Books: Freedom Song


	March 20, 2000

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Freedom Song

Rehashed episodes, familiar quotes and plain rambling. Bhagat Singh deserves better.

By P. Ananthakrishnan

THE MARTYR: BHAGAT SINGH
BY KULDIP NAYAR
HAR-ANAND
PRICE: Rs. 250
PAGES: 158

India Today issue dated March 20, 2000 Bhagat Singh was consumed by the fire of his abiding love for his country and its hapless people. He was hanged at 23, an epitome of revolutionary purity and an unrepentant Marxist who wanted to complete the first chapter of the book on Lenin he was reading when the executioner came calling. There are of course a few excellent books on Bhagat Singh himself -- Ajoy Ghosh's Bhagat Singh and his Comrades and A.G. Noorani's The Trial of Bhagat Singh come to mind -- but there is no definitive book that tells us the complete story of his and his comrades' lives and of the movement he represented.

Authorspeak

Viewed in this backdrop, any new book on Bhagat Singh should be welcome. Unfortunately, Kuldip Nayar's slim volume is an unsatisfactory patchwork quilt of rehashed episodes, familiar quotations and plain rambling. It does not add much to the existing Bhagat Singh repository. There are no notes in this book and readers are left wondering about the sources.

For instance, Nayar says the decision to kill Superintendent Scott (they ended by killing his assistant, Saunders) was taken at a meeting presided over by Durga Devi, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, a leading revolutionary. But Noorani, whose sources are generally impeccable, does not even mention her name in the list of those present at the meeting.

The other baffling aspect of the book is that it does not cover the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial at all. Chapter four ends on June 17, 1929 and the next chapter begins on March 23, 1931 -- the day Bhagat Singh died. Between these two dates, Bhagat Singh and his friends go on hunger strike, Jatin Das dies a hero's death, the government promulgates an ordinance establishing a tribunal to try the revolutionaries, the tribunal passes the death sentence and the Privy Council rejects the appeal. In fact, in this period Bhagat Singh was more popular than even the redoubtable Gandhi.

We must however be grateful to Nayar for unearthing the fascinating correspondence between Hans Raj Vohra, the approver who betrayed his comrades, and Thapar, the younger brother of Sukhdev. Did Sukhdev really confess to the police? There is a fertile field waiting for our historians when they wake up from their intellectual slumber.

Authorspeak
CONNIE HOWARD
Seeing the Light

Connie Howard believes she was an Indian princess in her previous birth. And she hopes she will be reborn as an Indian prime minister. Quite believable when she talks about her interest in India. And her interests vary from Indian cuisine to Gandhian thought.Since her first visit in 1984, Howard has been to India 15 times. This one time chat show hostess -- she now works at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania -- has done over 20 TV programmes on India, covering aspects such as education.

But the short, bubbly lady -- she coyly says she's "50 plus" -- has one great inspiration: the late Manibhai Desai. In the Footsteps of Gandhi (New Age) is her tribute to the man. She met Desai for the first time while doing a TV documentary on social forestry. Desai -- a Magsaysay award-winning Gandhian -- was known for the rural development initiatives he took in Urulikanchan, a village near Pune. BAIF (Bharatiya Agro-Industries Foundation), the NGO he founded has worked out models of sustainable development and is now spread over 12,000 villages across seven states.

But why this interest in an old Gandhian? And aren't there enough of them? Howard cuts short the question, takes a deep puff -- she smokes three packets of cigarettes a day -- and convincingly insists Desai is different. "While I talked to about 500 people to do the book, there was not a single person who bitched about him," she says. "And mind you there were people who bitched about Mother Teresa." Of course, Manibhai did tell her once, "I don't really approve of you smoking. But do what you want?" Manibhai is a role model: "My goal is to take his philosophy everywhere."

Howard has even discussed it with the military ruler of an African country where her youngest son worked as a volunteer. She feels Manibhai's philosophy of simple but pragmatic development is a cure for all the worries of the world. She now plans to go to Kashmir and talk about Manibhai. "I'll tell them, look give me your guns, listen to me. I'm going to make Kashmir a paradise." She takes another puff, and adds, "Well, people always thought I was crazy."

-Amrith Lal

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