Logic of Jaipur

Fri, May 16 02:37 AM

Johri Bazaar, Jaipur, is where you go to purchase the best trousseau in Rajasthan. From Sanganeri Gate you walk down, left and right, lanes and by-lanes, collecting one item after another. From the bichia for the toes all the way up to the bor worn above the forehead, the whole ensemble is available here in Johri Bazaar. Starting from the Hanuman Temple, going past Laxmi Mishthan Bhandar, the road will end at Badi Chopad. But before that you have to take a sharp left into a lane that goes to Katla. And that is where the trousseau shopping culminates. For here you get the perfect Rajasthani poshak, the kinds that Indian filmdom uses in an exaggerated fashion. In the corner of Badi Chopad, near the Ganesh Temple are the bangle sellers, and a little way past is where the famous thin cuddly Jaipuri quilt began its life, supposedly in the hands of Qadr Baksh.

As in all Asiatic old cities, this part of Jaipur is also its cultural heart. The essence of what it means to wear Rajasthani is made, sold, traded and ordered out of here. This is where craft, skill and marketing are on daily display. Weaving ever finer designs using the most delicate gold threads on gorgeously coloured georgettes, mating precious stone with equally precious metal, brilliant bangles that seem too fragile to touch. This is what old city Jaipur is about, and Johri Bazaar is at its core, its crafts centre.

A similar craft, and a similar skill, went into creating the madness behind the serial blasts in old city Jaipur. The whole trousseau walk was littered with blood, bangles and ball bearings. Some are still embedded in the steel railing of the Hanuman Temple at Sanganeri Gate. The Panditji defiant about the force of that steel vis-à-vis his faith, and even more effusive than before. Fiercely foretelling the outcome of battles being fought, and battles to be won. Challenging the entire hysteria of victimhood, and defying the market for pop-psychologists that prey on such tragedies.

Panditji and his neighbours who live and work in the most Rajasthani of bazaars today epitomise the essence of the state - a steely resolve and a rugged determination to get on with life. Not for them that wail on camera. There is a pride, and a sense of satisfaction, when they tell you that all bodies were in hospitals within 15 minutes. And that almost 600 units of blood were collected by 1 am. Horror, shock, sorrow and anger are all there, of course. But they aren't an excuse for atavistic blood-letting. The reason of Rajasthan has only added to its ruggedness, and its romance. Goody-goody stories recount all the nice things that happened the day after. Pamphleteers' passion personified.

The fact that there was no social combustion does not surprise any native of Rajasthan. The DNA of the state is different from that of British India. Cultural sangam, triveni, etc are a live spectacle, not merely in the course books of the National Integration Council. But it also does not surprise an indigenous Rajasthani that May 13, Jaipur happened. Enough bells have rung around the country to tell tragic tales of terrorism. Enough excesses have happened lately. Warning should have been aplenty when Rajasthan is the pivot around which incredible India gyrates.

What does surprise, therefore, is that Jaipur was allowed to happen. Despite repeat shows around the country the actors continue to perform. The covert ones then appear as a mid-20s male sketch, and the overt ones wear the same sorry look, swear the same resolve and repeat mantras memorised by chronic tragedies. What none offers are viable logical solutions, preventives, but only homilies that sound suspiciously hollow.

All army units undergo pre-induction training at corps battle schools. The most important of which is the simplest lesson of all: to fight a guerilla, think like a guerilla. The same logic then applies to urban terrorism, and the need to think at the level of bicycles and ball bearings. His methods are simple enough to understand. What is not, however, is the antidote to his simplicity. At the kindest possible level it can be said that there is a paralysis of police performance.

In colloquial Rajasthani is an adage that recounts a time when the SHO would know who was carrying whose child. He would be the fulcrum for the implementation of law, and the collection of information. His connection with society would be so deep, and sincere, that the most confidential of information could be made available. That made him the most important of all police appointments. Not for today's policing, alas, where parades and power point presentations are the key to "good" appointments. The decline of beat policing is directly proportional to the proliferation of higher ranks, which in turn mirrors the rising graph.

A 19th-century, imperial police structure cannot confront the challenge of a 21st-century war by other means. The ineptitude of the higher police hierarchy and an interfering polity pooled together to corrode a vital national institution. The SP of a district does not have enough constables for basic policing, coupled with the fact that the SHO is almost always a patronage case, so there is obviously little chance of getting to know that a mid-20s male stranger has bought many bicycles simultaneously. It doesn't take rocket science to comprehend the basics of why terrorists succeed while the state continues to wring its hands. His brain is ticking like his timers while that of the police is just not allowed to. He keeps it simple while the police can't get beyond pretensions.

Indian memory cycles being what they are, Jaipur will be reduced to a presentation competing with the colours of the accompanying graph. As dust gathers on it, another round of blasts will happen somewhere. But then there may not be the same Panditji and his likes there. That implosion is what the bomber aims for, certain that its remedy is beyond the comprehension of India.

The writer is a BJP MP from Barmer, Rajasthan

barmer@bsnl.in

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