29

Jan

Karpoori Thakur: An Honor A Little Too Late In The Day

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Today’s Edition

New Delhi, 29 January 2024

Pradeep Mathur

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Karpoori Thakur was no doubt rarest of the rare political leaders in independent India.

Working as a parliamentary correspondent for an English daily in the early years of the 1980s decade, I met Peter Randal, an Austrian who was the representative of Socialist International in New Delhi. Peter was a friendly soul and loved to entertain journalists and others at his south Delhi residence .I was one among them.

One evening when we were discussing the political scenario in India  I asked Peter what he thought of Indian  leaders whom he meets so often and knows so well.

"They are all right" was his short reply. I sensed Peter wanted to say something about them but did not. Acting with discretion perhaps he did not want to reveal his mind before a journalist who had access in high power circles.

After we had settled well and with three pegs of whiskey down his throat Peter was in a “state of truth”,  I repeated my question.

"Your political leaders are egomaniacs", Peter replied.

"What do you mean, all of us have our egos" it is something very human", I said .

 " No, your leaders think they are born to rule". They do not belong to masses. They are a class above them and they have a divine right to rule. Peter  was quite explicit

Fully understanding the feudal character of our democratic politics I could understand what Peter meant yet I asked "Do you think the whole lot of them is like that,"

“Yes ", he said and then paused for a while and said “only one politician I have met who is not like that and he is Karpoori Thakur”.

I never had a chance to live and work in Patna and know Karpoori Thakur. But I gathered some information about Karpoori Thakur and tried to compare him with leaders of Punjab and Haryana whom I had known while working for The Tribune in Chandigarh and of course leaders of my home state of U.P many of whom I knew rather well.

Many of the political leaders known to me in Lucknow, Chandigarh and now in Delhi were kind, considerate, simple, and modest people. So what was the rare attribute Peter had  found in Karpoori Thakur, I wondered

The question was answered partially answered by my friend Dr J.S. Yadav, who then headed the Dept of Communication Research at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) in New Delhi.

Dr Yadav had led a major research project in Patna commissioned by the Union government and had come to know Karpoori Thakur well.

Dr Yadav told me that despite having been the chief minister of India's second-biggest state of Bihar (Jharkhand was still a part of Bihar) Karpoori Thakur had no airs. He looked and behaved like a poor villager. He was just not status consciousness.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Yadav said that  when in Delhi Karpoori Thakur would come to his modest flat in South Delhi instead of calling him to the place of his stay. More than once when  late talking  in the evening Karpoori Thakur would say he was too tired to go and would sleep on the floor. Dr. Yadav said he would be greatly embarrassed but Karpoori Thakur would ask him to go to his usual bed and  insisted that he would sleep on the floor.

Though what Dr Yadav told me was an important insight, it was not the rare virtue of the man Peter Randal had spoken about and that I was looking for. Today's young people may find it strange but in my younger days important people, especially from a rural background, sleeping on the floor was not a rare thing.

Pre-occupations with a busy professional life did not let me go to Patna and to meet Karpoori Thakur whose Delhi visits had become very rare .Then I left Delhi to work for The Pioneer in my home state of U.P. and by the time I returned to Delhi and resettled Karpoori Thakur had left the world

How Karpoori Thakur was different from all those kind compassionate, modest, honest, simple, and nice leaders I had known is something I discovered much later. None of these good leaders was above caste prejudice. More than 2,000 years since the great law-giver Manu ordained that one's occupation will decide his caste and social status we have sub-consciously developed an attitude to think ourselves superior to others and this gives us the egomaniac psyche and the born–to–rule attitude that Peter Randal had talked about.

A great leader and now a Bharat Ratan, Karpoori Thakur himself suffered because of this caste consciousness. His dedicated work for the poor masses of Bihar generated a mass following that could not be ignored. On the strength of this he became chief minister of Bihar twice. But the vested interests of upper caste politics could not tolerate a "barber" by caste in the position of chief minister for long and he was not allowed to complete either of his two terms.

Now when the Modi government, which protects and promotes those very upper caste interests who were allergic to Karpoori Thakur, has given the highest honour of the land to him one wonders if it is a change of heart or a device to gain electoral advantage.

Whatever it may be something overdue has been done.

As they say, it is better late than never.

(Words 930)

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