Chanakya's Chant

  ‘Be careful of what you say and do today, Chanakya,’ advised Katyayan, although Chanakya had no intention of participating in any competition. He was far too distinguished a scholar for any such event. He simply wished to observe the proceedings of Dhanananda's court and better understand the equation between the king and his new prime minister, Rakshas. He ensured that he remained suitably hidden within the throng of the palace guests and out of the direct line of sight of Dhanananda. His error, however, was to stand alongside Katyayan and to remain within the sight of Rakshas. Rakshas recognised the ugly Chanakya instantly. Seeing an opportunity to let some sparks fly, he sombrely announced, ‘Magadha is honoured to have present here among us today, her illustrious son, Chanakya, who is a revered professor at the renowned Takshila University. The court shall be delighted to kick off today's competitions with a discussion by the acharya.’ Polite applause followed and Chanakya reluctantly took centre stage. ‘Measure your words and hold your temper,’ Katyayan whispered urgently as Chanakya walked away from him.

  ‘Om! Salutations to Brihaspati and Sukra, the gurus of the gods and antigods, and the originators of the science of politics,’ started Chanakya as an opening invocation, facing Dhanananda seated on his royal throne with Rakshas standing at his right hand. ‘Om!’ chanted the assembly in chorus.

  ‘O enlightened teacher, how can society work in harmony towards the progress of the kingdom?’ asked Rakshas.

  ‘By performing one's duty. The duties of a Brahmin are studying, teaching and interceding on man's behalf with the gods. The duties of a Kshatriya are bearing arms and protecting all life. The duties of a Vaishya are trading, manufacturing and producing wealth. The duties of a Shudra are to serve the three higher varnas,’ declared Chanakya, knowing fully well that the king seated at the throne was a Shudra.

  Rakshas was malevolently pleased. He had already lit the spark. It would not be too long before an explosion occurred. Surprisingly, Dhanananda maintained his composure and allowed the remark to slip.

  ‘Acharya, what should be the qualities of a king?’

  ‘An ideal king should be eloquent, bold, endowed with sharp intellect, strong memory and keen mind. He should be amenable to guidance. He should be strong and capable of leading the army. He should be just in rewarding and punishing. He should have foresight and avail himself of opportunities. He should be capable of governing in times of peace and times of war. He should know when to fight and when to make peace, when to lie in wait and when to strike. He should preserve his dignity at all times, be sweet in speech, straightforward and amiable. He should eschew passion, anger, greed, obstinacy, fickleness, and backbiting. He should conduct himself in accordance with the advice of elders—’

  ‘Oh shut up! I do not need this sermon!’ interrupted Dhanananda in a fit of rage. The court was stunned into a silence one could touch. Rakshas was at a loss for words. He had not expected such an instant result.

  ‘I agree with you, O King. You do not need my advice. My advice is meant for those who have the intrinsic capacity to absorb and implement my advice. You, unfortunately, have neither!’ thundered Chanakya. Katyayan cringed inwardly. Why had he brought Chanakya here? He had unwittingly placed his own hand within the lion's jaws.

  ‘Rakshas! Who is this ugly oaf that you deem a revered teacher? He's not fit to be amongst us, leave alone lecture us!’ demanded Dhanananda.

  ‘O noble King. He is Chanakya, the son of the dear departed Chanak,’ explained Rakshas slyly.

  ‘Ah! I now understand. When I ordered for that impudent dimwit's head to be cut off, I should also have done the same for his son. Rats have a nasty habit of multiplying,’ observed Dhanananda.

  ‘Once again, I must agree with you, O King,’ said Chanakya, ‘you were unwise to leave me alive. An enemy should always be destroyed to the very final trace—just as I shall destroy you and your perverted dynasty one day,’ predicted Chanakya calmly.

  ‘Have this wretch arrested and sent to Nanda's Hell. He can think up ways for my downfall under the tongs and probes of the talented Girika! Catch him by his puny pigtail as one catches a rat by its tail!’ shrieked Dhanananda as his royal guards moved towards Chanakya.

  Chanakya's hands went to his shikha and untied the knot that held the individual strands of hair together. In spite of his fury, Dhanananda's curiosity was piqued and he remarked, ‘Untying your tail isn't going to help you! A monkey shall always remain a monkey!’

  ‘O stupid and ignorant King, I have made it my sacred duty to unite the whole of Bharat so that it may stand up to the might of the foreign invaders at our doorstep. My first step shall be to expunge you from history. Today I take a sacred oath! I swear upon the ashes of my wise father and loving mother that I shall not re-tie my shikha until I have expelled you as well as the Macedonian invaders from my country and united it under an able and benevolent ruler!’ swore Chanakya as the guards caught hold of him by his now untied hair and dragged him towards Nanda's Hell.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Present Day

  Agrawalji, I would like, with your blessings, to relinquish my service in your employment,’ said Gangasagar. Over the years he had learned everything that Agrawalji possessed in his bag of tricks. He was grateful but wanted to move on.

  ‘Why, Ganga? You've learned so much under my tutelage. Why throw it all away?’

  ‘Sir, I think that I can help you better from outside than from within.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In India's untidy democracy, politics and business shall always need each other. The former is about power but needs money to realise it; the latter is about wealth but needs power to create and sustain it. Let me become your political strength.’

  ‘And what would you want from me?’

  ‘Economic support. I shall repay it with political support when you need it.’

  ‘My blessings are with you, Gangasagar.’

  Gupta, the paan vendor, was blissfully smoking his cheroot as he lovingly layered lime, cardamom, areca nuts, and rose-petal paste onto a bright green betel leaf for Gangasagar. The filth surrounding his stall was unbearable, a thick stench of sewage making it impossible to breathe. ‘That's why I smoke these cheroots,’ said Gupta, ‘they make it easier to breath in this foul air. I don't mind the carcinogens!’

  Kanpur was home to some of India's biggest tanneries, and the area housed one of them. Hides came to the tannery with animal flesh and hair still hanging on them and the tannery used urine and limestone sludge to remove the residue. The workers then treated the hides with pigeon droppings. A permanent and disgusting smell of rotting flesh, stale urine and pigeon shit hung over the entire area. The poorest of the poor worked in tanneries like this one and they had no alternative but to live in shanties around the area. The result was a burgeoning slum.

  For the wealthy of Kanpur, slums like this one were embarrassing boils that needed to be lanced; for those who lived in them, the slum was their only source of sustenance—no matter how wretched. With just one lavatory for every fifteen hundred dwellers, most residents were left with little alternative but to defaecate out in the open drains. Stinking slaughterhouses that supplied the hides to the tanneries discharged bloody remains into the very same open sewers choked with untreated human and industrial waste. Typhoid, cholera and malaria were common conditions in this hellhole.

  Along its perimeter were little shops like those of Gupta. The slum was a self-sufficient little community and paan and cigarette stalls, tea shops, grocery stores, and chemists did roaring business because they had captive consumers who lived right there. ‘Are there any schools here?’ asked Gangasagar, masticating his paan.

  ‘There used to be a municipal school but the teachers ran away. The local mafia thugs wanted the space to set up their bootlegging operation,’ said Gupta, blowing a puff of acrid smoke. ‘The local politicos are quite happy to wax eloquent about the need for schools to educate our young, but the reality is that they wish to keep us illiter
ate and uneducated. It's the perfect way to maintain a vote bank,’ said Gupta conspiratorially.

  ‘If I open a school here, will parents send their children?’ asked Gangasagar.

  ‘I don't know about the others, but I'll send my daughter happily,’ said Gupta.

  ‘What's her name?’

  ‘Chandini. She's just ten.’

  He was a rough and uncouth character but his clothes were immaculate. His paan-stained teeth matched the colour of his eyes, blood-red. Not that Ikrambhai ever drank. It was against his religion. He ran extremely profitable ventures in land-grabbing, illegal betting, extortion, and bootlegging. But he refused to drink. His eyes were red because he rarely slept. Hard work was essential, even if you were a slumlord. His swarthy skin boldly contrasted with the pure-white embroidered kurta that he wore. The buttons were sparkling diamonds and on his fingers he wore several rings, each set with a different stone.

  He wore a ruby to give him good health and longevity, although his own longevity often meant the reduced lifeexpectancy of others. He wore a cat's-eye to bestow him with patience, and he often remained exceedingly patient while his thugs beat up a poor sucker who refused to fall in line. That's why he also wore a white pearl, to keep him cool and calm. The yellow sapphire was for increasing his wealth, which seemed to multiply quite miraculously, and the diamond was to keep him sexually potent, not that he needed any aid in the virility department. The green emerald was to enable him to communicate better and the coral was to protect him from the evil eye—of which there were many, given his profession.

  ‘Why aren't you wearing a blue sapphire?’ asked Gangasagar as he looked at all the various stones that embellished Ikrambhai's fingers.

  ‘Why? What will that do for me?’

  ‘It will give you power and influence—real power and influence.’

  ‘Bah! I already have that. No one in this slum dare do anything without my say-so,’ he said with pride, his eyes boring into Gangasagar.

  ‘But what about the rest of the world? Your universe is this tannery and the slum. There's so much good that someone with your abilities could do for the entire city—even the state perhaps.’

  ‘You mean setting up gambling dens and bootlegging warehouses across the city?’ asked Ikrambhai earnestly.

  ‘There's not much difference between running an empire such as yours and running a city administration. I often feel that take-no-shit guys like you would run the city better. That's why I'm here to suggest that you enter politics. I shall be your guru!’

  Agrawalji had happily advanced the sum needed to finance the school. It wasn't a very large sum though—just enough for lights, fans, a blackboard, basic furniture, a lick of paint and lots of books. Ikrambhai inaugurated it. Gangasagar knew that he needed the support of Ikrambhai.

  ‘Why are you giving him any credit?’ asked Agrawalji. ‘You're doing all the hard work—including teaching the children history—and I'm coughing up the cash.’

  ‘You can do much more with a kind word and a gun than a kind word alone,’ answered Gangasagar. ‘Allowing him to take some of the credit for the school has ensured that we're not bothered by his goons. Do you know he's threatened all the parents that he'll thrash them if they don't send their kids to the school?’ laughed Gangasagar.

  ‘And what's the catch behind this benevolent attitude of Ikrambhai?’ asked Agrawalji.

  ‘He wants to fight the next municipal elections. He wants financial and intellectual support,’ explained Gangasagar.

  ‘So you've promised him my money?’ asked Agrawalji dryly.

  ‘And my brains,’ countered Gangasagar, ‘only if he fights on an ABNS ticket, though.’

  ‘What political party is that? I've never heard of it.’

  ‘It doesn't exist as yet. It will by the next municipal elections, though.’

  ‘Should you be handing out tickets of your new outfit to mafia dons, Ganga?’

  ‘The best person to advise one on how to protect a bank is a thief. This one's going to help me build and protect my vote bank.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I'm a Brahmin. I can do the job of pulling in highcaste Hindu votes but the lower castes and the Muslims view me suspiciously. Ikrambhai will help take care of the Muslim votes.’

  ‘Won't associating with him spoil your reputation, Ganga?’

  ‘Character is what you are. Reputation is what people think you are. As long as he doesn't change my character, I'll be fine.’

  ‘I hope that you know what you're doing. You're making a pact with the devil.’

  ‘God will forgive me. That's his job after all!’ said Gangasagar, winking at Agrawalji.

  The Kanpur Municipality had come into existence during the British Raj, but was converted into a corporation—the Kanpur Nagar Mahapalika—some years after Independence, with a mayor who was elected every five years. The election was an indirect one in which over a hundred municipal coroporators who were elected from the various geographical wards in the city would choose the mayor. Ikrambhai was contesting only one out of the hundred seats in the municipal council but Gangasagar had also convinced many others to contest the elections on the ABNS platform. He had confidently pronounced that he would make Ikram the mayor.

  ‘The council is hopelessly split along caste and religious lines. Twenty-five per cent of the members are Brahmins, another quarter are the intermediate castes such as the Yadavs, one-fourth are Dalits and the remaining fourth are Muslims,’ explained Gangasagar.

  ‘You have no chance,’ said Agrawalji helplessly.

  But this was politics, not economics. The master of this game was Gangasagar, not Agrawalji.

  ‘Not true. All I need to do is take away five per cent from each of the four blocs. By doing that, I'll have twenty per cent of the total. The fifth bloc.’

  ‘But you'll still be twenty per cent, equal to each of the four other blocs,’ argued Agrawalji, not realising that this particular game of chess had already been analysed several moves into its conclusion.

  ‘The other four blocs hate each other. Whoever wants power will have no alternative but to ally themselves with us—the only caste-and religion-neutral outfit,’ said Gangasagar triumphantly.

  ‘But they'd only support you if you agreed that their candidate became mayor. How can you expect to make Ikram mayor?’

  ‘The mayor is elected through the system of a single transferable vote. The game theory involved here is different to an ordinary vote,’ explained Gangasagar. ‘The early bird gets the worm but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese! I don't need Ikrambhai to be the favourite—merely the second favourite.’

  ‘How will that help him?’ asked Agrawalji.

  ‘All corporators are required to rank—in order of preference—their choice of all five candidates when they submit their ballot.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘For all the five political blocs, including our own, the first choice will be a candidate from within.’

  ‘Yes. But that merely puts Ikram on equal footing with the other four candidates.’

  ‘Ah, but each corporator must not only indicate his first choice from the five candidates but also indicate his second, third, fourth and fifth preference,’ explained Gangasagar. ‘Given the intense hatred between the other four parties, they would refuse to endorse each other's candidates as second choice. I simply need to tell them to make Ikram their second choice.’

  ‘How exactly does this process work?’ enquired Agrawalji.

  ‘In round one the votes for the first choice candidates are counted. Obviously all five, including Ikram, will be equal. Given the lack of a clear winner, the second-choice votes will be tallied and added to the count of each candidate. At this stage, Ikram becomes the strongest. The second mouse shall bring home the cheese!’

  ‘I just hope that your mouse doesn't turn out to be a cat, Ganga,’ said Agrawalji.

  ‘Can any of you tell me what the core philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi was?’
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  ‘Ahimsa,’ came the answer from the back. It was a frail and petite thirteen-year-old girl. Her face was rounded and her dark black hair was oiled and pulled back in a plait tied with a red ribbon. Little tendrils that had escaped the torturous ministrations of oiling and being pulled tightly back, hung over her forehead. She wore a dull grey skirt and an insipid blue top—the usual dreary uniform of slum schools. Her complexion, however, was unusually fair for such a setting, and her little white teeth, pink lips and sparkling emeraldgreen eyes gave her an expression of innocence coupled with intelligence.

  She fiddled nervously with her pencil as Gangasagar looked at her. ‘Very good, Chandini. Can you tell me what that means?’

  ‘Ahimsa means non-violence.’

  ‘Does that mean refusing to fight?’

  ‘No. Ahimsa is not cowardice. It takes a very brave man to face blows head-on.’

  ‘So it's about getting your way without coming to blows for it?’

  ‘Yes. But you need to have the moral authority to make people understand what you want to achieve. Gandhiji's moral authority was very great.’

  ‘And can you tell me what gave him that moral authority?’

  ‘The personal example that he set for others?’ asked Gupta's daughter hesitantly.

  ‘Yes. We Indians continue to adore renunciation. It's a tradition that has come down to us from the ancient yogis. Gandhiji was a modern yogi, in that sense.’

  ‘Because he lived in poverty?’ she asked, her emeraldgreen eyes widening.

  ‘Yes, but his poverty was a symbol. A symbol that gave him the political authority to carry people with him.’