In one of Mark Tully’s new short stories, a politician’s bumbling son fails to connect with voters

After scraping through his MA Suresh decided he would have to face reality after all, and he flew back to Delhi. There he sought the advice of Ramesh Tiwari, his father’s friend, who had been a darbaari, a courtier, in Indira Gandhi’s inner circle but had been pushed out by her son Rajiv.

“You have two choices,” Tiwari told him. “There are foreign-returned boys hanging around the headquarters trying to sell fancy ideas to Rajiv about reforming the party without ever having got their hands dirty in grassroots politics. They think their computer knowledge makes them better advisers than someone like me who has eaten the dust of Uttar Pradesh, who has worn out the leather of his sandals tramping through the countryside. I know the politics of every village in Purvanchal. Yet I have been pushed out.”

“Why? You had some access even to Mrs Gandhi.”

“Because these youngsters who don’t know the name of a single village pradhan have got in with Rajiv and the result is there for you to see – all these ideas about reforming the party, holding elections for party posts and even getting the party workers and members to choose the candidates for elections! The joke is that in many places there are no workers or members. These computer-boys are all full of nonsense.”

“But still, should I try to get into the crowd here in Delhi who have access to Rajiv? With my foreign degree in development wouldn’t I be just the person someone is looking for?” Suresh asked eagerly.

“No,” Ramesh Tiwari growled, “your father told me how he had to use his influence to get you into university because you were so poor at school. He even said he thought you were stupid. You’d never be smart enough to compete with these clever computer-walas who pour that nonsense into Rajiv’s ears...”

“I say, that’s a bit hard coming from my father,” said a mildly indignant Suresh. “He wasn’t much of a studying man himself. But he did all right in politics, so why can’t I?”

“Maybe you will if you can be a man. Go and work in your father’s constituency. Go and make yourself known in the villages. Show them you are worthy to follow your father.”

“I say, I don’t think I’m much cut out for that sort of thing. I’m a city man,” whined Suresh.

“Well then forget politics. That’s my advice to you,” said Tiwari, bringing the conversation to an abrupt halt.

Not encouraged by the prospect of tramping from dusty village to dusty village and being based in a mofussil town where nothing ever happened and there would be no company to suit his taste, Suresh considered alternatives to a political career. But after a few months he realised that he had no chance of getting anywhere in the highly competitive civil service exam. The corporate sector wasn’t showing any interest in his undistinguished MA in Development Studies, even though it carried the tag of a foreign university.

One of his friends suggested that the NGO sector was the obvious place for him to make use of his degree, but from what he heard that would involve too much hard work for too little money. He was advised to try the hospitality industry, but he had observed that working in a hotel involved fawning on guests which he thought would be “dreadfully infra dig”. Besides which, he liked to be on the drinkers’ side of the bar. So he came to think there was no alternative to the family profession, even though that meant becoming a mofussil man. There was, he accepted, inevitability about this. His father had often said, ‘It’s your fate to take my political burden on your shoulders.’ It hadn’t seemed much of a burden then, but it did now.

Shivpur was at least on the railway and one of Sunil Srivastava’s achievements had been getting the railway minister to have an express train from Delhi stop there on its way to Bihar. Unfortunately, the exigencies of the timetable meant it stopped at Shivpur Station at two o’clock in the morning. A somewhat bedraggled Suresh, who had slept in his clothes because he didn’t trust the first class carriage attendant to wake him before the train reached Shivpur, clambered down from his carriage, carrying his own baggage, onto an empty platform. Normal political practice demanded that although he was only a potential leader, he should be met by a gaggle of excited youths shouting “Suresh Srivastava zindabad,” but even his father’s agent had preferred to stay in bed and merely arranged for a cycle-rickshaw to pick up the young hopeful politician. There might have been a family party to greet him at the station but his mother had died some years earlier and all his cousin brothers had migrated to Delhi or Lucknow. Suresh himself was an only child.

The following afternoon Suresh was sitting on the verandah of the sprawling family bungalow, clad in an immaculate light pink-and-white striped shirt with gold cuff-links and expensive fawn trousers, when Madan Lal Mishra, his father’s agent, appeared. Thin, slightly bent, with his sunken cheeks covered in grey stubble because there was no tradition in Shivpur of shaving every day, he was wearing a dhoti and kurta. The kurta was off white and obviously old. He bent down to touch Suresh’s feet, at the same time apologizing profusely for not being at the station to greet him.

“Don’t bother about that,” Suresh assured him. “At your age a man should not be asked to break his sleep. You and I will need all our strength to win back our family seat from this chor who has stolen it.”

“Yes, yes, Suresh bhaiyya. It is shameful that Ramesh bhai in Delhi wasn’t able to save your birthright,” Madan Lal said, obviously anxious to please. “Now we in Shivpur will have to put it right.”

Noticing that the old man was hovering in front of him not sure whether to sit down or not, Suresh called for a chair and said respectfully, “Sit, Madan Lal ji.”

The agent perched on the edge of the chair, leaning forward and looking at the ground. Suresh realized that he was wanting to say something but reluctant to do so. Eventually Madan Lal looked up and said, “Don’t take offence, but you must dress properly here. All politicians wear local clothes all the time because people expect it. They are foolish, I know. They should realize that the whiter the kurta of a politician, the blacker his heart. The wise like me know it’s all artificial, this politician’s habit of dressing like the ordinary man. But as I said, it is expected.”

Suresh was aghast. “Goodness, Madan Lal ji!” he said. “Are you suggesting I should wear a dhoti like you? I don’t have the first idea how to tie one or wear one. The silly thing will unfold and slip off or I’ll trip over it and fall at on my face.”

“No, no,” Madan Lal hurriedly reassured him. “Your father wore a dhoti here but that won’t be necessary. I will call the darzi and he will measure you for sewing kurtas and pyjamas.”

Suresh was very conscious of his appearance. He protested vigorously that he was a modern man and had come to Shivpur to bring modernity. He had been abroad and seen how people lived and dressed there and that was how he intended to live. Madan Lal reluctantly accepted this decision but warned Suresh mildly that he might regret it. The conversation then turned to the important business of undermining the interloper who was now MP for Shivpur.

Suresh had the answer. He would use his knowledge of modern development studies to convince the electorate that he was capable of revolutionising life for them. So that he could demonstrate his persuasive powers, Madan Lal had to patiently endure a lecture on development. Suresh expounded impressively on the current buzzwords in the development lexicon: women’s empowerment, the patriarchal tradition, inclusiveness, equality, governance, institutional structures and much else. He got more than a bit wobbly when he tried to expatiate on the structural change theory. Madan Lal’s occasional attempts to interrupt were brushed aside with a curt “please let me continue”. Eventually Suresh sat back with a self-satisfied smile on his face and said, “Well, what do you think about that?”

Madan Lal rather over respectfully agreed that it had been a masterful performance of which he had never heard the like before. Then, rubbing his forehead with the palms of both his hands and deliberately avoiding eye contact, he said, “Suresh bhaiyya, when you were in England, did they teach you anything about getting your voters’ work done here in India? Pushing the lazy, corrupt babus so hard that they actually do their duty and deliver government services and distribute government money?”

“I don’t understand,” said Suresh, who was still on a high. “Didn’t you hear me talking about devolved administration? That’s how you get the work done. Devolve the development funds and the responsibility for spending them down to the lowest administrative level. Panchayati Raj. Our Prime Minister is very keen on that.”

Madan Lal wanted to reply, “You mean devolve corruption,” but he thought that would be inopportune at this early stage of his relationship with Suresh. So to bring the discussion down from the airy heights of development theory to the realities on the ground in Shivpur, Madan Lal said, “With great respect, I suggest we need to think about getting the work done and spreading rumours.”

“Spreading rumours?” Suresh asked, a little puzzled.

“Yes. Rumours will be the most powerful arrows in our quiver. We will pierce the enemy with them. I suggest that the rumours we spread should create the impression that our rival is only a vote-begging MP, someone who comes here to ask for votes and then isn’t seen again until the next election. He hasn’t been back here since he was elected, so that shouldn’t be too difficult. We must say he’s eating money which should come to the constituency. At the same time, we must keep on spreading stories about you which will build up a reputation for you like your father’s. He was known as an MP who got people’s work done and spent time in the constituency doing just that. It was an exaggerated reputation, rumours always exaggerate, but there was truth in it.”

“Spreading rumours! I’d rather go out and speak to the voters myself, Madan Lal ji. I will hold meetings, make speeches, all that sort of thing.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You are a little inexperienced,” said Madan Lal hesitantly.

“Nonsense,” replied the bullish Suresh. ‘It is part of my family tradition. We have always been natural speakers.’

“Very well,” conceded an unconvinced Madan Lal and set about plotting a tour of villages in different parts of the constituency where meetings could be arranged for Suresh.

Excerpted with permission from Upcountry Tales: Once Upon A Time In The Heart of India, Mark Tully, Speaking Tiger.