Reflections: Shopping for divine

No prizes for guessing why the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s N. Srinivasan was seen recently with a bare-bodied priest in a Chennai temple. Not that Indians turn to divinity only in a crisis. The number of doctors, lawyers and accountants who are festooned with copper, conch shell and coral don’t suggest much faith in their own professional skills. Politicians are worse. In fact, this is the time when the stars shine at their brightest, not as heavenly bodies but as arbiters of human destiny. Prediction is a profitable industry that, like vaastu, thrives on credulity. It says something about us as a modern nation that astrologers matter more than psephologists.

On the eve of another election many years ago, an even younger journalist and I toured Uttar Pradesh in his car. We stopped at a crumbling palace whose owner, glorying in the hereditary title of Thakur, graciously asked us to stay for lunch. He explained over the simple meal that he had once won a legislature election with a massive majority but was no longer politically active. However, Rajput voters still listened to him. He hadn’t decided what advice to give them but it definitely wouldn’t be in favour of the ruling party’s Doctor X who had been a Union minister and state governor but whom he detested as corrupt, arrogant and inefficient.

We drove on after lunch until we found ourselves at a Circuit House where a small crowd in the grounds spoke deferentially of “Doctor Sahib” who was spending a day or two there during his campaign. Realising he was the Doctor X the Thakur had mentioned, we sought an interview and were taken to a robustly built saffron-draped man with shoulder-length locks. He was Doctor Sahib’s guruji. Doctor Sahib didn’t take a step without consulting him. Acknowledging the crowd’s “Jai Guru Maharaj!” with a slight nod, he led us into a chillingly air-conditioned room where Doctor Sahib, a large round man oozing complacency, lolled on bolsters. He was certain of winning, he told us, because his record was so impressive, but a few ignorant voters still didn’t have the ability to appreciate his tremendous sacrifices for them. These uneducated yokels danced to the tune of some feudal fellow nearby. “This Thakur Sahib should have been abolished when Indira Gandhi did away with rajas and maharajas!” he declared.

“We’ve just come from there,” my friend burst out before I knew what was happening. “Thakur Sahib had invited us to lunch. He told us how much he admires you. In fact, he wants to support you and is waiting for you to ask him!” Though initially taken aback by my companion’s bare-faced lies, I was still young enough to think it fun to join in. “Yes, he is very keen on an overture,” I added. “He thinks Doctor Sahib is the best candidate in the state.” Doctor Sahib and Guruji beamed at each other. “I’ll go at once,” Doctor Sahib said, clambering to his feet. “No, no” Guru Maharaj advised. He would go first and test the waters. “You come tomorrow morning,” he told his shishya. Then turning to us he said it had been prophesied two strangers would bring good news that day. “You cannot leave now. You must stay for dinner. We shall talk again after I return.”

Never before or since have I been in such a hurry to get out of anywhere. I pleaded engagements elsewhere, running out of petrol, father, mother, wife (I hadn’t one!), everyone under the sun was “serious”. The office wanted me back. I had to write at once about meeting such an important politician to make tomorrow’s edition. My friend spoke with equal urgency. Our jobs depended on being on our way. Guru Maharaj and Doctor Sahib agreed at last but not before forcing mounds of sweets and samosas on us. We were safe we reckoned so long as Guru Maharaj was with us. The cat would be out of the bag only when he reached that crumbling palace and confronted the Thakur. What happened I don’t know. We were over the state border before nightfall.

Guru Maharaj did not make Doctor Sahib crawl on all fours, walk through flames or run naked after bulls like some astrologers but his power was obvious. Godmen loom large in all Indian elections, recalling Churchill’s warning about the return of superstition after independence. Dhirendra Brahmachari was much in evidence in Rae Bareli during Indira Gandhi’s comeback. Tamil and Maharashtrian politicians frankly seek divine intercession. West Bengal’s Marxists quietly sneak off to the Kali Bari to propitiate the goddess before a contest. Someone who telephoned Bengal’s card-holding Communist advocate-general was told the master was at his pujas. I remember the Revolutionary Socialist Party’s Jatin Chakravarty, the Left Front government’s public works minister, saying after the Moscow Olympics that the way the skies cleared just before the inaugural was nothing short of god’s miracle. He added hastily, “as those who believe in god would say.”

A Singaporean friend maintains that so many of the world’s financial analysts are Indian because analysis is like astrology. It’s a profession that can’t go wrong. There’s always an explanation. A man whose horoscope was studded with “good health” labels and nary a word about illness complained to his astrologer when he did fall ill. Unperturbed, the astrologer explained that good health can only follow bad health. That’s what Macbeth meant by paltering in a double sense. It brings solace to the multitude. No wonder newspapers took not the least notice of two Press Commissions urging them to ban astrological forecasts to strengthen society’s scientific temper. That was Nehruvian modernity. Gandhi understood Indians better.