What happens when loyalty to country is tested by loyalty to family?

Chapter -1 State of Siege

The Prime Ministerial candidate, Kanwar Pratap Singh, smiled.

‘Well, then, we might not make it alive from here. We are completely cut off, unable to communicate with anyone, and we cannot leave this room. The police are completely paralysed or have been paralysed by the centre. At the very least, it will be a baptism by fire for us if we are to see this through,’ said Kanwar Pratap Singh calmly, and then, turning to a man standing close to him, said, ‘See, CP, even these time-tested phrases like baptism have religious allusions! What to do? We are unapologetically a religious country. And they have the cheek to call me a Hindu fanatic!’

CP Mishra, genuinely Oxbridge, a man of impeccable taste, ex-cabinet secretary, and Kanwar Pratap Singh’s most trusted aide, smiled despite the seriousness of the situation.

`‘You have put the finger on the button, Sir. At the very least, they want us to panic and enter a negotiation.’

‘Ah, a negotiation... yes, that’s the right word, CP. It should be coming our way sooner than we think. Satyanand, before they cut off the link, what was our position?’

Satyanand, the logistics whiz kid and number cruncher of the group, spoke with emphasis.

‘We are still badly trailing, Sir. We have a marginal lead in a couple of the northern states, but unfortunately, in the key battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, we are way behind the Sahays. Plus, your speech earlier and this incident now has pushed us back even more. The southern states were out of reckoning long before...’

‘Bad and even worse. Dire straits. End of the game, right? All the negative adjectives come to mind, eh, Satyanand?’

Kanwar Pratap Singh let out a low laugh as he looked at the group hunched and huddled before him in the poor light. His eyes shone with unwavering intensity.

‘And yet despite all this, I am still going to win, friends. I will beat all the odds and win. Care to ask me, Suraj and Laxmikant Ji, how I will win?’

Kanwar Pratap Singh’s political secretary, Suraj, shivered, mumbling something no one understood. If only he could flee this room and escape this developing situation. But he knew that no one outside would give him a job. He was stuck with Kanwar Pratap Singh. In every sense of the word. If, at the end of the day, he was lynched, it would only be because he had nowhere to run to and hide.

The 70-year army veteran and President of the All-India Ex-servicemen League, Retd. Brigadier Laxmikant Tripathi, did not answer. He had lost count of the number of adverse and deadly situations he had faced in his career. He knew he would survive this one as well. He believed in what Kanwar Pratap Singh was doing. As a man wedded to the principles of stoicism, there was no need for him to reply to Singh’s mind game questions. Let others shake and rattle with fear. He was more than composed in this dim room, facing a dangerous situation.

Pratap Singh pressed on.

us all take a cue from Laxmikant Ji’s composure. He does not wilt under any pressure. He remains composed and quiet and deliberate in his choices. And that is how we will win these general elections, friends. The average Indian is, in a sense, like Laxmikant Ji. He listens to all the actors on the stage but keeps his counsel for voting day. He knows what I stand for. My message deeply resonates with him. He will vote for me when the time comes.’

Not far away from the locked room, the cell phone of the district collector buzzed, and he took the call. The chief strategist of Prime Minister Sahay, ensconced in the anteroom of the Sahays’ family bungalow at Amrita Sher Gill Marg in Delhi, came on the line.

‘DC, you will wait for some more time before you go in and make Kanwar Pratap Singh an offer. Tell him he and his team will be given a safe passage if he apologises to the crowd. I will arrange for two representatives from the crowd to meet him. His apology will be recorded on a cell phone. He will have to fully retract his statement that this country first belongs to the Hindus and then to the rest. You got that?’

The district collector licked his lips nervously, scarcely believing what he had heard. It was a scenario straight out of a bad Bollywood film. But it was happening to him. Taking a gulp of air, he croaked a reply.

‘Sir, how can I say such a thing? It’s a blatant political statement. This man is a Prime Ministerial contender after all. There are service rules that forbid me...’

The district collector forgot his reply and bit his lip. There was complete silence at the other end. He understood the power of that silence. Its weight was more crushing than a blow on the head from an iron rod.

The chief strategist’s unhurried voice came back again.

‘Kupwara?’

‘Sorry, Sir, what of Kupwara?’

‘There are apple orchards in Kupwara.’

The district collector again bit his lip. Besides apples in Kupwara, there was also raging terrorism in that district. So, that’s how they did it. Nothing was ever on the record. Give the faint hint of a suggestion, and it worked. It always did work, did it not? It did not work only in cheap Bollywood films where the hero stood up to suggestive or real threats. Who the hell wanted to be transferred to Kupwara anyway?

The district collector decisively answered.

‘I will do it, Sir.’

‘Good man. Use all your persuasive skills. I have heard you can be quite convincing. And keep me posted.’

In the closed room when they first heard it, it sounded like the patter of rainfall outside the room. The intensity of the noise steadily increased till the stone pelting sounded like a hailstorm hitting the deck with vicious, unstoppable energy.

Some of those trapped in the room felt it was the end of the world. They no longer felt secure in their assumption that the key team of the Prime Ministerial contender was, in a sense, impervious to danger. The realization seeped in, slowly and horrifyingly, that anything was possible under these circumstances. Perhaps they had been set up. Their faces lit up by cell phone lights were no longer creased with worry; they were panic-stricken.

The threat from outside went up by a few more notces as someone started banging outside the closed door. The vilest slogans and threats could now clearly be heard. Where was the police picket guarding their room? Was this the beginning of the end for them? These thoughts raced in their minds till the threat of violence became unbearable for everyone.

Kaushik felt like screaming his lungs out. Suraj cursed his fate that he had hitched his bandwagon to Kanwar Pratap Singh. The others withdrew into their inner spaces, hoping to ride this out. Suddenly, the lights came on and, almost in sync, the sloganeering and stone pelting outside stopped. Their hearts were pounding as the men heard footsteps outside the door followed by a light tap.

‘Here comes the negotiation,’ thought Kanwar Pratap Singh.

They all heard the light tap on the door again. The polite voice of the district collector outside the door could clearly be heard.

‘A word with you, Sir... alone, please.’

(This excerpt from ‘Those Who Wait: When Revenge Clashes with Power’ written by Juggi Bhasin, has been published with permission from Penguin Random House, Rs 599)