Sunday, October 1, 2000		Speaking generally

WHAT will Jharkhand bring? I fear it will shatter delusions. The steps movements are now well defined in Indian politics. There will be a frantic struggle for loaves and fishes. The ‘sons of the soil’, will be buoyed up with false hopes and, barring a few crooked ones, they will all go back disillusioned to the grindstone. Meanwhile a handful of people will line their pockets, there will be angry and plaintive demands from the Centre for aid, and for duplicate offices to be filled according to caste and favouritism.

Of-course, as in all states, the birth and early years will be marked by violence and ethnic hatred. Ranchi, once the pride of the region with its 1.5 million people, has declined greatly, now it will slide further down. Hardly anyone, I find, talks about the future, or the economic and social possibilities of Jharkhand. Bureaucrats are all engaged in speculating to which state they will be assigned, Jharkhand or Bihar, and what will be their ‘advantages’ and perks. The plebs, the ‘sons of the soil’ are busy taking out processions, blocking traffic and yelling the name of the great Birsa Munda. Lung power will not bring prosperity to the adivasis who are in a minority in Jharkhand.

Nehru Museum and Library

Like everything else the Nehru Museum and Library at Teen Murti at New Delhi is not what it was. At least the library is not. The building is still impressive, useful and reasonably clean. But people talk loudly in the reading room and do so unchecked. If a door latch becomes unhinged, it bangs and bangs for days startling everybody every few minutes but is not taken care of. No one in authority from the director downwards takes even 15 minutes off to do a quiet round and keep an eye on things.

One big loss the library has suffered recently is the death soon after retirement of Haridev Singh, for long the deputy director and, for a while, director. He was the person whom it was a genuine treat to drop in on for a chat. His knowledge of Indian political lore and developments was immense and he could cap story after story for hours. It was not only that he was a storehouse of gossip, his knowledge of events was deep and infallible and he went in always for factual accuracy. If there was a fact to be checked Haridev Singh would pursue the sources for months till he got it right.

If anyone had need of a bibliography before writing something, he took infinite pains to hunt up the books and get them from the shelves. If consulting them in the library was inconvenient he would open up a room and settle the reader there.

His own work was scrupulous. The editing of the writings of Acharya Narendra Deva, for instance, was over and he was editing the works of Lala Lajpat Rai from a room in Lajpat Bhawan when death suddenly overtook him.

To be admired greatly was his courage of conviction. Though he worked in the Nehru Library for years, he did not believe at all in the secrecy and non-accessibility that the library practised about the papers of Jawahar Lal Nehru and also the domination of this policy by Indira Gandhi’s family. He had no hesitation in criticising the policy openly and he had readily agreed to cooperate in a legal case to compel disclosure. He and I and a few others went to consult F.S. Nariman about this. Nothing came of it because those who complained most bitterly about being denied access did not have the courage to put anything down on paper.

Haridev was an executor of the will of Acharya Kriplani and had helped to distribute his literary and other assets. His was the kind of personality that made an institution come alive and will be greatly missed.

Whenever I come to Ranchi straight from the airport, I can’t wait to meet an old friend, a beautiful giant Alsatian called Bittia. She belongs to a nephew of mine and is as fiercely protective as she is gentle. As long as he is home she moves behind him like a shadow from room to room, from verandah to garden, everywhere. And when he goes out she lies crouched in the verandah for hours, waiting till he returns. In a previous house of my nephew, she used to lie on the mat outside his office room door to the consternation of visitors. So protective is Bittia that if my nephew’s children so much as pick up his sandals or shoes she pounces on the shoes. As my nephew and I said the other day, so much love, unselfish love, is only possible in the animal world, not the human.

Alas Bittia is now 11 years old. She has slowed down and no longer races after an intruder or a ball. At one time it used to be very difficult to play tennis or cricket in the garden because Bittia would rush after the ball. Bittia has not much more time but I am full of love for those liquid eyes and dignified gait. All her love is for her master and we others get only crumbs. I hate to think of the time when I shall not see her in the verandah waiting for her master to come home.