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Indira
Gandhi and me
For us Nepali
students, the state of Emergency (Himal, July 2000)
in India put in place on 26 June 1975, came as a relief
because this meant colleges would reopen. Due to the ongoing
political turmoil, our Engineering College at Rourkela,
India’s steel city, had been closed sine die. The
prolonged holiday in Kathmandu had begun to pall.
With two other
college mates, I headed back to Rourkela. Our journey via
the heartland of Bihar, starting at Raxaul and ending at
Tatanagar, to catch the last leg of the journey to the steel
city, was uneventful. We chugged into Rourkela station on
the evening of 2 July 1975.
When we descended
on the platform, we seemed to generate some attention, which
was unusual. Before we were able to catch a taxi, a police
inspector and three constables detained us. He reported on
his wireless set, "Three anti-social elements with long
hair, bell bottom pants and high heel shoes have been
apprehended outside Rourkela Railway Station."
We protested,
"We are coming from Nepal! Please let us talk to our
principal." The inspector shut us up with some choice
expletives. It was clear he was not going to let go of prey
in hand, and we were herded into a police jeep and taken to
the thana. There we met the "anti-social
elements" arrested earlier: a doctor, a few teachers, a
group of farmers, even some dhobis with their loads
of washed clothes, and a few chanewals. The young
doctor had his sister's marriage that evening, but the gaol
in-charge would not hear of releasing him. There was nothing
to do but to buy chana chatpate from our fellow
inmate and pass the time.
For a 20-year-old
engineering student, it was difficult to understand why we
had been arrested. Politics was only something to be read
off the day’s headlines, and the sheer arbitrariness of
this incarceration was baffling.
As the night became
older, it became clear that we would be released, but we had
to be charged with some misdemeanour to justify our time in
the lockup. The sub-inspector sized us up, and decided that
our hair—down to our necks in proper Kathmandu fashion—had
to go. And so we were haphazardly sheared. Fortunately, the
scissors stayed on the scalp and did not travel south, and
we did not have to face the spectre of forcible
sterilisation courtesy Sanjay Gandhi, which so many Indian
brethren did.
Rather than be
treated as the courageous trio which had survived a night of
possible torture at the Emergency-ridden police thana, the
next morning we were met with indifference in the
hostel and at college. Some teachers went to the extent of
putting us at total fault: "You must have misbehaved
with the police."
In March 1977, the
Janata government assumed power in New Delhi. My hair was
once again over the ears. One day, enjoying a plate of
samosa and tea with my classmates during intermission at a
local cinema, the thana in-charge who had shorn us came by.
Recognising us, he said he was sorry for what had happened.
Incidentally, he said, he had left the police service.
Before I could ask him why, he was gone.
The mild trauma me
and my Nepali friends experienced at the hands of the
authoritarian system was of course mundane. Looking back, I
cannot imagine that those in power in Delhi had intended to
treat some hapless college students as implacable political
foes. Yet, it happened to us. What our little episode
explains is the ease with which authoritarianism moves down
the state ladder, and brings all and sundry within its
grasp. In the end, it is human nature—whether it is the
secretaries in the ministries of Delhi, or the in-charge of
a thana in the moffusil, authoritarianism allows them the
leeway to push their weight about. Howsoever possibly pious
the intention of the person at the top, in this instance
Indira Gandhi, an emergency makes dictators of petty people
within reach of power everywhere. This is a South Asian
proclivity, and we all, indeed, have to learn the lessons
from India 1975-1977.
Ajaya
Dixit, Kathmandu
Small-town
sensibility
In your
article on Sahayog (July 2000), the organisation which
published the questionable pamphlet on sexuality among the
hill people, you miserably tried to shield those who have no
respect for the local people of Kumaon. When asked about the
whole controversy, the Sahayog couple told The Indian
Express: "We have become victims of small-town
mentality." But the question is, who asked them to do a
favour to the wretched "small-town people"? If they
think small-town mentality is so inferior, why don't they open
an NGO in Washington DC? The message from Almora is clear: if
you cannot respect local sensibilities, if you cannot respect
local traditions, and if you think that speaking high-flown
English with an Oxford accent gives you the license to pass
judgement on the ‘lesser mortals’, you will have to face
the people's anger.
Rajesh
Joshi, New
Delhi
Himal’s
identity
I read
the July issue of your magazine. As a reader of this magazine
published from Nepal, this issue left me confused. Most of the
articles, in fact all of them but two, are related to India.
Your magazine goes worldwide. So, it would be appreciated if
you could let people abroad know about Nepali culture, news
and information. Whether or not Indira Gandhi was a good lady,
how Tamil Cinema is doing, and what is the state of Ambassador
cars, hardly make any difference to Nepalis. I hope you can
make your magazine a little less India-oriented.
Chanda
Upadhyaya, Lalitpur
Himal is
a South Asian, not a Nepali, magazine. And India is a big
country.
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