Hi-Fi, Wi-Fi, Modi in Mhara state

Writing on Haryana's walls tell you why the appeal of 'outsider' Modi cuts more than the native dynasts'.

File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing a rallty | PTI

Let me begin this ride with an opening gambit that only a pukka native of my home state could get away with in our increasingly humourless universe, where we are fast losing all ability to laugh at ourselves. Imagine you were travelling in blindfold, and the moment this were removed, you saw the signboard of a chemist’s shop, proudly displaying the portrait of a buffalo, or a bhains as you’d refer to the boring water buffalo. In which state of India would you say you were? The short answer is, my Haryana, and we Haryanavis have neither lost our humour totally, nor do we take our buffaloes so lightly as to be offended at being identified with them.

Even when the cow is increasingly the favourite dairy animal in the north, Haryanavis remain devoted to the buffalo. Possibly because its milk gives you more desi ghee than cow’s. Also, because it is a key metaphor in our conversation. You ask Chautala, convicted and sentenced for 10 years but out on bail pleading poor health and now campaigning 18 hours a day, if he isn’t misusing his bail, and he replies, with hurt: “Maine kya kisi ki bhains kholi thi, bhai? (did I steal somebody’s buffalo?)” He says all he did was to give schoolteachers’ jobs to 3,000 or so people. And then he repeats what he says at his election meetings: “You vote me back to power again, and this time I will give jobs to three lakh.”

Gopal Kanda, yet another candidate (from Sirsa) contesting on bail (for alleged abetment in the suicide of an airhostess in his short-lived airline), plays the victim with style to beat Chautala’s insolence. “I was targeted by all of you in the media under bribery and pressure,” he says. “I spent a year in jail for (IPC Section) 306, and nobody asks who did what to Sunanda Tharoor?” But who would have pressured the media? The powers that be, he says: “This is Haryana, jiski lathi, uski bhains.” Might is right is as meaningless a translation of this as is country liquor for full-blooded tharra.

And finally, the more urbane Bhupinder Singh Hooda: “Woh kya samjhega, usko toh kala akshar bhains barabar.” I give up translating this, but something like, what does he know, for him the printed word is as daunting as a buffalo.

The picture, or writing on the wall, that set me thinking on these lines is found in the busiest market square in the large city of Rohtak, the undisputed capital of Jat-Land, and Godara Medical Hall has pretty good reason for that hoarding. It sells drugs for human and veterinary use. But it uses a picture only of a buffalo. So, looking up, you at least know the state you are in, and its priorities.

Mention of film-maker Vishal Bhardwaj in two articles is one too many, but this is turning out to be his week, because of all Bollywoodwalas he tried to psychoanalyse Haryana in his forgettable Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola. He got the Chaudhari dynast right, his persistent pink buffalo fantasy was quaint, but his portrayal of the Chaudhari Saab as a feudal was all wrong. Haryana has no feudalism in the old sense of the term. The dominant, power caste are Jats, who can only be described as a middle caste or even OBC in many states. But in Haryana they dominate everybody. And boy, can they create dynasties!

There are two areas in which Haryana, a tiny state of 2.5 crore, tops the country. It has the largest number of nationally ranked boxers and wrestlers per lakh of population and the most political dynasties per sq km. Its politics is also played like a contact sport. The Big Three dynasties were founded by Devi Lal, Bansi Lal, Bhajan Lal and the latest to rise are the Hoodas. Devi Lal’s favourite son Om Prakash Chautala and in turn the apple of his eye Ajay are now convicts in the same corruption case, so they can’t contest, but the father is campaigning for power, with Ajay’s wife, other son Abhay and grandson Dushyant are candidates. His brother Ranjit is a rival, from the Congress.

Bhajan Lal’s legacy has now shrunk. Nevertheless, Kuldip, his wife and even brother Chander Mohan (who briefly got famous when he became Chand Mohammed to take Fiza as his second wife) are all contesting. Next door in Bhiwani, Kiran Chaudhary, daughter-in-law of Bansi Lal, is in contest and so is his elder, but less favoured, son Ranbir Singh Mahindra. Senior Hooda is in the fray, his son Deepender is an MP. Name any familiar name in Haryana politics, and I will tell you something about his parents. As we’d say in Haryanavi English, everybody is in the family way.

Anywhere you look, there is a dynasty. In the Ahir (Yadav) south, Rao Birender Singh ruled once and now his son Rao Inderjit, a Central minister, does. Another Congress rebel and once Hooda buddy, Venod Sharma has formed his own small party and both he and his wife are contesting. Who knows, a hung assembly will show us the power of two. I stand at the back of the crowd at Hooda’s rally in Nuh, the heart of Muslim Mewat, 85 km south of Delhi, and ask Aqeel Ahmed, 38, a property agent, about the key candidates. Aftab Ahmed of Congress and Zakir Hussain of Chautala’s INLD are sons of late Khurshid Ahmed and Tayyab Hussain, who controlled the region’s politics for almost half a century, or since I started going to school hereabouts. “In so many years, you still have the same families ruling you?” I ask Aqeel, and he laughs in delight at his own wit, but borrowing from Sholay’s Asrani: “Yehan sab Angrezon ke zamaney ke jailor hain.”

Politically, the most important writing on the Haryana wall this time is that all these dynasties are dimming, some from fatigue, some with the law catching up with them, some under the weight of double-incumbency, but mostly because of the rise of an entirely new political power in the BJP. Until now, its best performance on its own symbol was 13 seats in a House of 90 (1967, as Jan Sangh). It is now the front-runner, particularly as the young break old caste lines and flock to Modi. BJP has got all the dynasties on the run.

The BJP may not have a clear local leader but it has clarity none of the rivals do. As a political journalist looking at the walls in election bound Haryana, you rarely see just one face on a poster or a hoarding. It is usually a minimum of three, grandfather, father and the son, in diminishing sizes. The BJP has no such clutter. It just has Modi. Congress campaigners are quietly building an “oopar Narinder (Narendra Modi) neeche Bhupinder (Hooda)” buzz.

The young of Haryana, aspirational as elsewhere in the country, are junking old determinants of identity. They have tasted success, and hunger for more. We Haryanavis have always been mocked for having more brawn than brains, and now it is our real strength, a pot of gold and glory. Brawn is to their success what brain is to software South’s. In recent years, tiny Haryana has ruled India in Olympic sports, particularly in boxing and wrestling, and now the more muscular areas of athletics (throws and heaves) as well. Hooda, who now gives Rs 5 crore for an Olympics medal, is even making his state’s sporting success an election plank. And Haryana boys dominate the male modelling market.

At Rohtak, I stop at Aryan Protein World, in the main bazaar on Delhi Road, shelves loaded with muscle-building supplements, so needed in a largely vegetarian state that now needs to beef up. Pradeep Singh aka Lala looks a convincing owner, biceps rippling in his sleeveless tee. He is a former national-level hammer thrower (contemporary and friend of Seema Punia, who just won an Asiad gold). He runs an academy for boxing (always spoken boaxing in Haryanavese) and has 40-45 boys always training with him, for a fee of course. Haryana has now snatched away ownership over Indian boxing from the Army. Want evidence?

The team of 2 Rajputana Rifles is just finishing a training stint at Lala’s academy! His boxer buddy is Sanju, a former national champion, and all the talk here is about boxers, wrestlers and athletes. Lala’s kid brother Kuldip is a state gold medalist in 48 kg class, his best friend Mandip Jangra, former national welterweight champion (“check his profile page on FB Bhai Saab”). This is resurgent Haryana in pursuit of glory-2 per cent of India’s population won 22 of India’s 38 golds at New Delhi CWG in 2010 and four out of the six medals at London Olympics. Reminder, Saina Nehwal is a Haryanavi Jat too.

Lala explains the demand for his protein supplements (so what if his business card spells it as “proteins”): “In Haryana, sirji, all boys want to be shtuds (stud). The same soil that produced ten maunds (a maund is approx 30 kg) now gives 50, so you can imagine how much chemical is used. How can that grain give you muscle? We rear buffaloes, but milk is not enough, you need supplements, but everything I sell is dope-tested, no steroids here.” It is a coincidence, but a notable one that the shop next to his sells pet foods, accessories, and offers stud (canine) services for a fee.

Haryanavis have now discovered their bodies and looks as their new capital. In much smaller Meham, the heartland of Khap Panchayats en route to Hisar, the shop selling muscle-building potions is proudly called “RDX”. What happens if a boy does not become an international medal winner, I ask Lala. “Uske saath buri hoti hai, sirji,” he says ruefully, “he ends up becoming a bouncer, or gets bounced around at home”. But a bouncer is not such a bad job if a politician, a rich “bania” or a celebrity hires you, he says, and you can earn lakhs just standing on guard there if you also have a gun licence.

This growing physicality leads to other careers as well. In towns and larger villages, you find centres like Meham Defence Academy, to train you to compete to become an officer in the armed forces. And also a proliferation of higher Haryanavi centres of learning like dance and DJ academies. One, in distant, backward Sirsa, beckons, “Wanna be a DJ… get in,” and among the services the “academy” offers are “psychedelic trance parties”. No wonder Sirsa gave us dude Gopal Kanda.

Love of boxing, wrestling and the armed forces is probably to be expected in a state which always took pride in being awash with milk and dahi, but where politics also evolved as a contact sport. When the state was carved out in 1966, and my father moved from Bhatinda in Punjab to Sirsa in Haryana, on one of his usual punishment postings, our class VI textbooks all had the Haryana “anthem” printed on the back. I forget the entire ditty but the refrain was, “Mhara des Haryana, jahan doodh-dahi ka khana.” Soon enough the state’s politics was hit by defections, sale, purchase and kidnapping of MLAs and a particular champion in that sport rose. His name was Gaya Lal, and how did his parents know, when they named him, that he would be immortalised as India’s most famous serial defector, giving his name to the phenomenon of Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram? The “anthem” was suitably amended in folklore: “Mhara des Haryana, jahan doodhdahi ka khana, atta mile na dana, mhara kaam aana-jaana.”

It will need a Yogendra Yadav to explain why Haryana became home to such rough and unstable politics. But possibly because, unlike Punjab, it had not fought for statehood, it had created no popular leaders with statewide appeal. There were many caste and local leaders. Ideological and political loyalties were inconsequential and no single caste provided domination in numbers though the Jats, just over 20 per cent, became the most powerful. But within the Jats also there were many rival leaders who all formed their dynasties.

The finest and the most honest defence of dynasty politics came from Tau (uncle, as in your father’s older brother) Devi Lal, who, once taunted by a reporter at his press conference with promoting his own son (Chautala), asked: “So whose son I should promote instead, yours?” As rival Jat dynasties jostled for power, other communities were confined to the cities, and grew richer. A new Brahmin family rose in Venod and his father K.N. Sharma, and they were kings of liquor, real estate and hotels. An unusual local leader also rose lately in Sirsa, born in a modest RSS worker’s family, but who later made his fortune in Gurgaon’s real estate. He would personify Modi’s taunt that Haryana has been caught up in the game of Kaun Banega Crorepati. His name is Gopal Goyal Kanda, and loves to flaunt his beginnings as a “baniye ka chhokra” and, starting with a shop called “Glorious Shoes”, soon built an empire in property, hospitality.

He was elected as an independent MLA, joined Hooda’s cabinet when he fell short in 2010, and then we know the rest, his air hostess’s suicide, etc. Now on bail, he is drawing delirious crowds in the poorest areas of the city. He has obviously dispensed largesse to thousands but his supporters get furious if you call him a Robin Hood. He has, after all, made money buying and selling land like everybody else in Haryana politics, he wasn’t trading in opium! Kanda offers his crowds freebies to put Jayalalithaa to shame and women bring their babies to be blessed by him. In Haryana, having a criminal charge seems no liability among the faithful, Chautala’s or Kanda’s.

Driving together between campaign stops, he talks about himself to me, how his father died when he was 13 and nobody from RSS/Jan Sangh came to ask after him, even though his father had been the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from Sirsa twice. Left to himself, he did rather well. His home is a 12-acre fortress ringed by a medieval red sandstone wall topped with battlements. And for his guru, Tara Baba, he has built a temple complex over more than a hundred acres, with a Shiv Murti bigger than the one near Delhi’s airport. “What can I tell you about my life, except that it’s a fairytale,” he says, and is quite confident that he will win, and never have to return to jail.

Chautala has no such illusions. For now, he knows that his brazen furlough will soon end and he will be back in Tihar. He was convicted by a tough judge for corruption in schoolteachers’ recruitment, holding tests and selecting the deserving candidates for a little over 3,000 teachers’ jobs when he was CM. So what, he says. Doesn’t everybody give jobs to his own people, ask his supporters. Haryana is not the most corrupt state in India, but its threshold for tolerating political corruption rivals Tamil Nadu.

Or brazenness of the kind Chautala personifies. He says he will return to jail, but so what. He will be sworn in chief minister in Tihar, and therefore do one better than Amma, who only controls her government from jail. Sacrifice runs in his genes, says Chautala. His father Devi Lal made a sacrifice like Bhagwan Ram in leaving his throne for Chhota Bhai V.P. Singh in 1989. And why would he be scared of jail? He was born in his maternal uncle’s home since father Devi Lal was then in British jail, just like Lord Krishna was born in mama Kansa’s prison. So my dynasty is divine as well, and going to jail is a badge of pride. To call this brazenness is an understatement. We are better off borrowing again from Vishal’s Haider, chutzpah is more like it.

At a personal level, Chautala is not crude, he is even charming and has indulged me with time and freewheeling conversation for years. One such evening over chaste vegetarian dinner, he taught me the nuances of politics, what keeps a man hungry for power. “When you have power, you harass not just your adversary but also his people, his lowliest chamchas,” he said. Then they go to their bosses and beg them to save them, which they aren’t able to. “Phir kitna maza aata hai unko tadapte dekhne mein (what fun it is to see the powerless leaders tortured because they are unable to help their own).” That is why, he said, it is worthwhile in his business to slog for years, even endure jail, to get that power, enjoy that sadistic pleasure. He believes now that Hooda has enjoyed a similar spell, and in the state’s ping-pong politics it is his turn.

It may indeed have been so as he is the primary claimant to the Jat vote and his party is intact, and efficient. But the usual, one-Jat-dynasty-or-the-other cycle may be about to be disturbed in Haryana by a rank outsider, Narendra Modi. In his campaign in Haryana, Modi may have surprised you by repeating the line that while people here wanted hi-fi or wi-fi, he was plugging safai. Was he just getting carried away with rhyming word-play?

Then you look around the highways in Haryana. Even dhabas here offer free wi-fi, and “DJ academies” all flaunt hi-fi. Do you still need to be reminded that our Haryana is the richest state in the country, never mind our non-elite sporting choices, crude politics and the love of desi ghee, doodh and buffaloes? You can also be sure that Modi has been reading the Writings on our Walls.