By Kavita Chowdhury in New Delhi
IT’S A first for a central university. IPS officer Vibhuti Narain Rai has been appointed the vicechancellor ( V- C) of the Mahatma Gandhi Antarashtriya Hindi University at Wardha in Maharashtra.
The 1975 batch IPS officer, currently an additional director general in Uttar Pradesh Police, is also a well known Hindi writer and literateur.
Though the appointment came as a surprise to most, the need to get the only Hindi university in the country back on track made Rai an apt choice. Excited about his new role, Rai said, “ A V- C need not be an academician.” Pleased at getting “ a job of my choice” Rai said he hoped to take charge at Wardha by October 2. Rai is passionate about literature and described his present role as to his liking.
A three- member search committee, comprising professor Bipan Chandra, Sudeep Banerjee and U. R. Ananthamurthy, selected Rai as the V- C after which President Pratibha Patil gave her nod on September 1.
The ministry of home affairs and the UP administration are still to give him the required clearance.
Although the Hindi university came into existence a decade ago in 1997, it had hardly taken off with little work being done on the ground. In contrast the Urdu University at Hyderabad, launched around the same time, has established itself as a leading institution.
The Hindi university’s first vicechancellor Ashok Bajpai functioned from Delhi. During his tenure, very little infrastructure and buildings were set up. His successor, G. Gopinathan, managed to get things started but his tenure was mired in controversy with the executive council not supporting him.
Speaking to MAIL TODAY from Lucknow, Rai said his 33- year experience in the police force would help him. “ The job demands not just a literary background but the qualities of an able administrator.
The last 10 years of the university have been almost lost. I will try to give to it the status it was meant to have as a leading Hindi institution,” Rai added.
The university has a school of non- violence and even has a course in Buddhist studies. The university has plans of starting a management school.
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A recently released study by a senior cop unmasks the bias that infects the police during communal riots
By : Saibal Chattergy:
During the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Taran Gujral, a Punjabi writer and principal of a Kanpur college, discovered the bitter truth quite by accident. She realized , perhaps for the first time in her life, how misplaced her faith in the police force was. Her locality was surrounded by a frenzied mob and an armed attack was imminent. She telephoned the police control room for help. The response was derisive laughter and a curt" Hum bhi Hindu hain (after all, we too are Hindus)".
The account of a hapless lady's experience in the face of a grave threat to her life and property is only one of the many shocking stories about partisan policemen that Vibhuti Narain Rai, inspector-general , BSF, unearthed during a path-breaking research project that confirmed his worst fears. His conclusion :the police force does indeed suffer from a pronounced communal bias during riots.
The man khaki is the most visible, if not always the most potent, symbol of State power. Under the rule of law, it is his job to protect every citizen, no matter which religion he or she professes. But when he is put to his severest test in a communal riot situation, does he stay true to his uniform ? Does he forget that he is a policemen first , a Hindu or Muslim later? According to Rai's dissertation, commissioned by the National Police Academy, Hyderabad, he doesn't . Because of the irrational prejudices that policemen often demonstrate during Hindu-Muslim riots, the minorities have lost faith in the ability, perhaps even the inclination, of the force to deliver justice.
Rai, who was the superintendent of police, Ghaziabad, when the Meerut riots of 1987 happened, bases his candid conclusion on interviews with riot victims-200 Hindus and an equal number of Muslims-as well as 50-odd serving and retired police officers. "I identified 10 riots which were major in terms of the physical and psychological damage they wrought, and where the conduct of the law-enforcing agencies came in for sharp criticism," says the 47-year-old police officer who has another significant identity. That of a Hindi litterateur with five novels to his credit. Rai also edits a literary magazine.
Backed by figures drawn from the files of the Home Ministry and the Police Bureau of Research and Development as well as a thorough analysis of the Data yielded by his survey, Rai's dissertation also belong to the minority community. "This defies logic," says Rai. "If 80 percent of the victims are Muslims, it must follow that Hindus would constitute at least 60 to 70 percent of those arrested. But that never happens."
Is it any wonder, then , that 97 percent of 200 Muslim respondents told Rai that they regarded the civil police as their enemy, while over 71 percent of the Hindus interviewed by the senior police officer said they considered the force to be a friend ? "There is a grave danger inherent in this situation," warns Rai. "When the minorities lose faith in the police force, it means that they have lost faith in the State. They become easy prey to Organisations like the ISI. That is when Mumbai and Coimbatore happen."
Forty-eight percent of the police officer interviewed responded in the affirmative to the query : "Have you ever noticed a communal bias in the behaviour of police men during a communal riot?" And 52 percent said no. Significantly , officers from southern India were almost unanimous that the virus of communalism has not affected the force. Officers from the north, or from the states where communal riots have become a regular occurrence , admitted to policemen behaving in a less than fair manner,
The Srikrishna commission report has vindicated Rai's stand. But it is difficult to get the police leadership to accept the findings of his gutsy study. The National Police Academy, which had granted Rai a fellowship to pursue the project, found the findings unpalatable and quickly disowned them. It was left to the National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, to publish the dissertation. In his foreword to the book, Padam Rosha, who retired as a director-general of police 17 years ago, writes : "I strongly suggest that this study should be made compulsory reading for all officers of the administration and the police."
Sys Rai, "The initial impulse is to deny the accusation of communal bias. And when they are confronted with facts that can not be challenged, the police leadership comes up with other usual alibis : Limited manpower, lack of vehicles, shortage of weapons ….." But unless the problem is acknowledged , the Police force and the political establishment cannot even begin to eliminate the virus that seems to have infected the khaki-clad lawman.
"Knowledge and skills are easy to impart to policemen, but it is difficult to inculcate the right attitudes," says Rosha, who was also former director of the National Police Academy. This is the crux of the problem, he suggests. "Whenever the police have failed to act impartially in a crisis, it has mostly been due to poor leadership rather than any bias ingrained in the rank and file. It is the function of a good leader to inspire the force with the correct attitudes."
Training is the must. " A professional police force can only be built upon correct and intensive training," says Rosha, "The role of police leadership crucial in every communal crisis and training should initially focus on senior levels." But unlike Rai, who speaks of the need to rectify the imbalance in the composition of the police, Rosha, whose last posting was in Jammu and Kashmir as director general (security), warns that , "any attempts to have reservations for various communities will only be counter-productive". Nobody who joins the police, he argues, "can be allowed to have the feeling that he represents any particular section or is there to protect any sectarian interest". As the Gore Commission on police training had observed ; "All the modern equipment and training available to the police can achieve nothing if their minds are not prejudices of caste, religion and parochialism."
Rai's study, of course, reveals that the representation of the minorities in the police is disproportionately less than their percentage of population in the country. In some of the communally sensitive states, it is less than 5 percent. In Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra it is 4.2 percent and in Uttar Pradesh 4.9 percent. "It is not just Muslims . " says Y.P.Chibbar, general secretary, Peoples Union of Civil Liberties, "but upper caste Hindus, Christians and other groups who should have greater representation in the police for it become a truly secular outfit."
For Rosha, the administration's failure to put down communal riots is more a failure of governance than an evidence of the prejudices that policemen nurture. "Impartial and determined officers, when they are backed by political will, have shown time and again that communal disturbances can be effectively quelled within hours, if not prevented altogether," he says.
The question is : where is the political will ? As Rosha points out, the communal mob can sense when the administration is dithering and extends its depredations when it comes to believe that persons in authority have sympathy for the 'cause'. In such a situation, it is not difficult for policemen to go astray. Communal bias in the police force is a reality, as Rai has so authoritatively proved, but given a well=intentioned political establishment which is serious about clamping down on troublemakers, it can be keot in check, if not weeded out completely.
"No riot can continue for more than 24 hours unless the state wants it to continue," a serving police officer, then DIG of the BSF, Vibhuti Narain Rai had told CC in the course of a major interview in 1995. Since then, Rai’s bold remarks have been constantly referred to in national discourse on the issue."
During 1947, as the independent nations of Pakistan and India appeared on the political map of the world, violence in the name of religion reached unprecedented magnitude in South Asia. It abated considerably in the Fifties, but since then has steadily grown worse. In Pakistan, where non-Muslims were too few to matter much, Muslim communal passion was first directed against the Ahmadi Muslims, but gradually took on more varied ethnic and sectarian dimensions, pitting the Deobandis against the Barelavis, the Sunnis against the Shi’ahs, the Sindhis against the Muhajirs, and so on. More recently, however, even the minuscule Christian and Hindu populations in Punjab and Sindh have become its victims. In Bangladesh, with its still substantial non-Muslim population, anti-Hindu and anti-Chakma actions by the Muslim majority and by the state itself, have continued without much relief. And in India, where the Muslim minority is large enough to account for almost twelve percent of the population, the phrase “communal riots” has come to be an euphemism for anti-Muslim pogroms directed by certain elements in the majority Hindu community—with the encouragement, even active participation, of those very agencies of the state that are expected to protect the victims. Jabalpur, Jamshedpur, Muradabad, Bhiwandi, Hashimpura and Maliana, Bhagalpur, Baroda and Ahmedabad, and most recently Surat and Bombay of 1993—these are only the most haunting signposts on India’s path of steady decline as a civil polity. To which list we should also add Delhi and Kanpur in the dark days of 1984, when similar pogroms were directed against the Sikhs.
In response to the communal violence at the time of the Partition, a massive body of literature was produced in Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and—what I directly know—Urdu. Urdu writers on both sides of the new international border produced countless short stories and several novels about those times. One critical issue they faced was: how does one create a piece of fiction about a reality so horrible? Some responded by doing a ‘balancing act’—if five victims of one religious persuasion were mentioned in the beginning, they were matched by five victims belonging to the other religion at the end. Some also felt that to bring the warring communities together they must put the final blame on a common enemy: the erstwhile colonial rulers. Other writers wrote as partisans; they saw their own community as being only a victim, and blamed the other community for being the exclusive perpetrator of violence. Most of these writings emphasized the ‘magnitude’ of the violence—the killings, the rapes, the destruction of property, the uprooting of populations. Only a small corpus explored the truly horrific—the casual betrayals, the meanness and cruelty in seemingly ordinary acts, the human capacity to routinize inhumanity—the evil in the ‘banal’. Sa’adat Hasan Manto in his stories of the Partition riots neither blamed any one group nor tried to distribute the blame equally. His significance and the lasting power of his stories lie in his focusing on those moments when a man, despite having done horrible things, could be shown as being still capable of doing ordinary little things. This strategy did not lessen the horror of the man’s actions; in fact, it enhanced it by making them the acts of someone not unlike us. At the same time, it made it possible to envision some hope, some capacity in mankind that could be harnessed to fight against such horrors.
The hatred and violence of 1947 was blamed by most writers at the time on the machinations of our erstwhile colonial rulers. Almost all of them felt that to bring the Hindus and Muslims together they had to find a common enemy in the English. But the events in the 70s and the 80s are different. We must face the fact that ‘the enemy is us’. To my knowledge, literary responses to contemporary communal violence in the sub-continent have not been extensive in any of the three countries and their many languages. For example, in Urdu in India, there are any number of short stories and poems about the present plight of the Muslims, but there are no major novels, anthologies or special issues of magazines. Likewise, I know of no work of imagination in Urdu from Pakistan that tries to explore the trajectory that communal violence has taken there.
In fact, in the sub-continental perspective, one can cite only two books that have made significant impact in this area: Lajja (“Shame”) in Bengali, by the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, and Shahar Mein Karfiyu (“Curfew in the City”) in Hindi, by Vibhuti Narain Rai. Nasrin’s book gained immediate notice in South Asia and abroad due to the fatwa issued against the author. Rai’s book has remained much less known even in India, though it did generate the wrath of some votaries of Hindutva, who successfully prevented it from being made into a film. Both Nasrin and Rai have written about the persecution of minority communities by the majority communities to which they themselves belong in their respective countries. Otherwise, the two books are very different.
Nasrin’s linear narrative covers thirteen days in the life a Hindu family in Dhaka in 1992 with considerable speed and passion; it also contains lengthy segments of a purely documentary nature. The latter generally dismayed the reviewers in Bangladesh and India. But the novelist Amitav Ghosh more accurately understood the aims of Nasrin’s narrative when he wrote in The Telegraph of 24 June 1994: “...taken on its own terms, the book’s strength can be seen to lie precisely in what appear to be its formal weakness. In its breakneck urgency, its direct and unembellished Bengali prose, in the narrative inseparability of its fictional and documentary material, in its polemical repetitiveness and its undisguised emotional immediacy.” He then went on to compare Nasrin with the Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawy, and argued that the two “have pioneered one of the most powerful forms of our times. The polemiction—polemical fictions that are perhaps the most appropriate possible literary response to the oppressive banality of contemporary religious extremism.” In another way too, these documentary sections are exactly what makes Lajja so significant. They give names and professions and homes of those who otherwise get mentioned only as anonymous statistics. Nasrin wishes us not to forget those ordinary details that make these victims of communal fanaticism not unlike their enemies—in the end, so like us.
Rai’s novella is not ‘polemiction’. It is, in fact, quite modest in ambition and execution. Though begun in 1980, in reposnse to a riot in Allahabad that he personally observed as the Senior Superintendent of Police there, the book came out only in 1988. Its episodic narrative covers three days in the life of a small neighborhood in Allahabad under the grip of a curfew during the riot. Divided into nine short chapters, it alternates between the story of Sayeeda, the wife of a bidi-maker, and her family, claustrophobic in effect in being confined to their one-room house; and other simultaneous events that take place elsewhere. That ‘elsewhere’ is spatially more open and varied, but—affected by the curfew—equally distorted and horrifying. The two progressions meet in the penultimate chapter, where a police party conducts ‘searches’ in Muslim homes—the home of a nationalist lawyer, Sayeeda’s home, and the palatial compound of the Haji. At the end of the book, the curfew continues. Despite a few instances of authorial interventions, Rai seems to strive for a cool, sometimes ironic and detached voice. Nevertheless, he too wants us to come close to the victims of violence and persecution through our knowledge of their ordinariness. Thus Sayeeda, perhaps the central character in his novella, is not just a grief-stricken mother whose baby daughter dies during the curfew but also a rural person who hates using the latrine in her new home in the city.
Rai’s narrative is not about the ‘riot’ itself, or rather it is not about the killing and pillaging and raping, the events that were very much the focus of the narratives of the stories that were written about the riots of 1946 and 1947. It is not a story of people gone barbaric in the heat of a moment of passion or revenge. It is about cold, calculated greed and blind, senseless hatred. Consider the chapter of ‘rape’. One may say that Rai is being too artful. The girl remains without a name, so do her assailants. But consider what has been told implicitly. Her family has the values that encourage education for girls, but not the resources to maintain those values safely. Her mother sews clothes for a dealer; she has to look after her younger siblings and do all the housework. She has an ‘affair’ with a young man from her neighborhood, but we are told what inevitably happened in such ‘affairs’. She is knitting a sweater for the boy from some worn and discarded wool. He hopes to buy her a shawl by taking out some money from the little he earns and —according to his values—must put in his mother’s hands. Theirs is not a romance that would shake the world, not something that bards will sing about. The girls goes to school on the fateful day, against the wishes of her mother; the boy does not stir out, obedient to his mother’s command. The girl is also abandoned by the school authorities who make no effort to send the girls home in safety. (But did they have the needed resources?) Running in panic, the girl finds herself in a lane that—in her panic—looks strange to her but is in fact not far from her own alley. There, three men, themselves hiding for safety in their milling shop, drag her inside and rape her. She calls them bhaiya (“brothers”), they call themselves “sister-fuckers.” The incident is seen by others, but no one comes to the girl’s help. Fearful, they are themselves cowering in their meager homes. In a milieu where a name indicates the person’s religion and much more, Rai has a clear purpose in keeping the victim and the assailants nameless.
More complex but similar in intentions is the chapter with Devi Lal, the neighborhood drunk. Here we are told that the lane is ‘Hindu’. Of course, its physical condition turns out to be not much different from the neighboring ‘Muslim’ lane—they perhaps share the same filthy, open sewer. But in the ‘Hindu’ lane, the residents are free to move. Stragglers come home, bringing incredible tales of Muslim atrocities. Gossip flows. The local drunk gains a respectability that he had not known before. Then a police party arrives; it demands and receives hospitality from the residents. The children who had earlier shouted a comic doggerel about Devi Lal, now run around shouting a slogan declaring solidarity between the police and the Hindus, making the Muslims their common enemy. Meanwhile, a different, more ordinary drama has been going on at one end of the lane, where some of the local Lotharios are waiting to flirt with the daughters of the only local Muslim resident, a tailor. Their impatience makes them throw a rock at the tailor’s door. The noise causes a general panic. When the truth dawns on the elders of the lane they suddenly become aware of the tailor’s presence in their midst. They want to reassure him but he never opens his door. Then they recall that he always did that in every previous riot. Now the children take up another slogan, left over from the elections held not too long ago, and turn it into a declaration of solidarity with the tailor, Yusuf.
Most of the narrative is about the death and burial of Sayeeda’s daughter. The little girl dies of cholera, but she also dies because she couldn’t get proper medicine, because she lived in terrible conditions where survival was almost impossible. She died, as had so many other children in that family and in that neighborhood. But the curfew that deprived her of better medical treatment, now almost deprives her of a proper burial. Her grandfather has to risk his body, even life, to go and get curfew passes to take the dead body to the graveyard in the morning. Her grandmother has to take similar risks to bring water from the public tap in order to wash the corpse. In fact, the tiny corpse barely escapes being crushed under the boots of a police party that is going around ‘doing searches’ for weapons.
The riot itself is not mentioned at all. There is only the briefest mention of some small explosive device being thrown against a temple wall that causes no damage. But immediately the existing fears and suspicions take over, a curfew is imposed by the authorities, and the city becomes divided into ‘Muslim’ and ‘Hindu’ neighborhoods.
The narrative focuses on how the curfew affects the simple, mundane matters in the lives of ordinary people: a sick child cannot get medicine; a family cannot get drinking water; a girl cannot walk down the street in safety; people cannot even stay indoor in security; a dead child cannot easily be given a decent burial. But political and civic leaders and journalists and authorities go on living their lives of privilege. They do not lose their privileges. The under-privileged are denied even the little they had. There is a nexus of interests between the leaders, the journalists, and authorities.
The role of the police and the PAC is separated from that of the BSF and the army, as has often been mentioned in the narratives of the victims of riots in the past. The police is shown to contain blatantly communal personnel, both in high and low positions. There seems to be no Muslim in the bureaucracy, civil or police. Also missing are ideologues and rabble rousers of the type often mentioned with reference to communalistic political parties. But their presence is felt in the background. We see the authorities in action as they conduct searches and hold a peace committee meeting. The flagrant criminality of the searches is in marked contrast to the utter hypocrisy and self-serving of the peace committee proceedings. We know that both activities will be reported in the official record as well as in the journalists’ accounts, but not the way the author has shown them. It is not an ambitious book. One may even call it slight. Hindi literary critic pointed out its journalistic quality. The author himself was not unaware of it. In an interview in 1991, he remarked, “I concede that it appears to be more a piece of reportage than fiction proper—reflective and contemplative. In part this is a consequence of haste, but it was also deliberate. I wanted it to assume a certain form. I should like to think, however, that given more time and effort [it] would have become a better work of art.”
What, nevertheless, makes it deserving of our fullest attention is one simple fact: in this novel, the author and the citizen have become one. Also, it is, after all, an insider’s narrative. This is not a left-handed compliment. In a society where literacy is not so common, where citizens of India have fought in two world wars and at least three other wars but have yet to produce one novel, one poem written by someone who actually went through those wars, where hardly any bureaucrat or academician or doctor has produced a book of imaginative literature dealing with his particular profession or milieu, we should be grateful that now a police officer has written a novel about something which involved him professionally. He remembered what he saw. That is the main thing. Forgetfulness is the worst crime in these times when history and memory are both being suppressed or distorted for instant gratification of the worst kind—and at a cost to those who have remained unmentioned in conventional chronicles, or mentioned only as statistics, nameless, even bodiless.
The book went through two editions in three years, and in March 1991 a journalist in Allahabad announced his plans to make a feature film based on it. It was this announcement that brought forth a “fatwa” from Shri Ashok Singhal, the Secretary-General of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Not surprisingly, he had not even bothered to read the book, for he advised Mr. Rai to resign from the government service before publishing his book. More effectively, he threatened to burn down any cinema house that would dare to show the proposed film. Though Hindi literati came out in full force to denounce the threat, the film was never made.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that Rai, after finishing the novel, did not complacently sit back. Instead, he took time out from his professional work to do research on the violent behavior of the police in Indian civil life as a whole. It should also be noted with some satisfaction that his research was supported by the National Police Academy. Some of his findings and reflections are included in the afterword he specially wrote for this book.
Vibhuti Narain Rai, born on 28 Nov. 1951, is an IPS officer of 1975 batch allotted to UP cadre. He is an acknowledged fiction writer of Hindi . His novel Shahar Mein Curfew has been widely talked about and was translated in English, Urdu, Punjabi,Bangla and Marathi. He is well known as an activist who has been fighting against obscurantist and communalists in the Indian society. He established a library in his village Jokehara, Azamgarh to promote the culture of book reading.
Vibhuti Narain Rai- A profile
Vibhuti Narain Rai- A profile
Vibhuti Narain Rai (28th of November 1951) did M.A. in English Literature from Allahabad University in the year 1971.He joined Indian Police Service in 1975 and was allotted UP cadre. He served many sensitive districts as Superintendent of Police. He was on deputation to Govt. Of India for ten years from 1992 to 2001. His deputation included posting in anti insurgency operations in Kashmir Valley during 1993-94. Presently he is working as Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwvidyalaya Wardha, Maharashtra. He has been awarded President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Services and Police Medal for Meritorious Services. Apart from being a distinguished police officer Vibhuti Narain Rai is an acclaimed Hindi writer of repute. He has written five novels – Ghar, Shahar Mein Curfew .Kissa Loktantra, Tabadla and Prem Ki Bhoot Katha and all of them were received warmly by the critics and readers of Hindi .His novel Shahar Mein Curfew was translated in English, Urdu, Punjabi, Bangla, Marathi and Kannad.Other novels were also translated in many languages. He also writes satires and his collection of satires Ek Chhatra Neta Ka Rojnamcha was widely appreciated. National Police Academy , Hyderabad awarded him a fellowship on Police Neutrality during Communal strife. He produced a wonderful book out of this fellowship. This book Combating Communal Conflict was translated in Hindi and Urdu and is considered an authority on relationship of minorities with the state. The novel Tabadla was awarded prestigious Indu Sharma Antarrastriya Katha Samman of London . Another novel Kissa Loktantra was honoured by Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan. Vibhuti Narain Rai is the founder editor of Vartman Sahitya, a leading Hindi Literary Magazine which is being published for last twenty years. He has been writing regular columns in various Hindi Magazines like Vagarth and Anyatha. Vibhuti Narain Rai has been an activist also who has been fighting against the fundamentalist and obscurantist forces of the country. Specially his novel Shahar Mein Curfew invited the wrath of these forces who even demanded ban on it. His book Combating Communal Conflict has been widely quoted by scholars working on communalism .He is invited by National and International bodies working on Communalism on issues related to state response to communal violence. As an activist he has established a library in his native village in a backward area of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. This library Sri Ramanand Saraswati Pustakalaya ,Azamgarh was established to promote the culture of book reading and during it’s existence of 15 years it has become a prestigious cultural centre of the country which has developed a meaningful relationship with institutions like Sahitya Academy. National Book Trust and National School of Drama
Vibhuti Narain Rai addressing a gathering in the library established by him in his village
Letter addressed to all IPS officers of the country during Gujrat riots of 2002
Dear Colleague,
I am writing to you at a very difficult time as an Indian Police Service officer and with a sense of anguish. The recent events related to the communal holocaust in Gujarat are a matter of great concern for the country and should inspire serious introspection among all of us IPS officers. The terrible carnage that occurred at Godhra was an early warning of the fact that big events of communal destruction could occur the next day all over the State and the expectation from a professional police force was that it would oppose all actions of revenge and counter-violence with all the force that it could muster. But this did not happen. Not only was the police unsuccessful in containing the violence of the next few days but, it seemed, that in many places policemen were actively encouraging the rioters. The failure of the police should not be attributed to the lower ranks but must be seen as a failure of leadership, that is, a failure of the IPS.
The events that followed the beastly incident at Godhra did not surprise a person like myself who is not only a police officer but also a keen student of social behaviour. The same old story was repeated everywhere from Ahmedabad, the capital, to the rural areas. Since l960, in almost all riots that have occurred, the same picture has been painted in the same colours, a picture of a helpless and often actively inactive police force that allowed wailing members of the minority community to be looted and killed in its presence, that remained a mute witness to some of their members being burnt alive.
Whatever may be my concerns as an ordinary citizen, as a police officer, my greatest concern is the preservation of the professional character of the police force. An insensitive chief minister can pat his incompetent police force on the back and the senior police leadership can also blame the ‘misleading media’ and the ‘anti-national minorities’ for any criticism made of its handling of the situation. But the truth is that after every riot the same criticism is made of the police, that of its not only having failed to protect the lives and property of the minorities but of siding with Hindu rioters and encouraging them. And after this recent rioting also the same criticism is being levelled against the Gujarat police.
Whatever happened in Gujarat is not something new. It only once again underlines the fact that the senior leadership of the police will have to sit down and think as to why after every riot the same story is repeated: that of incompetence, inactivity and criminal negligence. Until we accept that all is not in order in our own house, nothing can be put right.
The first: institutionalised opposition to communal violence is initiated by the police. This occurs at several levels: collection of intelligence before the outbreak of violence, preventive measures while tension is escalating, use of force to stop violence and, after peace is restored, initiation of legal proceedings against the guilty. These are some of the steps taken by the police to combat communal riots. None of these steps can be taken effectively if we ourselves are infected with a communal bias.
For an average policeman, collection of intelligence is limited to gathering of information about the activities of communal Muslim organisations. It is not easy to make him realise that the activities of Hindu communal organisations also come under the purview of anti-national activities and, therefore, it is necessary to keep an eye on their activities also. It is a fact that very little input on the activities of communal Hindu organisations and their activists is to be found in the police station records.
Similarly, preventive arrests, even in riot situations in which Muslims are the worst sufferers, are restricted to members of the minority community. Further, even where Muslims are being attacked and the police resorts to firing, their main targets are Muslims. House-searches and arrests reveal the same bias.
What happened in Gujarat was a repetition of the above but on an unprecedented scale where the extent of violence and destruction was unparalleled and one-sided. The other difference was that for the first time the inaction, connivance and bias of the police were all on display on television screens in every Indian (and many foreign) homes. Now we have lost even the fig-leaf of alleged misrepresentation by the print-media.
It may be relevant to mention here that on many occassions when leadership was provided which was professionally sound and free from any communal bias, the same bunch of policemen have won confidence of various sections of society and made their organisations proud of them. The old truism is borne out that generals fail and not the troops. Very often the officers blame lower ranks of the force for their inability to control communal conflicts effectively. But we have seen even in the recent Gujarat happenings that in the midst of failures there were success stories in which upright IPS officers led their men from the front and ensured that there was no loss of life and property in their area of responsibility.
It is a sad fact that police-officers who have not just failed to control riot situations but who have actually given them their active support have not been punished in even one instance. The anti-Sikh riots of l984, especially in the capital of the country, one of the best-policed cities, saw the killings of thousands of Sikhs that could not have taken place without the active connivance of police. Despite indictments not only by the press but by several inquiry commissions, in some of which distinguished IPS officers like Sri Padma Rosha were also involved, not one police officer was punished and none of their careers was adversely affected. The Madon Commission and Srikrishna Commissions have suffered the same fate.
It is very clear that no outside agency can reform us. This is a job we will have to do ourselves. If we have any sense of pride left in the service to which we belong which has had an illustrious past and has enjoyed great prestige in the country, the time has come for us to set about this task in right earnest. We must call a general house of the Central IPS Association and demand that the government take action against Gujarat officers who have failed in their primary duty to maintain law and order and prevent violence; and against all officers who have failed in similar situations since l984. We should not treat the association as a trade union body to fight for better pay and service conditions but as a medium to improve the service itself. If the government does not take any action, the very least that we can do is remove such officers from the membership of the Association.
Hoping to hear from many of you shortly,
— Vibhuti Narain Rai, IPS (UP, RR,3 l975).
I am writing to you at a very difficult time as an Indian Police Service officer and with a sense of anguish. The recent events related to the communal holocaust in Gujarat are a matter of great concern for the country and should inspire serious introspection among all of us IPS officers. The terrible carnage that occurred at Godhra was an early warning of the fact that big events of communal destruction could occur the next day all over the State and the expectation from a professional police force was that it would oppose all actions of revenge and counter-violence with all the force that it could muster. But this did not happen. Not only was the police unsuccessful in containing the violence of the next few days but, it seemed, that in many places policemen were actively encouraging the rioters. The failure of the police should not be attributed to the lower ranks but must be seen as a failure of leadership, that is, a failure of the IPS.
The events that followed the beastly incident at Godhra did not surprise a person like myself who is not only a police officer but also a keen student of social behaviour. The same old story was repeated everywhere from Ahmedabad, the capital, to the rural areas. Since l960, in almost all riots that have occurred, the same picture has been painted in the same colours, a picture of a helpless and often actively inactive police force that allowed wailing members of the minority community to be looted and killed in its presence, that remained a mute witness to some of their members being burnt alive.
Whatever may be my concerns as an ordinary citizen, as a police officer, my greatest concern is the preservation of the professional character of the police force. An insensitive chief minister can pat his incompetent police force on the back and the senior police leadership can also blame the ‘misleading media’ and the ‘anti-national minorities’ for any criticism made of its handling of the situation. But the truth is that after every riot the same criticism is made of the police, that of its not only having failed to protect the lives and property of the minorities but of siding with Hindu rioters and encouraging them. And after this recent rioting also the same criticism is being levelled against the Gujarat police.
Whatever happened in Gujarat is not something new. It only once again underlines the fact that the senior leadership of the police will have to sit down and think as to why after every riot the same story is repeated: that of incompetence, inactivity and criminal negligence. Until we accept that all is not in order in our own house, nothing can be put right.
The first: institutionalised opposition to communal violence is initiated by the police. This occurs at several levels: collection of intelligence before the outbreak of violence, preventive measures while tension is escalating, use of force to stop violence and, after peace is restored, initiation of legal proceedings against the guilty. These are some of the steps taken by the police to combat communal riots. None of these steps can be taken effectively if we ourselves are infected with a communal bias.
For an average policeman, collection of intelligence is limited to gathering of information about the activities of communal Muslim organisations. It is not easy to make him realise that the activities of Hindu communal organisations also come under the purview of anti-national activities and, therefore, it is necessary to keep an eye on their activities also. It is a fact that very little input on the activities of communal Hindu organisations and their activists is to be found in the police station records.
Similarly, preventive arrests, even in riot situations in which Muslims are the worst sufferers, are restricted to members of the minority community. Further, even where Muslims are being attacked and the police resorts to firing, their main targets are Muslims. House-searches and arrests reveal the same bias.
What happened in Gujarat was a repetition of the above but on an unprecedented scale where the extent of violence and destruction was unparalleled and one-sided. The other difference was that for the first time the inaction, connivance and bias of the police were all on display on television screens in every Indian (and many foreign) homes. Now we have lost even the fig-leaf of alleged misrepresentation by the print-media.
It may be relevant to mention here that on many occassions when leadership was provided which was professionally sound and free from any communal bias, the same bunch of policemen have won confidence of various sections of society and made their organisations proud of them. The old truism is borne out that generals fail and not the troops. Very often the officers blame lower ranks of the force for their inability to control communal conflicts effectively. But we have seen even in the recent Gujarat happenings that in the midst of failures there were success stories in which upright IPS officers led their men from the front and ensured that there was no loss of life and property in their area of responsibility.
It is a sad fact that police-officers who have not just failed to control riot situations but who have actually given them their active support have not been punished in even one instance. The anti-Sikh riots of l984, especially in the capital of the country, one of the best-policed cities, saw the killings of thousands of Sikhs that could not have taken place without the active connivance of police. Despite indictments not only by the press but by several inquiry commissions, in some of which distinguished IPS officers like Sri Padma Rosha were also involved, not one police officer was punished and none of their careers was adversely affected. The Madon Commission and Srikrishna Commissions have suffered the same fate.
It is very clear that no outside agency can reform us. This is a job we will have to do ourselves. If we have any sense of pride left in the service to which we belong which has had an illustrious past and has enjoyed great prestige in the country, the time has come for us to set about this task in right earnest. We must call a general house of the Central IPS Association and demand that the government take action against Gujarat officers who have failed in their primary duty to maintain law and order and prevent violence; and against all officers who have failed in similar situations since l984. We should not treat the association as a trade union body to fight for better pay and service conditions but as a medium to improve the service itself. If the government does not take any action, the very least that we can do is remove such officers from the membership of the Association.
Hoping to hear from many of you shortly,
— Vibhuti Narain Rai, IPS (UP, RR,3 l975).
Vibhuti Narain Rai in SRSP
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Dark Facts Behind The Men In Khaki- August 24, 1998
A recently released study by a senior cop unmasks the bias that infects the police during communal riots
By : Saibal Chattergy:
During the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Taran Gujral, a Punjabi writer and principal of a Kanpur college, discovered the bitter truth quite by accident. She realized , perhaps for the first time in her life, how misplaced her faith in the police force was. Her locality was surrounded by a frenzied mob and an armed attack was imminent. She telephoned the police control room for help. The response was derisive laughter and a curt" Hum bhi Hindu hain (after all, we too are Hindus)".
The account of a hapless lady's experience in the face of a grave threat to her life and property is only one of the many shocking stories about partisan policemen that Vibhuti Narain Rai, inspector-general , BSF, unearthed during a path-breaking research project that confirmed his worst fears. His conclusion :the police force does indeed suffer from a pronounced communal bias during riots.
The man khaki is the most visible, if not always the most potent, symbol of State power. Under the rule of law, it is his job to protect every citizen, no matter which religion he or she professes. But when he is put to his severest test in a communal riot situation, does he stay true to his uniform ? Does he forget that he is a policemen first , a Hindu or Muslim later? According to Rai's dissertation, commissioned by the National Police Academy, Hyderabad, he doesn't . Because of the irrational prejudices that policemen often demonstrate during Hindu-Muslim riots, the minorities have lost faith in the ability, perhaps even the inclination, of the force to deliver justice.
Rai, who was the superintendent of police, Ghaziabad, when the Meerut riots of 1987 happened, bases his candid conclusion on interviews with riot victims-200 Hindus and an equal number of Muslims-as well as 50-odd serving and retired police officers. "I identified 10 riots which were major in terms of the physical and psychological damage they wrought, and where the conduct of the law-enforcing agencies came in for sharp criticism," says the 47-year-old police officer who has another significant identity. That of a Hindi litterateur with five novels to his credit. Rai also edits a literary magazine.
Backed by figures drawn from the files of the Home Ministry and the Police Bureau of Research and Development as well as a thorough analysis of the Data yielded by his survey, Rai's dissertation also belong to the minority community. "This defies logic," says Rai. "If 80 percent of the victims are Muslims, it must follow that Hindus would constitute at least 60 to 70 percent of those arrested. But that never happens."
Is it any wonder, then , that 97 percent of 200 Muslim respondents told Rai that they regarded the civil police as their enemy, while over 71 percent of the Hindus interviewed by the senior police officer said they considered the force to be a friend ? "There is a grave danger inherent in this situation," warns Rai. "When the minorities lose faith in the police force, it means that they have lost faith in the State. They become easy prey to Organisations like the ISI. That is when Mumbai and Coimbatore happen."
Forty-eight percent of the police officer interviewed responded in the affirmative to the query : "Have you ever noticed a communal bias in the behaviour of police men during a communal riot?" And 52 percent said no. Significantly , officers from southern India were almost unanimous that the virus of communalism has not affected the force. Officers from the north, or from the states where communal riots have become a regular occurrence , admitted to policemen behaving in a less than fair manner,
The Srikrishna commission report has vindicated Rai's stand. But it is difficult to get the police leadership to accept the findings of his gutsy study. The National Police Academy, which had granted Rai a fellowship to pursue the project, found the findings unpalatable and quickly disowned them. It was left to the National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, to publish the dissertation. In his foreword to the book, Padam Rosha, who retired as a director-general of police 17 years ago, writes : "I strongly suggest that this study should be made compulsory reading for all officers of the administration and the police."
Sys Rai, "The initial impulse is to deny the accusation of communal bias. And when they are confronted with facts that can not be challenged, the police leadership comes up with other usual alibis : Limited manpower, lack of vehicles, shortage of weapons ….." But unless the problem is acknowledged , the Police force and the political establishment cannot even begin to eliminate the virus that seems to have infected the khaki-clad lawman.
"Knowledge and skills are easy to impart to policemen, but it is difficult to inculcate the right attitudes," says Rosha, who was also former director of the National Police Academy. This is the crux of the problem, he suggests. "Whenever the police have failed to act impartially in a crisis, it has mostly been due to poor leadership rather than any bias ingrained in the rank and file. It is the function of a good leader to inspire the force with the correct attitudes."
Training is the must. " A professional police force can only be built upon correct and intensive training," says Rosha, "The role of police leadership crucial in every communal crisis and training should initially focus on senior levels." But unlike Rai, who speaks of the need to rectify the imbalance in the composition of the police, Rosha, whose last posting was in Jammu and Kashmir as director general (security), warns that , "any attempts to have reservations for various communities will only be counter-productive". Nobody who joins the police, he argues, "can be allowed to have the feeling that he represents any particular section or is there to protect any sectarian interest". As the Gore Commission on police training had observed ; "All the modern equipment and training available to the police can achieve nothing if their minds are not prejudices of caste, religion and parochialism."
Rai's study, of course, reveals that the representation of the minorities in the police is disproportionately less than their percentage of population in the country. In some of the communally sensitive states, it is less than 5 percent. In Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra it is 4.2 percent and in Uttar Pradesh 4.9 percent. "It is not just Muslims . " says Y.P.Chibbar, general secretary, Peoples Union of Civil Liberties, "but upper caste Hindus, Christians and other groups who should have greater representation in the police for it become a truly secular outfit."
For Rosha, the administration's failure to put down communal riots is more a failure of governance than an evidence of the prejudices that policemen nurture. "Impartial and determined officers, when they are backed by political will, have shown time and again that communal disturbances can be effectively quelled within hours, if not prevented altogether," he says.
The question is : where is the political will ? As Rosha points out, the communal mob can sense when the administration is dithering and extends its depredations when it comes to believe that persons in authority have sympathy for the 'cause'. In such a situation, it is not difficult for policemen to go astray. Communal bias in the police force is a reality, as Rai has so authoritatively proved, but given a well=intentioned political establishment which is serious about clamping down on troublemakers, it can be keot in check, if not weeded out completely.
Reading Hall of Sri Ramanand Saraswati Pustkalaya
Communalism Combat
"No riot can continue for more than 24 hours unless the state wants it to continue," a serving police officer, then DIG of the BSF, Vibhuti Narain Rai had told CC in the course of a major interview in 1995. Since then, Rai’s bold remarks have been constantly referred to in national discourse on the issue."
Justice out of sight-Siddharth Narrain
hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?...&date=fl2210/&prd=fline
Trial in the Hashimpura massacre case, in which personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary in Uttar Pradesh allegedly shot dead 42 Muslims in May 1987, is yet to begin in earnest.
EIGHTEEN years after the Hashimpura massacre in Uttar Pradesh, in which members of the State Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) allegedly shot dead 42 Muslim men, no charge has been framed in the criminal trial. Even after the case was transferred from the Ghaziabad court to Tis Hazari on the orders of the Supreme Court, the Uttar Pradesh government has shown little interest in pursuing the prosecution of the 19 accused police personnel. During the communal violence in Meerut in May 1987. The Hashimpura massacre occurred during the communal riots that broke out in Meerut in May 1987 (Cover Story, Frontline, May 30-June 12, 1987). Apparently, the immediate provocation was the Rajiv Gandhi-led Central government's decision to open the Babri Masjid for worship by Hindus. In April several areas of Meerut city were affected by communal violence during the Muslim festival of Shab-e-Barat. But the Congress government in U.P., headed by Vir Bahadur Singh, withdrew the security forces soon after the violence subsided. Meerut exploded again, and the State government was caught unawares. Thousands of people, incited by inflammatory speeches and slogans broadcast over the public address system, barricaded the national highway and burnt factories, shops, houses, vehicles and petrol pumps. The scale of the riots can be imagined from the fact that 50 gazetted police officers and more than 60 companies of the PAC, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and later, the Army, had to be pressed into service.
Curfew was imposed and PAC personnel conducted searches in several Muslim localities in the city. On May 22, 1987, they booked hundreds of Muslim youth from Hashimpura, though there was no rioting in that area of Meerut city. Nineteen PAC personnel, under platoon commander Surinder Pal Singh, allegedly took about 50 of them, most of them daily wage labourers and poor weavers, in a van from Hashimpura Mohalla in Meerut to the Upper Ganga canal in Murad Nagar, Ghaziabad, instead of taking them to the police station. They then shot some of them, one by one, and threw them into the canal. A bullet injured one of the PAC constables. Four of those shot escaped and one of them filed a first information report (FIR) at the Murad Nagar Police Station. The remaining men were taken in the truck to the Hindon Canal in Makanpur and shot. Two of the persons who were shot survived and lodged an FIR at the Link Road Police Station.
The horrific incident outraged sections of the media and minority rights organisations. The State government announced a compensation of Rs.20,000 for the victims. The People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking more compensation and an inquiry into the incident. The Supreme Court directed the State government to pay an additional compensation of Rs.20,000 to each of the families of the victims. In 1988, the State government ordered an inquiry by the Crime Branch Central Investigation Department (CBCID). The CBCID's report, submitted to the State government in 1994, was never made public. In 1995, some of the victims moved the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court to make the report public and to prosecute those indicted in it. The petition sought an increase in the compensation amount to Rs.1 lakh. The petition is pending before the High Court. The CBCID, in its affidavit, has detailed the findings of its investigation, describing the events that led to the deaths. Hindon Canal, where bodies of the men killed allegedly by PAC personnel were found.
During the CBCID inquiry, Sub-Inspector Virendra Singh, who was in charge of the Link Road Police Station, said that when he received information about what had happened he set off towards the Hindon Canal. On his way, he saw a PAC truck heading back from the place where the incident occurred. He then tried chasing the truck and saw it enter 41st Vahini, a camp of the PAC. The gatekeeper on night duty stopped it. Soon, Vibhuti Narain Rai, Superintendent of Police, Ghaziabad, and Naseem Zaidi, District Magistrate, Ghaziabad, reached 41st Vahini. They tried getting the truck traced through senior PAC officers, but to no avail.
The CBCID identified 13 of the 16 bodies recovered from the Hindon Canal and filed the charge-sheet against 19 of the PAC personnel under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Since most of the accused were public servants, the State government's sanction under Section 197 was needed to prosecute them. The policemen were accused of murder, attempt to murder and destruction of evidence. The charge-sheet was filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Ghaziabad. (Framing of charges is a step in the subsequent stage, in which the accused are intimated about the nature of the accusation.)
The CJM issued warrants to the accused policemen asking them to appear before the court. When the accused did not appear before the court, bailable warrants were issued six times between January 1997 and February 1998. Later non-bailable warrants were issued 17 times between April 1998 and April 2000. But the accused evaded the summons.
The Minorities Council of India, an Aligarh-based organisation, then stepped in and made a representation to the National Commission for Minorities. Finally, as a consequence of public pressure, 16 of the 19 accused surrendered in groups in May 2000, 13 years after the incident. Although their bail applications were initially rejected by the CJM, the accused managed to obtain bail from the court of the District Judge, Ghaziabad. While granting bail, the Judge said that since the accused were members of the PAC, there was no chance of them absconding. Since then, the case has been repeatedly delayed. The case was committed for trial to the District and Sessions Judge, who transferred the case to the Additional District Sessions Judge-IV, Ghaziabad. In 2001, the victims filed a petition before the Supreme Court asking for the case to be transferred from Ghaziabad to New Delhi as the conditions there would be more conducive to the trial. The Supreme Court transferred the case to Tis Hazari in New Delhi. But the case was still to be argued by a Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) appointed by the U.P. government.
When the case was finally fixed for arguments on charge, there was no such SPP. In February 2004, the court issued notice to the Director-General of Police (DGP) and the Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh to appear in person. When the government did appoint an SPP, the victims were not happy because they felt he was not qualified enough. He was removed after they complained. In November 2004, the government appointed Surinder Adlakha SPP, but he is yet to start the arguments on charge. Said Mohammad Yamin, ex-counsellor and social worker: "This case is about the first instance in which those who were appointed to keep the peace carried out attacks in cold blood. Yet, the Uttar Pradesh government has delayed the matter." One of the lawyers representing the Hashimpura complainants, Vrinda Grover, feels that the victims have the right to be consulted before the SPP is appointed.
Meanwhile, one of the accused has died and the case before R.K. Jain, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Tis Hazari, was delayed because another accused was in jail in Varanasi for allegedly murdering four persons, including three PAC personnel, in Azamgarh. The lawyers appointed by the court to assist the SPP feel that the State police did not investigate the case properly and that the Sub-Inspector in charge of the Link Road Police Station should have collected more evidence from the scene of the incident. Said Rebecca John, a counsel for the Hashimpura complainants: "We are looking at the possibility of arguing that the deaths amounted to custodial deaths since they occurred when the victims were in the custody of the PAC. If the court accepts the argument that these were custody deaths, the onus will shift to the accused to prove that they are not guilty."
The Hashimpura massacre proves how difficult it is to prosecute police personnel accused of communal crimes. According to Vibhuti Narain Rai, who was the Superintendent of Police, Ghaziabad, when the massacre took place, most of the police personnel posted in Meerut thought the riots were a result of Muslim mischief. They believed that Meerut had become a "mini-Pakistan" because of "Muslim intransigence" and that it was necessary to teach the community a lesson. This bias is only exacerbated by the State's reluctance to prosecute police personnel as seen in the Hashimpura trial.
Vibhuti Narain Rai, who is currently the Additional Director-General of Police (Railways), Allahabad, said: "The fight against communalisation requires drastic changes in the policy of recruitment, training and syllabi of the police. The percentage of minorities, especially Muslims, is only 5 to 6 per cent in most States. I can say from 30 years of experience in the Police Department that this is the result of a deep and inherent communal bias in the leadership of the police. There are hundreds of government directives to recruit minorities into the department, but these are often flouted. Unless we reserve some seats for minorities, their quota will never be filled."
The Hashimpura massacre also highlights the need to scrutinise the role of public prosecutors who, in many trials related to communal crimes, including the Gujarat anti-minority pogrom, have helped the State to protect the accused.
Trial in the Hashimpura massacre case, in which personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary in Uttar Pradesh allegedly shot dead 42 Muslims in May 1987, is yet to begin in earnest.
EIGHTEEN years after the Hashimpura massacre in Uttar Pradesh, in which members of the State Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) allegedly shot dead 42 Muslim men, no charge has been framed in the criminal trial. Even after the case was transferred from the Ghaziabad court to Tis Hazari on the orders of the Supreme Court, the Uttar Pradesh government has shown little interest in pursuing the prosecution of the 19 accused police personnel. During the communal violence in Meerut in May 1987. The Hashimpura massacre occurred during the communal riots that broke out in Meerut in May 1987 (Cover Story, Frontline, May 30-June 12, 1987). Apparently, the immediate provocation was the Rajiv Gandhi-led Central government's decision to open the Babri Masjid for worship by Hindus. In April several areas of Meerut city were affected by communal violence during the Muslim festival of Shab-e-Barat. But the Congress government in U.P., headed by Vir Bahadur Singh, withdrew the security forces soon after the violence subsided. Meerut exploded again, and the State government was caught unawares. Thousands of people, incited by inflammatory speeches and slogans broadcast over the public address system, barricaded the national highway and burnt factories, shops, houses, vehicles and petrol pumps. The scale of the riots can be imagined from the fact that 50 gazetted police officers and more than 60 companies of the PAC, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and later, the Army, had to be pressed into service.
Curfew was imposed and PAC personnel conducted searches in several Muslim localities in the city. On May 22, 1987, they booked hundreds of Muslim youth from Hashimpura, though there was no rioting in that area of Meerut city. Nineteen PAC personnel, under platoon commander Surinder Pal Singh, allegedly took about 50 of them, most of them daily wage labourers and poor weavers, in a van from Hashimpura Mohalla in Meerut to the Upper Ganga canal in Murad Nagar, Ghaziabad, instead of taking them to the police station. They then shot some of them, one by one, and threw them into the canal. A bullet injured one of the PAC constables. Four of those shot escaped and one of them filed a first information report (FIR) at the Murad Nagar Police Station. The remaining men were taken in the truck to the Hindon Canal in Makanpur and shot. Two of the persons who were shot survived and lodged an FIR at the Link Road Police Station.
The horrific incident outraged sections of the media and minority rights organisations. The State government announced a compensation of Rs.20,000 for the victims. The People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking more compensation and an inquiry into the incident. The Supreme Court directed the State government to pay an additional compensation of Rs.20,000 to each of the families of the victims. In 1988, the State government ordered an inquiry by the Crime Branch Central Investigation Department (CBCID). The CBCID's report, submitted to the State government in 1994, was never made public. In 1995, some of the victims moved the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court to make the report public and to prosecute those indicted in it. The petition sought an increase in the compensation amount to Rs.1 lakh. The petition is pending before the High Court. The CBCID, in its affidavit, has detailed the findings of its investigation, describing the events that led to the deaths. Hindon Canal, where bodies of the men killed allegedly by PAC personnel were found.
During the CBCID inquiry, Sub-Inspector Virendra Singh, who was in charge of the Link Road Police Station, said that when he received information about what had happened he set off towards the Hindon Canal. On his way, he saw a PAC truck heading back from the place where the incident occurred. He then tried chasing the truck and saw it enter 41st Vahini, a camp of the PAC. The gatekeeper on night duty stopped it. Soon, Vibhuti Narain Rai, Superintendent of Police, Ghaziabad, and Naseem Zaidi, District Magistrate, Ghaziabad, reached 41st Vahini. They tried getting the truck traced through senior PAC officers, but to no avail.
The CBCID identified 13 of the 16 bodies recovered from the Hindon Canal and filed the charge-sheet against 19 of the PAC personnel under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Since most of the accused were public servants, the State government's sanction under Section 197 was needed to prosecute them. The policemen were accused of murder, attempt to murder and destruction of evidence. The charge-sheet was filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Ghaziabad. (Framing of charges is a step in the subsequent stage, in which the accused are intimated about the nature of the accusation.)
The CJM issued warrants to the accused policemen asking them to appear before the court. When the accused did not appear before the court, bailable warrants were issued six times between January 1997 and February 1998. Later non-bailable warrants were issued 17 times between April 1998 and April 2000. But the accused evaded the summons.
The Minorities Council of India, an Aligarh-based organisation, then stepped in and made a representation to the National Commission for Minorities. Finally, as a consequence of public pressure, 16 of the 19 accused surrendered in groups in May 2000, 13 years after the incident. Although their bail applications were initially rejected by the CJM, the accused managed to obtain bail from the court of the District Judge, Ghaziabad. While granting bail, the Judge said that since the accused were members of the PAC, there was no chance of them absconding. Since then, the case has been repeatedly delayed. The case was committed for trial to the District and Sessions Judge, who transferred the case to the Additional District Sessions Judge-IV, Ghaziabad. In 2001, the victims filed a petition before the Supreme Court asking for the case to be transferred from Ghaziabad to New Delhi as the conditions there would be more conducive to the trial. The Supreme Court transferred the case to Tis Hazari in New Delhi. But the case was still to be argued by a Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) appointed by the U.P. government.
When the case was finally fixed for arguments on charge, there was no such SPP. In February 2004, the court issued notice to the Director-General of Police (DGP) and the Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh to appear in person. When the government did appoint an SPP, the victims were not happy because they felt he was not qualified enough. He was removed after they complained. In November 2004, the government appointed Surinder Adlakha SPP, but he is yet to start the arguments on charge. Said Mohammad Yamin, ex-counsellor and social worker: "This case is about the first instance in which those who were appointed to keep the peace carried out attacks in cold blood. Yet, the Uttar Pradesh government has delayed the matter." One of the lawyers representing the Hashimpura complainants, Vrinda Grover, feels that the victims have the right to be consulted before the SPP is appointed.
Meanwhile, one of the accused has died and the case before R.K. Jain, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Tis Hazari, was delayed because another accused was in jail in Varanasi for allegedly murdering four persons, including three PAC personnel, in Azamgarh. The lawyers appointed by the court to assist the SPP feel that the State police did not investigate the case properly and that the Sub-Inspector in charge of the Link Road Police Station should have collected more evidence from the scene of the incident. Said Rebecca John, a counsel for the Hashimpura complainants: "We are looking at the possibility of arguing that the deaths amounted to custodial deaths since they occurred when the victims were in the custody of the PAC. If the court accepts the argument that these were custody deaths, the onus will shift to the accused to prove that they are not guilty."
The Hashimpura massacre proves how difficult it is to prosecute police personnel accused of communal crimes. According to Vibhuti Narain Rai, who was the Superintendent of Police, Ghaziabad, when the massacre took place, most of the police personnel posted in Meerut thought the riots were a result of Muslim mischief. They believed that Meerut had become a "mini-Pakistan" because of "Muslim intransigence" and that it was necessary to teach the community a lesson. This bias is only exacerbated by the State's reluctance to prosecute police personnel as seen in the Hashimpura trial.
Vibhuti Narain Rai, who is currently the Additional Director-General of Police (Railways), Allahabad, said: "The fight against communalisation requires drastic changes in the policy of recruitment, training and syllabi of the police. The percentage of minorities, especially Muslims, is only 5 to 6 per cent in most States. I can say from 30 years of experience in the Police Department that this is the result of a deep and inherent communal bias in the leadership of the police. There are hundreds of government directives to recruit minorities into the department, but these are often flouted. Unless we reserve some seats for minorities, their quota will never be filled."
The Hashimpura massacre also highlights the need to scrutinise the role of public prosecutors who, in many trials related to communal crimes, including the Gujarat anti-minority pogrom, have helped the State to protect the accused.
Introduction to Curfew in the City by C.M. Naim
During 1947, as the independent nations of Pakistan and India appeared on the political map of the world, violence in the name of religion reached unprecedented magnitude in South Asia. It abated considerably in the Fifties, but since then has steadily grown worse. In Pakistan, where non-Muslims were too few to matter much, Muslim communal passion was first directed against the Ahmadi Muslims, but gradually took on more varied ethnic and sectarian dimensions, pitting the Deobandis against the Barelavis, the Sunnis against the Shi’ahs, the Sindhis against the Muhajirs, and so on. More recently, however, even the minuscule Christian and Hindu populations in Punjab and Sindh have become its victims. In Bangladesh, with its still substantial non-Muslim population, anti-Hindu and anti-Chakma actions by the Muslim majority and by the state itself, have continued without much relief. And in India, where the Muslim minority is large enough to account for almost twelve percent of the population, the phrase “communal riots” has come to be an euphemism for anti-Muslim pogroms directed by certain elements in the majority Hindu community—with the encouragement, even active participation, of those very agencies of the state that are expected to protect the victims. Jabalpur, Jamshedpur, Muradabad, Bhiwandi, Hashimpura and Maliana, Bhagalpur, Baroda and Ahmedabad, and most recently Surat and Bombay of 1993—these are only the most haunting signposts on India’s path of steady decline as a civil polity. To which list we should also add Delhi and Kanpur in the dark days of 1984, when similar pogroms were directed against the Sikhs.
In response to the communal violence at the time of the Partition, a massive body of literature was produced in Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and—what I directly know—Urdu. Urdu writers on both sides of the new international border produced countless short stories and several novels about those times. One critical issue they faced was: how does one create a piece of fiction about a reality so horrible? Some responded by doing a ‘balancing act’—if five victims of one religious persuasion were mentioned in the beginning, they were matched by five victims belonging to the other religion at the end. Some also felt that to bring the warring communities together they must put the final blame on a common enemy: the erstwhile colonial rulers. Other writers wrote as partisans; they saw their own community as being only a victim, and blamed the other community for being the exclusive perpetrator of violence. Most of these writings emphasized the ‘magnitude’ of the violence—the killings, the rapes, the destruction of property, the uprooting of populations. Only a small corpus explored the truly horrific—the casual betrayals, the meanness and cruelty in seemingly ordinary acts, the human capacity to routinize inhumanity—the evil in the ‘banal’. Sa’adat Hasan Manto in his stories of the Partition riots neither blamed any one group nor tried to distribute the blame equally. His significance and the lasting power of his stories lie in his focusing on those moments when a man, despite having done horrible things, could be shown as being still capable of doing ordinary little things. This strategy did not lessen the horror of the man’s actions; in fact, it enhanced it by making them the acts of someone not unlike us. At the same time, it made it possible to envision some hope, some capacity in mankind that could be harnessed to fight against such horrors.
The hatred and violence of 1947 was blamed by most writers at the time on the machinations of our erstwhile colonial rulers. Almost all of them felt that to bring the Hindus and Muslims together they had to find a common enemy in the English. But the events in the 70s and the 80s are different. We must face the fact that ‘the enemy is us’. To my knowledge, literary responses to contemporary communal violence in the sub-continent have not been extensive in any of the three countries and their many languages. For example, in Urdu in India, there are any number of short stories and poems about the present plight of the Muslims, but there are no major novels, anthologies or special issues of magazines. Likewise, I know of no work of imagination in Urdu from Pakistan that tries to explore the trajectory that communal violence has taken there.
In fact, in the sub-continental perspective, one can cite only two books that have made significant impact in this area: Lajja (“Shame”) in Bengali, by the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, and Shahar Mein Karfiyu (“Curfew in the City”) in Hindi, by Vibhuti Narain Rai. Nasrin’s book gained immediate notice in South Asia and abroad due to the fatwa issued against the author. Rai’s book has remained much less known even in India, though it did generate the wrath of some votaries of Hindutva, who successfully prevented it from being made into a film. Both Nasrin and Rai have written about the persecution of minority communities by the majority communities to which they themselves belong in their respective countries. Otherwise, the two books are very different.
Nasrin’s linear narrative covers thirteen days in the life a Hindu family in Dhaka in 1992 with considerable speed and passion; it also contains lengthy segments of a purely documentary nature. The latter generally dismayed the reviewers in Bangladesh and India. But the novelist Amitav Ghosh more accurately understood the aims of Nasrin’s narrative when he wrote in The Telegraph of 24 June 1994: “...taken on its own terms, the book’s strength can be seen to lie precisely in what appear to be its formal weakness. In its breakneck urgency, its direct and unembellished Bengali prose, in the narrative inseparability of its fictional and documentary material, in its polemical repetitiveness and its undisguised emotional immediacy.” He then went on to compare Nasrin with the Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawy, and argued that the two “have pioneered one of the most powerful forms of our times. The polemiction—polemical fictions that are perhaps the most appropriate possible literary response to the oppressive banality of contemporary religious extremism.” In another way too, these documentary sections are exactly what makes Lajja so significant. They give names and professions and homes of those who otherwise get mentioned only as anonymous statistics. Nasrin wishes us not to forget those ordinary details that make these victims of communal fanaticism not unlike their enemies—in the end, so like us.
Rai’s novella is not ‘polemiction’. It is, in fact, quite modest in ambition and execution. Though begun in 1980, in reposnse to a riot in Allahabad that he personally observed as the Senior Superintendent of Police there, the book came out only in 1988. Its episodic narrative covers three days in the life of a small neighborhood in Allahabad under the grip of a curfew during the riot. Divided into nine short chapters, it alternates between the story of Sayeeda, the wife of a bidi-maker, and her family, claustrophobic in effect in being confined to their one-room house; and other simultaneous events that take place elsewhere. That ‘elsewhere’ is spatially more open and varied, but—affected by the curfew—equally distorted and horrifying. The two progressions meet in the penultimate chapter, where a police party conducts ‘searches’ in Muslim homes—the home of a nationalist lawyer, Sayeeda’s home, and the palatial compound of the Haji. At the end of the book, the curfew continues. Despite a few instances of authorial interventions, Rai seems to strive for a cool, sometimes ironic and detached voice. Nevertheless, he too wants us to come close to the victims of violence and persecution through our knowledge of their ordinariness. Thus Sayeeda, perhaps the central character in his novella, is not just a grief-stricken mother whose baby daughter dies during the curfew but also a rural person who hates using the latrine in her new home in the city.
Rai’s narrative is not about the ‘riot’ itself, or rather it is not about the killing and pillaging and raping, the events that were very much the focus of the narratives of the stories that were written about the riots of 1946 and 1947. It is not a story of people gone barbaric in the heat of a moment of passion or revenge. It is about cold, calculated greed and blind, senseless hatred. Consider the chapter of ‘rape’. One may say that Rai is being too artful. The girl remains without a name, so do her assailants. But consider what has been told implicitly. Her family has the values that encourage education for girls, but not the resources to maintain those values safely. Her mother sews clothes for a dealer; she has to look after her younger siblings and do all the housework. She has an ‘affair’ with a young man from her neighborhood, but we are told what inevitably happened in such ‘affairs’. She is knitting a sweater for the boy from some worn and discarded wool. He hopes to buy her a shawl by taking out some money from the little he earns and —according to his values—must put in his mother’s hands. Theirs is not a romance that would shake the world, not something that bards will sing about. The girls goes to school on the fateful day, against the wishes of her mother; the boy does not stir out, obedient to his mother’s command. The girl is also abandoned by the school authorities who make no effort to send the girls home in safety. (But did they have the needed resources?) Running in panic, the girl finds herself in a lane that—in her panic—looks strange to her but is in fact not far from her own alley. There, three men, themselves hiding for safety in their milling shop, drag her inside and rape her. She calls them bhaiya (“brothers”), they call themselves “sister-fuckers.” The incident is seen by others, but no one comes to the girl’s help. Fearful, they are themselves cowering in their meager homes. In a milieu where a name indicates the person’s religion and much more, Rai has a clear purpose in keeping the victim and the assailants nameless.
More complex but similar in intentions is the chapter with Devi Lal, the neighborhood drunk. Here we are told that the lane is ‘Hindu’. Of course, its physical condition turns out to be not much different from the neighboring ‘Muslim’ lane—they perhaps share the same filthy, open sewer. But in the ‘Hindu’ lane, the residents are free to move. Stragglers come home, bringing incredible tales of Muslim atrocities. Gossip flows. The local drunk gains a respectability that he had not known before. Then a police party arrives; it demands and receives hospitality from the residents. The children who had earlier shouted a comic doggerel about Devi Lal, now run around shouting a slogan declaring solidarity between the police and the Hindus, making the Muslims their common enemy. Meanwhile, a different, more ordinary drama has been going on at one end of the lane, where some of the local Lotharios are waiting to flirt with the daughters of the only local Muslim resident, a tailor. Their impatience makes them throw a rock at the tailor’s door. The noise causes a general panic. When the truth dawns on the elders of the lane they suddenly become aware of the tailor’s presence in their midst. They want to reassure him but he never opens his door. Then they recall that he always did that in every previous riot. Now the children take up another slogan, left over from the elections held not too long ago, and turn it into a declaration of solidarity with the tailor, Yusuf.
Most of the narrative is about the death and burial of Sayeeda’s daughter. The little girl dies of cholera, but she also dies because she couldn’t get proper medicine, because she lived in terrible conditions where survival was almost impossible. She died, as had so many other children in that family and in that neighborhood. But the curfew that deprived her of better medical treatment, now almost deprives her of a proper burial. Her grandfather has to risk his body, even life, to go and get curfew passes to take the dead body to the graveyard in the morning. Her grandmother has to take similar risks to bring water from the public tap in order to wash the corpse. In fact, the tiny corpse barely escapes being crushed under the boots of a police party that is going around ‘doing searches’ for weapons.
The riot itself is not mentioned at all. There is only the briefest mention of some small explosive device being thrown against a temple wall that causes no damage. But immediately the existing fears and suspicions take over, a curfew is imposed by the authorities, and the city becomes divided into ‘Muslim’ and ‘Hindu’ neighborhoods.
The narrative focuses on how the curfew affects the simple, mundane matters in the lives of ordinary people: a sick child cannot get medicine; a family cannot get drinking water; a girl cannot walk down the street in safety; people cannot even stay indoor in security; a dead child cannot easily be given a decent burial. But political and civic leaders and journalists and authorities go on living their lives of privilege. They do not lose their privileges. The under-privileged are denied even the little they had. There is a nexus of interests between the leaders, the journalists, and authorities.
The role of the police and the PAC is separated from that of the BSF and the army, as has often been mentioned in the narratives of the victims of riots in the past. The police is shown to contain blatantly communal personnel, both in high and low positions. There seems to be no Muslim in the bureaucracy, civil or police. Also missing are ideologues and rabble rousers of the type often mentioned with reference to communalistic political parties. But their presence is felt in the background. We see the authorities in action as they conduct searches and hold a peace committee meeting. The flagrant criminality of the searches is in marked contrast to the utter hypocrisy and self-serving of the peace committee proceedings. We know that both activities will be reported in the official record as well as in the journalists’ accounts, but not the way the author has shown them. It is not an ambitious book. One may even call it slight. Hindi literary critic pointed out its journalistic quality. The author himself was not unaware of it. In an interview in 1991, he remarked, “I concede that it appears to be more a piece of reportage than fiction proper—reflective and contemplative. In part this is a consequence of haste, but it was also deliberate. I wanted it to assume a certain form. I should like to think, however, that given more time and effort [it] would have become a better work of art.”
What, nevertheless, makes it deserving of our fullest attention is one simple fact: in this novel, the author and the citizen have become one. Also, it is, after all, an insider’s narrative. This is not a left-handed compliment. In a society where literacy is not so common, where citizens of India have fought in two world wars and at least three other wars but have yet to produce one novel, one poem written by someone who actually went through those wars, where hardly any bureaucrat or academician or doctor has produced a book of imaginative literature dealing with his particular profession or milieu, we should be grateful that now a police officer has written a novel about something which involved him professionally. He remembered what he saw. That is the main thing. Forgetfulness is the worst crime in these times when history and memory are both being suppressed or distorted for instant gratification of the worst kind—and at a cost to those who have remained unmentioned in conventional chronicles, or mentioned only as statistics, nameless, even bodiless.
The book went through two editions in three years, and in March 1991 a journalist in Allahabad announced his plans to make a feature film based on it. It was this announcement that brought forth a “fatwa” from Shri Ashok Singhal, the Secretary-General of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Not surprisingly, he had not even bothered to read the book, for he advised Mr. Rai to resign from the government service before publishing his book. More effectively, he threatened to burn down any cinema house that would dare to show the proposed film. Though Hindi literati came out in full force to denounce the threat, the film was never made.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that Rai, after finishing the novel, did not complacently sit back. Instead, he took time out from his professional work to do research on the violent behavior of the police in Indian civil life as a whole. It should also be noted with some satisfaction that his research was supported by the National Police Academy. Some of his findings and reflections are included in the afterword he specially wrote for this book.
Announcement of Award Winners for 2004Katha U.K.
Katha (UK) awards for Vibhuti Narain Rai and Achala Sharma
The Secretary of Katha (UK) and a well-known writer himself Tejinder Sharma released the information that this year the TENTH INTERNATIONAL INDU SHARMA KATHA SAMMAAN will be awarded to noted writer VIBHUTI NARAIN RAI for his novel TABAADALA. The award consists of a return air-ticket India-London-India (Sponsored by Air India) Visa Fees for the United Kingdom, a shield, a shawl, one week's stay in London and visit to important tourist sites in and around London. The award will be presented in a tasteful function to be held at the Nehru Centre London on 26th June 2004.
Indu Sharma Katha Sammaan was instituted in the memory of promising writer Indu Sharma who succumbed to cancer at a young age. The past recipients of the Indu Sharma Katha Sammaan have been Geetanjlishri (1995), Dhirendra Asthana (1996), Akhilesh (1997), Devendra (1998) Manoj Rupra (1999), Chitra Mudgal (2000), Sanjiv (2001), Gyan Chaturvedi (2002) and S.R. Harnot (2003). Mr. Vibhuti Narain Rai is presently posted at Lucknow as the Inspector General of Police. Besides Tabaadala, Mr. Rai is well known for his novels Ghar, Shehar mein Curfew, Kissa Loktantra. While his collection of satires EK Chhaatra Neta ka Roznaamacha was noticed by critics, his research work Saampradaayik Dangey aur Bharatiya Police stirred a hornet's nest in the police and political circles.
The Secretary of Katha (UK) and a well-known writer himself Tejinder Sharma released the information that this year the TENTH INTERNATIONAL INDU SHARMA KATHA SAMMAAN will be awarded to noted writer VIBHUTI NARAIN RAI for his novel TABAADALA. The award consists of a return air-ticket India-London-India (Sponsored by Air India) Visa Fees for the United Kingdom, a shield, a shawl, one week's stay in London and visit to important tourist sites in and around London. The award will be presented in a tasteful function to be held at the Nehru Centre London on 26th June 2004.
Indu Sharma Katha Sammaan was instituted in the memory of promising writer Indu Sharma who succumbed to cancer at a young age. The past recipients of the Indu Sharma Katha Sammaan have been Geetanjlishri (1995), Dhirendra Asthana (1996), Akhilesh (1997), Devendra (1998) Manoj Rupra (1999), Chitra Mudgal (2000), Sanjiv (2001), Gyan Chaturvedi (2002) and S.R. Harnot (2003). Mr. Vibhuti Narain Rai is presently posted at Lucknow as the Inspector General of Police. Besides Tabaadala, Mr. Rai is well known for his novels Ghar, Shehar mein Curfew, Kissa Loktantra. While his collection of satires EK Chhaatra Neta ka Roznaamacha was noticed by critics, his research work Saampradaayik Dangey aur Bharatiya Police stirred a hornet's nest in the police and political circles.
तबादला: विभूति नारायण राय
बहुराष्ट्रीय निगमों की बढ़ती मौजूदगी और कारपोरेट दुनिया में कार्य-संस्कृति पर लगातार एक नैतिक मूल्य के रुप में जोर दिए जाने के बावजूद भारतीय मध्यवर्ग की पहली पसन्द आज भी सरकारी नौकरी ही है, तो उसका सम्बन्ध, उस आनन्द से ही है जो गैर-जिम्मेदारी, काहिली, अकुंठ स्वार्थ और भ्रष्टाचार से मिलता है; और हमारे स्वाधीन पचास सालों में सरकारी नौकरी इन सब ‘गुणों’ का पर्याय बनकर उभरी है। इन्हीं के चलते तबादला-उद्योग वजूद में आया जो आज दफ्तरों से लेकर राजनेताओं के बंगलों तक, शायद बाकी कई उद्योगों से ज्यादा, फल-फूल रहा है।इस उद्योग के जिन बारीक डिटेल्स को हम बिना इसके भीतर उतरे, बिना इसका हिस्सेदार बने, नहीं जान सकते, उन्हीं को उपन्यास इतने तीखे और मारक व्यंग्य के सामने रखता है कि हमें उस हताशा को लेकर नए सिरे से चिन्ता होने लगती है जो भारतीय नौकरशाही ने पिछले पचास सालों में आम जनता को दी है। इस उपन्यास का वाचक व्यंग्य के उस ठंडे कोने में जा पहुँचा है जहाँ ‘कोई उम्मीदबर नहीं आती’। उपन्यास पढ़कर हम सचमुच यह सोचने पर बाध्य हो जाते हैं कि अगर यह हताशा वास्तव में हमारे इतने भीतर तक उतर चुकी है तो फिर रास्ता है किधर !
इसी पुस्तक के कुछ अंश
बड़े साहब की बदली को सिर्फ एक दिन हुआ था। बटुकचन्द्र को दफ्तर के लोग पहले से जानते थे लेकिन उन्होंने कोई जोखिम लेना मुनासिब नहीं समझा। आज दस बजे तक सारे बाबू दफ्तर में आ गए थे। आने पर उन्हें कमरे खुले भी मिले। आकर वह फौरन चाय की दुकानों पर नहीं गए बल्कि उन्होंने अपने सामने रखी फाइलों में कुछ लिखा भी। बटुकचन्द्र भी सवा दस बजे आ गए। उन्होंने भी कुछ फाइलों पर दस्तखत किए। घंटे-डेढ़ घंटे दफ्तर में जो कुछ हुआ, उसे देखकर कुछ पुराने दलाल यह सोचकर कि वे किसी दूसरे दफ्तर में चले आए हैं, बाहर भाग गए।लाल फीते से फाइल बँधते ही मान लिया जाता था कि उसमें बन्द कागजों के आराम में अब अगली दो-तीन पीढियों तक कोई खलल नहीं डालेगा। इसी से भाषा को एक नया शब्द मिला-लाल फीताशाही। हमारे देश में बाज मुख्यमन्त्रियों को यह शब्द पसन्द नहीं आया, इसलिए उन्होंने लाल की जगह हरे, पीले, गुलाबी जैसे रंगों के फीते इस्तेमाल करने के हुक्म दे दिए। इस तरह लाल फीताशाही खत्म हो गई और कागज दूसरे रंगों फीतों के नीचे दफन होने लगे।हर अफसर नौकरी शुरु करते ही जान जाता है कि उसे और कुछ करना हो, न हो, पर दस्तखत बहुत करने होंगे। इसलिए वह अपने हस्ताक्षरों का एक लघु संस्करण ईजाद करता है, जिसे चिड़िया कहते हैं।...कमीशन की खुशबू बिखेरनेवाली फाइल पर बैठी चिड़िया चहकती नजर आती है और सूखे कागजों पर बैठी हुई मरियल। हमारे देश में, जिस तरह के विषयों पर शोध हो रहा है, उसे देखते हुए इस बात की पूरी सम्भावना है कि विश्वविद्यालयों में किसी दिन इस महत्त्वपूर्ण विषय पर भी काम होगा।
सर पर कुम्भ और तबादला ! अगर मुहावरे की भाषा में कहा जाए तो श्री कमलाकान्त वर्मा, अधिशासी अभियन्ता प्रान्तीय खंड, सार्वजनिक निर्माण विभाग के लिए यह स्थिति किसी वज्राघात से कम नहीं थी। अक्तुबर खत्म हो रहा था और कुम्भ का काम धीरे-धीरे जोर पकड़ने लगा था। ज्यादातर कामों के टेंडर हो चुके थे। कुछ काम अवार्ड हो चुके थे, कुछ पर निर्णय की प्रक्रिया अपने अन्तिम चरण में थी। मेला क्षेत्र में सड़के आकार लेने लगी थीं, और पुलों के लिए पीपे नदी के किनारे पहुँचने लगे थे। बल्लियाँ, शामियाने, चेकर प्लेटें ढेर-के-ढेर गंगा-यमुना के तट पर पड़े थे। जीप से मेला क्षेत्र में जब भी कमलाकान्त निकलते तो लगभग हर बार बन्धे पर कहीं गाड़ी रुकवाकर क्षेत्र में फैले इन सारे सामानों पर देर तक सन्तुष्ट नजर डालते। इनसे टकराकर आती हुई हवा को वे गहरी साँसें खींचकर अपने फेंफड़ों में भरते। लगता जैसे कि सरकारी नोट छापने की मशीनों से टकराकर आ रही हो यह हवा। शीतल और स्फूर्ति देनेवाली। ऐसे समय में तबादला ! जितना कुछ खर्च करके वे यहाँ आए हैं, अभी तो दसवाँ हिस्सा भी नहीं निकला। बचत की तो बात ही क्या की जाए। इसलिए कमलाकान्त वर्मा, जिन्हें दफ्तर में सब लोग बड़े साहब कहते हैं, हतप्रभ हैं और दफ्तर का कमरा बन्द कर अपने विशेष मातहतों के साथ उस आदेश पर विचार-विमर्श कर रहे हैं जिसे अभी-अभी मुख्यालय का एक चपरासी थमा गया है।
कमरे में वर्मा साहब के अलावा चार लोग और थे। ये चार लोग अलग-अलग कामों से वहाँ मौजूद थे। एक कारण ऐसा था जो चारों की उपस्थित के पीछे था दफ्तर में सत्ता-परिवर्तन हो रहा था। ये चारों सत्ता पक्ष के लोग थे। नौकरशाही में भी राजनीति की तरह सत्ता परिवर्तित होते ही मुँह फेरने की परम्परा शुरू हो गई थी, पर ये लोग कुछ हयादार लगते थे, जो तबादले का आदेश आने के बाद भी मन्त्रणा के लिए उपलब्ध थे। या यह भी हो सकता है कि छोटे-मोटे बनाना रिपब्लिकों की तरह यहाँ भी अभी सब कुछ अनिश्चित था। तख्तापलट हो भी सकता है और यह भी हो सकता है कि शाहे-वक्त दुश्मन के हाथी-घोड़ों को रौंदता हुआ वापस गढ़ पर काबिज हो जाए। वैसे भी इस प्रदेश में नौकरशाही के तबादलों के हुक्म नीलाम होते थे। दिन में चार बार भी उनमें परिवर्तन हो सकता था। जो भी कारण हो ये चारों लोग तबादले का आदेश आने के बाद भी वहाँ थे और आदेश को बार-बार उलट-पुलटकर पढ़ रहे थे, फुसफुसाकर बातें कर रहे थे और बड़े साहब को अपनी बहुमूल्य राय दे रहे थे।
वर्मा साहब के बाईं तरफ थे रिजवानुल हक जो इस दफ्तर में सहायक अभियन्ता थे। पचास के पेटे में पहुंचा उनका शरीर बीमारी और दुर्घटनाओं के कारण लगभग ढल चुका था। माथे के ऊपर आधी सफाचट चाँद के कारण उनका पूरा व्यक्तित्व काफी गम्भीर किस्म का लगता था। वे कम बोलते थे और बिना माँगे कभी राय नहीं देते थे। दफ्तर में कोई भी बड़ा साहब आ जाए उनको इसी आदत के कारण अपना राजदार बना लेता था। लोगों को याद नहीं पड़ता था कि कभी किसी अधिशासी अभियन्ता से उनकी नहीं पटी हो।
जब कमलाकान्त वर्मा यहाँ आए तो कुछ दिनों तक उनसे भड़कते रहे। कारण सिर्फ यह था कि वे उनके पूर्वाधिकारी के करीब थे और पिछली बार जब वर्मा इसी तरह का आदेश कराकर लखनऊ से रवाना हुए तो उनके पूर्वाधिकारी ने अपने बँगले पर जो आपात बैठक बुलाई थी उसमें वे भी शरीक हुए थे। दफ्तर में कुछ दिनों तक हक साहब को बेचैन देखा गया। उनके विरोधियों ने चटखारे ले-लेकर वास्तविक, अर्द्ध वास्तविक और काल्पनिक खबरें प्रसारित कीं कि किस तरह हक साहब को बड़े साहब के कमरे में घुसने के पहले तीन घंटे प्रतीक्षा करनी पड़ती है या कि उनके पास अब कोई महत्त्वपूर्ण काम नहीं है या कि जल्दी ही बड़े साहब उन्हें डिजाइन सेक्शन में शंट कराने वाले हैं।हक साहब इन सारी चर्चाओं से विचलित नहीं हुए। दफ्तर के अनुभवी बाबुओं की तरह उन्हें भी पता था कि यह तो अस्थायी दौर है। यह हर बार सत्ता परिवर्तन के साथ आता है, फिर कुछ महीनों में ठीक हो जाता है। इस बार भी यही हुआ। कभी ईद पड़ी, कभी बकरीद। हक साहब की बेगम अच्छा मुर्गा पकाती थीं और वर्मा साहब की पत्नी खाने की शौकीन थीं। पहली ईद पर हक बड़े साहब के बेरुखे मुबारकबाद के बावजूद दोहरे होते हुए बोले, ‘‘सर, मेरी फैमिली की बड़ी इच्छा थी कि मैडम और बच्चे हमारे गरीबखाने पर तशरीफ लाते पर आप इतने बिजी रहते हैं कि अर्ज करने की हिम्मत नहीं पड़ी और मैं खुद ही हाजिर हुआ हूँ। बेगम ने अपने हाथ से मुर्गा पकाया है। उम्मीद है बच्चों को पसन्द आएगा।’’
मुर्गा बच्चों को खूब पसन्द आया पर वर्मा साहब की फाँस अभी दूर नहीं हुई थी। अगले कुछ दिनों हक साहब की बेगम साहिबा किसी न किसी मौके पर मुर्गे या बकरे की कोई लजीज डिश बनाकर भेजती रहीं।विरोधी खेमे का चपरासी बड़े साहब के घर पर तैनात था। उससे बात खुली तो यह खेमा चौकन्ना हुआ।
एक शाम जब दो टिफिन कैरियरों में भरकर मटन कोरमा, चिकन मुगलाई, मटन यखनी और सींक कबाब जैसी चीजों के साथ जानीवाकर ब्लैक लेबल की बोतल इस आग्रह के साथ पहुंची कि ‘सर मेरा साला कल सऊदी अरब से आया है। वही एयरपोर्ट से मेरे लिए ड्यूटी फ्री स्काच ले आया। अब मैंने तो छोड़ रखी है। साला ठहरा नमाजी, हाथ नहीं लगाता। बेगम ने कहा बड़े साहब इसकी कद्र जानते हैं, उन्हें यह तोहफा दे आओ। साथ में थोड़ा सा नान वेजिटेरिनयन बच्चों के लिए लेते जाओ। पता नहीं कैसा बना है। मेम साहब ने कभी राय नहीं दी, ‘‘विरोधी कैम्प सक्रिय हो गया। गुप्तचर छोड़े गए और जो सूचना वे लेकर आए उससे इस कैम्प की बाँछें खिल गईं।दूसरे दिन बड़े साहब के कमरे में स्टाफ मीटिंग के दौरान जब चाय का मध्यान्तर हुआ तो हल्की-फुल्की बातों के दौरान सहायक अभियन्ता गुप्ता ने हक से ऐसे ही अनायास पूछ लिया, ‘‘भाभी को कब ला रहे हैं हक साहब ? कब तक मातादीन के हाथ का खाना खाएंगे।?’’
हक साहब ने चौंककर देखा। वे बोलते कम थे पर उनका दिमाग बड़ी तेज हरकत करता था। स्पष्ट था कि बड़े साहब को विरोधी खेमा यह बताने की कोशिश कर रहा है कि पिछले दो महीने से उनकी पत्नी अपने मायके बाराबंकी गई हुई हैं और वे करीम ढाबे से मुर्गा बनवाकर अपनी बेगम के नाम पर बड़े साहब को खिला रहे थे।बड़े साहब ने चाय का प्याला नीचे रख दिया और हल्के से चश्मा हाथ में लेकर उसे रूमाल से पोंछने लगे।‘‘बेगम तो बाराबंकी और यहाँ के बीच चक्कर लगाती रहती हैं। दरअसल, सर, जब से फादर-इन-ला की तबीयत खराब हुई है उन्हें दो जगह के इन्तजाम देखने पड़ रहे थे। एक ही भाई है उनका जो सऊदी अरब में है। जमींदारी है-छोड़ी भी नहीं जा सकती। बेगम को ही देखनी पड़ रही है। कल साला उन्हें लेकर आया था। आज फिर वापस गए हैं वे लोग।’’ विरोधी खेमे के लोग इस तरह मुस्कुराए कि किसी और को मुस्कान दिखाई दे न दे, बड़े साहब को जरूर दिखाई दे जाए।अपने देश में पिछले कुछ सालों में और कोई तरक्की हुई हो या नहीं पर इलेक्टॉनिक एक्सचेंजों की बहार जरूर आ गई है। मोहल्ले-मोहल्ले में खुले पी.सी.ओ.में एक बार बाराबंकी के लिए सक्रिय हुआ और देर रात तक बेगम हक शहर में हाजिर हो गईं। विरोधी खेमा दूसरे दिन हतप्रभ रह गया, जब उसे पता चला कि मेम साहब की बीमारी की खबर, जिसकी कोई बुनियाद नहीं थी, सुनकर बेगम साहिबा बड़े साहब के घर अगले दिन दोपहर हालचाल पूछती देखी गईं। साथ में पिछले दिन से बड़ा टिफिन कैरियर था।
बाद में जैसा कि पिछले कई मौकों पर हुआ था और दफ्तर के अनुभवी बाबू पहले से जानते थे, वैसा ही हुआ। वे बड़े साहब की अन्तरंग टीम के सदस्य बन गए और उसी हैसियत से आज की मन्त्रणा में शरीक थे।कमरे में वर्मा साहब के दाहिनी तरफ बैठे हुए व्यक्ति की उपस्थिति का कारण बड़ा दिलचस्प था। छोटे-छोटे बाल, गैंडे जैसी गर्दन और टूटे हुए कान वाले इन सज्जन को किसी अखाड़े में होना चाहिए था। वे दफ्तर में थे पर इससे कोई फर्क नहीं पड़ता था। उनके जीवन का मूलमन्त्र था कि पूरा जीवन ही अखाड़ा है। वे कभी भी कहीं भी कुश्ती लड़ने के लिए तैयार रहते थे। चूँकि अपने जागृत समय का बड़ा हिस्सा वे दफ्तर में बिताते थे इसलिए मौजूदा जीवन की अधिकांश कुश्तियां भी वे यहीं लड़ते थे। अक्सर उनके साथ बातचीत करने वाले को उनकी कुश्ती कला से परिचित होने का अवसर मिलता था। धोबिया पाट उनका प्रिय दाँव था और दफ्तर के बरामदों में अगर कोई कर्मचारी, ठेकेदार या मुलाकाती लँगड़ाता हुआ दिखाई दे जाता तो बिना बताए लोग मान लेते कि वह व्यक्ति इनसे कुछ गम्भीर विचार-विमर्श करके जा रहा है।
ध्रुवलाल यादव नामक ये सज्जन जूनियर इंजीनियर थे और डॉ. रघुबीर जैसे उत्साही हिन्दी-प्रेमियों की मेहनत को धता बताते हुए लोग उन्हें अवर अभियन्ता न कहकर जे.ई. कहते थे। वे जे.ई. थे इसलिए जब तक बोलते या लिखते नहीं थे, लोग मानकर चलते थे कि उन्होंने सिविल इंजीनियरिंग में डिप्लोमा जरूर हासिल किया होगा। जैसे ही उनके श्री मुख से कोई वाक्य निकलता या वे कागज पर अपने पेशे से संबंधित कोई चीज लिखते, सामनेवाला मान लेता कि वे भी उन फैक्टरियों से निकला हुआ माल थे जिन्हें हमारे शिक्षाविद् स्कूल, कॉलेज, यूनिवर्सिटी या पालीटेक्नीक के नाम से पुकारते थे और जो धड़ा-धड़ साल-दर-साल हजारों लाखों की तादाद में ध्रुवलाल जैसे होनहार निकालते रहते हैं। उन्होंने पालीटेक्नीक में पढ़ाई के अतिरिक्त प्रयुक्त होनेवाले दो तरीकों में से एक का प्रयोग करके डिप्लोमा हासिल किया था। उनके द्वारा प्रयुक्त तरीका विभाग में भी बड़ा काम आता है, यह उन्हें नौकरी शुरू करने पर ही पता चला।
जे.ई.ध्रुवलाल यादव के सामने जीवन की प्राथमिकताएँ शुरू से ही बड़ी स्पष्ट थीं। उनके बाप मझोले दर्जे के काश्तकार थे और लगभग बीस भैंस-गायों की सेवा-सुश्रुवा करके अपने परिवार को औसत भारतीय किसान की जिन्दगी से बेहतर जीवन प्रदान किए हुए थे। लेकिन ध्रुवलाल अपने परिवेश के मुकाबले ज्यादा महत्वाकांक्षी थे। टखने-टखने तक गोबर में डूबकर गाय-भैसों की सेवा करना और शाम को कान पर हाथ रखकर बिरहा गाना-सिर्फ इन्हीं दो कामों तक वे अपनी जिन्दगी सीमित नहीं रख सकते थे। लिहाजा उन्होंने पढ़ने का फैसला किया। बाप के बहुत बच्चे थे। जमाना भी बदल रहा था। अपने लिए अब ‘करिया अच्छर भैंस बराबर’ सुनना बाप को खलने लगा था। इसलिए एक लड़के का पढ़ाई की तरफ रुझान उसके लिए खुशी की बात थी। उसने औपचारिक रूप से ससुरी महँगाई का जिक्र जरूर किया पर ध्रुवलाल को शहर भेज दिया।
बचपन से ही घी-दूध का सुख होने तथा बाप के प्रिय मुहावरे के अनुसार जूता मारकर सुबह-सुबह अखाड़े में ठेले जाने के कारण ध्रुवलाल एक अदद कसरती बदन के मालिक थे। उनका कद छह फुट से कुछ ऊपर था, दोनों तरफ से कान टूटे हुए थे, रंग गन्दुम और स्वर लट्ठमार हद तक उजड्ड था। यही सारी चीजें उनकी पूँजी थीं। सबसे पहले यह पूँजी पालीटेक्नीक में काम आई। पालीटेक्नीक में पहुंचने के पहले दो-तीन हफ्ते में ही यह स्पष्ट हो गया कि राष्ट्रभाषा हिन्दी में छपी पाठ्य-पुस्तकें उनकी लिए ग्रीक और लैटिन के महाकाव्यों की तरह थीं। ध्रुवलाल यादव के ईमानदार मन ने उन्हें सलाह दी कि भाग चल प्यारे ! कहाँ फँस गया ! जीवन इन किताबों से परे ज्यादा सुखद है। दर्जा आठ में किसी कवि ने, जिसका नाम स्वाभाविक था कि वे भूल गए थे, सही ही लिखा था कि अहा ! ग्राम्य जीवन भी क्या है, क्यों न इसे सबका मन चाहे। पर आगे काशी फल कूष्मांड के साथ-साथ भूसा, गोबर और बाप के जूते का ऐसा त्रिकोण फ्लैश बैक की तरह सामने आता कि वे तो वे उनका ईमानदार मन भी काँप जाता। उन्होंने अपने मन की अनसुनी कर दी और सफलता के गुर दूसरी जगह तलाशने शुरू कर दिए।
भारतीय समाज में बिरादरी बहुत बड़ा सम्बल है। ध्रुवलाल के काम भी यही सम्बल आया। पहले रैगिंग के समय भी यह सम्बल उनके साथ था। रैगिंग में तो उनका डील-डौल और टूटे हुए कान भी निपट लेते पर पढ़ाई में मामला कुछ दूसरा था। उनके बिरादरी के सीनियरों ने बताया कि सूबे के दूसरे पालीटेक्नीकों की तरह इस पालीटेक्नीक में भी सफलता के लिए पढ़ाई के अलावा दो रास्ते थे। पढ़ाई तो निरीह छात्र करते थे। ध्रुवलाल सरीखों को तो शेष दो रास्तों में से एक चुनना था।पहला रास्ता था बाहुबल का और दूसरा था धनबल का। बाहुबली छात्र कट्टा या चाकू मेज पर रखते और आराम से किताबें खोलकर नकल करते। इन बाहुबली छात्रों की प्रतिभा सत्र के प्रारम्भ में ही पहचान ली जाती और अध्यापकों का कोई न कोई गुट उनके सिर पर वरद-हस्त रख देता। बाहुबली से यह गुट साल-भर अपने विरोधी अध्यापकों को पिटवाता या गाली दिलवाता और इत्महान में इन्हें पर्चा आउट करने से लेकर छोटी-छोटी पुर्जियों पर उतर लिखकर पहुँचाने तक का काम करता।
दूसरा रास्ता था धनबल का। जिस समय ध्रुवलाल पालीटेक्नीक में पहुंचे भारतीय समाज में बहुत कुछ बदल रहा था। शिक्षा की दुनिया बदल रही थी और उससे जुड़े गुरु बदल रहे थे। अब गुरु राजपुत्रों को दौड़ जिताने के लिए निर्धन शिष्यों के अँगूठे नहीं कटवाते थे। वे धनिक पुत्रों से वाजिब फीस लेकर उन्हें दौड़ शुरू होने से पहले ही आगे कर देते थे। प्रधानाध्यापकों और कॉलेजों के मैनेजरों ने नकल को एक व्यवस्थित रोगजार का रूप दे दिया था। हर चीज के रेट निर्धारित हो गए थे। यदि अपने तयशुदा कक्ष में नकल करनी थी तो उसकी एक कीमत थी, किसी अलग कमरे में बैठकर सहायक की मदद से उत्तर पुस्तिका लिखनी थी तो उसकी दूसरी कीमत थी, किसी दूसरे को बैठाकर उससे उत्तर पुस्तिका लिखवाने की कीमत अलग थी और अगर कोई छात्र चाहते कि विषय का अध्यापक ही उसके पास खड़ा होकर इमला दे तो इसकी फीस सबसे भिन्न थी।
ध्रुवलाल ने पहला रास्ता चुना। वे एक-एक कर सारी कक्षाएँ पास करते गए। यह रास्ता परीक्षा पास करने के अलावा नौकरी में भी उनके काम आया। प्रारम्भ में जब वे इस दफ्तर में आए उनकी छवि पहले ही यहाँ पहुंच चुकी थी। अपने सुगठित शरीर और उज़ड्ड जुबान के साथ वे एक ऐंटी इस्टैब्लिसमेंट छवि लिये दफ्तर में घुसे। नियुक्ति पत्र के मुताबिक जिस समय उन्हें वहाँ होना चाहिए था उससे वे सिर्फ पाँच महीने लेट थे। हुआ यह कि सरकारी नौकरी मिलने के पहले ही उन्हें कहीं विदेश में भी नौकरी दिलाने का भरोसा किसी एजेंट ने दिया था। अत: इस नौकरी का नियुक्ति-पत्र जेब में रखे वे विदेशी नौकरी के लिए दौड़ते रहे और अन्त में निराश होकर पाँच महीने बाद ज्वाइन करने इस दफ्तर में पहुँचे। पहुँचते ही उनके और बड़े बाबू के बीच में बड़ी संवैधानिक किस्म की बहस छिड़ गई। बड़े बाबू के मुताबिक कोई भी नियुक्ति-पत्र कुछ खास समय तक ही वैध रहता है। कम से कम पांच महीने तक तो नहीं ही रहता। उनकी राय में ध्रुवलाल यादव को फिर से जाकर अपने नियुक्ति-पत्र का नवीनीकरण कराना चाहिए था। इसके विपरीत ध्रुवलाल का मानना था कि एक बार नियुक्ति-पत्र मिलने के बाद रिटायरमेंट की उम्र तक प्रभावी रहता है। उन्होंने बड़े बाबू को चुनौती भी दी कि वे एक भी नियम ऐसा दिखा दें जिसके मुताबिक कोई नियुक्ति-पत्र पाँच महीने बाद रद्द हो जाता है। बड़े बाबू कोई भी ऐसा नियम नहीं दिखा पाये। फिर भी बड़े बाबू को धर्मसंकट से उबारने के लिए उन्होंने मीठे स्वर में आग्रह किया कि उन्हें पाँच महीने पहले की निर्धारित तारीख में ही ज्वाइन करा दिया जाए।
बड़े बाबू जो दप्तर के दूसरे बाबूओं की तरह उन्हें उनके सुगठित शरीर और मुंह में ठूँसे हुए पान के कारण ‘महिमा बरनि न जाए’ वाले भाव से निहार रहे थे, उनके इस आग्रह पर एकदम से बड़े बाबू बन गए। उन्होंने अपने तीस साल की बाबूगिरी का निचोड़ फाइनेंसियल हैंडबुक के फलाँ पेज और अलाँ पैरे तथा गवर्नमेंट सर्वेंट्स कांडक्ट रूल्स के पेज नं. इतने से इतने तक के उद्धरण के रूप में देना शुरू कर दिया जिसे ध्रुवलाल काफी अनिच्छा और अधैर्य के साथ झेलते रहे। इसीलिए पब्लिक सेक्टर इस मुल्क में असफल हो रहा है-उन्होंने निराशा से सोचा और हवा में मुँह उठाकर किसी काल्पनिक व्यक्ति की माँ-बहन के साथ अपने शारीरिक सम्बन्ध कायम करने लगे। बड़े बाबू अगर काफी मोटी चमड़ी के न होते तो इन सम्बोधनों को अपने लिए ही समझ लेते पर वे निर्विकार भाव से किसी फाइल में डूब गए। दूसरे बाबुओं ने जरूर आँखें मटकाईं, एक दूसरे को देखकर मुस्कुराए और अपने उद्गारों से यह स्पष्ट करने का प्रयास किया कि श्री ध्रुवलाल जिन स्त्रियों के सम्मान में कसीदे पढ़ रहे थे वे बड़े बाबू की ही पत्नी और बेटियाँ थी।
बड़े बाबू ने भारतीय नौकरशाही का मूल मन्त्र पकड़ा। जब कोई फैसला न करना हो तो फौरन फाइल पर लिखो-बात करें। यहाँ उनके नीचे कोई ऐसा नहीं था जिसके पास ‘प्लीज स्पीक’ लिखकर वे फाइल भेज सकते थे और यमदूत की तरह ध्रुवलाल सामने खड़े थे इसलिए वे भुनभुनाते हुए स्वयं ही उनका नियुक्ति पत्र लेकर उठ खड़े हुए और बड़े साहब के कमरे की तरफ बात करने के लिए बढ़ गए और दो-तीन घंटे तक नहीं लौटे।
इन दो-तीन घंटों का बड़े साहब के विरोधियों ने जमकर सदुपयोग किया। दूसरे दफ्तरों की तरह इस दफ्तर में भी काम होता हो या नहीं, राजनीति खूब होती थी। कौटिल्य ने सहस्रों वर्षों पूर्व राजनीति और गुप्तचरी का सम्बन्ध परिभाषित कर दिया था और यह दफ्तर पूरी श्रद्धा के साथ उस पर विश्वास करता था। सरकारी गुप्तचर एजेंसियों की तरह यहाँ गोपनीय सूचनाएँ अखबारों की करतनों से नहीं उपजती थीं बल्कि इन्हें हासिल करने के लिए मेहनत की जाती थी, इसलिए अक्सर इनमें कुछ दम भी होता था। ध्रुवलाल यादव का कमरे में प्रवेश, बड़े बाबू के साथ उनके नाटकीय संवाद और बाबुओं की प्रतिक्रिया के बीच अचानक जायसवाल नामक ठेकेदार क्यों ? बाबुओं की सेवा के लिए लाया गया मगही पान का आधे से ज्यादा भाग खोखा तिवारी बाबू की मेज पर छोड़कर कमरे से गायब हो गया, इसका पता करने के लिए अशोक कुमार शुक्ला सहायक अभियन्ता अर्थात् ए.ई.के कमरे में चलना पड़ेगा जो इस कमरे से तीन कमरे दूर था और जिसमें चौरसिया नामक एक अन्य ए.ई.भी बैठते थे और जो इस समय किसी साइट पर गए हुए थे। उनके न होने से ही ध्रुवलाल वहाँ निमन्त्रित किए गए थे। अगर वे होते तो यह गोष्ठी कहीं और होती क्योंकि उनके बारे में शुक्ला का मानना था कि वे बड़े साहब के गुप्तचर थे और उन्हें इस कमरे में बिठाया ही इसलिए गया था कि वे शुक्ला एंड कम्पनी पर निगरानी रख सकें।
इस कमरे में ध्रुवलाल यादव की दफ्तरी दीक्षा शुरू हुई।कमरे में दो मेजें थीं। दो मेजें इसलिए थीं कि सिर्फ दो ही मेजें उसमें आ सकती थीं। दोनों मेजों के पीछे एक-एक कुर्सी थी। एक कुर्सी का एक हत्था उखड़ा हुआ था और पीछे के ताँत भी जगह-जगह से टूटे हुए थे, उस पर शुक्ला बैठे हुए थे। दूसरी कुर्सी घूमनेवाली थी और उस पर न सिर्फ मैली सी एक गद्दी थी बल्कि पीछे एक लिहाफ भी था जो शुरू में जरूर सफेद रहा होगा पर अब बदरंग हो चुका था। कुर्सियों की यह दशा दफ्तर में बड़े साहब से निकटता का पैमाना था।दोनों मेजों के सामने दो कुर्सियाँ थीं। चार में से कोई कुर्सी साबुत नहीं थी। किसी के पीछे के ताँत टूटे थे और किसी के नीचे के, किसी हत्था हिल रहा था तो किसी के पांव डगमग कर रहे थे। मेजों पर बेतरतीब फाइल कवर कागज पेपरवेट और पान के खोखे फैले हुए थे। पूरे कमरे में सिगरेट के टुकड़े और राख बिखरी हुई थी और कमरे के हर कोने में दीवारें पान की पीक से अमूर्त चित्रकला का नमूना पेश कर रही थीं। दफ्तर में बड़े साहब के कमरे को छोड़कर सभी कमरों की ऐसी ही हालत थी और इस कमरे में भी दूसरे कमरों की तरह सरकारी काम के अलावा सब कुछ होता था।इसी कमरे में ध्रुवलाल यादव नौकरशाही में दीक्षित हुए। उन्हें चौरसिया ठेकेदार कनखियों से इशारा करते हुए यहाँ तक ले आया था।
कमरे में शुक्ला नामक सहायक अभियन्ता या ए.ई. के अलावा दो जे.ई. और एक बाबू पहले से थे। छोटे से कमरे में उन्होंने सामने पड़ी कुर्सियों का रुख इस तरह मोड़ लिया था कि पहली बार घुसने पर किसी गोलमेज सम्मेलन का सा माहौल लगता था। किसी को बताने की जरूरत नहीं पड़ी, ध्रुवलाल ने चौथी खाली पड़ी कुर्सी पर कब्जा कर लिया। जायसवाल ने चारों तरफ इस प्रकार देखा मानो उसकी दृष्टि से वहां कोई कुर्सी उत्पन्न हो जाएगी। अभी उसकी हैसियत ऐसी नहीं थी कि शुक्ला उसे चौरसिया की कुर्सी पर बैठने को कहते इसलिए थोड़ी देर इधर-उधर देखकर वह ‘अभी पान लेकर हजिर होता हूँ, जैसा कोई वाक्य बुदबुदाकर अदृश्य हो गया। ‘‘आइए..आइए यादव जी। विभाग में आपका स्वागत है।’’ ध्रुवलाल कुछ असहज हुए। इस तरह के औपचारिक माहौल के वे अभ्यस्त नहीं थे। उन्होंने गम्भीर होकर अंग्रेजी में ‘थैंक यू’ से मिलता-जुलता कुछ कहा। कमरे में मौजूद आठ जोड़ा शातिर आँखों ने उनका मुआयना शुरू कर दिया था। बीच-बीच में ये आँखें एक-दूसरे को अपना मूल्यांकन भी दे रही थीं। है पट्ठा जोरदार ! ऐसा आदमी जो शरीर और भाषा से मजबूत हो और दिमाग से कमजोर, उनके लिए बड़े काम का था।
इसी पुस्तक के कुछ अंश
बड़े साहब की बदली को सिर्फ एक दिन हुआ था। बटुकचन्द्र को दफ्तर के लोग पहले से जानते थे लेकिन उन्होंने कोई जोखिम लेना मुनासिब नहीं समझा। आज दस बजे तक सारे बाबू दफ्तर में आ गए थे। आने पर उन्हें कमरे खुले भी मिले। आकर वह फौरन चाय की दुकानों पर नहीं गए बल्कि उन्होंने अपने सामने रखी फाइलों में कुछ लिखा भी। बटुकचन्द्र भी सवा दस बजे आ गए। उन्होंने भी कुछ फाइलों पर दस्तखत किए। घंटे-डेढ़ घंटे दफ्तर में जो कुछ हुआ, उसे देखकर कुछ पुराने दलाल यह सोचकर कि वे किसी दूसरे दफ्तर में चले आए हैं, बाहर भाग गए।लाल फीते से फाइल बँधते ही मान लिया जाता था कि उसमें बन्द कागजों के आराम में अब अगली दो-तीन पीढियों तक कोई खलल नहीं डालेगा। इसी से भाषा को एक नया शब्द मिला-लाल फीताशाही। हमारे देश में बाज मुख्यमन्त्रियों को यह शब्द पसन्द नहीं आया, इसलिए उन्होंने लाल की जगह हरे, पीले, गुलाबी जैसे रंगों के फीते इस्तेमाल करने के हुक्म दे दिए। इस तरह लाल फीताशाही खत्म हो गई और कागज दूसरे रंगों फीतों के नीचे दफन होने लगे।हर अफसर नौकरी शुरु करते ही जान जाता है कि उसे और कुछ करना हो, न हो, पर दस्तखत बहुत करने होंगे। इसलिए वह अपने हस्ताक्षरों का एक लघु संस्करण ईजाद करता है, जिसे चिड़िया कहते हैं।...कमीशन की खुशबू बिखेरनेवाली फाइल पर बैठी चिड़िया चहकती नजर आती है और सूखे कागजों पर बैठी हुई मरियल। हमारे देश में, जिस तरह के विषयों पर शोध हो रहा है, उसे देखते हुए इस बात की पूरी सम्भावना है कि विश्वविद्यालयों में किसी दिन इस महत्त्वपूर्ण विषय पर भी काम होगा।
सर पर कुम्भ और तबादला ! अगर मुहावरे की भाषा में कहा जाए तो श्री कमलाकान्त वर्मा, अधिशासी अभियन्ता प्रान्तीय खंड, सार्वजनिक निर्माण विभाग के लिए यह स्थिति किसी वज्राघात से कम नहीं थी। अक्तुबर खत्म हो रहा था और कुम्भ का काम धीरे-धीरे जोर पकड़ने लगा था। ज्यादातर कामों के टेंडर हो चुके थे। कुछ काम अवार्ड हो चुके थे, कुछ पर निर्णय की प्रक्रिया अपने अन्तिम चरण में थी। मेला क्षेत्र में सड़के आकार लेने लगी थीं, और पुलों के लिए पीपे नदी के किनारे पहुँचने लगे थे। बल्लियाँ, शामियाने, चेकर प्लेटें ढेर-के-ढेर गंगा-यमुना के तट पर पड़े थे। जीप से मेला क्षेत्र में जब भी कमलाकान्त निकलते तो लगभग हर बार बन्धे पर कहीं गाड़ी रुकवाकर क्षेत्र में फैले इन सारे सामानों पर देर तक सन्तुष्ट नजर डालते। इनसे टकराकर आती हुई हवा को वे गहरी साँसें खींचकर अपने फेंफड़ों में भरते। लगता जैसे कि सरकारी नोट छापने की मशीनों से टकराकर आ रही हो यह हवा। शीतल और स्फूर्ति देनेवाली। ऐसे समय में तबादला ! जितना कुछ खर्च करके वे यहाँ आए हैं, अभी तो दसवाँ हिस्सा भी नहीं निकला। बचत की तो बात ही क्या की जाए। इसलिए कमलाकान्त वर्मा, जिन्हें दफ्तर में सब लोग बड़े साहब कहते हैं, हतप्रभ हैं और दफ्तर का कमरा बन्द कर अपने विशेष मातहतों के साथ उस आदेश पर विचार-विमर्श कर रहे हैं जिसे अभी-अभी मुख्यालय का एक चपरासी थमा गया है।
कमरे में वर्मा साहब के अलावा चार लोग और थे। ये चार लोग अलग-अलग कामों से वहाँ मौजूद थे। एक कारण ऐसा था जो चारों की उपस्थित के पीछे था दफ्तर में सत्ता-परिवर्तन हो रहा था। ये चारों सत्ता पक्ष के लोग थे। नौकरशाही में भी राजनीति की तरह सत्ता परिवर्तित होते ही मुँह फेरने की परम्परा शुरू हो गई थी, पर ये लोग कुछ हयादार लगते थे, जो तबादले का आदेश आने के बाद भी मन्त्रणा के लिए उपलब्ध थे। या यह भी हो सकता है कि छोटे-मोटे बनाना रिपब्लिकों की तरह यहाँ भी अभी सब कुछ अनिश्चित था। तख्तापलट हो भी सकता है और यह भी हो सकता है कि शाहे-वक्त दुश्मन के हाथी-घोड़ों को रौंदता हुआ वापस गढ़ पर काबिज हो जाए। वैसे भी इस प्रदेश में नौकरशाही के तबादलों के हुक्म नीलाम होते थे। दिन में चार बार भी उनमें परिवर्तन हो सकता था। जो भी कारण हो ये चारों लोग तबादले का आदेश आने के बाद भी वहाँ थे और आदेश को बार-बार उलट-पुलटकर पढ़ रहे थे, फुसफुसाकर बातें कर रहे थे और बड़े साहब को अपनी बहुमूल्य राय दे रहे थे।
वर्मा साहब के बाईं तरफ थे रिजवानुल हक जो इस दफ्तर में सहायक अभियन्ता थे। पचास के पेटे में पहुंचा उनका शरीर बीमारी और दुर्घटनाओं के कारण लगभग ढल चुका था। माथे के ऊपर आधी सफाचट चाँद के कारण उनका पूरा व्यक्तित्व काफी गम्भीर किस्म का लगता था। वे कम बोलते थे और बिना माँगे कभी राय नहीं देते थे। दफ्तर में कोई भी बड़ा साहब आ जाए उनको इसी आदत के कारण अपना राजदार बना लेता था। लोगों को याद नहीं पड़ता था कि कभी किसी अधिशासी अभियन्ता से उनकी नहीं पटी हो।
जब कमलाकान्त वर्मा यहाँ आए तो कुछ दिनों तक उनसे भड़कते रहे। कारण सिर्फ यह था कि वे उनके पूर्वाधिकारी के करीब थे और पिछली बार जब वर्मा इसी तरह का आदेश कराकर लखनऊ से रवाना हुए तो उनके पूर्वाधिकारी ने अपने बँगले पर जो आपात बैठक बुलाई थी उसमें वे भी शरीक हुए थे। दफ्तर में कुछ दिनों तक हक साहब को बेचैन देखा गया। उनके विरोधियों ने चटखारे ले-लेकर वास्तविक, अर्द्ध वास्तविक और काल्पनिक खबरें प्रसारित कीं कि किस तरह हक साहब को बड़े साहब के कमरे में घुसने के पहले तीन घंटे प्रतीक्षा करनी पड़ती है या कि उनके पास अब कोई महत्त्वपूर्ण काम नहीं है या कि जल्दी ही बड़े साहब उन्हें डिजाइन सेक्शन में शंट कराने वाले हैं।हक साहब इन सारी चर्चाओं से विचलित नहीं हुए। दफ्तर के अनुभवी बाबुओं की तरह उन्हें भी पता था कि यह तो अस्थायी दौर है। यह हर बार सत्ता परिवर्तन के साथ आता है, फिर कुछ महीनों में ठीक हो जाता है। इस बार भी यही हुआ। कभी ईद पड़ी, कभी बकरीद। हक साहब की बेगम अच्छा मुर्गा पकाती थीं और वर्मा साहब की पत्नी खाने की शौकीन थीं। पहली ईद पर हक बड़े साहब के बेरुखे मुबारकबाद के बावजूद दोहरे होते हुए बोले, ‘‘सर, मेरी फैमिली की बड़ी इच्छा थी कि मैडम और बच्चे हमारे गरीबखाने पर तशरीफ लाते पर आप इतने बिजी रहते हैं कि अर्ज करने की हिम्मत नहीं पड़ी और मैं खुद ही हाजिर हुआ हूँ। बेगम ने अपने हाथ से मुर्गा पकाया है। उम्मीद है बच्चों को पसन्द आएगा।’’
मुर्गा बच्चों को खूब पसन्द आया पर वर्मा साहब की फाँस अभी दूर नहीं हुई थी। अगले कुछ दिनों हक साहब की बेगम साहिबा किसी न किसी मौके पर मुर्गे या बकरे की कोई लजीज डिश बनाकर भेजती रहीं।विरोधी खेमे का चपरासी बड़े साहब के घर पर तैनात था। उससे बात खुली तो यह खेमा चौकन्ना हुआ।
एक शाम जब दो टिफिन कैरियरों में भरकर मटन कोरमा, चिकन मुगलाई, मटन यखनी और सींक कबाब जैसी चीजों के साथ जानीवाकर ब्लैक लेबल की बोतल इस आग्रह के साथ पहुंची कि ‘सर मेरा साला कल सऊदी अरब से आया है। वही एयरपोर्ट से मेरे लिए ड्यूटी फ्री स्काच ले आया। अब मैंने तो छोड़ रखी है। साला ठहरा नमाजी, हाथ नहीं लगाता। बेगम ने कहा बड़े साहब इसकी कद्र जानते हैं, उन्हें यह तोहफा दे आओ। साथ में थोड़ा सा नान वेजिटेरिनयन बच्चों के लिए लेते जाओ। पता नहीं कैसा बना है। मेम साहब ने कभी राय नहीं दी, ‘‘विरोधी कैम्प सक्रिय हो गया। गुप्तचर छोड़े गए और जो सूचना वे लेकर आए उससे इस कैम्प की बाँछें खिल गईं।दूसरे दिन बड़े साहब के कमरे में स्टाफ मीटिंग के दौरान जब चाय का मध्यान्तर हुआ तो हल्की-फुल्की बातों के दौरान सहायक अभियन्ता गुप्ता ने हक से ऐसे ही अनायास पूछ लिया, ‘‘भाभी को कब ला रहे हैं हक साहब ? कब तक मातादीन के हाथ का खाना खाएंगे।?’’
हक साहब ने चौंककर देखा। वे बोलते कम थे पर उनका दिमाग बड़ी तेज हरकत करता था। स्पष्ट था कि बड़े साहब को विरोधी खेमा यह बताने की कोशिश कर रहा है कि पिछले दो महीने से उनकी पत्नी अपने मायके बाराबंकी गई हुई हैं और वे करीम ढाबे से मुर्गा बनवाकर अपनी बेगम के नाम पर बड़े साहब को खिला रहे थे।बड़े साहब ने चाय का प्याला नीचे रख दिया और हल्के से चश्मा हाथ में लेकर उसे रूमाल से पोंछने लगे।‘‘बेगम तो बाराबंकी और यहाँ के बीच चक्कर लगाती रहती हैं। दरअसल, सर, जब से फादर-इन-ला की तबीयत खराब हुई है उन्हें दो जगह के इन्तजाम देखने पड़ रहे थे। एक ही भाई है उनका जो सऊदी अरब में है। जमींदारी है-छोड़ी भी नहीं जा सकती। बेगम को ही देखनी पड़ रही है। कल साला उन्हें लेकर आया था। आज फिर वापस गए हैं वे लोग।’’ विरोधी खेमे के लोग इस तरह मुस्कुराए कि किसी और को मुस्कान दिखाई दे न दे, बड़े साहब को जरूर दिखाई दे जाए।अपने देश में पिछले कुछ सालों में और कोई तरक्की हुई हो या नहीं पर इलेक्टॉनिक एक्सचेंजों की बहार जरूर आ गई है। मोहल्ले-मोहल्ले में खुले पी.सी.ओ.में एक बार बाराबंकी के लिए सक्रिय हुआ और देर रात तक बेगम हक शहर में हाजिर हो गईं। विरोधी खेमा दूसरे दिन हतप्रभ रह गया, जब उसे पता चला कि मेम साहब की बीमारी की खबर, जिसकी कोई बुनियाद नहीं थी, सुनकर बेगम साहिबा बड़े साहब के घर अगले दिन दोपहर हालचाल पूछती देखी गईं। साथ में पिछले दिन से बड़ा टिफिन कैरियर था।
बाद में जैसा कि पिछले कई मौकों पर हुआ था और दफ्तर के अनुभवी बाबू पहले से जानते थे, वैसा ही हुआ। वे बड़े साहब की अन्तरंग टीम के सदस्य बन गए और उसी हैसियत से आज की मन्त्रणा में शरीक थे।कमरे में वर्मा साहब के दाहिनी तरफ बैठे हुए व्यक्ति की उपस्थिति का कारण बड़ा दिलचस्प था। छोटे-छोटे बाल, गैंडे जैसी गर्दन और टूटे हुए कान वाले इन सज्जन को किसी अखाड़े में होना चाहिए था। वे दफ्तर में थे पर इससे कोई फर्क नहीं पड़ता था। उनके जीवन का मूलमन्त्र था कि पूरा जीवन ही अखाड़ा है। वे कभी भी कहीं भी कुश्ती लड़ने के लिए तैयार रहते थे। चूँकि अपने जागृत समय का बड़ा हिस्सा वे दफ्तर में बिताते थे इसलिए मौजूदा जीवन की अधिकांश कुश्तियां भी वे यहीं लड़ते थे। अक्सर उनके साथ बातचीत करने वाले को उनकी कुश्ती कला से परिचित होने का अवसर मिलता था। धोबिया पाट उनका प्रिय दाँव था और दफ्तर के बरामदों में अगर कोई कर्मचारी, ठेकेदार या मुलाकाती लँगड़ाता हुआ दिखाई दे जाता तो बिना बताए लोग मान लेते कि वह व्यक्ति इनसे कुछ गम्भीर विचार-विमर्श करके जा रहा है।
ध्रुवलाल यादव नामक ये सज्जन जूनियर इंजीनियर थे और डॉ. रघुबीर जैसे उत्साही हिन्दी-प्रेमियों की मेहनत को धता बताते हुए लोग उन्हें अवर अभियन्ता न कहकर जे.ई. कहते थे। वे जे.ई. थे इसलिए जब तक बोलते या लिखते नहीं थे, लोग मानकर चलते थे कि उन्होंने सिविल इंजीनियरिंग में डिप्लोमा जरूर हासिल किया होगा। जैसे ही उनके श्री मुख से कोई वाक्य निकलता या वे कागज पर अपने पेशे से संबंधित कोई चीज लिखते, सामनेवाला मान लेता कि वे भी उन फैक्टरियों से निकला हुआ माल थे जिन्हें हमारे शिक्षाविद् स्कूल, कॉलेज, यूनिवर्सिटी या पालीटेक्नीक के नाम से पुकारते थे और जो धड़ा-धड़ साल-दर-साल हजारों लाखों की तादाद में ध्रुवलाल जैसे होनहार निकालते रहते हैं। उन्होंने पालीटेक्नीक में पढ़ाई के अतिरिक्त प्रयुक्त होनेवाले दो तरीकों में से एक का प्रयोग करके डिप्लोमा हासिल किया था। उनके द्वारा प्रयुक्त तरीका विभाग में भी बड़ा काम आता है, यह उन्हें नौकरी शुरू करने पर ही पता चला।
जे.ई.ध्रुवलाल यादव के सामने जीवन की प्राथमिकताएँ शुरू से ही बड़ी स्पष्ट थीं। उनके बाप मझोले दर्जे के काश्तकार थे और लगभग बीस भैंस-गायों की सेवा-सुश्रुवा करके अपने परिवार को औसत भारतीय किसान की जिन्दगी से बेहतर जीवन प्रदान किए हुए थे। लेकिन ध्रुवलाल अपने परिवेश के मुकाबले ज्यादा महत्वाकांक्षी थे। टखने-टखने तक गोबर में डूबकर गाय-भैसों की सेवा करना और शाम को कान पर हाथ रखकर बिरहा गाना-सिर्फ इन्हीं दो कामों तक वे अपनी जिन्दगी सीमित नहीं रख सकते थे। लिहाजा उन्होंने पढ़ने का फैसला किया। बाप के बहुत बच्चे थे। जमाना भी बदल रहा था। अपने लिए अब ‘करिया अच्छर भैंस बराबर’ सुनना बाप को खलने लगा था। इसलिए एक लड़के का पढ़ाई की तरफ रुझान उसके लिए खुशी की बात थी। उसने औपचारिक रूप से ससुरी महँगाई का जिक्र जरूर किया पर ध्रुवलाल को शहर भेज दिया।
बचपन से ही घी-दूध का सुख होने तथा बाप के प्रिय मुहावरे के अनुसार जूता मारकर सुबह-सुबह अखाड़े में ठेले जाने के कारण ध्रुवलाल एक अदद कसरती बदन के मालिक थे। उनका कद छह फुट से कुछ ऊपर था, दोनों तरफ से कान टूटे हुए थे, रंग गन्दुम और स्वर लट्ठमार हद तक उजड्ड था। यही सारी चीजें उनकी पूँजी थीं। सबसे पहले यह पूँजी पालीटेक्नीक में काम आई। पालीटेक्नीक में पहुंचने के पहले दो-तीन हफ्ते में ही यह स्पष्ट हो गया कि राष्ट्रभाषा हिन्दी में छपी पाठ्य-पुस्तकें उनकी लिए ग्रीक और लैटिन के महाकाव्यों की तरह थीं। ध्रुवलाल यादव के ईमानदार मन ने उन्हें सलाह दी कि भाग चल प्यारे ! कहाँ फँस गया ! जीवन इन किताबों से परे ज्यादा सुखद है। दर्जा आठ में किसी कवि ने, जिसका नाम स्वाभाविक था कि वे भूल गए थे, सही ही लिखा था कि अहा ! ग्राम्य जीवन भी क्या है, क्यों न इसे सबका मन चाहे। पर आगे काशी फल कूष्मांड के साथ-साथ भूसा, गोबर और बाप के जूते का ऐसा त्रिकोण फ्लैश बैक की तरह सामने आता कि वे तो वे उनका ईमानदार मन भी काँप जाता। उन्होंने अपने मन की अनसुनी कर दी और सफलता के गुर दूसरी जगह तलाशने शुरू कर दिए।
भारतीय समाज में बिरादरी बहुत बड़ा सम्बल है। ध्रुवलाल के काम भी यही सम्बल आया। पहले रैगिंग के समय भी यह सम्बल उनके साथ था। रैगिंग में तो उनका डील-डौल और टूटे हुए कान भी निपट लेते पर पढ़ाई में मामला कुछ दूसरा था। उनके बिरादरी के सीनियरों ने बताया कि सूबे के दूसरे पालीटेक्नीकों की तरह इस पालीटेक्नीक में भी सफलता के लिए पढ़ाई के अलावा दो रास्ते थे। पढ़ाई तो निरीह छात्र करते थे। ध्रुवलाल सरीखों को तो शेष दो रास्तों में से एक चुनना था।पहला रास्ता था बाहुबल का और दूसरा था धनबल का। बाहुबली छात्र कट्टा या चाकू मेज पर रखते और आराम से किताबें खोलकर नकल करते। इन बाहुबली छात्रों की प्रतिभा सत्र के प्रारम्भ में ही पहचान ली जाती और अध्यापकों का कोई न कोई गुट उनके सिर पर वरद-हस्त रख देता। बाहुबली से यह गुट साल-भर अपने विरोधी अध्यापकों को पिटवाता या गाली दिलवाता और इत्महान में इन्हें पर्चा आउट करने से लेकर छोटी-छोटी पुर्जियों पर उतर लिखकर पहुँचाने तक का काम करता।
दूसरा रास्ता था धनबल का। जिस समय ध्रुवलाल पालीटेक्नीक में पहुंचे भारतीय समाज में बहुत कुछ बदल रहा था। शिक्षा की दुनिया बदल रही थी और उससे जुड़े गुरु बदल रहे थे। अब गुरु राजपुत्रों को दौड़ जिताने के लिए निर्धन शिष्यों के अँगूठे नहीं कटवाते थे। वे धनिक पुत्रों से वाजिब फीस लेकर उन्हें दौड़ शुरू होने से पहले ही आगे कर देते थे। प्रधानाध्यापकों और कॉलेजों के मैनेजरों ने नकल को एक व्यवस्थित रोगजार का रूप दे दिया था। हर चीज के रेट निर्धारित हो गए थे। यदि अपने तयशुदा कक्ष में नकल करनी थी तो उसकी एक कीमत थी, किसी अलग कमरे में बैठकर सहायक की मदद से उत्तर पुस्तिका लिखनी थी तो उसकी दूसरी कीमत थी, किसी दूसरे को बैठाकर उससे उत्तर पुस्तिका लिखवाने की कीमत अलग थी और अगर कोई छात्र चाहते कि विषय का अध्यापक ही उसके पास खड़ा होकर इमला दे तो इसकी फीस सबसे भिन्न थी।
ध्रुवलाल ने पहला रास्ता चुना। वे एक-एक कर सारी कक्षाएँ पास करते गए। यह रास्ता परीक्षा पास करने के अलावा नौकरी में भी उनके काम आया। प्रारम्भ में जब वे इस दफ्तर में आए उनकी छवि पहले ही यहाँ पहुंच चुकी थी। अपने सुगठित शरीर और उज़ड्ड जुबान के साथ वे एक ऐंटी इस्टैब्लिसमेंट छवि लिये दफ्तर में घुसे। नियुक्ति पत्र के मुताबिक जिस समय उन्हें वहाँ होना चाहिए था उससे वे सिर्फ पाँच महीने लेट थे। हुआ यह कि सरकारी नौकरी मिलने के पहले ही उन्हें कहीं विदेश में भी नौकरी दिलाने का भरोसा किसी एजेंट ने दिया था। अत: इस नौकरी का नियुक्ति-पत्र जेब में रखे वे विदेशी नौकरी के लिए दौड़ते रहे और अन्त में निराश होकर पाँच महीने बाद ज्वाइन करने इस दफ्तर में पहुँचे। पहुँचते ही उनके और बड़े बाबू के बीच में बड़ी संवैधानिक किस्म की बहस छिड़ गई। बड़े बाबू के मुताबिक कोई भी नियुक्ति-पत्र कुछ खास समय तक ही वैध रहता है। कम से कम पांच महीने तक तो नहीं ही रहता। उनकी राय में ध्रुवलाल यादव को फिर से जाकर अपने नियुक्ति-पत्र का नवीनीकरण कराना चाहिए था। इसके विपरीत ध्रुवलाल का मानना था कि एक बार नियुक्ति-पत्र मिलने के बाद रिटायरमेंट की उम्र तक प्रभावी रहता है। उन्होंने बड़े बाबू को चुनौती भी दी कि वे एक भी नियम ऐसा दिखा दें जिसके मुताबिक कोई नियुक्ति-पत्र पाँच महीने बाद रद्द हो जाता है। बड़े बाबू कोई भी ऐसा नियम नहीं दिखा पाये। फिर भी बड़े बाबू को धर्मसंकट से उबारने के लिए उन्होंने मीठे स्वर में आग्रह किया कि उन्हें पाँच महीने पहले की निर्धारित तारीख में ही ज्वाइन करा दिया जाए।
बड़े बाबू जो दप्तर के दूसरे बाबूओं की तरह उन्हें उनके सुगठित शरीर और मुंह में ठूँसे हुए पान के कारण ‘महिमा बरनि न जाए’ वाले भाव से निहार रहे थे, उनके इस आग्रह पर एकदम से बड़े बाबू बन गए। उन्होंने अपने तीस साल की बाबूगिरी का निचोड़ फाइनेंसियल हैंडबुक के फलाँ पेज और अलाँ पैरे तथा गवर्नमेंट सर्वेंट्स कांडक्ट रूल्स के पेज नं. इतने से इतने तक के उद्धरण के रूप में देना शुरू कर दिया जिसे ध्रुवलाल काफी अनिच्छा और अधैर्य के साथ झेलते रहे। इसीलिए पब्लिक सेक्टर इस मुल्क में असफल हो रहा है-उन्होंने निराशा से सोचा और हवा में मुँह उठाकर किसी काल्पनिक व्यक्ति की माँ-बहन के साथ अपने शारीरिक सम्बन्ध कायम करने लगे। बड़े बाबू अगर काफी मोटी चमड़ी के न होते तो इन सम्बोधनों को अपने लिए ही समझ लेते पर वे निर्विकार भाव से किसी फाइल में डूब गए। दूसरे बाबुओं ने जरूर आँखें मटकाईं, एक दूसरे को देखकर मुस्कुराए और अपने उद्गारों से यह स्पष्ट करने का प्रयास किया कि श्री ध्रुवलाल जिन स्त्रियों के सम्मान में कसीदे पढ़ रहे थे वे बड़े बाबू की ही पत्नी और बेटियाँ थी।
बड़े बाबू ने भारतीय नौकरशाही का मूल मन्त्र पकड़ा। जब कोई फैसला न करना हो तो फौरन फाइल पर लिखो-बात करें। यहाँ उनके नीचे कोई ऐसा नहीं था जिसके पास ‘प्लीज स्पीक’ लिखकर वे फाइल भेज सकते थे और यमदूत की तरह ध्रुवलाल सामने खड़े थे इसलिए वे भुनभुनाते हुए स्वयं ही उनका नियुक्ति पत्र लेकर उठ खड़े हुए और बड़े साहब के कमरे की तरफ बात करने के लिए बढ़ गए और दो-तीन घंटे तक नहीं लौटे।
इन दो-तीन घंटों का बड़े साहब के विरोधियों ने जमकर सदुपयोग किया। दूसरे दफ्तरों की तरह इस दफ्तर में भी काम होता हो या नहीं, राजनीति खूब होती थी। कौटिल्य ने सहस्रों वर्षों पूर्व राजनीति और गुप्तचरी का सम्बन्ध परिभाषित कर दिया था और यह दफ्तर पूरी श्रद्धा के साथ उस पर विश्वास करता था। सरकारी गुप्तचर एजेंसियों की तरह यहाँ गोपनीय सूचनाएँ अखबारों की करतनों से नहीं उपजती थीं बल्कि इन्हें हासिल करने के लिए मेहनत की जाती थी, इसलिए अक्सर इनमें कुछ दम भी होता था। ध्रुवलाल यादव का कमरे में प्रवेश, बड़े बाबू के साथ उनके नाटकीय संवाद और बाबुओं की प्रतिक्रिया के बीच अचानक जायसवाल नामक ठेकेदार क्यों ? बाबुओं की सेवा के लिए लाया गया मगही पान का आधे से ज्यादा भाग खोखा तिवारी बाबू की मेज पर छोड़कर कमरे से गायब हो गया, इसका पता करने के लिए अशोक कुमार शुक्ला सहायक अभियन्ता अर्थात् ए.ई.के कमरे में चलना पड़ेगा जो इस कमरे से तीन कमरे दूर था और जिसमें चौरसिया नामक एक अन्य ए.ई.भी बैठते थे और जो इस समय किसी साइट पर गए हुए थे। उनके न होने से ही ध्रुवलाल वहाँ निमन्त्रित किए गए थे। अगर वे होते तो यह गोष्ठी कहीं और होती क्योंकि उनके बारे में शुक्ला का मानना था कि वे बड़े साहब के गुप्तचर थे और उन्हें इस कमरे में बिठाया ही इसलिए गया था कि वे शुक्ला एंड कम्पनी पर निगरानी रख सकें।
इस कमरे में ध्रुवलाल यादव की दफ्तरी दीक्षा शुरू हुई।कमरे में दो मेजें थीं। दो मेजें इसलिए थीं कि सिर्फ दो ही मेजें उसमें आ सकती थीं। दोनों मेजों के पीछे एक-एक कुर्सी थी। एक कुर्सी का एक हत्था उखड़ा हुआ था और पीछे के ताँत भी जगह-जगह से टूटे हुए थे, उस पर शुक्ला बैठे हुए थे। दूसरी कुर्सी घूमनेवाली थी और उस पर न सिर्फ मैली सी एक गद्दी थी बल्कि पीछे एक लिहाफ भी था जो शुरू में जरूर सफेद रहा होगा पर अब बदरंग हो चुका था। कुर्सियों की यह दशा दफ्तर में बड़े साहब से निकटता का पैमाना था।दोनों मेजों के सामने दो कुर्सियाँ थीं। चार में से कोई कुर्सी साबुत नहीं थी। किसी के पीछे के ताँत टूटे थे और किसी के नीचे के, किसी हत्था हिल रहा था तो किसी के पांव डगमग कर रहे थे। मेजों पर बेतरतीब फाइल कवर कागज पेपरवेट और पान के खोखे फैले हुए थे। पूरे कमरे में सिगरेट के टुकड़े और राख बिखरी हुई थी और कमरे के हर कोने में दीवारें पान की पीक से अमूर्त चित्रकला का नमूना पेश कर रही थीं। दफ्तर में बड़े साहब के कमरे को छोड़कर सभी कमरों की ऐसी ही हालत थी और इस कमरे में भी दूसरे कमरों की तरह सरकारी काम के अलावा सब कुछ होता था।इसी कमरे में ध्रुवलाल यादव नौकरशाही में दीक्षित हुए। उन्हें चौरसिया ठेकेदार कनखियों से इशारा करते हुए यहाँ तक ले आया था।
कमरे में शुक्ला नामक सहायक अभियन्ता या ए.ई. के अलावा दो जे.ई. और एक बाबू पहले से थे। छोटे से कमरे में उन्होंने सामने पड़ी कुर्सियों का रुख इस तरह मोड़ लिया था कि पहली बार घुसने पर किसी गोलमेज सम्मेलन का सा माहौल लगता था। किसी को बताने की जरूरत नहीं पड़ी, ध्रुवलाल ने चौथी खाली पड़ी कुर्सी पर कब्जा कर लिया। जायसवाल ने चारों तरफ इस प्रकार देखा मानो उसकी दृष्टि से वहां कोई कुर्सी उत्पन्न हो जाएगी। अभी उसकी हैसियत ऐसी नहीं थी कि शुक्ला उसे चौरसिया की कुर्सी पर बैठने को कहते इसलिए थोड़ी देर इधर-उधर देखकर वह ‘अभी पान लेकर हजिर होता हूँ, जैसा कोई वाक्य बुदबुदाकर अदृश्य हो गया। ‘‘आइए..आइए यादव जी। विभाग में आपका स्वागत है।’’ ध्रुवलाल कुछ असहज हुए। इस तरह के औपचारिक माहौल के वे अभ्यस्त नहीं थे। उन्होंने गम्भीर होकर अंग्रेजी में ‘थैंक यू’ से मिलता-जुलता कुछ कहा। कमरे में मौजूद आठ जोड़ा शातिर आँखों ने उनका मुआयना शुरू कर दिया था। बीच-बीच में ये आँखें एक-दूसरे को अपना मूल्यांकन भी दे रही थीं। है पट्ठा जोरदार ! ऐसा आदमी जो शरीर और भाषा से मजबूत हो और दिमाग से कमजोर, उनके लिए बड़े काम का था।
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Welcome!
महात्मा गाँधी अन्तर्राष्ठ्रीय हिन्दी विश्वविद्यालय का वाइस चांसलर नियुक्त किये जाने पर हार्दिक बधाई।
Congratulation for appointed as a Vice Chancellor of Mahatama gandhi International Universit Wardha but no need to become happy because u did not left Poilce Job you need every day only police job to clean a garbage at this University so come with your wepon DANDA not with PEN all the best
Sunil Mishra former chairman
Board of Studies in Journalism
RTM. Nagpur University Nagpur
09422146767
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