"You are lucky to have such a father"
By Lalit Mohan

THE evening after my father’s funeral five years ago, in Jalandhar, all members of the family sat down and, as often happens on such occasions, started to talk about old time and about those who had departed this world. Both my father, Virendra, editor of Pratap, and his father, the paper’s founder, had led eventful lives, so there was much to talk about.

My grandfather Krishna, whose name had been prefixed with the honorific Mahashay, but who was simply ‘Pitaji’ to all of us, was a born rebel. In his youth, he revolted against Hindu orthodoxy and joined the Arya Samaj. As a protest against the caste system, he dropped the family surname. Later his fervour was directed against the British rule in India. Rebellion was ingrained in his son’s blood too. My father, in particular, spent a long time in his youth in British jails.

Pitaji was not only a rebel, but a very stern and upright person and his attitude shaped his two sons’ lives. My uncle related an incident of his younger days in Lahore. It appears that my father once went to get an achkan stitched. The tailor, as is their wont, dillydallied over the job for several days. Finally, out of sheer exasperation, my father said to him. "I am going to Shimla in two days and must have the achkan tomorrow."

The ploy worked. The following day the tailor arrived at our house with the required garment. As luck would have it, he ran into the grandsire and told him: "Since Virendra is going to Shimla tomorrow, I have brought his achkan."

When my father came home, he was immediately summoned and asked: "So, you are going to Shimla?" When my grandfather was told the reason for the subterfuge, he exploded: "You lied!" and proceeded to give his son a sound thrashing.

Pitaji’s high standards of conduct must have been difficult to keep up with. Though frail in health and appearance, he had a voice that sounded like a whiplash. So were his writings in Pratap, which he used all too often to voice his opposition to foreign rule.

My father plunged into the freedom struggle at a rather young age. In 1928, while still not 18, he was arrested in the Saunders murder case. For a while he was one of the prime suspects and was beaten black and blue in police custody by Inspector Jenkins. The charge was serious enough to cause my grandfather’s hair to turn grey in that one night when they first took his son away, yet he told one of his friends: "If the police succeeds in implicating him, it will be an unbearable loss for me. But if Virendra saves his life by turning approver that will be worse. We will not be able to show our face anywhere." In the event, however, my father came out of the ordeal physically battered, but morally unscathed.

By the time my father finished college he had been imprisoned seven times, once mistakenly on the suspicion of being involved in the attempt to blow up the Viceroy’s train and another time, correctly, though the charge could not be proved, for being a part of the conspiracy to shoot the Punjab Governor.

Pitaji himself had been imprisoned by the British government at a time when not many Indians had thought of complete Independence. But he was of the firm view that freedon-fighting should be left to grown-ups. Boys, he felt, should study and he made his views quite clear every time my father ran into trouble with the government of the day in India.

In September, 1929, when the great Bengali patriot Jatin Das fasted unto death in a Lahore jail, my father was in Shimla. Jatin Das was a senior comrade. His body was to be taken by train to Calcutta for the last rites. My father was keen to pay his homage as well. But that was not easy because he was under police restrictions and surveillance. So he, pretending that he was going to Lahore, boarded the train to Kalka, but slipped off as it halted in a forest near Parwanoo and, under the cover of darkness, sneaked into the Kalka railway station to hide in the train to Delhi, where he finally caught up with Jatin Das’ cortege.

His disappearance caused consternation in the police offices and ultimately they inquired about his whereabouts from Pitaji in Lahore. He, too, had no clue and was a bit worried. When my father finally returned home a few days later all he got for his troubles was a mouthful: "If you want to get killed then do so with pleasure. But not lurking in the shadows like a thief."

For my father it was not the might of the British empire that was cause for much concern. That, he thought, he could handle. Pitaji’s wrath was a more serious matter. But even in those tender years when outbursts of paternal rage may have appeared very harsh, the unstated bond of love and affection between them never weakened. Because somewhere beneath the stern and demanding exterior of my grandfather, lay the soft heart of a parent. His emotions were not demonstrative, nor did he compromise his principles, but when the chips were down, he was there to back you up to the hilt.

My father recalls in his memoirs, Destination Freeedom, that in 1931 he was again in jail with the BA examinations looming ahead. He was mentally prepared to go through life without a graduate degree, but the old man would have nothing of it. He moved heaven and earth and finally accosted none other than Jenkins, who had by then moved up to a position of considerable authority in the police hierarchy. The two had a stormy meeting, but in the end Pitaji succeeded in getting a special one-man examination centre set up for his son.

A special police car took my father from the Central Jail in Lahore to the Railway Police kotwali for his test. He writes: "Every day my car would pass by the Lawrence Garden crossing. Pitaji would come there without fail at six in the morning and stand there. He would wait for my car, watch it speed by and then go back. This routine went on for a few days.

"One day the police, for some unknown reason, changed their route. Pitaji stood there at the crossing waiting for us. He was there till nine and when he saw no sign of the police vehicle, he quietly went home."

The prisoner came to know of this much later. The thought of his father waiting for hours by the roadside just to be able to see him, touched him deeply. But in the loneliness of the prison cell, he also found it very comforting to have someone who cared so much.

Two years later, while studying for his MA, my father was yet again in prison. This time Jenkins was sure they had enough evidence to lock him up and throw away the key. They were on the verge of sending him for trial to Calcutta when he fell ill in jail. Jenkins was not to be cheated of his prey so easily, but he had to contend with a very determined man. Pitaji got my father out on medical grounds and he could even sit for his final examination (and pass!)

This time the release order was signed by a very reluctant Jenkins. While giving my father his papers, he uttered the only words that my father ever agreed with, "you are lucky to have such a father."