Review: The Politician Redux by Devesh Verma

The sequel to Devesh Verma’s critically acclaimed novel, The Politician, was published just as India’s monumental elections kicked off earlier this year. In that politically charged climate, the sequel, which is set in the 1970s and 1980s, seemed even more impactful as it unabashedly captured the soul of Uttar Pradesh, arguably the country’s most chaotic and politically influential state. And in between Verma’s factual and fictional worlds, an important slice of history was committed to paper.

Verma’s protagonist, Ram Mohan, is a man with humble beginnings and huge ambitions. Through the 1950s to the 1970s, he works hard to shed his Kurmi avatar and shine, first as a lecturer in a college and then as a promising politician following his chance meeting with Tiwariji, a forward-looking politician who challenged caste exclusivity.

However, in an almost comical turn of events, Ram Mohan runs out of luck. Though he pinnacles at a point where he is seen rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty and can smell power, just as he is about to pocket it, his dream of becoming a minister in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet is crushed.

Not one to give up easily, he decides to accept the next best offer as a member of the UP Public Service Commision (UPPSC). He is aware that to lead a good life, he needs to hold on to some kind of power, even if non-political. He huddles together his family for a quick meet and shares the good news that they will all be moving to a government bungalow soon. He is excited about the prospect of moving from Kanpur to Allahabad and into a four-room bungalow with attached bathrooms and a lawn. He sends his children to see the bungalow, and they are ecstatic. “They were going to live in such a big place and could enjoy comforts identified with a certain class!”

In his eagerness to embrace his new status and move into the bungalow, which he gets allotted to himself out of turn, he conceals an unusual detail from his family – that the bungalow has a history of its own and is known to be haunted.

Meanwhile, Ram Mohan cannot stop beaming at the idea of having a car, in accordance with his status. “To pay for a brand-new thing, one would have to save for ages. No, hold on! Even having the requisite money wasn’t enough for the fulfilment of this dream. One had to first book a Fiat, the most-sought after car for personal use, then settle for a wait that could take years... Ram Mohan didn’t have to fret on that score.”

As Ram Mohan settles in as a UPPSC member, he starts enjoying his social status and the special attention (can he please favour a candidate at the interview?). During his stint there, he continues to lobby with politicians of all ideologies, shamelessly switching sides, hoping to be in the good books of the party with a glorious future. This is the mid-1970s, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has imposed Emergency in the country and it is clear the Congress party would be booted out. Verma describes the political situation as “the most tempestuous times in India.” Ram Mohan bids good bye to the Congress party and decides to back the JP movement. Though the movement is a success, Ram Mohan doesn’t get to taste it.

Verma has portrayed Ram Mohan, a classic patriarch of the time, extremely well – his favouring of one son over the other, and micromanaging the lives of all his children (who should study which subject, pursue what career, marry whom). Life changes for the family after the move to Allahabad. His daughter Nisha moves to Delhi with her husband, who decides to pursue a PhD at IIT, Delhi. The idea of Nisha and Shekhar moving to Delhi back then was akin to moving to London, New York, Paris, writes Verma. The author casually throws in such poignant sentences throughout the novel’s 350 pages, bringing alive a period when even moving to a big city within the country was such a big deal. My favourite is Ram Mohan thinking to himself: “In a country romancing with socialism there were hardly any rules that those with influence couldn’t circumvent.”

Verma skilfully feels the pulse of the middle class of that era. This isn’t the story of an ordinary man with extraordinary ambitions, who encounters major twists and turns in his life. On the contrary, this is a story steeped in ordinariness. Ram Mohan is a middle class man in newly independent India, who yearns to be upwardly mobile, be counted among the powerful and flaunt his connections even if that only means skipping a long queue.

In the first part of the trilogy, Ram Mohan’s journey as an ambitious Kurmi from a small village on the outskirts of Kanpur, in the India of the 1950s to the early 1970s, was showcased against the backdrop of the nation’s socio-political fabric in the decades following the end of the British Raj. The second part revolves around his stint as a member of the UPPSC, and his second innings as a wannabe politician.

Verma quit a long career in TV journalism to pursue writing. He won the Sahitya Award in 2004 for translating Sakhtiyat, Pas-Sakhtiyat Aur Mashriqi Sheriyat, a literary text by Gopi Chand Narang, from Urdu to Hindi. His writing is lucid, minus all the frills, but oh-so-engaging. The book reads like a movie script and deserves many readers. The third and final part of this trilogy is eagerly awaited.

Lamat R Hasan is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi.