The past thirty-five years have seen India blundering through a series of events, somehow managing to trudge along the pathway of progress despite two Himalayan crises. Unfortunately, many of the pledges made to the nation by Jawaharlal Nehru,with the stroke of the midnight hour on 15 August 1947, still remain a distant dream.
At sixty-eight, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas continues to be one of the few surviving stalwarts who have not given up hope of a better India. He still manages to provoke the powers that be with his bold stand, unnerving stamina and scathing criticism of what is wrong, not only with political India, but also her society and culture. He has already written nearly seventy books on a variety of subjects, made about twenty-five feature and documentary films, and his ‘Last Page’ in Blitz weekly is worth recording in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running column in the history of journalism.
In this interview, conducted by Suresh Kohli at Abbas’s Bombay residence over several sittings, the renowned writer, journalist and film-maker reflects on events of the recent past, and shares his thoughts on what has really gone wrong, and what ought to be done to redeem the vision of a better India.
Suresh Kohli: Mr Abbas, your latest book Bread, Beauty and Revolution is an excellent catalogue of events in post-Independence India. The material contained in the book does give the reader an inkling of what has transpired in the various walks of life, but does not really provide a perspective. Looking back, how would you like to view the contemporary past – especially in the light of a swiftly changing socio-political scene?
K.A. Abbas: BBR is, as you say, a catalogue of events – national and international. But a ‘catalogue’ cannot provide a perspective. It leaves the perspective to be provided by the reader. All I have done is put together comments on various events as they occurred to me on certain dates, and were provoked by certain events.
You, as an experienced, if not old, journalist know that the perspective of a journalist, or a columnist, is not and cannot be long-ranged or in-depth. But the later years, where they have affected personalities and events, have correspondingly changed the perspective of the ‘Last Page’. For instance, the hopes of a new Nehru being reborn in Indira Gandhi, which were raised on the day she was first elected prime minister, were later proved to be an exaggerated illusion, if not complete lies. The fault lies not only in the leadership, but also in the people. For, a leader is the quintessence of the hopes, the aspirations, the good points and the weak points of the people. The leader has to lead, but he or she has also to be led by the strength of the popular feeling and movements.
I would like to view the changing socio-political scene neither as an optimist nor a pessimist. Much has gone wrong with our nation: the rampant corruption, the increasing inflation, the increase in our population and our poverty, the dacoit menace, the virtual breakdown of law and order in several states, the difficulties experienced by students at the time of admissions to colleges and universities, the ‘Aya Ram Gaya Ram’ phenomenon of defections in politics. All these are sufficient to depress anyone. Added to this is the decline in our values, especially political values. But as against this, we have also to recognize that at two critical junctures in our recent history, the Indian people have asserted their democratic right by once rejecting the Emergency with all its excesses and once again, two years later, by rejecting the unprincipled and opportunistic coalition which went under the Janata label. That showed a certain maturity and political wisdom of our common people. Some of the other plus points in the political, social and cultural scene are the advances made by our intellectual elite in the field of science and technology that, today, allow India to export not only manufactured goods but also technology, know-how. This is the result of the Nehruvian initiative in this field.
All this is subdued and dimmed, if not altogether cancelled, by the lowering of the economic standards of our common people. But still, I am not ready to believe the prophets of doom. Our country and our people, with all their faults, have a way of blundering through all manner of crises. Call it fate or the collective will and collective intelligence of our people. That is why I am not a pessimist.
SK: Do you feel we are an improved lot?
KAA: We have improved as well as deteriorated. But the deterioration is mainly because of the enormous population explosion and our communal casteism and superstition-ridden society.
SK: Why do you think none of the 15 August 1947 midnight pledges, like communal harmony, equal rights, status for harijans, etc. have been redeemed?
KAA: That’s already explained above – due to superstition, casteism, etc. But I would like to add two factors: the failure of our politicians to rise above themselves, and their puny local, casteist and communal outlook. And the failure of our younger generation to discard the hangover of the past, especially in the social field. For instance, I expected the young people with the legacy of Gandhian humanism and Nehruvian socialism to do away with the evils of dowry, which are resulting in so many bride burnings that they have become front-page features of daily newspapers.
SK: While tending to agree that the younger generation has not risen to these expectations, I would put the blame on the leadership and your generation that has really failed us. The younger generation has been left to fend for itself without the means, leave aside a perspective and direction, and of course, opportunities that have been reserved for the privileged few. Your comments?
KAA: With all my sympathy for your generation, my charge against them is that, today, they are not young enough. Youth means, and should mean, readiness to work and work hard, a revolutionary attitude to life and all its problems, and a breakaway from all old evils – old philosophies, old concepts, old ways of life and, certainly, against old superstitions. I’ll give you an example of a young man I met in Bihar during the 1966 drought. He was symbolically sitting on a broken-down wall and characteristically doing nothing while, just opposite the wall, half a dozen Harijans, bare to the waist, were strenuously digging a well. Suddenly, there was a chorus of excited voices as the Harijans digging at the bottom of the well struck water.
I asked the young man what he was studying. He replied, ‘Inter science.’ Then I asked him about the water situation in the village. He said it was very grave. Because there was no water in any of the wells. Then I asked him, ‘Where do you get water for your daily needs?’ He replied that the government sent a water tanker every alternate day and it gave every family not more than two buckets of water – just adequate for drinking and cooking purposes. So I asked him, pointing to the Harijans, ‘Why don’t you also dig a well?’ His reply was significant and is still ringing in my ears as a judgement on our youth, for he said: ‘We Yadavs don’t dig wells. It is against our caste rules.’
So there you are. The young men could keep sitting on the crumbling wall of feudalism, ancient pride and the twice-cursed caste system, rather than soil their hands with honest manual labour.
It is pertinent that, in the same drought-ridden Bihar, I saw American and British young men of the same age digging wells.
My complaint against the youth is not that they are disobedient to their parents but that they are not disobedient enough and for the right causes. For instance, I have not yet come across the news that a young man refused to marry the girl of his father’s choice and defied the dowry custom.
SK: As a journalist, novelist, short-story writer and an enlightened film-maker, how successfully do you think you have tried to focus attention on social evils and find solutions for them?
KAA: I do not know about successfully or unsuccessfully, but I have tried to focus attention on certain – though not all – social evils, in my journalism, books and films. I, however, do not think that it is the duty or the function of a writer or film-maker, necessarily, to offer solutions to any social or economic problem. I believe, as Sartre did, that the writer’s function is to create a revolution by disclosure. It is revolutionary enough for a writer or artist to expose or to disclose the reality of a situation, and leave the action to be taken by progressive political parties and the people. But, at the same time, I feel that a writer or an artist is a conscious human being and so he must take part in the peoples’ struggle for a better life for all the people.
SK: What do you think is the more effective method of bringing about social enlightenment?
KAA: Conscious and principled action is the best way to bring about enlightenment. I will give an example: everybody believes that trees must not be cut, that forests must be preserved, and so the elitist among the politicians go about planting trees, symbolically, which wither away after a few days. The Chipko movement of the tribals is a complete contrast to this elitist way. The women of the tribe, when they see the forest contractors’ men arriving with sharp and broad axes, run into the jungle and clasp the trees with their arms, daring those men to cut them to pieces along with the trees. I think only by such bold actions can the people be enlightened enough to see the real purpose and function of a movement like preservation of natural wealth.
SK: My question was more with regards to the effectiveness of media in contemporary society.
KAA: The function of the media is already defined and exemplified by the quotation from Sartre, where he compares disclosure and exposure with revolutionary action. It is a good sign that this type of investigative journalism is on the rise though, sometimes, it may be merely sensational. Sensationalism is not necessarily the alternative to revolutionary action.
SK: But do you think the majority of our journalists and film-makers are familiar with Sartre’s views? And even if they are, are they really doing their jobs as conscious individuals?
KAA: No, the majority are not doing it.
SK: Why do you think they are not doing so?
KAA: Partially because of commercial interests. Partially because of personal vanities, and the self-satisfaction that more media men derive merely by creating a sensation.
SK: Why do you think that is going to bring about enlightenment in this mostly illiterate country?
KAA: Historical conditions will create the demand for a new kind of readership. This readership will emerge out of the people themselves, and not out of the elitist professional class.
SK: Do you think there is a likelihood of that happening by the turn of the century?
KAA: Certainly! First of all, by nature, I am an optimist. Secondly, a study of history confirms that when economic, social and political discontent rises to a fever pitch, the seeds of revolution are sown. I think the children of today are those seeds which will grow into sturdy plants by the time they reach the age of conscious revolutionary action.
SK: A question that has always puzzled many is how do you manage to do so many things at the same time, and effectively express yourself through different mediums?
KAA: By being content with second-class stuff that I produce in the different media. At least that is the impression created on the critics. The book reviewers think I am writing second-class books. The film critics think I am making second-class or even third-class films. In fact, I have been disowned by the top graders in all the different mediums. But, frankly, I enjoy this indulging in different mediums. It gives me a sense of satisfaction to approach so many people by means of different media – films, plays, novels, stories and journalism, with occasional incursions into radio and television. That’s why I am able to do so many things – to switch over from one media to the other gives me mental rest and peace. In India, with its illiteracy, a writer can approach a substantial number of people by dabbling in various media. That’s why I am not ashamed, nor do I regret, not being first-class in any of these channels that I am indulging in. A first-class art film-maker has a limited audience. A first-class novelist has a limited readership. A journalist, of course, may communicate with a larger readership but even that is not enough. By combining all these media, I fell I am communicating with a larger number of people than I would have succeeded in communicating with through any one of the platforms.
SK: Isn’t it strange that almost all those films you have written for others have been turned into successful commercials, while one can’t think of any of your own productions that might have clicked with the audience? Could you please elaborate?
KAA: When I write for other directors, I write according to their formulas. While my own pictures are according to my taste and temperament, which does not conform to the commercial milieu. They, while directing my scripts, add their own masala – songs, dances, comedy, etc. for which I am not responsible –neither for its success nor for its poor taste. Another way of resolving this paradox would be, as many are saying, simply that I am a second-class or third-class director and that’s why my scripts fail at the box office. That is true if you take the box office to be the criterion of a film’s aesthetic and artistic quality!
SK: How have you managed to survive in the industry with all its ego hang-ups, cut-throat rivalry and blatant hypocrisy?
KAA: By remaining an ‘outsider’, the odd-man-out of the film industry. In fact, I refuse to call, at least my films, part of the industry, which I think is the wrong nomenclature for cinema. Manufacture of raw film is, indeed, an industry, and so is the making of equipment like cameras, microphones and sound-recording equipment. But mind and heart go into the making of a film and that cannot be called an industrial process. I am glad to see such exceptional films on the increase and, slowly, a small audience is being built up to appreciate it.
SK: There has always been a question mark about your language of expression in terms of creative writing. The Indian-English coterie seems to have disowned you, and the Urdu fraternity considers you more a writer in English. Would you like to clear the haze?
KAA: Just because I write in two languages principally and in a third language occasionally, nobody is prepared to take me seriously. That is, nobody belonging to the vested interests of the establishment of these three languages. Otherwise, so far as readers are concerned, the letters I get in these languages make a staggering total, and keep me and my secretary over-busy trying to decipher these letters and reply to the questions asked and the demands made by the correspondents. Actually, since my writings are translated in almost all the languages of India, at least a quarter of the letters are in languages (for instance, Malayalam in which, for some reason, I seem to be popular; or Tamil into which about a dozen of my works have been translated in the last two or three years). So that makes me both proud and humble.
SK: Coming back to your journalistic writings, one has noticed, firstly, your positive stance towards the Nehru family, irrespective of its blunders, which you seem to have conveniently ignored, and second, your leftist leanings. Reflectively, do you think you were right to have done that, or are you simply sticking to your loyalties stubbornly despite disillusionment?
KAA: In this respect, I will say that I am a revisionist. I keep on revising my opinions of people – even if they are dead, and certainly if they are living – in the light of their recent doings or misdoings. As far as Nehru is concerned, my respect for him never reached the stage of idolatry. There were occasions when I had reason to differ with him, and then I made no bones about my differing views but, since Nehru had a sense of humour, as well as a sense of history, he allowed a youngster to differ with him without disowning him or his affections.
For instance, I remember when the Government of India gave a large amount of money to Dharma Teja. I wrote against it as amatter of principle, and happened to meet Nehru the very next week. He showed a flash of his famous Nehruvian temper and asked me which minister I thought gave Teja this contract. I replied: ‘The finance minister, Morarji Desai, of course.’ At this he laughed, and said, ‘You seem to have a Morarji phobia. The same way he has an Abbas phobia. Actually, to put the record straight, it was I who gave this contract to Teja.’ Then I said: ‘What I have written applies to you, sir.’ He tried to explain why he had done the favour to Dharma Teja – a young scientist who was very self-confident and sure of himself – because he wanted to do big things for his country. And that impressed Nehru.
A couple of years later, the whole matter was exposed. Nehru’s gullibility was made the laughing stock. But I never suspected and never accused him of doing it for selfish reasons, or for corrupt designs (I have never suffered this sort of loyalty for any other member of the Nehru family). I had great hopes of Mrs Indira Gandhi when she came to power, of emerging as another Nehru. But the Emergency and its excesses, especially those committed under the orders of her second son, completely disillusioned me. So now I judge whatever is said or done by her on its own merits, and in the context of the situation in which she might have said and done it, as objectively as possible.
When asked to define my political ideology, I describe myself as a ‘non-party socialist, and non-party communist’.
So I am not at all disillusioned with whatever stands or decisions I might have taken at a given time. I will stand by them.
SK: And lastly, Abbas Sahib, what do you think have been your achievements, or failures in life that you are either proud of, or you would like to forget?
KAA: I don’t think I have had any achievements to crow about. Nor am I obsessed with the sense of any failure. I believe in doing the kind of things I like to do, and leave the results to Allah, Bhagwan, Karl Marx or Karma.