This Above all
Foolish to expel Jaswant
KHUSHWANT SINGH

I have known Jaswant Singh for nearly 30 years — almost all the time since he has been an important pillar of the BJP. We hit it off from the first day we met, and continued meeting each other off and on in our respective homes. He was not the stereotype of the image I had nurtured in my mind of other members of his party. He was not a khaki knickerwala in a white shirt, black cap and gym shoes, wielding a lathi as ordained by the RSS. He is proud of his Rajput lineage than being a Hindu, more a wog patterned after an English country gentleman, with the haw-haw British image than a desi bhai. He enjoys having vintage Scotch in the evening, and makes no secret of his contempt for preachers of prohibition. He is the epitome of a pucca Brown Sahib.

Jaswant Singh has been the ablest and the most conscientious of MPs

I had the occasion to see him in action as a member of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. He took his job seriously. He had a staff to do research on topics raised in question hour, and on Bills being debated. I never saw him while away his time in gup-shup and coffee in Central Hall as most others MPs did, and still do. Being among the ablest and the most conscientious of MPs, I was not the least bit surprised that when the BJP came into power, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee chose him to be his Foreign and Finance Minister. He had neither the time nor the patience for nurturing his constituency.

When he lost the Lok Sabha general election, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha because he was trusted and indisputable. His crowning moment was exchanging jehadi terrorists with over 150 Indian passengers travelling by Indian Airlines held hostages by terrorists at Kandahar airport.

Whether or not it was a wise decision is debatable, but at that time it was the unanimous decision of the Cabinet to do so. The only one who undertook to carry out the dangerous mission was Jaswant Singh. He showed nerves of steel flying out with dangerous criminals to hostile territory and bring back his countrymen and women safely home. That was the Rajput in him.

Jaswant’s book on Jinnah reflects his personality. He must have known it would annoy many of his party members. He could not give a khota naya paisa for their reaction. But expelling him without having read his book was a foolish thing to do. As for Modi banning the book in Gujarat, the less said the better. It smacks of fascism and bigotry. You can be sure there will be more demand for the book in Gujarat than in other states of India. Men of the Modi mentality have given the BJP a bad name. With a friend like him, who needs enemies? I am convinced that by expelling him, the BJP has lost more than Jaswant Singh.

I had met Jatin Das at exhibitions of his paintings. Since he was a good, innovative artist, I assumed he must be Bengali. His first wife Varsha was a colleague of my daughter Mala, and occasionally visited her. Their daughter Nandita went to the same school, Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, as my grand-daughter Naina. I had never set my eyes on her but seen her pictures in newspapers.

She looked a beautiful Bengali girl in her teens. I was wrong down the line. Jatin Das is not a Bengali but an Oriya from Bariupada. Her mother is a Gujarati from Mumbai. So Nandita is half Oriya, half Gujarati, but having been born, brought up and educated in Delhi, is really a Dilliwali. Why had I never run into her?

One evening ghazal singer Deepmala Mohan brought her over to meet me. I was bowled over by her looks and total unpretentiousness. I wanted to know more about her. She was coy about her private life and eager to tell me about her films, particularly Firaaq, which had earned her worldwide acclaim. It is about the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002. It was shown in Pakistani picture houses, and the audiences were amazed that an Indian could so boldly expose the country’s soft underbelly to ridicule.

Needless to say, it also brought her a lot of hate mail from Hindu fundamentalists. She took it as a double victory. I looked through all the material on her in the computer and invited her also for a second meeting. She came but was evidently uneasy with the questions I put to her. I am determined to write a profile on her, though it may not be to her liking.

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