Excerpts:

Q: What prompted you to join the BJP?

A: My decision to join the BJP was definitely influenced by the 10 days that I spent in Gujarat campaigning for the Congress, though I was not with the Congress. I told the Congress leaders including party president Sonia Gandhi that on the issue of secularism I was not only opposed to the BJP but I went to the extent of supporting the Congress during Gujarat elections knowing well that it was the Congress which had actually initiated the process of communalisation of politics in 1986 through the Shah Bano Case and subsequently caused extreme damage by opening the locks of Ayodhya. Despite my support to the Congress, it could not achieve anything as the party has lost credibility. In Gujarat, the Congress did not allow its own Muslim leaders to campaign in the elections. They did not allow Ahmad Patel, who belongs to Gujarat, to come to the dias anywhere. Instead they asked me to address saying I had greater credibility. In Gujarat, it was not just winning or losing an election. Can anybody just get away by simply criticising Narendra Modi or the BJP for what happened in Gujarat? It was important to find some relief for those people who were living in adverse conditions. The insecurity was not only in the minds of Muslims but also the Hindus.

Q: Who inspired the then Congress government to take the extreme step of opening the locks of Ayodhya?

A: Why should I be interested in knowing who inspired? It is the leadership ultimately leaving the choice to the advisers. The leader will be held responsible for the choice of his advisers. I find the argument devious that it was Arun Nehru...it was so and so... I asked Mani Shankar Aiyar in one of the debates: Who was responsible for Shilanyas in Ayodhya?...At that time Arun Nehru was not there; who was responsible for asking Rajiv Gandhi to begin his election campaign from Ayodhya when this controversy was raging? Rajiv launched his campaign from Ayodhya and declared that “we will establish Ram Rajya in India”. There is nothing wrong in the word Ram Rajya as even Mahatma Gandhi used it. But uttering this when the controversy was at its peak, that too, from Ayodhya...I will hold the leadership responsible for their stand on Shah Bano and creating tremendous adverse reaction vis-a-vis Ayodhya. In fact, the Bill on Shah Bano and opening of the locks of Ayodhya were virtually a “package deal”.

Q: What is your opinion about this linkage?

A: Rajiv Gandhi announced at Delhi’s Siri Fort Auditorium that on the first day of the forthcoming Parliament session the Bill to undo the Supreme Court ruling, as agreed between the Muslim Personal Law Board and the government will be introduced. This was 10-15 days before the locks of Ayodhya were opened. But the session was still about a month away. If I remember correctly, Parliament session started either on February 5 or 7, 1986 and the locks were opened on February 1. So, first he made the announcement; then he got the locks opened; and then he introduced the Bill. So, it was all interlinked. Because of that decision, India continues to pay a heavy price. I had said at that time that if there was anything bad in the law it could be amended but the respectability the Congress was giving to the politics of communalism, to the slogans of divisiveness, the country will pay a very heavy price.

Q: But how can you justify your joining the BJP which also played the Ayodhya card for electoral gains?

A: There is no third choice today. You are left with just two choices as other parties have either alligned with the BJP or the Congress. So, here is a party (read Congress) which had committed the original sin and the other party are the beneficiary. So, my logic is if the Congress as a secular party does not feel any compulsion in either playing the Muslim card or the Hindu card, do you expect the BJP to retire to an ashram in Brindavan? As a party, the BJP is bound to give its response. But I am not justifying what they have done. I have realised that I can’t achieve anything by remaining in the Congress as it is not the flag-bearer of secularism and with the Muslim League under its arm, nobody is trusting it. The Congress has lost its credibility.

Q: You have joined the BJP. So do you now favour a legislation for the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya?

A: The steps taken should be within the legal framework. At the same time, don’t do anything with the help of crowds. The whole society will go to dogs if the rule of law is not respected. My insistence is only on doing everything within the legal framework. I don’t think the BJP is advocating anything outside the legal framework.

Q: What will be your main role in the BJP?

A: There is a huge communication gap between Muslims and Hindus. This phenomenon is more infested in North India. What happened in Gujarat also is quite reflective of this phenomenon. So, my endeavour will be to bridge this communication gap. I believe I will get the required space in the BJP to accomplish it. Even the RSS and the BJP have started laying stress on the dialogue process between the two communities. I strongly believe that unless the two communities live in absolute harmony, India cannot emerge as a super power.

Q: Will you contest in the coming Lok Sabha polls?

Education in India has yet not fully grown up. Yet, like western marketing, it tries to gain respectability through the use of the elite language. Educational practices, old and new, have been given impressive sounding names. But the danger is that educationists are being bamboozled by terminology and processes which have never been clearly defined and seem to be impractical in the local context.

Today, our education is in a complete mess; fee or grade is not the key issue. The core of the problem resides perhaps somewhere else. While going through various y-newspaper reports concerning education, one often wonders at the wobbly ways our education system is moving upon. Recently a news paper carried a picture of a large group of those disinterested in sports activities, students who were made captives in their college so that its sports function gives a well-attended look. “Cops to help conduct examinations”, was a headline of a news story in another newspaper. And, of course, the unending reports regarding the University Grants Commission’s “obligatory” but illusive 180 teaching days keep figuring in the newspapers.

What prompts a State-run secondary school organisation to seek police protection for holding its examinations is a serious question to ponder upon. One is sure that a student cheater in an examination can be penalised only as per the university/board regulations. Then why call police? May be, because teachers either have failed to perform their duties earnestly or have lost their disciplinary hold on their students for one or the other reason. If one believes the reports of frequent patronisation of criminals by our police the day would not be that far when all educational institutions would need army help to manage their day-to-day functioning — admissions, examinations, elections and sports or cultural programmes.

“Annual examinations will be held on schedule”, announced a recent university release while results of its various examinations that were held during the past session kept pouring in. Consequently, a sizeable number of students got admissions to various classes at the fag end of the academic session. For, according to the university norms, all those students whose results are declared late are eligible not only for admissions but also for appearing in the annual examinations despite attending almost no classes. And lo! now Panjab University reportedly “has fixed 242 days” instead of the “obligatory” 180 teaching days from the next academic session. May one ask to whom the university is befooling? Factually speaking, even the 180-day teaching schedule is never adhered to in an academic session even if it concludes without one or the other strike, which indeed is a rarity.

Following the government’s instructions to curtail the budgetary deficit in the ever-increasing expenditure on higher education, Chandigarh’s Union Territory Administration has hiked the fees and funds of all the local colleges. It is another matter that most privately managed colleges managed to ignore the Administration’s instructions. Though the rise in the fees was very nominal, and no where near the target of reducing the actual deficit, it was projected by the media as steep one by calculating it percentage-wise, perhaps to provide ”catchy” headlines. Naturally it sparked off an avoidable student agitation that not only forced the administration to rollback the fees to quite an extent but also caused, in the process, considerable loss to the students' stipulated study time.

But neither during the strike nor after it was withdrawn, the so-called study loss ever seemed heavy on the minds the teachers or the students. For, following the strike session the spate of cultural festivals dotted the rest of the “academic” session of almost all the local colleges and the university. And one need not emphasise on almost empty class-rooms, particularly in exclusive boys’ colleges.

Paradoxically, while the students’ “fight” over the fee hike still hangs fire, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development that once was keen on curtailing budgetary deficit in higher education, recently announced an 80 per cent reduction in the fees of IIMs. No wonder, now the students of various self financing courses that are currently being run by various colleges and universities would expect a similar benevolent treatment and ask for a rollback in their rather hefty fees.

The moot question, however, is that whether the standards of higher education be achieved through a sharp rise in fees (to the level of self-financing) or through providing bulky subsidies? Or can this goal be reached through putting high gradation labels that the NAAC would provide to various colleges and universities, which cater to the higher educational needs of only a very small fraction of our large population? Since majority of our students remain interested neither in studies nor in sports and do not need police force to discipline them, this question becomes more relevant. Thus, it can safely be concluded that there is something seriously wrong with our present education system that needs an immediate overhaul. However, education without strict discipline, sincerity and merit, which unfortunately seem to be the current trend, would lead us to nowhere.

In his new role as a campaigner for the Congress, Puri will perform on an altogether different stage. The audience too will be different. So will be the dialogues. On the election platform, he may not look as glamourous and prankish as his BJP counterparts
— Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Khanna or Manoj Kumar
— but once he takes the microphone and breaks into his sonorous voice, he is bound to appear matchless. Glamour from the filmdom will be a new attraction in the coming weeks as the poll campaign gathers momentum. Film stars are bound to draw crowds but will the people, turning up to see the faces of a Hema Malani, a Poonam Dhillon or a Jayapradha, vote for the BJP or the Congress?

Om Puri will be the star campaigner for the Congress. He was a canvasser for the BJP too in the previous elections but he says he was disillusioned and wanted “to teach a lesson to the BJP”. The reason of disillusionment was the Gujarat riots and the inability of the Modi Government to control it for six months. “The picture of a Muslim youth, with terror written large on his face, continues to haunt me”, he says. Other factors that motivated the actor to join the Congress were the NDA government’s inability to solve the unemployment problem effectively. “Singing of bhajans and talking of Mandir cannot be the thrust of development”, he says.

Om Puri knows the rural India well. He can speak in local lingo of North India. Congress leaders claim that this would be an asset in the party’s campaign. Unlike many of his colleagues in the film world, he did not get acting in legacy. His aptitude sparkled when he joined a theatre group more as fun than taking acting as a career.

He was a student of Panjab University then and the stage he proved to be was just superb. Soon his father spotted the talent in him, gave up the plan of a military career for him and sent him to Delhi’s National School of Drama for a three-year course. He was at the centrestage there having acted in folk plays and plays of Shakespeare including “Hamlet” (Hindi version). His Delhi record paved the way for his admission in the Indian Film Institute at Pune.

Om Puri was an instantaneous success in Bombay. He knew his contemporaries’ finer points of screen acting and got himself acquainted with the whims and fancies of directors and producers. Once he began appearing on the screen, he found himself in great demand because of his seeming versatility.

After a starring role in Satyajit Ray’s “Sadgati” (1981), Puri began attracting the notice of Western filmmakers. He made appearance in “Gandhi” (1982) and “City of Joy” (1992). His greatest international success as star performer in “My son the Fanatic” (1997), based on a British satirical comedy, written by Hanif Kireshi, boosted his image abroad. “East is East” was another superb hit of Puri. In both films, he plays parallel Pakistani patriarchs; a cabblie in contemporary British midlands in “Fanatic” and a fish-and-chips show owner in 1971 Manchester in “East”.

Puri’s role in “East is East” was a difficult one but his performance was acclaimed as superb and regarded as his personal triumph. He brings out the humour and humanity of tin-pot household tyrant named, George Khan, who is trying to force his English wife, Ella, and their children into following the way of orthodox Pakistani society. The film was a huge success in England.

Parveen has a simple solution. She says, the woman should not lose her inheritance rights, but her husband should not become a Permanent Resident of the state. The term Permanent Resident is the crux of the controversy. It entered the state’s statute book long before the tussle over this benighted place began. Even then, its essential purpose was to retain the separate identity of Jammu and Kashmir within the British empire.

The law was enacted in January 1927, within a couple of years of Maharaja Hari Singh taking the throne. It limited the right of permanent residence and government employment to those who had been subjects of Hari Singh’s great-grandfather Gulab Singh, the founder of the Dogra dynasty. The British had granted Gulab Singh the title of Maharaja and sold him the fabulous valley of Kashmir (for Rs 75 lakh) in 1846 as a reward for his absence from the battlefield at Subraon, where the British defeated Gulab Singh’s overlords, the Sikhs.

A couple of decades later, superpower rivalry came into focus and the British became worried that Russia might reach southward. Since the northern part of the state was what would in today’s geopolitics be called a frontline area, the British turned the weak, young Maharaja Pratap Singh into a rubber stamp in 1889, forcing him through blackmail to hand over all power to his brother Amar Singh — who did nothing without first consulting the British Resident.

Hari Singh, who occupied the throne in 1925, was a more resolute ruler than Pratap Singh and the 1927 proclamation was his way of drawing a line to ensure that direct British subjects could not stay in his kingdom without his permission.

Of course, ironically, the law that was meant to ensure Dogra control of the state became a useful weapon in the hands of Sheikh Abdullah when, soon after independence, he sought to keep the state, now under Kashmiri dominance, as separate as possible from India. Even today, it is the Jammu-based Dogras, Kashmiri Pandits and others who are crying foul over the new Bill.

The law has become a political nettle simply because marriage outside is far more common on the Jammu side of the Pir Panjal range, and among the vast numbers of Kashmiri Pandits who have been forced to migrate from the valley over the past 14 years.

That has put the Mufti Mohammed Sayeed government in a tricky position, since all the 16 members of his party in the Assembly are Muslims from the valley. On the other hand, several parties and individuals who back the coalition government represent the opposite side of the debate. Mufti and his daughter Mehbooba, lean towards liberality on issues of gender equality. So are a significant number of Kashmiri Muslim women who, like Parveen, are torn between supporting women’s rights and the ethnic identity that is so important to Kashmiris.

The National Conference has come out of this debate looking even more tattered than before. This is a party that adopted a radical manifesto in the mid-1940s, promising equality and rights not only for women but also for children. Sixty years on, the same party, whose current patron Farooq Abdullah is married to a Christian Englishwoman and whose president Omar Abdullah is married to a Sikh woman, has cut no ice among the valley’s Muslims with their vociferous support to this Bill. Indeed, the party has fallen between two stools, for this stand will erode the support it has in the Jammu region from where it won 11 of its 28 Assembly seats.