'History will absolve me'

Around end-March after the first lockdown was announced I stocked up on reading of various genres via Kindle. As the lockdown kept getting extended the recurring images of distressed Indian workers in urban areas brought my years in a less unequal Cuba to mind. I was based in Havana as a first secretary in the Indian Embassy from September 1983 to September 1986. Despite the periodic scarcities even for basics such as onions (the US trade blockade was fully in force in those years) I did not see any evidence of dehumanising poverty in Cuba in my three years in that country.

Fidel Castro used to make his interminable five- or six-hour speeches every year on the 26th of July. This was the day in 1953 when Castro with about 150 men attacked the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Castro was arrested and tried for sedition against Fulgencio Batista’s unrepresentative government. In an impassioned four-hour speech on October 16, 1953, Castro defended himself in court repeatedly quoting the revered Cuban nationalist and poet laureate Jose Marti. Marti was made famous at a popular level internationally by the many renditions of his poem “Guajira Guantanamera”.  Castro ended his defence with the rousing line “condemn me— it does not matter — history will absolve me”. 

For the attack on Moncada,  Castro and his younger brother Raul were sentenced to 15 years in prison but were released after two years and the two returned to Cuba from Mexico in December 1956. Castro and his band grew to around 800 over the two years they took to travel the 700 kilometres from Sierra Maestra in eastern Cuba to Havana. 
 

The atmosphere at the new-year eve festivities in exclusive Havana hotels on December 31, 1958, as detested dictator Batista announced his departure was unreal. The surrealism was captured remarkably well in the movie Godfather II with Al Pacino playing a mafia boss. The manner in which Castro’s small group of militants overcame the detested dictator Batista’s army of 30,000 is the stuff of legends. Batista fled to the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959, and Castro’s revolution took over. 

Castro and Che Guevara were revered names among Delhi University students in the early 1970s. Friends in my college had blow-ups of Che’s photo in their rooms and a few ladies in Miranda House claimed that so did they. Some in our all-male college plotted about verifying that in person. 

Reverting to the Cuba of the 1980s, what a rush it was to arrive there in 1983. On the prime waterfront road in Havana called Malecon, a multi-storeyed building had Che Guevara’s face covering an entire facade. A night-club in Havana called Tropicana still featured talented Cuban dancers and singers. In pre-revolution Cuba, playboys from the US had their bacchanalian orgies in clubs such as Tropicana. The fine white sand beaches and clear blue waters of the Varadero resort located about 180 kilometres from Havana were very popular with US tourists. This beach town was dotted with exclusive properties owned by US nationals and companies. For example, Casa DuPont was owned by DuPont, the US chemicals giant that merged with Dow Chemical.

From early 20th century,  soul-touching blends of African, Latino and Jazz music used to resound in Havana Vieja (old). The Buena Vista Social Club was put together in Havana Vieja in 1996 to revive pre-revolution Cuban music of the 1940s. American Chevrolets and Cadillacs from the 1950s were still chuffing around in Havana in the 1980s. Cuban rum sold under the brand name Havana Club was better than most other Caribbean rum.  I cannot, however, personally vouch for Cuba’s famous Cohiba cigars rumoured to be rolled on the thighs of Cuban women, since I do not smoke. 

Most Cubans supported Castro for the security, universal education and health facilities that his revolutionary government ensured for all.  However, taking the gains of the communist takeover into account it was obvious when I was there that the revolution had lost steam. Castro should have initiated multiparty elections latest by the 1970s. Instead Castro held on till 2008 and even then he handed over to his brother Raul. The contradiction between Castro’s totalitarian communist control and his daredevil attack on Moncada against Batista’s oligarchic dictatorship along with his stirring “history will absolve me” defence could not have been more. 

Castro did not act on the obvious reality that Cuba needed to diversify its economy beyond exporting sugar, citrus fruits plus tourism as staple foreign exchange earners. Further, the sending of Cuban armed and medical personnel to Africa, including Angola and Mozambique, was expensive financially and politically. An 88-year-old Raul Castro is currently the head of the Cuban Communist party. Over-centralisation of political power in one person-party inevitably resulted in Cuba falling short of meeting the aspirations of the human spirit. An obvious lesson for India is for the central and state governments to consult specialists of all shades of political opinion in framing policies.

j.bhagwati@gmail.com  

(Pandemic Perusing is an occasional freewheeling column on books and reading by our writers and reviewers)