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Journalism of Courage
The quiet house with its overgrown garden and sylvan peace may seem an odd place to begin a long journey through the heat and dust of India’s most politically volatile state. There are no election posters here or party flags and the resident of the bungalow, Dr Kalika Charan Dube, has never had anything to do with politics. In fact, he discovered some years ago that his name had “disappeared” from the electoral rolls and has not managed to put it back in.
But like every person you meet in UP, Dr Dube too has an opinion on the subject: the politics of the state today, he insists, is far worse than any mental asylum.
Dr Dube should know. At 90, he is possibly India’s seniormost living psychiatrist and for close to two decades he ran the Agra Mental Hospital that stands a few hundred yards from where he now leads a solitary retired life.
In course of a rambling conversation, it is clear that Dr Dube means what he says. His disdain for politics is matched by his affection for the patients he treated at what is still known as the “Pagalkhana.” He was the first to do away with locks in the wards, he ran the place single-handed with the help of the patients when the staff went on a 22-day strike (“they kept the place much cleaner than the attendants and not a single item was stolen”), and was the Chief Collaborating Investigator of a presitigious nine-nation WHO “International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia” in course of which his team studied thousands of patients in Agra and surrounding villages.
But what does Dr Dube have to do with general elections in UP, you may ask?
Nothing really, except that as we traverse through towns and qasbas and villages along the Golden Quadrilateral, it often seems that psychiatry is a better aid than psephology to understand the topsy turvy politics of “Ulta Pradesh.”
On either side of the GQ, fields ripe with golden grain stretch out to the far horizon and peasants are busy cutting and piling the harvest in bundles.
But beneath the surface calm and Baisakhi-eve prosperity, lie a cocktail of pathologies—persecution complexes and paranoia, obsessive attachments and split personalities—that become evident as we wend our way.
In the Tila Dholi Khar basti in the Sadar Bhatti area of Agra, several Muslim youths express hurt and anger at being “used” by the SP and BSP at election time and talk of forming their own party.
But the sense of persecution is also laced with the Stockholm Syndrome. Rukshana Ahmad tells us almost defiantly that she will vote for BJP because “is desh mein rahna hai, is desh mein marna hain.’’
Her words are echoed by a group of Muslim men in the Jootewali Gali in Firozabad. Afaq Ahmad and Abdul Zaheer insist that “at least 10 per cent’’ of the Muslims in the town will vote for Vajpayee because he has brought about peace with Pakistan.
Besides, it is better to accept the BJP’s embrace and live “in harmony.”
The upper castes too seem to be seized by schizophrenia. In Karvabujurg village in Etawah constituency, a group of Brahmins get into a fierce argument.
Anil Tripathi insists that “Pandits” across the state will vote for Vajpayee as PM but Prabha Shankar Tiwari cuts in—”No, we should never vote the same party twice. This time Brahmins will return to the Congress.”
Marginalised by the rising power of the OBCs and Dalits, some Brahmins—like Muslims—want to make peace with “the enemy.”
In Agra, for instance, many will back the BSP which has put up Keshav Dikshit—a Veerappan lookalike—who prominently displays the prefix “pandit” before his name, never mind Mayawati’s war against “manuwadi.”
As far as the Dalits are concerned, though, there is little confusion. Their total support for Mayawati continues.
In Tila Nandram basti in Agra, where open drains give out an unbearable stench and resdents complain incessantly about the lack of power and sewage clearance, the elephant symbol is everywhere.
As Jagananth Prasad Soni says, ‘‘Even if we vote for some other party, everyone thinks that Jatav means BSP. So we might as well vote for Behenji.’’
