S Y Quraishi's eventful life

The former Chief Election Commissioner of India tells his story with droll humour, elegant prose and, above all, a deep sense of humanity

India and I: A Hundred Memories Not a Memoir

by S Y Quraishi

Published by Hachette India

232 pages ₹699

 

Memories are funny things. A place, a smell, even a name can trigger them suddenly taking you back to a different time. S Y Quraishi says, for him, there’s little danger of a name starting off a chain of flashbacks because he has such a bad memory, he simply cannot remember names. But his book, a collection of 100 events, both professional and personal, and what they taught him is a poignant account of a full life: 40 years in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), several years as one of India’s Election Men, and being a Muslim in India.

 

The book tells the story of a young boy growing up in a highly cultured and educated (but not conservative) family in Delhi’s Walled City, a childhood replete with simple pleasures, the most memorable being the run-up to Eid. Sehri, the first meal before fasting began was somehow magical: His mother’s parathas and jalebi eaten before sunrise while the city slept. As a young man, his passion was the guitar (he founded a rock band that endured for many decades) but as he didn’t own one, he attempted to build it himself. The first result was a Hawaiian guitar that was “melancholy both in design and sound”. His rock band christened Garibaldi and His Three Hairs, was a runaway hit at the IAS academy with Sudhir Mankad, Madhukar Gupta and Deepak Dutt jamming together.

 

For an IAS officer, the first posting is the most consequential one in his career. He is the raja of the district.  Mr Quraishi was sub-divisional magistrate in Sonepat, full of brash confidence, when he observed a gardener doing his work a bit lazily, he reproved him. The gardener, without any thought to offend him, simply said: “Sir, you are my 28th SDM”. Mr Quraishi was mortified and humbled. Since then, he writes, wherever he was posted, he made sure the plaque that mentioned his predecessors was always placed facing him, so that he would never forget his place.

 

Mr Quraishi describes the most challenging assignment of his career. It was 1997 and India was grappling with the political management of economic reform. Bansi Lal was the chief minister of Haryana. He held the power portfolio and had sought Mr Quraishi by name to be his power secretary. On offer was a $600 million World Bank loan — but obviously with conditions. Forty five per cent of Haryana’s power went to agriculture. Touch tariffs or subsidies and there would be turbulence. To avoid this, Bansi Lal opted for two routes: He asked Mr Quraishi to keep the leader of the Opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Rambilas Sharma, informed at every stage; and ordered that booklets be compiled in all languages spoken in Haryana that would answer all questions related to power sector reform. Bansi Lal lost his job to defections — but unlike Andhra Pradesh, which saw police firing on protestors following Chandrababu Naidu’s implementation of electricity reform, anxiety was managed in Haryana before the reforms were actually put in place. This taught Mr Quraishi that in sequencing reform, communication is crucial.

 

Managing politicians is central to implementing policy. Mr Quraishi recounts with affection, his relationship with Sushma Swaraj, who protected and defended him from the charge that he couldn’t possibly be a good civil servant — he was a Muslim. Others, he notes, did not step up to the plate when, post-retirement, he commented publicly that the Waqf Amendment Act was nothing but a ruse to grab Muslim lands. Nishikant Dubey of the BJP attacked him for not being an Election Commissioner but a “Muslim Commissioner”. He accused Mr Quraishi of enabling Bangladeshi infiltration during his tenure as Chief Election Commissioner. Mr Quraishi had to fight his charge publicly and on his own. No one from the government felt it necessary to defend him. He cites other incidents where he was viewed through a Muslim lens, not an Indian one.

 

The book also records his regrets. The most moving one is the account of the way he dealt with a couple who came to him to be married under the Special Marriages Act. “A civil marriage is rarely just paperwork. It usually means conscious defiance of family pressure, social constraint and communal boundaries,” he writes. He should have, he says treated the couple — in whose faces he can recall strain, tension but also determination — as people and reassured them for their decision. Instead, he treated them as a “case”. “I did what the rulebook required and missed what leadership demanded,” he writes.

 

The book flags some inexplicable policy concerns. He watched his children struggle and believes mathematics should not be compulsory after Class 8. But maybe the way it is taught has something to do with it? He also has strong views on animal rights that might have its critics in the current environment of hostility to stray dogs. But overall, this is a wonderful book, for its droll humour, elegant prose and above all, its humanity.