Padma Bhushan in 1967.

Mulk Raj Anand was born in Peshawar on December 12, 1905, and was educated at the universities of Panjab, Cambridge and Sorbonne. He obtained his Ph.D from the University of London in 1929.

The story of his life takes a definite turn when he ran away from home as his parents wanted him to get married , and also because there was tension at home. In his book “Pilpali Sahab” he wrote: “My earliest memory is of me as a spoilt child with a big ego in a small body.”

Mulk Raj Anand reached the UK in 1924. A chance meeting with Ananda Kumaraswamy there made him change his entire outlook. As he recalled: “Kumaraswamy brought me in touch with our culture, not as it was portrayed by the British, but he showed it to me through the Indian viewpoint”. Enrolling himself at Cambridge soon after, he was influenced by his philosopher-teacher, Lord Russell, and also by sculptor Eric Gill and he became an active member of MARS (Modern Architects Research Society).

Around this time he came out with his first book “Hindu View of Art”. Before he could complete his second book on Persian paintings, he fell in love, starting off another painful phase of his life. “I fell in love with Irene, an Irish girl who was heavily involved in the Irish national struggle. In 1927 she died .On hearing of her death I suffered a breakdown and it took me almost five years to recover. My meeting with Sigmund Freud just after the first nervous breakdown in 1927 helped me to some extent. He told me that I was suffering from the Mother Fixation Syndrome and his exact words were: ‘Like most Indians you love your mother more than your father and to you every woman is a mother image’. He noted the role of my father and also took note of the tensions between my parents. I felt all right to a great extent after about five sittings with him but then had two subsequent nervous breakdowns”.

Mulk had his second breakdown when he visited Mahatma Gandhi at the Sabarmati Ashram. “That was the time I had finished writing ‘The Untouchable’ and when 19 publishers turned it down I fell ill”.

Gandhi helped cure him by giving him a talisman which Mulk cherishes: “Gandhi told me I will give you this talisman — and it is whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much for you ,try the following, that is, recall the face of the poorest and the most helpless man who you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.

Then you will find your doubts and self melting away. “Then he went back to the UK and friended another woman Gertrude Mitchell, an activist working in a leper colony. Mulk recovered this time by writing his rather offbeat novel “Across The Black Waters”.

The present situation in the country disturbed him. In an interview given to me in 1999, he’d said: “Whenever I am disturbed by events unfolding around me I write for at least two or three hours. I believe that a writer does not live in isolation and social pressures and political changes are bound to affect him.”

Social and political changes in the past few years had begun to disturb him as he’d repeatedly said: “At times I question myself whether we are the same people who had created the Ellora caves in the second century. See what has become of us — today most of us wouldn’t even know the significance of the Ajanta Ellora caves. We have no time to think and read because we are busy watching bosomy heroines on the small screen, a hero chasing some heroine with all possible vulgarity in the backdrop. Today parents themselves put matrimonial advertisements in newspapers to ‘sell off’ their daughters in the marriage bazaar. Today marriages are nothing but mere traps where the half man (I call the Indian man as half man) reduces the wife to not only a domestic but also a prey to his lust. In most marriages there is no tender love making but sheer rape or no sex at all. Today people are ready to pay two lakh rupees for a Husain painting but can’t buy a book on art. See what we are reduced to!”

Mulk not only set up the concept of the Triennale (which he had started with French writer Andre Malraux) but also provoked others to take to arts in everyday living. His one single remark to O.P. Jain — that you ‘d die as a shopkeeper — was so povocative that paper tycoon O.P. Jain moved way from his paper business towards arts and today heads one of the chapters of INTACH.

Mulk is forthright on architects of the day. He’d quipped: “The rather stange yet sophisticated animal on two legs called the architect is the most dangerours species let loose by the British, for he has snatched from us our Indian style of living and inflicted on us an alien style which is so unfit for our climate. Today’s nouveau riche live in English bungalows with nine rooms, including a drawingroom. But if you ask the architect its purpose he will just stare blankly. Those who cannot afford mansions are stuffed by our architect into skyscrapers, little realisng havoc it can create without fire safety equipment. Whatever happened to our three-roomed homes, which were complete with a living room which was livened by chandians and gaddas and murrahs.”

And he is perhaps the first to dwell on the spell of colours. “In fact, very few Indians know the effect of colour on our moods. The red here (red-coloured bed and chairs and tables etc in his Lokayata home) not only contrasts with the greenery outside but it’s also an exciting colour. Yellow signifies happiness. Never use pink, it’s a bad colour.”

Women did play a significant role in his life. When I’d asked whether he had been distracted by women, he quipped: “Most of my writings are based on them and around the circumstances in which they lived or died. I have suffered not only in relationships but also on the marriage front. My first marriage with actress Kathleen Van Gelder failed. The second marriage to Anel D’Silva also couldn’t take place because she changed her mind at the last minute. I then married dancer Shireen Vajidar and this marriage is just going on. Yes, just going on.”

Though he felt he was saddled with a marriage and a wife, yet he would say: “Most urban marriages break down since 99 per cent men deviate from marriage at some stage or the other. They treat their wives rottenly. Even in educated households the wife is raped by her own husband. In fact one of my novels is based on this true incident where a woman artist is raped by her husband on the very first night of marriage.”

When pressed further, he said: “I’m attracted to women, but for God’s sake don’t mix up love with sex. I believe in love and love is a very tender relationship which comes after much devotion.”

About five years back he had shifted to Khandala, away from the crowds. With his companion Dolly Sahiar passing away in June, 2004, and with wife, Shireen, opting to live in Mumbai, he lived alone.