A tolerant iconoclast

I said that my acquaintance with Khushwant Singh is just a couple of years old. Yet I seem to have known him well enough through his writings. While writing my doctoral dissertation, I read his history of the Sikhs. It was an elegantly crafted book that introduced me tothe fascinating history of Sikhism and the region where it flourishes. Whatever present-day specialists might say, The History of the Sikhs established Khushwant Singh8217;s scholarly reputation for the time being. Yet he was not one to settle for a professorial chair in Delhi, Amritsar or Patiala. Always eager and restless, his quest for spaces to express his creative energies began quite early in life. In the words of Ghalib: So this is our position: here we stand/And here we shall continue in our stand.8217;

Editing The Illustrated Weekly of India was the highpoint in Khushwant Singh8217;s journalistic career. Though he was castigated by some self-righteous persons for changing the character of the magazine, most of his readers loved the Sardarji for being innovative, unorthodox and provocative. Sadly, his subsequent journalistic enterprises turned sour. The magazine New Delhi was launched with much fanfare. But it failed to bring back his lost readers. He had to swallow the bitter bill of closing down NewDelhi.

Likewise, Khushwant Singh8217;s parliamentary career as a Rajya Sabha member was grounded well before it could take off. Though a Congress nominee, he was fiercely independent-minded and self-centred. The rough and tumble of politics was not his cup of tea. Drinking his chota peg in his Sujan Singh Park house and encircled by his numerous women friends, he would have probably echoed the following lines from Mohammad Iqbal, his favourite poet:quot;Anon he carries on with the Church/At other times he is in league with temple-dwellers.

His creed and his code is but bargaining/An Antara in the role of Haydar.Outwardly he displays concern for the faith/Yet inside he carries the thread of the infidels.

Smiling with all, he is friend of none/Forsooth snake is a snake when laughing.quot;

Sure enough, Khushwant Singh made his peace with the establishment on occasions. But, all said and done, he has kept intact his image of an iconoclast and a non-conformist. That is because he questioned conventional wisdomincessantly, challenged political and religious orthodoxies fearlessly for which he got into trouble with the high priests in the Akali leadership, and flouted established norms and time-honoured conventions relentlessly. Yet, he is not self-righteous as the late Nirad Chaudhuri was.

Besides, he is tolerant, eclectic, and intellectually committed to pluralism and multiculturalism. He is a quintessential liberal, one of a dwindling tribe in the India of today, and I find his outlook much closer to Jawaharlal Nehru8217;s worldview than that of any other public figure in the 20th century. Presumably, he idolises Nehru if not Indira Gandhi, and yet there appear to be no icons in this iconoclast8217;s temple of learning.

What about his literary or not so literary writings? Some years ago, I read Train to Pakistan, a creative work on Partition. In a style that is moving but not necessarily innovative, it depicts the brutal destruction of the traditional harmony that had prevailed in the Punjab village of ManoMajro, where Sikhs and Muslims had lived amicably together. quot;By the summer of 1947, when the creation of the new state of Pakistan was formally announced, ten million people Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs 8212; were in flight. By the time the monsoon broke, almost a million of them were dead, and all of northern India was in arms, in terror, or in hiding.

The only remaining oases of peace were a scatter of little villages lost in the remote reaches of the frontier. One of these villages was Mano Majra.quot; Reading this passage I was reminded of the observation by Malcolm Darling, a civil servant of Punjab. During his tour in 1946-47 he found, in the tract between the Beas and Sutlej rivers, much similarity between Hindus and Muslims. He asked how Pakistan was to be fitted into these conditions. Khushwant Singh may tell you that this question has not lost its relevance even today.

I admire Khushwant Singh for another reason. He is among the very few who, unmoved by the linguistic claptrap, has introduced therichness and bewildering variety of Urdu to English-speaking readers. He translated Mirza Ruswa8217;s 19th century novel, Umrao Jan Ada. If you have seen the film and not read the novel, I urge you to walk across to the nearest bookstore. To him goes the credit of translating Iqbal8217;s Shikwa and Jawab-i Shikwa, written in 1909 and 1912. Though the effort does not compare in quality with that of A.J. Arberry8217;s Complaint and Answer, he has at least made these inspiring poems accessible to so many readers.

Incidentally, the Shikwa and Jawab-i-Shikwa swayed a generation of young Muslims. One of them was Salim Ali, the celebrated ornithologist, who recalled listening to the Shikwa, quot;the beauty and sonorousness of which still rings in my ears.quot;

Some people may have complaints about Khushwant Singh. Yet, they wo-uld find it difficult to deny that this man has done so much to enrich our cultural and intellectual life for well over three decades. As an outsider to the capital of India, it is hard for me to think ofDelhi without him. British historian Percival Spear once wrote on Ghalib8217;s Delhi. Some day, I may venture to write on Khushwant Singh8217;s Delhi.

When the grand old man is gone, many of us would miss him, including those like me who have not known him personally. I can hear him say to us: Happy that day when I set out/to leave this barren wilderness.8217;