When my son, Shivam, was about five, the entire city, state, and country faced a crisis of unexpected proportions. There were riots during the Ram Mandir movement in different parts of the country. Fortunately for us, Lucknow was relatively spared to some extent.
During this time, I walked the streets of the affected areas of the old city – sometimes accompanied by the competent and respected district magistrate, the late Ashok Priyadarshi, and his minimal security detail – to monitor and survey reactions on both sides of the communal divide in those intense moments when curfew was imposed. Cries of “Har Har Mahadev” rose from the Hindu side of Yahiyaganj, while “Allahu Akbar” echoed from the Muslim side. It was a time when only stray dogs were seen on these normally bustling streets.
Those battle cries still ring in my ears. That evening, I was summoned by Chief Minister ND Tiwari past midnight to his Mall Avenue residence for a first-hand report. Though it was an extremely tense situation, I tried to pacify him by sharing my observations. Nobody, I declared, was running out of their homes for confrontations; reassuringly, people were running back home for cover. Despite media provocation, people were not interested in violence. (As an aside, this profoundly reflects the true nature of Indian civilisation).
That observation had a calming effect on him.
I now come to the horrid day of a chain of 12 bomb blasts. On that day, 12 March 1993, there was a dinner party at actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha’s house. We, too, were invited by Sonu Bhai and his wife, Promy (Poonam). There were just about 15 or 20 of us out of close to a hundred invited that evening. Most people were scurrying for safety and decided to stay away.
Those who attended the party included film-maker Ramesh Sippy, the director of the legendary superhit film Sholay; his partner, Kiran Juneja; cricketer and 1983 World Cup hero Jimmy (Mohinder Amarnath); actor-politician Raj Babbar; Saeed Jaffrey; and Anju Mahendru.
The conversation mostly veered towards the blasts and the backlash. I was of the view that there might not be one, as the city wouldn’t desire to further vitiate the atmosphere. The blasts were a reaction to the Bombay riots following the Babri demolition and were proven to have been orchestrated by D-Company from Dubai. I felt that the people of the city and political leaders from both factions would be weary of further escalation. Few agreed, but I was proved right during the following crucial days.
Their larger concern was the schism that had developed between the two communities. I tried to impress upon all those present that the majority community has to learn to live with Muslims and vice versa; any further retaliation would not be in the interests of the country. Muslims are citizens of this country, who, too, have sacrificed for its independence and worked for its growth, and they have the same right to its resources as Hindus.
The history of Islam, I emphasised, could not be debated in a gathering such as this. Of course, being a BJP household, I could have been more circumspect and diplomatic in choosing my words. It was disingenuous of me to have said things that were disagreeable and unpleasant to the hosts, especially after the blasts. Yet nobody could deny the essence of what I was stating – only through unity and harmony can any progress and peace be achieved.
On a lighter note, I moved from the bar in Sonu Bhai’s living room to sit on a large sofa with its back to the bar and struck up a conversation with an elderly German lady. I became so engrossed in the discussion that I failed to notice that Madhuri Dixit, the star, had gently settled down at the other end of my sofa.
This was pointed out to me by Poonam, later, after Madhuri had left. “It was so silly of you,” she said, “to be sitting there on the same sofa as her and not even say hello.”
Sonu Bhai is family to me, and we have had wonderful political discussions over the years – some smoothly flowing while others inconclusive, but never hostile. He is inherently a very cultured politician, although he may give a contrary impression to some.
He once brought former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha to my house in Lucknow. During the free-flowing conversation that followed, he made some harsh and explosive observations aimed at a particular individual. He emphasised the underlying theme by quoting the Hindi idiom, “Hamam mein sab nange” which means “everyone is naked in the bath.”
Though he had high praise for Atal ji, the conversation was mostly limited to individual psephological assessments for the upcoming elections. However, one thing was quite clear – the crack was too deep to heal.
Sonu bhai has some sterling qualities. In his heyday, he refused to canvass for the BJP against me during my 1993 assembly elections, although he was the party’s star campaigner. He had clearly stated that he would not canvass against friends anywhere. It is his kind that I have great love and respect for. He has always been a person of moral courage and integrity. Irrespective of his party association, his ideology has never differed from mine – and that has made for a great relationship.
Years later, during the 2019 elections, his wife, Poonam, fought from the Lucknow parliamentary constituency for the Samajwadi Party. I was the one she called to confer with before she landed on Lucknow’s socio-political tarmac. Although unofficially, at that point, I was in no-man’s land. After she arrived, she called on me with other party members to seek my help, and I did whatever was possible in the given situation.
But so did Acharya Pramod Krishnam, the Congress candidate, a few days later. He also requested that I accompany him through the city in his open vehicle a few times to lend him my name and support. In that complex political scenario, I chose to keep out of it all. In the previous 2014 elections, as people realised the Congress party’s indifference towards me, they all approached me. A team of AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) members, represented by their UP in-charge Sanjay Singh, came to seek support for their candidate, Jaaved Jaffrey.
So did close to 15 BJP workers, including a central party functionary, requesting me to join Rajnath Singh’s campaign – to stand shoulder to shoulder with him for his rallies in Lucknow. They urged me to meet him that evening at his house as a prelude to joining the party at that very strategic moment. To which I made all the right noises and just skidded away. Since then, I have kept myself out of the ambit of active politics.
Excerpted with permission from A Life Less Extraordinary: My Journey through Politics, Passion, and Purpose, Lav Bhargava, Hay House India.
