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Losing a Secular, Godfather-Guardian By Frank Huzur

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He was a man with a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. He was the kingfish of literature. Like Voltaire, he was the original enlightenment writer of Indian milieu.

Rajendra Yadav

Rajendra Yadav

Rajendra Yadav

Rajendra Yadav

To lose a lodestar is a beautiful accident in the fleeting celebration of skyfall. But to lose a guiding spirit is a tragedy for one and all. For me, the departure of a classic chaperone in Rajendra Yadav is as good as a ship steaming out of harbor. Then when was the ship built for the harbor even when it safe there. We all are destined to sail in the sunset one way or the other but we all are not as destined to light the lamp of thoughts, ideas, logic and reason in our twilight. Rajendra Yadav might have become antagonist for his detractors who saw in him a monolithic fountain who sired a great tribe of writers and thinkers from the margins of society, thereby, demolishing iron curtain of feudalism in popular culture and literature. For me and tens of thousands the ‘Tin Godesque’ protagonist was the fulcrum of life around whom revolved the wagon wheel of secular and subaltern discourse. Before he kissed the classic arrows of his last nicotine breath, he had ploughed the lonely furrow for 28 summers and turned Munshi Premchand’s vehicle of new idea and socialist discourse, Hans, into a heritage literary magazine. A magazine that could easily compete with the class and chutzpah and colour of Western literary bible, such as Granta of Britain and New Yorker of the United States!

Almost twenty fours ahead of his fatal fall to the respiratory attack, precipitated by a heightening sense of anxiety over the past couple of months, I have had a brief talk with him over telephone from Mumbai. As always, there was the same liveliest effusion of wit and humour in his baritone booming into my ear. Strain of the same naughty chuckle was tugging at the ear-lobe as if the lion was roaring. Effervescence and flamboyance in his persona was dripping through his confident tone and tenor. There was more expectation and little exhaustion. As if he was loitering in his lustful pursuits of free life!

I informed him about posting of a new picture in sepia tone of him on Facebook, which shows his tousled hair and shining head in bouts of contemplation while columns of smoke waft like charcoal drops of cloud around his stellar back revolving chair and square deodar wood table pregnant with piles of story-spread, perched firmly in the Spartan sanctum sanctorum of Hans office in Dariya Ganj on the edge of walled city and Lutyen’s Delhi.

Rajendra Yadav in his 85th season of spring and autumn was not an old man. Nobody could claim that he was the mumbling old man, saddled by demon. For you and me, us and them, literary giant who pioneered the new wave literary movement in early decades of India’s independence was a pathfinder. He was full of optimism and hope and had special penchant for sarcasm and wit. If at all he was saddled by some poisoned chalice of demon that was zest for spreading the sparks of his enlightened secular fundamentalism through his most-sought after editorial commentary of modern India. If at all he was besieged by the demon of any kind, the storyteller was in the siege of telling another mesmerizing tales of smile and tear, ghost and god, hope and fear, love and lust, faith and betrayal, passion and fashion.

It was 3 o’clock in the misty Mumbai morning when I jerked out of the bed to read a Facebook message from a literary lensman Bharat Tiway. A groggy look at few words declaring the unthinkable, ‘sir nahi rahe (sir has departed for his heavenly abode) left me disbelieving for a moment or so before I could rush out after a hasty shower to board the first available flight to New Delhi. But the tunnel of my eyes bathed me in river of tearful sorrow. Needless to say there was a sudden surge of emptiness within. Even after a fortnight I am not able to reconcile to the truth that the ‘light’ has went out of my life.

Nevertheless, I feel at ease when some sacred sentiments of Rajendra Yadav echo in my heart. Here was the giant, who despised mourning and sorrow. He would often say, “Anxiety is the cancer of heart. Sorrowful state is one thing and to celebrate sorrow with more sorrow is cowardice and stupidity. I want people to celebrate my departure with smile, not tears. A death is an opportunity just as life is. Opportunity is not mourned.”

He led such a life that when he died a vast crowd of people worldwide, from President of India Pranab Mukherjee to popular peace campaigner Tommy Schmitz in Ohio of America, readers and admirers, did mourn him and while he was alive a vast sea of humanity, from jungle of Bastar to fertile fields of Punjab and Hindi heartlands longed for his company.

It was the summer afternoon of 13 May 2000. My maiden rendezvous with Rajendra sahib could take place due to graciousness of filmmaker Anwar Jamal, an avant garde filmmaker of ‘Swaraj’ fame. I was wandering in search of literary and journalistic moorings at the time. All of 23 years of age in the millennium year I was wrestling with quantum of challenges after the controversial ban on my virgin drama, Hitler in Love with Madonna. Much before the play could be mounted on stage, it was dismantled by the Hindu College authorities at the behest of the then BJP-led NDA government because one of the protagonists in the play was modeled with implicit giveaways on the then Union Home Minister and mascot of resurgent and militant Hindutva, L.K. Advani. Lusting solidarity with the secular sentinels of New Delhi, I was face to face with ‘Voltaire’ of modern India’s socio-cultural and political discourse. Sitting across him and separated by mountain of loose story sheets, I could experience the enchantment. The swishing drag of his burning smoke pipe, as he listened to me in rapt attention before breaking into a conversation, was akin to harvesting my imagination.

Rajendra Yadav

Rajendra Yadav

More than his short stories and contemporary classical novel like Saara Akash, Rajendra Yadav’s philosophical discourse fascinated me. It was equally true for tens of millions others across India. He was a brave heart commentator who had the audacity to bear any kind of consequences for his thoughts and actions. I could recall vividly how unfortunate it was for him to experience a barrage of hate mail and communal onslaught, not to mention the credible threat to his life, for writing, ‘Ravan ke darbar mei Hanuman ek aatankwadi tha jaise ki Angrezo ke darbar mei Bhagat Singh dahshatgard tha (Hanuman was a terrorist in the court of Ravana just like Bhagat Singh was a terrorist in the court of British Raj). The controversy took the literature world by storm, creating dangerous fissures of communal and caste polarization. Then, he was always a polarizing figure.

Vedic custodians of obscurantist mythological fortresses dubbed him as a ‘hate figure’ and continued to ridicule him with barbwires invectives. So much so that his fast friend of many decades and country’s leading literary critic Namwar Singh had the cheeks to growl and frown in public, ‘Hans Kauwa ban gaya hai. (Hans-the swan-has become a crow now). Rain or shine, Rajendra was unafraid in his solidarity with the hapless dreamers of his rainbow society. He would not let literary oligarchy to rest in peace and carried on assault over the sacred scriptures and ivory towers of Brahmanical doctrine.
Like tens of millions across India, I would simply marvel at his iconoclastic, yet mystic illumination. Like a Noam Chomsky of the first world, he was lethal in his attack on caste-ridden Hindu society and didn’t hesitate to ridicule its discriminatory ethos, apartheid against woman, Dalit and Muslim and others while questioning the ‘society of sin’ over rampant hypocrisy, superstition, and evil customs like honour killings, dowry and foeticide.

There was soul of Jean Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche in him speaking when he needled fellow god-fearing Indians in another enlightening editorial: Don’t we need religion only in adolescence? After passing the adolescence, an adult doesn’t need religion and God. Both man and woman should stop and think do they really need religion and god. Does a woman need religion and god? Why would she need after being the silent sufferer of tyrannical customs, rites and rituals? So, whether a woman is Dalit or Brahman, she must wage a battle for her emancipation.”

However, he would not impose his rational beliefs over others. His wife for thirty five years, noted novelist and story writer Mannu Bhandari, practiced her religion without fear and favour from her husband and at times he reluctantly participated in the rituals too only to keep her in good humour.

In many spheres of his life, he was a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist. But he never underestimated the power of others, old or young, to outsmart him in his own turf. He dared to doubt his own conviction ahead of winning the war of wits against his counterparts. Just as British philosopher Bertrand Russell led the British “revolt against idealism” in the early 20th century and Voltaire enlightened the French with his anti-establishment and anti-Church discourse, Rajendra Yadav led the charge of subaltern voices of resistance against the dominance of upper-caste Brahmanical fortress. As a result of his relentless crusade, quite a great number of thought leaders, including Ajay Nawaria and Sheeba Aslam Fehmi, emerged on the social and cultural firmament of India to hold his baton aloft. Hans and his own world became a nursery for grooming thought and opinion leaders, not to speak of storytellers.

At a time when the opportunity to publish and propagate was like eating peanut butter and jelly for the upper reaches caste Hindus, notably Brahmans, he stepped in with his giant-like-shadow to corner them. His phenomenal versatility democratized the literary horizon. For Dalit and Muslim writers along with a large segment of Other Backward Class, it was a golden opportunity of lifetime. It was the same segment which was also squirming in its shell to grab the political space from their Brahminist lords. In the toil and tumult of ‘90s, politics of identity was shaping the agenda and ideology of India’s marginalized majority. As if to answer the providential call, Rajendra became the literary lamppost around which all the moths were attracted only to glitter in more grace and luminosity. In the post-Mandal era of politics, some commentators hail him, little wonder, as the Vishwanath Pratap Singh of Indian literature. While there are some who claim he is the soul of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Kanshi Ram in his free-thinking attributes.

By all means, Rajendra Yadav demonstrated exemplary swagger in his solidarity with subaltern writers. With poise and power in the spectrum of pride and performance, he would virtually mock at the narrow prism of hereditary upper castes. About my needling him for his views on persecution of OBCs, Dalit, Muslims and decline of Buddhism, he would say, “It’s like state-sponsored terrorist attacks. Just as state uses terrorism to advance its own interests, devil advocates of Brahmanical doctrine have sponsored attacks on all aspects of non-Brahman castes and communities in India. Towards the end of previous century, the communalization of politics directed its war for hegemony against Muslims of all denominations even though persecution of dalits and other marginalized communities go on unabated.”

He was radical for his times. Indeed, he was an atheist. In course of decade-old association, he became a secular god father and guardian for me and million others. There was a tremendous power of persuasion in him. Both for friends as well as foes, he would reserve his best to floor them with some classical surprises up his sleeve. I could remember how much firm was his faith in the ability of a farmer and an outlaw who came into contact with him. He would urge them to write their experiences in a story form. In his view, there was a story inside each one of us, whether one is an unlettered folk or a doctorate. Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, Bihar strongman and five-time member of Parliament, could script his story in autobiographical format only due to massive push of Rajendra Yadav. His memoir, Drohkal ke Pathik, became a publishing reality on account of Rajendra saheb’s keen interest in thrilling story of a non-Brahman backward boy fighting fascism and domination of upper caste bullies in north Bihar.

Rajendra Yadav became the fulcrum of my life after I surfaced before him with Mukta Singh after the dramatic elopement on 9 July 2002. He could sniff the sense of insecurity out of our adventure and was generous in extending warm welcome. There was magnanimity in his promise and hope. I told him, “We have burnt bridges in the course of breaking caste barriers for consummating the brief, shining romance. I could dare to dream of the unorthodox ways of choosing a companion only under the spell of his combatant opinions.” He would tell us, “You are not the only pair. Several adventurers of love and lust have entered my life and each one of them deserves respect and support. Chitra Mudgal also belonged to the same tribe of elopers.”

Since then we would become a doting member of his inner world. And he accorded a pride of place to both of us. In a period over a decade, birthday after birthday on 28 August and annual event of discourse to mark Munshi Premchand’s Birth anniversary on 31 July, I along with Mukta would be present in flesh and blood to soak in the remarkable occasion. When I rechristened my name from Manoz Khan to Frank Huzur while rechristening Mukta to Fermina, he was quite amused. So much so that he mocked my decision and accused me of copying the name of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s heroine in epic novel, Love in Time of Cholera. Are you imposing your silly choice and decision upon the poor girl? Why don’t you let her remain what she is, Mukta? You are free to conduct name-changing ceremony umpteenth times but you become a despot in your demeanour when you are condemning the woman to your eccentricities.”

He would never want a woman to remain meek and week. He never approved of Hamlet’s famous statement, Frailty thy name is woman. Whatever it would take for him to shape the destiny of anyone in his affinity, he would go out of way to inject into her all the ingredients of guts, grind, and gallantry. Rajendra Yadav taught his woman to be fire-eating, stout-hearted lioness. Women of all social and cultural segments befriended him like Casanova befriended his ladies. However, Rajendra Yadav would not treat each of them as his ‘Dora Black.’ He became friend to some, guide to some more and father-like support system to many others. But not all were fair to him as he would go on courting many beauties like a playboy of the Western world. There was a faint edge of Mario Puzo’s don Veto Corleone and especially the marquee resemblance with Marlon Brando in his high cheekbones and glowing skin bathed in the extra virgin olive oil. And, that was a temptation for many butterflies down the decades of his life. But he was not a Don Juan as some would have us believe so with many tales of adultery. His scruple for conducting a beautiful relationship even outside marriage was superbly crafted in moral cannons.

As a matter of fact, his philosophy underlines his detachment with the family to an extent he actually appears to reject the institution of family altogether. Nonetheless, he was a doting father inside his incendiary heart to his loving daughter, Rachna Yadav Khanna, an exponent of Kathak who happily settled with an ace thematic photographer Dinesh Khanna, a bristling bearded roving storyteller with his lens.

As much as I could gather, his women of imagination were as ordinary and mortal, fragile and vulnerable as many bees in his own bonnets. But here was the man who turned them into women of substance. Glorious outspokenness was his gift to docile, saree-clad, bindi-sporting housewife who thronged him in quest of new pastures. Especially, women belonging to the margins who could have remained unsung cog in the wheels of feudal persecution complex found in him an oarsman. Like a master sculptor he sculpted the edifice of their mind and heart. He would say, “Longings of a woman are about identity and freedom whereas longings of man are about lust, ambition and domination. For the woman to taste the fruits of freedom she should liberate herself first from her body.”

When the Almighty has produced you ‘naked under the sun’ whatever you do thereafter the birth, right from shaving the beard to cutting the nails, is in direct violation of the religion and God’s commandment. But the man and woman are endowed since their ‘in-the-buff birth’ with the mental faculty to invent ways and means to finish the unfinished agenda of ‘God.’ Like a lion-hearted opinion maker, he wrote in the editorial of November 1988, Meri Teri Uski Baat, Hans, about raging controversy of The Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie. True to his smart ass, bold and brassy flair, he ridiculed self-styled orthodox Islamist intellectual like Syed Sahabuddin who was pandering to the gallery of Muslims, caught in the warp and weft of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khoemeni. The reluctant politician, Rajeev Gandhi, was Prime Minister at the time after tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi. Religion dies before the caste and caste further melts into the big pot of market juggernaut. He opined in his famed editorial of November, 2007. He would not like us to resign to the will of God. Because, surrender to the silent deity of stone and mud, in his view, was not the cure of disease of mind.

He was a prominent anti-war activist. He championed anti-imperialism. Even though he couldn’t go to prison for his pacifism during China and Pakistan wars and Emergency days, he was campaigning against dictatorial ways of Indira Gandhi just as he rebelled against ways of Adolf Hitler in his teen years. Even when a score of his fellow writers were crawling before corporate halo of Gujarat Chief Minister-turned-Prime Minister hopeful of the BJP, Rajendra Yadav boycotted Amitabh Bachchan in a public show only for the marquee star’s endorsement of ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ campaign.

His love affair with Marxism continued into his eight decade but he was always wary of Stalinist totalitarianism clouding Indian communists psyche. Still later, he was disenchanted with the sight and sound of communist movement and believed that socialist movement under Akhilesh Yadav and his wrestler father Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik has crushed the spirit of communist footsoldier in northern heartlands of country.

Besides, lifelong he remained an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament while his opposition to United States involvement in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan was inspired more by reason than rhetoric. When I was visiting Pakistan in search of credible political narratives about Imran Khan, legendary cricketer-turned-politician, he would exhort me to keep an eye on social and cultural ethos of people of Pakistan in face of growing intolerance and fundamentalism. In November 2009 upon my return from Lahore, he was pivotal in pushing me to write a ‘Pakistan Diary’ for benefits of Indian readers, who in his enlightened opinion, are offered only ‘jingoistic war cry’ to rev up war hysteria. He was in agreement with my view that Wagah Border is the Berlin wall of South Asia and sooner or later the wall would crumble under the tearful flood of humanists from both sides of the divide.

Not many characters come to mind when I think about vivacity and zest for good life. Rajendra Yadav was epitome of good taste and good life. While I was in London during the winter of 2011 and wandering into streets of whorehouses of Soho, he would banter like a boy over phone. After my encounter with a porn star in sex district of London, I wrote a diary. It was published online on the portal of Sarokar run by author-activist Rakesh Kumar Singh. Later, Rajendra sahib liked it so much that he thought it was a suitable narrative for sharing it with readers of Hans. If I could attempt to write in Hindustani, it would only be attributed to his spurring.

Rajendra Yadav continues to light the soul and lift the spirit of his readers, admirers, and friend-foe alike. Sometimes, shadows are more powerful than the sunshine. In Latin America, especially in Mexico, people celebrate a ritual called Dia de Muertos. This ritual is about honouring the dead with festival and lively celebrations. Mexicans believe that the dead would be insulted by mourning or sadness. Dia de Muertos celebrates the lives of the deceased with food, drink, parties, and activities the dead enjoyed in life. Recognising death as a natural part of human experience, a continuum with birth, childhood and growing up to become a contributing member of the community. Rajendra sahib always believed in the same spirit of Latin Americans as he would exhort us to be like them after he departs the scene in blood and flesh. For he shall ever be present in spirit and soul. Yet, I feel orphaned after losing my secular, godfather guardian.

THE DAREDEVIL SOCIALIST

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By Frank Huzur in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh-India)

With elections to India’s most populous province coming to a close this week, the rise and rise of young socialist politician Akhilesh Yadav has upset the applecart of Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi and also sparked the hopes of revival of hitherto moribund Socialist Party. Come 6 March 2012 the people of India would know who rules Lucknow and stakes claim for more share in New Delhi.

He is only 38 years old. For the minefield of Indian politics, any age below 40 could be a gawky position to start the race. Worse for dark and stormy politics of Uttar Pradesh, it could be like having two left feet and two left hands. This is the heart of India, where six Prime Ministers have sharpened their political grammar skills and polished their realpolitik positions. In the spring of 2012, he is nimble-footing the pedal of bicycle of Indian socialism. The young warhorse talks softly and walks briskly. His hello on mobile phone is heavy with scent of honey-jar happy expression. Any punctuation in conversation is dotted with solemn, quick-wit humour and big smile. The smile shorn of scowl, sneer and smirk! Happy expression falls in torrents when he appears in the crowd. In the midst of mammoth public rally, his right hand rises in gentle whip to greet each of the expectant eyes. His strong personal charm lifts the spirit of the crowds when his left hand joins the right hand to offer a salute of delight and dignity. The red socialist cap, sitting prettily on his sheaf of cropped black hair, puff up the picture of pride and joy. When he rides his cycle, he shuffles his blackberry between his right and left hands like a trapeze artist, shooting messages to socialist cadre through facebook statuses and tweets. His statuses on facebook are mission statement. He tweets to tease the tweeple. Fcebook and twitter are his gravy train. Akhilesh considers internet as a strong force of democracy. The tech-socialist is an adventurer in his own rights. Undoubtedly, he is the politician who takes risk.

He steers the wheel on shiny stations of virtual world as ingeniously as he rides bumpy roads of villages and towns. A swelling army of socialist cadre dotes on him. They address him by many affectionate titles, Bhaiya (dear brother), chhote Netaji (veiled reference to his father, socialist patriarch who is hailed as Netaji, dear leader) and samajwaadi yuvraj (the socialist heir apparent). This is Akhilesh Yadav, the state president of Socialist Party of India, Samajwadi Party, and a man of the moment in the battleground UP elections for more than one reason.

So, what violent gust of wind has propelled a shy, simple and smooth talking young socialist politician into the centre of national and international attention? Six months ago when he was bracing for the big battle on snazzy red motor chariot of revolution (Kraanti Rath), Indian media was guarded in its judgment. Far from being a toast of mocktail discourses in neon-lit salon of New Delhi and Bombay, he was dismissed by heavy list of opinion makers and mediaratti as ‘son of his father’s socialist palace which was pockmarked with un-sophistication and complex legacy. The blue bars of corporate Indian media didn’t give him a notch above the ‘darling dynast of Gandhi family,’ Rahul Gandhi, the 42 year-old man billed as the original heir apparent. In bewildering contrast, the arc-light on Akhilesh wavered and he was just a naïve member of Parliament, unschooled in guile and stratagem of power politics though remembered and acclaimed in certain political quarters for his guileless, artless and unaffected manners.

Rahul Gandhi had proved cynics in 2009 General Elections that he was not a Peter Pan. Only three springs later, he began to belie the expectations. In Uttar Pradesh election campaign, he was an angry man, rolling his sleeves beyond the elbow in fit of rage-fight. Quite a bunch of youngsters applauded his desperate act when he tore into a piece of paper, claiming he was tearing the list of promises of Opposition parties but media camera zoomed in to expose he was tearing the paper bearing the name of Congress party members. The young socialist Akilesh had the last laugh when he quipped on his campaign trails that Rahul might jump off the stage by the time electioneering comes to a close. Humour is the high point of Akhilesh’s electoral campaign. Rahul’s antic was ridiculed as a public stunt. He is spontaneous and spot on. Little wonder, his comments drew nation-wide attention.

Rahul’s each public appearance was a television spectacle whereas Akhilesh’s toiling on his cycle and chariot in villages and towns was a blank grain on the television screens. Akhilesh was, however, austere in his resolve. He was stirring a quiet revolution in hearts and minds of hungry eyes and broken hearts of rural hinterland. There was a long road to walk before he could accomplish his starry dreams. His party so assiduously crafted in homes and hearths of 200 million people of Uttar Pradesh by his father Mulayam Singh was in shambles in the summer of 2007. The party was badly mauled at the husting. Its reputation hit rock bottom for some monstrous allegations of hooliganism, retrogressive public policies, such as anti-English and anti-Computer public posturing, not to speak the mounting assault on socialist charter of the party from left, right and centre. Gerrymandering was the constant refrain from the vast swathe of opponents. English has been used to target Indian socialsits in the past. Mulayam, the socialist stalwart, himself was an English teacher at school. Nonetheless, Akhilesh busted the myth by releasing party advertisements in English on English dailies and questioned crown prince of the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi’s ridicule by saying why doesn’t he canvass in English when he had raised the issue of Akhilesh’s command of English and provoked voters by saying that Mulayam doesn’t want them to learn English while he has got his son Akhilesh to learn English. Akhilesh was pumped up the next morning to give a befitting reply. He told the national press, “The Socialists are not anti-English. They want people to learn English as contact language. But the software is available in vernacular languages, Hindi and Urdu, so they can make most of it. In China, France and Spain, people are proud of their mother tongue. Why should we feel inferior about our mother tongue?”
The Amar Singh phenomenon had created a wedge among several socialist stalwarts, including Azam Khan, a firebrand Muslim leader and others. Only to burn more holes in the socialist bandwagon, Akhilesh was shaken with the unexpected defeat of his better half, Dimple, in October 2009 bye-elections in his own bastion, Firozabad, the city of bangles. The defeat at hands of Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party left socialist ship sailing in the sunset of its confidence. The fiasco of Firozabad was a personal tragedy. Akhilesh was badly afflicted with Rahul’s decision to campaign during elections. For the man who may not be a deity dancer, it was an act of god. Hereafter he drew the battle line and resolved deep within to set on the silent voyage of recovery that would surprise people and pundits alike over the next couple of years.

The challenges before the young socialist were herculean. He was hoisted in the office of state presidency by his father and told in no uncertain terms to reverse the setback. Debacle, actually, was a blessing in disguise for Akhilesh. When I met him in 2009, he was on the ball with arrows of assault. He told me, “I’ve known defeat, suffering, struggle, loss and have found my way out of the depths. Come what may socialism will not die in India. I will meet people with fresh set of ideas and programmes and reinvent socialism to wipe out their fears and despairs.”

The way he toiled in the past three years has left political observers in India with their foot in the mouth. An environment engineer by degree and training from Mysore and Sydney, he set the ball rolling by launching mass engagement with young and old on the social network sites. No other Indian politician could connect with so much felicity and fruition as Akhilesh did. Indians are crazy about their fortune stars. Being a son of ex-defense minister of India as well as three times chief minister of Uttar Pradesh had its head-start as well as hiccups but he shed the cloak of being a socialist patriarch’s son and began to communicate with netizens in their lexicon. Even when he was smelling the scent of mustard flower and sugar plantations in the green fields of farmers as well as courtyard of peasants in Bundelkhand who are trapped in sinkhole of debt, drought and distress, he kept parity with learning and unlearning lessons. Slowly and steadily, he was marking out the path of his revolution in neat details. He had eyes on everything, from recording of socialist jingles to the designing of poster, bill, bunting and flags of the party. He would quip sometimes to me, “The devil is in the detail. Socialism is not only about economic equality and caste and class-free society. It is also about smart dressing and physical drills. I am a fitness fanatic. So I want every single person to work as much on fitness regimen as on his economic and social responsibilities. Flags are first stop. They are as good as the face of leader.” Like a polymath, he handles everything from designing of posters to mapping the path of his political journey on tablets.

I recall an interesting commentary of Imran Khan about Rahul Gandhi in summer of 2008. During my visit to Pakistan I was interviewing legendary cricketer-turned-politician for his biography. Imran had read in Pakistani papers about Rahul Gandhi’s visit to a Dalit home where the Gandhi scion spent the night on the stringing cot under the dark Sun. Imran was infatuated with the taste of Rahul. He told me that Bilawal Bhutto should learn politics from Rahul Gandhi. Today when I look at Akhilesh’s political pilgrimage, I wonder whether Imran would exercise discretion in branding the banal value of political histrionics. Akhilesh has been eating his meals cooked by a Dalit for years but he never advertised the identity of his kitchen inspector. Especially in Uttar Pradesh, where identity politics trumps merit of all hues, the young socialist could have chosen to scream from the rooftop but it was quite a non-issue to him. He wonders, “Why should a Dalit home and meal become an issue? It is about the intentions. Somewhere intentions of advertisers of having slept and taken food of a Dalit are suspect. Dalit are as much human as anybody else. Why make a political capital out of eating at a Dalit’s home? I have been eating Dalit-cooked meal for a decade.” Dalit, the black-skinned aboriginal, are the untouchable in the Hindu-caste pyramid. They constitute around 25 per cent of Indian population but have been subjected to social discrimination on the lines of apartheid in Africa. Socialists forged an alliance with Dalit icons Kanshi Ram in 1993 and stormed to power with two-third majority but the marriage couldn’t last beyond eighteen months. The endgame was a chess game at the altar of exigencies of politics which only harmed the greater interests of Untouchables and socially and economic backward people of India. Socialists are only political block who ruminates to transcend the caste pyramid. Akhilesh volunteered to award tickets to some bright and promising candidates from both upper and lower castes, including Cambridge alumni Abhishek Mishra and host of others. He has broken out with the stigma of Yadava-Muslim caucus with much success. Besides, he also built solid bridge with Muslims by inducting vivacious young, educated Muslim faces like Naved Siddique, a radio jockey and others like Nafis Ahmed. His father has lived with the epithet of ‘Maulana Mulayam’ (Cleric Mulayam) for decades. The son is least perturbed.

I was running around with Akhilesh in the first two rounds of revolutionary chariot race in middle of September, 2011. His father had launched his maiden chariot journey in November of 1987 from Jalaun in Bundelkhand, which catapulted him into power corridor two years later. What actually struck me during the chariot journey was the ever-swelling surge of privileged and underprivileged to steal a glimpse of him wherever he stopped for the brief address. He was not a star of Bollywood or Indian cricket world. Yet, his drawing power was spectacular and it had astonishing influence. His address would be brief and on the boil, “I will give employment allowance to every single unemployed. Our last government gave special allowance to girl who coveted higher education. I will finish the cycle of unemployed father in the age of inflation and price hike. Let us bring back pride and glory of socialism.”

The chariot would run and stop as and where scheduled stops were determined. Akhilesh would rise on the top of the chariot with the hydraulic lift and address the surging crowd in simplicity and sincerity. Once inside the chariot he would continue to look beyond the window and wave in revolutionary spirit imbued with smile and self-gratification. Just as his gaze would fall on a struggling worker fighting for his attention, he would ask the assistant for grinding halt of the chariot and immediately order his acolyte to bring that particular surging worker in the crowd to the chariot. There were countless occasions in Unnao, Kanpur, Rae Bareli, Jalaun, Laliltpur, Jhanshi and other areas of Bundelkhand where Akhilesh ordered unscheduled stops of the chariot to mingle with starry-eyed populace. He not only asked after their welfare, but he also promised them resolution of their knotty issues.

Akhilesh is not a demonstrative politician. I can quietly agrue he is the most reading politician. For the past few years he has been quietly reading about Bolshevism, Fabianism, Leninism, Maoism, Marxism, collective ownership, collectivism, communism, state ownership and host of socialist stalwarts. Albert Einstein intrigues him as much as Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. In his view, Einstein was one of the towering socialists. Einstein picture with his bicycle thrills Tipu like a child is thrilled with his desirable toys. Tipu is the nickname of Akhilesh. Behind the red curtain, he was learning about the levers of social security, social Darwinism, social hierarchy, social psychology, social distortion and social health wellness while he was comparing communism, capitalism and socialism. It is true that one of India’s top brass billionaires Anil Ambani is a family friend of Akhilesh. And, he knows that capitalism is an economic system where all business, production, and distribution are owned by private individuals or corporations who then use the profit earned to reinvest in their companies to promote the fundamentals of free market systems. However, Akhilesh believes in command system where both socialism and communism mingles to set the stage where government owns all property rights and also makes all the decisions. In a way, he wants the government to own all of the business firms and produce what the government deemed necessary, especially where peasantry welfare is concerned. And, India is an agricultural country and the socialists draw maximum support from the farmlands. There are skeptics who argue equal opportunity society is not conceivable under socialistic umbrella because there are not enough tax revenue to pay for the large number of social programmes, especially pro-young men and women policies.

When Akhilesh began his most coveted political journey six months ago, his socialist party, Samajwadi Party, was an antiquated and archaic organisation. He was determined not to let the party stay in the closet. With the onset of the spring, he has achieved a turnaround even his bitterest baiters didn’t conceive. Whether he wins or loses, he has registered his presence in emphatic way. The environmental engineer has astutely revived the socialist campaign in India’s most populous province, which is reputed for paving the way for coronation in New Delhi. The man who could engineer the u-turn in the fortune of Socialist party can as well impact the fortune of New Delhi throne in 2014. He is the original heir apparent of the Socialist bandwagon and radiates the promise and potential to rule not only a province but the country in future. Akhilesh is the daredevil socialist.

(Frank Huzur is biographer of Imran Khan. Imran Versus Imran-The Untold Story. He is also finishing writing the biography of India’s socialist patriarch, Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Socialist is the title, expected for April release. www.mulayamsinghyadav.co.uk and www.frankhuzur.com )

CHARIOT OF HOPE—CYCLE OF CHANGE

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The Young Indian Socialist on Wheels

By Frank Huzur in Lucknow-Kanpur –Indian heartland.

Charisma is a sparkle in people that money can’t buy. It’s an invisible energy with visible effects.”

— Marianne Williamson

He may not be Harrison Ford. But he is surely James Dean. The rebel with a cause for socialist celebre! And, his name is Akhilesh Yadav, the young Indian socialist titan who is charioting the revolutionary socialist wheels on dusty roads of India’s largest population province of Uttar Pradesh.

Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British sports drama film. It is a story of two athletes who compete in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddel, a devout Scottish Christian runs for the glory of God and Harold Abrahams, a British Jew runs to bury the wheels of prejudice and discrimination. The film surprised critics by winning seven Academy Awards. Little wonder, Chariots of Fire, has become 19th most famous film in the British Film Institute’s list of top 100 British films in history of cinema. For those who have liking for poetic justice, the title of the film was inspired by the poem of William Blake, Bring me my chariot of Fire! It is the same Blake whose prophetic poetry and painting shaped the imagination of boys and girls of the Romantic Age in London of eighteenth century.

Blake’s verses were tickling my senses to cast a glance at the wheel of a chariot in heart of Lucknow, the Capital of Uttar Pradesh where I had chosen to be in search of witnessing a history of earthly colours. Lucknow is seat of erstwhile Persian glory and could easily qualify as Lahore of northern India in etiquette and courtly reputation.

Politics of Chariot in India has a prophetic tryst. People remember the rolling of one chariot of fire in winter of 1990 which ended up fanning the flames of hatred against about 200 million Muslims of India. That was L K Advani-led Chariot which had a Muslim driver but it ended engineering blood-thirsty hatred against Muslims across the country. It is a nightmare of post-Independent politics of India. About three years ago, India’s socialist titan, Mualayam Singh Yadav had undertaken a chariot journey of socialist orientation and it had stormed the villages and towns and triggered a string of idioms of resistance and protest politics. So much so that Advani had no hesitation in emulating it with his own discriminatory dose of chalk and cheese. Fear and anguish was hanging in the air of every Muslim homes of Indian nation. Hundreds perished in the communal frenzy. Politics is a blood sport.

It is sunny September morning on 12 September 2011. Painting the socialist country red is the blast of exuberant cries of ‘Hail Socialism’ on smiling and shouting faces of young and old alike. The reason for the congregation of a large number of young men and women is the inauguration of a motorised socialist chariot journey, Kraanti Rath Yatra, the charioteer of which is a young socialist icon, Akhilesh Yadav. Just as the average height as Rahul Gandhi is, ashen faced and robust in his expression of smile and satisfaction, Akhilesh alias Tipu breezes past the swarming crowd. When I cast a glance at the chariot of socialist revolution it is glimmering in blood-red hues of miniature designs of cycle after cycle on the rectangle floor of the motor bus. Here is the tech-savvy socialist. A quick glance reveals his fancy for state-of-art public address system staring into the crowd on hoot of the motor bus. So is the sight of the music box belting out socialist songs cut to the beat and rhythm of Bollywood music. The interior of the sophisticated chariot is pulsating with plasma screen, laptop tuned into internet dongles manned by his acolytes VJ Chauhan, Anurag Saxena, Rahul Bhasin, Naved Siddique, a Radio Jockey and Gazendar Singh and others, deluxe sofas for reclining in peace, toilet on wheels and the hydraulic lift to catapult the socialist icon on the metal roof of the rath as and when the campaign stops.

Chariots are central to Indian and also Persian mythology. Most of the gods in the pantheon can be seen riding them. The Sanskrit word for a chariot is Ratha, a collective ‘reth’ to a Proto-Indo-European word ‘roto’ for ‘wheel’ that also resulted in Latin rota and is also known from Germanic, Celtic and Baltic.

A huge mass of crowds, with red cap sitting prettily on their skull and red and green socialist flags with picture of socialist Patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav fluttering out of the slim bamboo staff in their hands, are cheering the young socialist Akhilesh Yadav on the green lawns of Socialist Party headquarters: 19, Vikramaditya Marg, less than kilometre of the residence of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, 5-Kalidas Marg.

The young socialist smiles and waves his right hands in acknowledgement of the cheering crowd.

In the middle of September 1987, his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav who was just a member of state legislature at the time with penchant for street fighting for the cause of poor Indian peasantry, had sowed the seeds of revolutionary socialism through his debutant journey on wheels. Chaudhary Charan Singh, ex-Prime Minister of India addressed Mulayam Singh as ‘Little Napoleon’ of India. A couple of years later, he would be sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh when Rajeev Gandhi would lose power to Vishwanath Pratap Singh in New Delhi for the hot seat of Prime Minister. The young son who is less than forty years of age and younger to Congress crown prince Rahul Gandhi, is being egged on by socialist stalwarts, Mohan Singh, Braj Bhushan Tiwari, Azam Khan and his uncle Shivpal Singh and patriarch father Mulayam Singh, to repeat the historical act of overthrowing the ruling party and pave the way for return of Samajwadi Party (Socialist) to power in Lucknow.

Just as Mulayam Singh Yadav flagged off the Kraanti Rath for the first round of three-day roll around 150 km stretch circling textile town of Kanpur, Unnao and strings of rural townships, the bugle of transferring the rein to young socialist ahead of crucial 2012 springtime Assembly elections is also sounded. Akhilesh knows the heavy weight of expectations and responsibilities thrust on his shoulders. He has done it in the past when he left Sydney after securing a master’s degree in environment engineering to learn the ideals and principles of socialism walking the dusty village roads, fields of paddy and wheat and orchards of mangoes in the province. Today, he is a member of Indian Parliament in lower house, House of Commons, Lok Sabha from Kannauj and is also the president of State Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. His baptism in national politics is over a decade old since 1999 debut. Hardly any village is left to tread for the young man where he has not left his footprint as he has cycled over thousand kilometres in search of joy and sorrow of the ordinary folks.

The cycle atop his sports utility vehicle Pajero follows the motorised chariot. The cycle is the symbol of Indian socialist party, the weapon of change for Akhilesh who cycles out of much passion and determination while exhorting hundreds of young workers to set the pace alongside him.

The chariot on wheels roll past the stone memorials of Dalit icons, including statues of serving chief minister Maywati who is fighting the swelling armies of disenchanted people in the province over charges of monstrous corruption. Her discredited regime further swells the size of crowd on roadside waiting to welcome the chariot of young socialist politician. A caravan of young biker is speeding ahead of the chariot, screaming in delightful renting of socialist slogans. It is quite a spectacle with young boys looking spirited in their moment of reckoning as their red cap shimmers in the shining September Sun.

One of the first stops of Akhilesh is just in front of the Ambedkar Park housing hundreds of elephants in stone. The Elephant Castle! He emerges on the top of the roof through hydraulic lift to the wild cheers of the crowd. Some pelts marigold and rose on him in greeting as others are dancing in the middle of the road to the beat of socialist songs. The red cap is adorning the crown of young socialist. He breaks into his cry for the revolutionary change.

Revolution is a noun in the part of speech. It is different from rebellion. It is neither debacle nor uprising. A rebellion is open resistance to a government or authority whereas revolution is a rebellion that succeeds in overthrowing the government and establishing a new one. The young socialist is wheeling on his chariot for revolution.

He roars, “I want you all, brothers and sisters, to overthrow the corrupt, ego-maniac and stone-hearted regime of Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). She takes pride in being a daughter of Dalit. Does she bother about the miserable plight of her Dalit sisters when she sends her private jet to bring sandals from Bombay? A dalit girl is victim of rape every hour in the province yet she lives in luxury and pomp. Nowhere in the world does any politician order erection of their own statue but she has the audacity to get herself sculpted in her lifetime. Forget her own sculpture she has wasted your hard-earned money in sculpting over 2000 elephants, each elephant statue costing 10 million rupees!”

The crowd cheers in rising crescendo. Old men and women stares into him to steal a glimpse of the young man. The caravan moves ahead to reiterate the pledge at the next stop which is not more than a kilometre away. Hundreds of people go on walking up and down in the front and the back of the chariot, making it crawl-like-cockroach at a snail’s pace. The socialist songs blaring out of the record keeps the marching socialist supporters in high spirit. A vast crowd of young boys and girls trailing before the young socialist are not walking without any reasons. The previous socialist governments under Mulayam Singh was disbursing unemployment allowance to young boys and girls and also offering special incentives to young girls. It is called ‘Kanya Vidhya Dhan (Special fund for Girls’ education) and unemployment allowance to jobless youths. There is special yearning for the same amongst majority of youth because the Mayawati government scrapped the social welfare programme out of discriminatory prejudice.

I can relate the marching columns of socialist caravan with the Long March of Pakistani lawyers under the leadership of chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Imran Khan, playboy-turned-politician had turned the light brigade in Pakistan at the time. The once deposed chief justice had taken the country by storm through his more than one Long Marches from Lahore to Islamabad and Khyber to Karachi while galvanising around tens of thousands of lawyers to rally around him against military regime of General Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf was a dictator loved and hated in equal proportion in his country. The ruling head of Uttar Pradesh is widely perceived in democratic polity as a dictator with much contempt for democratic transparency in her functioning.

Indeed, Akhilesh feels divinely inspired when he hops over his cycle or he is running to shakes hand with surging crowd of supporters. He is a fitness fanatic and his lithe, urbane disposition makes him agile like an athlete as other workers struggle to catch up with his pace. There is a spring in his steps.

He would tell me, “I believe that I am born with a divine purpose. I am fast, and when I run, I feel divinity presence in propelling my pleasure walk.”

The years of dedication and training are paying the dividends. Socialist ideals and principles hang around his neck like a millstone. He grew up watching his patriarch socialist father whenever he could catch up with him during summer and winter vacations in Saifai green meadows, mingling with peasants, labourers and poor city folks like his near and dears. His father is elder statesman of Indian socialist politics. A man for all seasons! He follows his conscience. He renew his strength by taking a quick nap on the campaign trails and then springs back to his steps to mount up a fresh charge as if he were mounting up with wings as eagles. He runs and never feels weary. He walk and never faint.

When a young adolescent or pre-adolescent child appears near his shoulder, he raises his right and left hand to pat the back and shoulder of the young boys like an elder brother. Quite a good number of them are awestruck about the glistening walls of the chariot whereas others are charged up to touch him just as hundreds of thousands appear to touch the apron strings of Sonia Gandhi and her crown prince Rahul Gandhi in the dust swirls of heartland villages.

Akhilesh Yadav is a clear favourite in province of Uttar Pradesh to lead and he beats Rahul Gandhi phenomenon by a long mile in popularity. The young socialist exudes confidence when he says, “I think about smiles and tears of my people every single day. I spend three hundred days in villages and towns of Uttar Pradesh whereas Rahul ji only visits for 60-65 days. Still later, I wish Rahul Gandhi succeed in doing something remarkable for the people. I want him to perform better. I’ve respect for him.”

Rahul phenomenon has been much of a widely televised spectacle as and when scion of the Gandhi dynasty ventured to read the pulse of people. Whether the spectacle included spending the night on string cot of a Dalit woman or claiming in fury of Bhatta Parsaul on the fringe of Delhi that women were raped and molested with dozens of poor buried in bone fry of ash stones! The corporate Indian media has not been equally benevolent with the socialist icon. Like his Prime Minister father Rajeev Gandhi, Rahul also comes across as a reluctant politician and has struggled to floor the audience with hypnotising public address. Even the Wikileaks cable reveals Rahul doesn’t enjoy public meetings. However, sincerity does ooze in his talk but that is not enough to sway the masses which demands theatrics and rhetoric laced with witty remarks and pungent humour.

When the socialist chariot wheels into textile city of Kanpur cantonment, the young socialist is swarmed by hundreds of thousands of Muslim men and women. A bunch of bouquet and wheel-size rose and tulip and marigold garland are furled in the air. Some land on the target, ashen-neck of the young socialist whereas some fall flat on the glittering roof of the motor chariot.

The state of Uttar Pradesh boasts of 22 per cent of Muslim population. There are as many as 150 constituencies out of 403-strong UP Assembly which is under the direct influence of Muslim voters who only decide whom to send to the floor of the Assembly. For over past two decades and especially after the demolition of Babri Mosque by army of fanatic and militant Hindutva workers under direct insinuation of the then BJP-led government, Muslims of not only Uttar Pradesh (Northern Province) but also the rest of India have felt safe and sound under the wings of socialist patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. Kalyan Singh was the chieftain of the communal BJP government, who acted on sly in demolition of the Babri Masjid whereas the New Delhi central government was headed by PV Narsimha Rao, only the first non-Gandhi family Prime Minister to complete the full tenure.

It is worth mentioning that the Socialist Party of India-Samawadi Party was founded a month ahead of the demolition of the Babri Mosque on 6 December 1992. It was November without rain when the socialists of India gathered together at Hazrat Mahal park in Lucknow to pledge their ambition and aspirations under the charismatic leadership of Mulayam Singh Yadav and others. The Socialism received a new lease of life.

The young socialist in Akhilesh knows it quite well how the politics of his land changed for ever. It was his father who had ordered police firing on the marauding Hindu-caste Kar Sevaks in dying days of October 1990 and thus saved the disputed structure. Mulayam Singh was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at the time. His famous refrain, ‘Koi Parinda bhi par nahi mar payenga’ (I will not allow even a bird to flutter near the dome of Babri Mosque) became the stuff of legend in homes and hearths of Muslim across India. The same constituency of late has been reportedly drifting away from the socialists in mystifying circumstances. The divide and rule doctrine and indeed certain decisions have plagued the solidarity. Even so, emergences of quite a few parties like Peace Party and Ulema Council with Muslim faces who have been walking the Muslim quarters with the lofty ambitions of winning their lost glories are also contributing to pool of confusion in largely neglected and deprived quarters of Muslims. However, the characters heading these groups are alleged to be prop up of Hindu-caste communal and vested groups and they don’t have wherewithal or charisma to guide or lead or for that matter win any seats on their own. At the most, they are prancing in the battlefield only to eat into crucial Muslim votes. So far as any analysis of the delicate pole-position comes to the surface it only indicates a sinister agenda at work to spoil the party of Socialist candidates who are more ideally placed to defend the Muslim homes and hearths.

Are Muslims really drifting away from their once cherished party-Socialist Party of India or Samajwaadi Party? I spoke to Rizwan Solanki and Hasan Roomi in the sprawling and historic Phool Bag, formerly Queen Victoria Garden, ground of Kanpur (Cawnpore) in the simmering afternoon of 13 September. Phool Bag is an historic ground with whoever of little political consequence must conduct their political rituals there as has been established tradition since the British days. Akhilesh Yadav was addressing the huge crowd of cyclists in their red cap and flag fluttering from their handles from atop the roof of the Kraanti Rath. The young socialist was expected to alight from the motorised chariot and join other workers, including local candidates Haji Irfran Solanki and Hasan Roomi on the dais but the dais was uprooted and ransacked in middle of the night by local administration for apparent reasons. Socialists have become habituated of such uncivil interference in Mayawati’s prejudiced regime. Rizwan is a stocky, a little pot-bellied young man in his early twenties. He smiles the smile of an adolescent pregnant with image of a shy boy and tells me, ‘Muslims in Kanpur are socialists. Capitalism or communism doesn’t enchant them. They don’t want to think about any other political formations, let alone Peace Party or whatever. Akhilesh Yadav is our leader and we want him to take on the mantle of Chief Minister after February 2012 Assembly elections.”

Akhilesh disembarked from the deluxe interiors of motorised chariot and leads a team of over thousands of cyclists as he goes on cycling for next twenty three kilometres into heart of Unnao, an industrial district carved out of Kanpur. I see hundreds of cyclists panting and fumbling in the scorching sun, including Irfan Solanki, a UP Legislative Assembly member and a candidate in the elections, but not the young socialist who is unfazed by the heat and dust of the not so handsome roads. He goes on peddling like a pied piper of his socialist army, sweating bucketful of toxic yet smiling like a champion Tour-de France cyclist Lance Armstrong. While the rhythm of race reaches its pace, there are scores of youngsters and old men alike who want to whistle near him and prod the running battery of photographers to shoot a picture for their walls.

When the chariot wheels was dusting down the narrow metalled stretch of Muslim bastion of Miangan, Hasanganj and Hafizabaad in Bangarmau between Unnao and Lucknow borders, the crowd was turning in and out in its instinctive strength to register its presence on both sides of the divide. It was Takia square and I could see the bold letters sculpted into masthead of a stone and cement gate, Ashfaqullah Khan memorial gate. The chariot grinds to halt. Hundreds of thousands clap in chorus and rents the sky with socialist slogan to receive the young socialist Akhilesh Yadav. I get hold of a Muslim gentleman in his forties and ask his name. His skull cap is missing but his flowing beards are neatly hanging down his robust chin. There are wrinkles creasing his forehead. When he smiles, his teeth are a little mashed up to portray the picture of a seasoned community campaigner. He blurts out without further delay-Raes Ahmed. I poke him again and ask him why is he here to welcome the socialist chariot. He told me, “Mulayam Singh Yadav has been saviour to Muslims of India. Now, his son is amongst us. He is more promising in his outlook. Akhilesh is not only a Chief Ministerial material, but he is a Prime Ministerial material. What Mulayam couldn’t achieve in his lifetime his socialist son would achieve. This young man is messianic. He is a deliverer, preserver and redeemer. All of us Muslims believe him and tasted him. He replies to even an ordinary workers’ phone call like his father. There have been numerous occasions when we troubled him in middle of the night and he was not sleeping.”

The chariot of fire and socialist resolve rolls on the village road breezing past small hamlets surrounded by popcorn, wheat and maize fields. I see the young socialist chatting animatedly with his team of young tech-savvy planners and campaigners, most of them are upper-caste Hindu socialists. For long, his father and the party has been criticised in certain urban pockets of Delhi and Bombay for being the party beholden to his own strong agriculturist clan of Yadavas and Muslims, yadavas who share common descent with famous king Porus who won the battle of wits with Alexander the Great in the epic battle on the banks of Sutlez and Indus. This charge might sits pretty with Lalu Prasad in Bihar banks but not with the Socialist comrades in Uttar Pradesh. The social engineering of young socialist is complete and his team has as many members from Brahmin, the priestly and top-of-the-Hindu pyramid as he has from kshatriya, kayasths, traders Vaishyas, Muslims and any other segments, including Dalits and other other segments of society. He knows the art of integration more than Rahul Gandhi. There are more than six thousands divisions in the Hindu-caste fold and each caste has more than hundred divisions in their folds, including the Brahamans.

This is young Indian socialist Akhilesh who knows the soil of his farm lands and can tell with the authority of an agricultural scientist which season will yield what particular variety of crops. His degree in environmental science is of handsome utility to him in his socialist politics and he is making great use of the craft he learnt in Australian University. Farmers are nation builder in his heart and he values their judgement and native wisdom more than anybody else. Like father like son.

(Frank Huzur is an author, poet and playwright. He is biographer of Imran Khan. Imran Versus Imran-The Untold Story is his latest non-fiction. Also view www.frankhuzur.com. He can be contacted at frankhuzur@live.co.uk)

Frank Huzur on Imran Khan, Jemima, the Taleban and writing.

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I was delighted to interview writer Frank Huzur recently. Frank specializes in Indo-Pak political affairs and is incredibly knowledgeable on India, the Afghanistan war and the Taleban. He has a book coming out soon, Imran versus Imran: The UNTOLD STORY, the biography of Imran Khan.

Frank had this to say about the book and then the interview follows:

It has not been a smooth journey across the border. For an Indian national, irrespective of profession-media is more notorious in India-Pakistan for stoking the fire of jingoism and sowing the seed of hatred—it is always a thorny affair to travel to each country. I somehow have been fortunate to visit Pakistan seven times in three years. Writing the biography of Imran Khan was, indeed, a powerful motivation. Nevertheless, travelling through different areas, Lahore, Mianwali (ancestral place of Imran Khan and his political constituency) and Islamabad–was always a tough ask, considering the combustible political situation on streets. Terror attacks, hundreds of them–quite big in size and casualty, have hit high profile targets, some of them during my visit.

Irrespective of everything, I maintained my focus on the goal, and returned each time armed with a vast range of anecdotes and impressions of Imran Khan and Pakistan politics. People of Pakistan have been very beholden to my literary endeavour and have never discouraged me from probing further into their lives and times.

Imran and his family and friends were very warm and friendly during numerous round of interviews for the biography. His brother-in-law and sisters in Lahore were candid in sharing their side of the story.

Jemima Khan in London was equally considerate and beholden to my requests. She was very forthright in sharing her impressions of Imran. I am indebted to her for taking the interview at her Studio One apartment, Fulham Broadway in April, 2008.

1) How did you get into writing?

FH: I discovered as early as in 8th grade at school that writing was my natural instinct. The urge to write began with composition of poems in English. Reading of Wordsworth’s poems, I wandered lonely as a Cloud, The Solitary Reaper, Strange Fits of Passion have I known romanticised my imagination. By the time I was a school graduate at the age of 15, I tasted blood with the publication of some of my poems on the New Delhi-based English dailies, including The Asian Age. I was in love with the romantic age in English literature, and doted on the Lyrical Ballads, a joint publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Before taking a maiden shot at playwriting, I had composed over 100 poems under the title of Remembering Her. When I joined Hindu college, Delhi University in 1995, poetic sentiments found expression in prose and play. In summer of 1998, I published my maiden play, Hitler in Love with Madonna. The title of the play was dubbed weird by friends, and critics were attracted like moth to the lamp during rehearsal itself. However, it brought me a fair share of public acclaim in the national press, for its political undercurrents.

Poetry and play further fired my imagination to comment on the burning issues of society and politics. In the spring of 1997, I had the temerity to launch a monthly newsmagazine, Utopia, with heavy dose of political reportage from around the world. The inaugural issue of Utopia in March 1997 coincided with the political debut of Imran Khan across the border in Pakistan. Since then, political churning in the subcontinent and elsewhere continues to fire my imagination to dabble in chiefly three genre of literature, poetry, drama (fiction) and non-fiction. I am still a few years away from writing a novel.

2) You have written a lot about Imran Khan and have a book coming out soon about him. What can you tell us about him and why is he so fascinating to you?

FH: The fascination with Imran, to speak the truth, bordered on paranoia during school days. I was growing up in Patna, capital of a benighted state like Bihar in India, where cricket was staple diet. Throughout ‘80s Imran was a household name for apparent reasons. However, I found myself increasingly obsessed with the other side of his charismatic persona, such as his philanthropic passion, which was on display during the 1987 World cup semi-final in Lahore. Imran lost the battle against Aussies, announced his retirement and despite winning the car in the ‘Man of the Series’ award, he gifted it to Abdul Qadeer. He had already started a fierce campaign to build the cancer hospital in memoriam of his mother, Shaukat Khanum. I was a 10 years old cricket wannabe at the time. Still, I could experience the magic moments of Imran’s other side, a cricketer who was a crusader for a public cause and an opinionated sportsman who could talk for hours on issues of public interest. Gathering such impression of Imran in the face of prevailing media stereotype at the time like he was a playboy, junkie and Lothario was quite a unique experience. Doting on a superstar from across the border, supposedly an enemy country for an average Indian youth, was another surprise.

Nevertheless, Imran Khan was a ticket to hate-free zone vis-a-vis Indo-Pak barbed wire rivalry goes. He has never been an anti-India rhetorician.

The childhood obsession with Imran became a passionate act of observing his political innings in the prime of my youth as a writer and journalist. Visiting Pakistan for over half-a-dozen occasion in the past three years of troubled past opened my eyes to a vast sheaf of reality bites. Not only about the man who has been deep into maelstrom of his political struggle and movement for justice, but also about the bedevilled country, mired into morass of bad political morals.

My biography of Imran Khan, Imran Versus Imran: The Untold Story (expected last week of July, 2010, Falcon & Falcon Books Ltd. London) is an unambiguous enquiry into his political innings. This is not about a cricketing legend. Imran versus Imran brings out the so far unknown sides of a legendary crusader who has sacrificed on several fronts, including his marriage to Jemima, children living in London while he braves the heat and dust on Pakistani streets, luxury of cloistered life in the West and a lucrative career in cricket administration or commentary box. Like a Sufi who lives by his passion and instinct for a cause, Imran has been an Avant-garde voice against the status-quo in Pakistan.

3) What do you think is next for Imran?

FH: Imran will not fade out in the present avatar. Those who know the former captain of Pakistan cricket team will testify to his childlike lust for grabbing his toy. Capturing power is not his agenda. Power doesn’t please him, which is why he has been quick in rejecting several offer of alliances with nearly all the political formations. He could have won a good number of seats in February 2008 Parliamentary elections. Yet he listened to the voice of his conscience and boycotted the polls as a tribute to lawyers’ struggle for restoration of Independent judiciary.

Like Jemima told me, even if Imran doesn’t succeed in electoral terms, he will remain a yardstick by which honesty of a politician in mud pond of Pakistan politics will be measured. However, Imran will not give up. The youth of the country are solidly behind him, and he is promising them a ‘bloodless revolution.’ Imran will go down even in his political innings a successful crusader. Even though he is still not a maverick and a great organiser of political programmes, he does stand his chance. He is gearing up to go for jugular sometime in near future.

Having said that, Imran Khan is a unique politician who is rabidly against the American policies and on-going drone attacks in the tribal areas, not to mention a series of suicide bombings targeting civilian population in Lahore and elsewhere. Imran will not soften his anti-America stand in order to capture power. He wants to create history like Ayatollahs in Pakistan, and he doesn’t give damn to those who accuse him of being a ‘devil advocate’ of Taleban.

4) What do you think of the current political and economical situation of the world today?

FH: The world politics is on the brink of tectonic shift in its scope and character. Forces of privatization and globalisation are under intense scrutiny in nearly all the countries, be it the USA, Europe, Latin America or Indian Sub-continent. The economic crisis, in the past couple of years, has robbed the crystal ball gazing off its sheen.

Europe is experiencing a paradigm shift vis-a-vis confrontation with corporate state. The upsurge in stocks of Liberal Democrat in the British Parliamentary elections is a testimony to the ‘wind of change blowing in the air.’ In Germany, there is a surge of support for Die Linke (The Left) led by Oskar Lafontaine. In Nederland, the Socialist party is looking set to replace the Labour Party as the principal opposition party. Greece’s economic woes have triggered a massive surge in mass support for the rapid rise of the Coalition of the Radical Left. Spain and Norway, Socialists are already entrenched in power corridor. Least said the better about the Latin American countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, Brasil and others where socialist sentiments have acquired a zing even among youth.

In Indian subcontinent, love affairs with corporations continues and it will have its moment of reckoning in near future. Though the ruling party, Indian National Congress is a centrist party, its policies of late have been hammered on public streets for extreme pro-corporation bias. The principal opposition party led by Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is not perceived much different from the ruling coalition of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). However, a vast crowd of poor Indians, especially in northern provinces of Hindi heartland where majority of Indians live on their small agricultural holdings, are veering towards the third alternative, socialist party of India. Samajwadi Party, (Socialist Party of India) is the third largest political bloc on the floor of Indian Parliament. Over the past couple of years, the party is registering massive inroads into hearts and minds of common Indians under the vibrant leadership of its young leader, Akhilesh Yadav, who is a suave, English-educated master in Environment from University of Sydney. Akhilesh is the principal rival to Rahul Gandhi’s juggernaut in the most populous province of Uttar Pradesh, and probably a counterfoil to Rahul Gandhi’s premier ambition to rule the highly-cherished state.

The politics across the border in Pakistan is a worrying sign for us all in the sub-continent. However, the transfer of power from President Zardari to Prime Minister Gilani and recent surge in judicial activism augurs well for fledgling civil institutions in the beleaguered nation, which has been an important ally of the USA-led coalition against war on terror. Imran Khan’s role can’t be discounted, as he has fired the imagination of Pakistani people over pros and cons of democracy and dictatorship.

In all, President Obama is yet to demonstrate his famous ‘audacity of hope’ calibre, and as of now, he is looking like an Ostrich over Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrytal’s unceremonious exit is a serious setback to the American strategy in Kabul.

5) Do you think the war in Afghanistan is winnable?

FH: There are no winners in war, whether in Afghanistan or Vietnam. For centuries, the Great Game theory has been pounded of its barest bone and flesh in the opium fields of Kandhar. The Soviets were sucked into interminable conflict and by the time realisation dawned upon them, they had become paupers in every conceivable way. The USA and Britain didn’t learn a lesson from the condemned past before committing chaotic blunder after blunder.

The Taleban should have been taken out of their hideouts. Nine years later, the army of rugged Pathans are now lurking at gates of Kabul. Nine years of bloated and arrogant war machinery has created only mausoleum of thousands of innocent Afghan men, women and children, over 1,000 American soldiers and over 100 British soldiers, not to mention tragic loss of NATO soldiers and a great number of promising journalists, including Daniel Pearl. Had the war on terror in Afghanistan been on the course of achieving even ten percent of its laid-out objectives, Taleban would not have mushroomed in the tribal areas of Pakistan and bombing its innocent civilians and military General Headquarters.

Adding further insult to injuries, the cost of Afghan war has overtaken that of Iraq for the first time this summer. President Obama is committing $65 billion more, with total cost of fighting the Taleban and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan all set to zoom past $100 billion in 2010 alone.

The Afghan war is a catastrophic blunder on all fronts. Just as the Soviet’s humiliating withdrawal destabilised the neighbouring regions, the prevailing situation on the border of Pakistan bodes ill for even eastern neighbourhood of India.

6) What is your writing schedule?

FH: Writing is a spontaneous process for me. I never plan my writing schedule. However, I am a night animal, and prefer to borrow more from arterial stretches of imagination late into the night. The midnight hours are more simulating as the din of daytime robs me off creative cultivation of thoughts.

7) Do you think it is possible to defeat the Taliban?

FH: Taleban is a stateless phenomenon. Which is why it is difficult to root these faceless warriors out for once and all. Taleban is an idea, and a vampire-like creation out of the monstrous cocktail of Jihadi ideology and distorted interpretation of Islam. If the Western powers commit to fight the idea of Taleban, only then its elimination is possible. Liberal and democratic forces should be encouraged to penetrate into the deep pockets of extremist heartland where young, impressionable minds are being indoctrinated to slaughter innocents of the civilised society.

8 ) India is known as a place where people go to find themselves. What makes India so magical?

FH: India is not just a place populated with people of diverse faiths and caste-ridden Hindu population. India’s secret weapon is her tenacity, ability to smile in face of fierce tragedy. There are islands of poverty in every single metropolis, not to mention hundreds of small towns and millions of villages, yet beauty of India cuts through rivers of sorrow as millions of Indians rise and fall in their perennial search for salvation. Every Hindu caste Indian has his own deities, his own temple where he believes his deity will rain milk and honey if he surpass other fellows in his offerings. Spiritual fascism of high priests apart, there are many portals of liberating one’s soul. The vastness of the country offers its own aesthetic beauty where a person from northern temple town of Benares will find himself alien in the southern temple city of Tirupati in lingua and look, yet a northerner and southerner will be united in their common pursuits of salvation at the feet of stone-deity.

India is home to more Muslims than Pakistan, and its secular, democratic polity has endured powerful assaults over the fabric of its communal accord. However, the land of mystic seers and shrines is in the grip of difficult challenges, of late as terrorism of all shades rears its ugly head.

9) What is next for you?

FH: I am about to write a couple of more biographies, preferably a biography of India’s socialist titan, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has ruled India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh three times and has also been ex-defense minister. I am also working on the biography of Britain’s top Muslim, Dr Khurshid Ahmed, who is winner of CBE from the Queen, for his pivotal role in improving the image of West in Muslim countries. In addition, I am also working on my debut novel, albeit a tad slow.

Thank you Frank.

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