At 60 - No regrets - Politics & Teachers
 |
| The message at the entrance of the school says it all - Discipline is the most important |
Emergency 1975 was the reason that kindled my interest in politics because for the first time the fear was palpable. Looking back, I realise that you could cut the atmosphere of fear with a knife. As 14/ 15 yr olds we talk without thinking and suddenly some random comment would see the 20+ yr old seniors, teachers physically shut our mouth with their hands and a – Sushhhhhh. Interest in politics was kindled and for the first time in my life attended a political rally when Morarji Desai addressed a large crowd of tens of thousands one evening in 1977. When he rose to speak – no exaggeration – there was pin drop silence. Even the traffic went silent. His opening sentence was – THIS is the kind of discipline we want, not THAT kind of discipline. The crowd went into raptures, and I spent the next many days listening to the All-India Radio news as result after result was announced and the Janata Party inched towards a majority in parliament. When the news reader announced the defeat of Mrs. Indira Gandhi by Raj Narain the screams of joy could have been heard in space. I was hooked into politics and never looked back. The next time in my life I attended a political rally to hear a leader speak was in 2014 to hear Narendra Modi, goaded into attending by an young Tejasvi Surya who is now a national leader himself.
When I hear about intolerance, political differences, ideology today and the claims of each victim I think back to my own college and university days when the exact same diversity existed but then each behaved with such dignity and the country was above all that nobody cried victim. If one teacher was a card-carrying communist another was an RSS ideologue, a third was the pucca British saheb kind of gentleman and someone else something else. Each of them encouraged us to debate, think, analyse, and question life around us. You could question religion and yet be religious.
Years later, not too long ago what I found is that some personal friends I respect who today constantly love to blame politicians for so called polarisation and intolerance, insensitivity to bad economics, poor optics to what have you, they never seem to look into the mirror even once. When others faced challenges in life driven by the politics of the day, the policies of the day - these friends maybe never faced it – which I do not grudge them – but they had little or no sympathy for the travails that others faced. They did not see any issue that screamed unfair, unethical, discrimination, unacceptable and maybe in their inner thoughts felt that others were cry-babies.
They did not see the communal divide or the caste conflicts that have existed over the decades. When I recall that the first questions I used to ask when seeking appointments with clients was – Is there curfew today? Is it safe to visit? When I recall all night vigils over the fear that the drinking water for the area was poisoned or keeping chili powder ready to hand. All this mind you when I was likely quite safe and secure, far away from where mind numbing horrors actually took place.
They do not see the 1975 emergency horrors, the 1977 Morarji rag tag coalition idiocy, the disaster of Charan Singh, the Himalayan blunders of an IK Gujral, VP Singh, the immaturity and short sighted, arrogance of a Rajiv Gandhi or the naivety of a Vajpayee and the monumental disasters of Manmohan Singh. Fact is that each of these gentlemen and their governments also did good to excellent work. One needs to see the good, bad and ugly and react accordingly because that is when politicians who are also equally human will perform better. When our biases create imbalance with only constant criticism and a litany of complaints or fawning sycophancy, we will end up with insensitive and arrogant politicians who will implement their bias in turn. We reap what we sow.
When the wheels of fortune turned these same friends suddenly see unfair, unethical, discrimination all the time maybe because they now feel what millions of others felt so far. For someone who has followed politics closely over 44 years on any issue I have never taken an attitude of “with them or against them” and instead followed issues, voiced opinions, admired, supported, cheered, opposed, protested various politics and people at different times.
These friends who likely were closely entwined with politics or disconnected from political reality for their fortune and success are today suddenly seeing intolerance, discrimination etc which I observe with a benign indulgent smile and say to myself – glad that finally citizens are becoming politically aware. Overnight they are now wise and so “well informed” that they find holes in anything and everything that a Modi does constantly. And if you do not see what they see, they do not like it, they think you are blinkered, biased and what not. I sometimes feel like sharing with them this dialogue from an old Hindi movie – “The (political) school in which you are now studying, I have retired as the Vice Chancellor of that university”.
Teachers then were a class
apart. They solved problems like parents and grandparents. For example, any
cricket test match and students invariably would be distracted, and classes
affected. One teacher Narayan Mohan was brilliant. He brought with him a large
transistor radio to class and every 15 minutes or so we listened to the
commentary, the score, runs scored by the batsmen and then went back to the
class and teaching. Everybody and everything coexisted by making space for each
other.
 |
| The English Professor always looking dapper and well dressed whether it was 1975 or 2016 when I met him |
My father was someone who by design or default played a large part in shaping my worldview, attitude largely due to his insistence that I “know things”. It did not matter what the issue was, how interested I was but he would insist that I read, read, read, and just know things. For example, during the 1971 war with Pakistan all of 10 years old I was supposed to know how many aircraft and tanks were destroyed by India each day. I am not sure I even understood what war was or why there was a war, but I had to know this information. How many runs/ centuries did Vishwanath score in the 1971 series against England?. Completely useless information maybe but he insisted that I read everything and anything by making me gather such information.
As I grew up, he would bring dozens of files home for reading and responding. Those who understand how Governments then worked, every officer would write down his/her comments/views on a issue and the file travelled up and down till finally someone “approved” whatever was being debated. Every subject/issue was a new file. Every opinion, dissent, recommendation, and decision would be dutifully written down like a long conversation. He would suddenly call me and give me a file and demand that I read the same and if I were, he, what comments would I write. It did not matter what the subject was – he forced analytical, logical thought and would judge my response. He was adored by his stenographers for the almost perfect dictation he gave them which meant very little corrections afterwards. He used to force me play act giving a dictation on some issue to teach me clarity and flow of thought with logic. This kind of training literally saved my career and life in my first job.
I had taken over a project site in absentia and had to sign off all the papers that included all the stocks on the site worth many lakhs if not crores. I had seen my father prepare the handing over/taking over notes and he said that I must dutifully note down everything that I observed. Never mind if that was right or wrong or even irrelevant but record it, he said. Counting every item, I found a large quantity of steel that I could not verify for weight. Every colleague of mine told me to just sign the papers and not create a fuss. Speaking to my father he asked – imagine that steel in a truck, and how much of a truck do you think it would physically fill. It did not fill more than a quarter in my eyes. That meant 2 to 3 tons of steel as against the stock which said 12 tons. He insisted that I record all these observations which I did. It invited great ridicule from my seniors. 2 years later we found close to 8 tons of steel missing. They had been stolen before my time. The papers that everybody had ridiculed saved my life and career literally.
The LINK to the last and and final part of this blog is below
Comments