Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - HT Navi Mumbai Live
Moral lessons for India
A prison memoir that shows us that jail need not be the end of activism or the struggle for truth and justice
The meeting of inmates with their lawyers in Jail Number 3 in Tihar in Delhi is conducted in the Deputy Superintendent’s room. The inmates sit on plastic stools; the lawyers sit on sofas and chairs. It was there that I first sighted Kobad Ghandy. He had a stash of envelopes with him and patiently parried the sneers of an officer who chose that moment to show Kobad the fallacy of his views, thereby snatching away precious minutes from a prized legal mulaqat. In those days a visit to the surprisingly well stocked library in Jail no 3 was the life-saving refuge I sought. Unbeknownst to me, Kobad and I were reading some of the same books from that library: a collection of stories by Anton Chekhov, a volume of Justice Tarkunde’s writings, with marginal jottings by Kobad’s dear friend Afzal Guru -- the same Justice Tarkunde who played a key supporting role in the early days of Kobad’s activism in Bombay in the 1970s. There are several other serendipitous instances that dot this invaluable memoir which should be compulsory reading in our schools.
How and why did Kobad, or Koby, who swam at the Willingdon Club, played tennis and golf, studied at the Doon School with the likes of Sanjay Gandhi, Kamal Nath and Naveen Patnaik, and at St Xaviers and London, end up living with the poorest of the poor is one of the most important questions for our times. Kobad was traversing the beaten path, following in his father’s footsteps as he journeyed to England to become a Chartered Accountant. But exposure to racism, to political currents in England, and a chance encounter with a biography of Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor who lived and worked with Chinese Maoists, radicalised him. This led to years of self-study of Marxism and Maoism at the British Library and at the British Museum, and a stint in a British jail, after which he decided to throw away a promising career
and returned to
India. Surprisingly his corporate Parsi father seemed understanding of this apostasy. At the time when Kobad began his political journey in India, the world was full of radicals and the journey from Presidency College Calcutta to becoming a victim of a police bullet as a Naxalite was not uncommon. Those who could not become romantic revolutionaries stayed on to become romantic radicals in prestigious academia, or resurfaced as successful politicians and corporate NGO wallahs.
But Kobad chose a different kind of praxis, one where working with the poorest meant living like them in the Dalit chawls around Worli in Bombay. At the height of the Dalit Panther movement, he endeavoured, in vain, to persuade his Communist comrades to accommodate caste in their revolutionary ideology. He pays homage to some of the stalwarts of this movement, to Namdeo Dhasal and Daya Pawar, and to other committed comrades such as Ravi, and Arul Fancis who became his friends for life. It was here that he met Anuradha, herself the daughter of committed Communists, and this memoir is both an ode and a heartbreaking love letter to his wife. Even by the revolutionary standards of the 1970s, Kobad and Anuradha were unusual. Kobad was left a huge flat in posh Babul Nath. He sold it and used the proceeds for their organisation. They met their parents sparingly, chose not to have a child, and moved to Nagpur where Anuradha taught at the university, and also carried on her work with oppressed women. Kobad organised rickshaw workers, or factory and biri workers. They carried on until Anuradha was thrown out of the university for her political work. She chose to travel to Bastar, where she worked with Adivasi women, battling sclerosis, and malaria until she succumbed to them. Kobad was arrested and vilified soon after Anuradha’s death. Was Kobad a Maoist? He doesn’t deny or admit that, but he certainly admired many things that Mao’s China achieved. Kobad abhors violence, but would also like to alert us to the uncountable everyday acts of violence that the state and the powerful wreak on the poor. After 10 years of incarceration, umpteen cases in seven different states of India, the state could prove nothing against him.
The second part of Kobad’s memoir is an account of his
Fractured Freedom — A Prison Memoir
Kobad Ghandy
316pp, ~595, Roli Books jail life. His friendship with Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri accused of the Parliament attack, is about love between two outcastes from two different extremes, who find common cause in poetry, in Rumi, and in intellectual discussions over a cup of tea in the most benighted corner of the country. Tihar, as Kobad saw it, was the most horrid jail he experienced, aggravated by the uncouth character of the officials who guard it. For a while, Kobad was transferred from one jail to another every three months. It is a tribute to his courage that he used every stratagem at his command, from writing applications and articles, to launching hunger strikes, to continue his fight for his rights. He found unlikely respect and sympathy from dons such as Brajesh Singh, Sunil Rathi and Kishan Pahalwan. Kobad also found some very honest judges, who went out of their way to ensure justice to him, and also lawyers, who were willing to fight for him. Kobad’s life in jail is no less revolutionary than the one outside. Throughout, he continued to read, to write, to reflect, even to publish, including a five-part essay in Mainstream on freedom through history. Still, the question remains, why should such a man have been in jail? This shows us a side of the state which remains constant, irrespective of regime change. His experience also shows us that jail need not be the end of one’s activism, or one’s struggle.
The last part of Kobad’s memoir relates to his reflections on revolution and social change. Remarkably, he is satisfied with his life, despite the wasted decade. For five decades now Kobad has tried to alert his leftist comrades to the importance of caste dialectics to progressive politics in India. But in reflecting upon Marxist politics Kobad asks why it seems to be in retreat everywhere. He discovers that it is not enough to struggle for equality, or for economic emancipation. One must also strive for happiness in society. He asks, “To what extent have we been able to use our conscious effort to counter the negative within ourselves and the environment. For, if we are unable to do this, no sustained social change is possible, as we see with what has happened to the leaderships in the erstwhile socialist countries.”
The importance of this memoir and of being Kobad lies in shedding privilege, in choosing the right life, in suffering wrongs for it, and yet remaining steadfast. Fractured Freedom is a moral lesson for modern India, which both the Left and the Right would do well to heed.