| It
is difficult to write about those whom you love. Curiously
enough, the difficulty is not only because of the fear
of excessive partiality: it is also because love brings
with it the freedom to be exasperated. And intimacy
creates very complex and textured perceptions, often
too nuanced to be easily captured in mere words.
That
is why, when this book of memoirs (''A prattler's tale:
Bengal, Marxism, Governance'', Samya, Kolkata 2007) by
Ashok Mitra, came into my hands, I was at first reluctant
to write about it. But the author was and is so much
more than the recipient of my private affection: he
is one of the more remarkable personalities of independent
India, who has been involved and even deeply enmeshed
in some of the most significant events and socio-economic
processes of the past six decades and more, and whose
acquaintance spans a fascinating cross-section of our
societal mosaic.
Ashok Mitra may be in the public eye as one of the more
eminent Left economists of India, who has written several
valuable books in the subject, served in important positions
in the central government and been Finance Minister
of West Bengal as well as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
But many others will know of him through his prolific
columns on current affairs in several journals (notably
Economic and Political Weekly) and newspapers, in a
journalistic parallel career that has spanned more than
half a century and showed his passionate commitment
to progressive causes. And still others will have engaged
with his more approachable literary pieces, in both
English and Bengali, and discovered at least in part
a kindred spirit.
Contradictions are inherent in all of us. Even so, the
life and personality of Ashok Mitra has over the years
distilled the very essence of the term: at once vociferously
public and intensely private; devastatingly cynical
and endearingly romantic; angry and affectionate; stubborn
and sensitive; puritanical yet generous to a fault;
belligerent with his friends but also fiercely loyal
to them; strongly political while remaining at heart
a sentimentalist lover of poetry; worshipping idealistic
principles but enjoying above all a good gossip; railing
against the times, but very much a part of them.
All these attributes, combined with his indisputable
literary flair and prodigious memory, are what make
this book so absorbing and so much fun to read. The
Bengali original of this book ''Apila Chapila'' (Ananda
Publishers, Kolkata, 2004) generated much enthusiasm
and also much controversy when it was first published,
in a way that has been typical of the author's life.
The English version captures most of the flavour of
the original, even if it is sometimes more circumspect.
It is an utterly charming book as well. From the start,
a dizzying array of personalities fills the pages. There
are countless anecdotes, some humorous and some poignant,
and all quite fascinating. There are quirky and effective
pen portraits of the abundant profusion of his friends,
acquaintances, colleagues.
Of course, there are times when the cast seems perhaps
too lengthy, and the kaleidoscope of characters too
intricate for the reader to retain. Many of the people
flitting across the pages are not only well known in
different ways but also part of the elite of India,
in different spheres ranging from the literary and artistic
to the academic and scholarly to the political and ruling
groups.
Yet there are also some notable silences. For example,
there is scarcely any mention of his wife Gouri - even
though her graceful dignity, quiet efficiency and unswerving
loyalty must have made her presence the central stabilising
factor of his life. Like the quintessential Bengali
gentleman that he has often declared he detests, Ashok
Mitra steers clear of the truly intimate, perhaps assuming
that those who are deeply close are not to be trafficked
in words.
The opening chapters are wonderfully evocative of childhood
and youth in Dhaka in the 1930s and early 1940s, and
the sheer exhilaration of student life in Kolkata in
the period just before Independence is also effectively
captured, along with whiffs of the momentous times in
which these were experienced. Indeed, the entire book
is suffused with the vibrancy and excitement of particular
moments. And since Ashok Mitra was so closely involved
with so many events of national significance, these
memoirs also offer a panoramic glimpse into some of
these broader processes and events.
The heady days of central planning with Mahalanobis
in Delhi; the creation of the Economic and Political
Weekly; the social and political atmosphere of Indira
Gandhi's ''left-leaning'' phase in the early 1970s; the
bloody emergence of Bangladesh as a independent nation;
the violent attempt at destroying the Left in West Bengal
over the same period; the grim days of the Emergency;
the extraordinary political transformation as the Congress
lost the national elections and paved the way for the
era of coalition politics; the electoral victory of
the Left Front in West Bengal in the late 1970s; the
battle over Centre-State fiscal relations; the rising
hegemony of neo-liberal economic policy form the early
1990s – all these form more than just a backdrop, as
they are inextricably intertwined with the dramatis
personae of this account.
Some of Mitra's ruminations about the difficulties of
progressive change in only one state within a federal
system and the internal systemic threats emerging even
within disciplined Marxist parties that are pushed by
varying forces when in power, deserve more attention.
Even where one disagrees, there is no contesting that
he raises critical and thought-provoking questions,
and that his reflections are informed by continuing
commitment.
It is true that the final sections of the book do carry
perhaps too much of the perception that everything –
even progressive politics and literature – was better
in the past. In this sense some of Mitra's later reflections
do indeed fit in with the stereotypical attitudes of
those who have been around for longer, who tend to assume
that the newer trends and changes are generally adverse.
Nostalgia can certainly colour one's attitudes to the
present, but it should not lead to privileging a past
which was probably as complicated and contradictory
as the present.
The disarming thing is that the author would probably
be the first to admit this, as he would be to agree
with anyone who brands him as difficult. Yet the impression
on reading this book is not one of a difficult man,
rather of an incurable romantic. It is a book full of
people, full of little stories about them and full of
the emotion that only caring deeply about people can
bring. So this idiosyncratic memoir is in some ways
a love poem to many of the people he has ever known.
This may then be the longest and most successful poem
of the would-be poet. |
