KALYUG (3 page)

One of the younger members in attendance, the son of a chief minister, eventually climbed on top of his table and shouted for silence. He was almost hoarse by the time the others, more out of curiosity than genuine respect, stopped speaking and started listening.

‘Who’s that?’ whispered a regional party leader from Uttar Pradesh to his counterpart from Tamil Nadu.

‘That’s Joseph Karpov,’ whispered the Tamilian. ‘He’s the next CM of Kerala, once his old man leaves. Foreign-educated. Communist.’ The last was almost a snort of derision due to the speaker’s ardent dislike for the Left. ‘The same guy who opposes foreign universities in India sends his son abroad for –’

‘Shhhh,’ interrupted the other. ‘Let’s see what happens.’

16th September. Pune.

Only a few people knew that the meeting between the two parliamentary leaders – Mrs Mahalakshmi Pandit, the leader of the ruling alliance, and Mr Karamchand Patil, the leader of the Opposition – was taking place in a farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. It was far from prying eyes, had its own helipad and vacant grounds that were constantly patrolled by the Z-Category security force that guarded both of them.

Mr Patil was the first to arrive, beating the other by just a couple of minutes. Even as his own chopper lifted off, another took its place and Mrs Pandit stepped out. With just a nod of greeting to each other, they walked through the doors and into the house. Satisfied that their charges were safely inside, the security team expanded their coverage around the house. No one was closer than ten feet to any of the walls of the farmhouse. The three housekeeping staff inside were completely deaf and had been thoroughly vetted and cleared days in advance.

As always, Karamchand Patil’s eyes darted to the small idol of Lord Ganesha that was placed by the door and bowed his head for an instant. There was risk in their meeting like this, but there was necessity too. This was not the first time their negotiations with each other had to be invisible even to their own innermost circles, nor, he was sure, would it be the last. There are some things you just can’t leave to your minions. He cast a surreptitious glance at his counterpart and tried to gauge her mood.

Mrs Pandit was obviously not happy. Her face was set in the unforgiving, stony expression that was so unlike the public facade – and Karamchand Patil knew that his insistence for this meeting had not gone down well with her. Despite his own importance, he knew he had to tread carefully.

Then again, the voice on the phone had left him no choice.
They
knew enough to destroy him.
They
were the ones who were forcing him to get Mrs Pandit to this farmhouse, a place he had considered a tightly-held secret. He had had no choice in the matter – he would explain it to Mrs Pandit if and when he was finally allowed to. You do not piss off one of the most powerful women in the world without trying to repair the bridges. Mrs Pandit was the first person to break the silence after they had been left alone by the staff. ‘Well, Karamchandji. Here we are . . . once again. What’s it going to be this time?’

Karamchand Patil smiled. It was a benign expression, something that had always soothed his supporters and made them think he was genuinely sympathetic towards them; it was also an expression that often preceded his most devastating blows. Almost everyone who had dealt with him had been intimidated to the point of deference; the lady standing in front of him was one of the few exceptions. There was mutual respect between them, perhaps more from his side than hers, for she had built up her own fiefdom within a tenth of the time it had taken him to build his own. Granted, her surname had helped her significantly – but Karamchand did not attribute her successes solely to her fortune of having been born into the right family.

‘Madamji,’ he began graciously, pulling out a chair for her to sit on. It was purely a cosmetic gesture, a psychological gambit to make her play the role of a grateful female to his alpha male. As he’d expected, she ignored it and continued to look at him. ‘The word on the street is very loud. No one trusts your government anymore. They want to see it gone, they want change. I owe it to my party – and my nation – to see destiny being fulfilled.’

‘Cut the crap,’ said Mrs Pandit sharply. To the millions who followed her party, the outburst would have seemed uncharacteristically rude; yet, as those who knew her intimately could testify, there were times when the godmother of Indian politics reverted to her Western upbringing. ‘You know I’ve got the numbers to last us till the next general elections. And that’s not going to happen anytime earlier than 2014. You know that, and you know there is nothing you can do about it.’

‘You are absolutely right,’ said Patil, completely unruffled. This was how they had always played their game, even when the roles had been reversed and she had been sitting in his chair. She was the one who blustered; he was the one who cajoled. They had won as many points as they had lost to each other. Compromise was as much a part of their relationship as politics. ‘But that doesn’t stop people from wanting somebody’s head on the chopping block. It’s better to sacrifice someone yourself rather than have somebody else do it for you.’

For her part, Pandit knew exactly why Patil had no desire for an early election. His party would tolerate his leadership only so long as they were in the opposition – a temporary peace that was certainly a precursor to a bloody war to become the next prime ministerial candidate. Patil was the elder statesman no one wanted to see at the next election.

‘Let me see what I can do,’ she said. ‘Call off your blockade of the Parliament tomorrow and we have a deal.’

Patil shook his head patronizingly. ‘Ah, but Madamji . . . then I would run the risk of looking like a fool if you throw out someone minor, like a minister of state . . . I am afraid, if the defence minister does not submit his resignation by one o’clock in the afternoon tomorrow, I might have to take this to the next level. Ask for a CAG probe into party earnings.’

‘You know very well that CAG cannot probe political parties,’ she retorted, winning a small battle. ‘Even if you went to the IT or the Election Commission, such a probe would hurt you as much as it would me,’ she retorted.

‘Perhaps. But – and here’s where you still have to understand the junta – what do you think the people are going to do when they realize you’ve earned more than thrice as much as all the other parties put together? It’s not about whether you are a thief – it’s about what you’ve stolen.’

As much as she hated to admit it, Pandit had to concede the point. Corruption being as rampant as it was in recent years, the voting public had gotten inured to the shock of its occurrence. The controversy over any scam these days revolved not around the core issues but the number of zeros in the figures calculated by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

‘Agreed,’ she said after a few minutes of thought. ‘But you drop the demands for the PM’s resignation or his appearance before any investigation committee.’

‘Excellent,’ Patil clapped. ‘I had no intention of dragging Razdan into this anyway – but I guess this means he is going to continue till the fourteenth, huh?’

‘As will you,’ remarked Pandit, noting with satisfaction the momentary flash of anger that flashed across his face. ‘Jojo needs a little time before he takes on more responsibilities. I think by the time the next elections take place, he will be ready for a more . . . significant leadership role.’

16th September, 2012. Over the air.

Raghav Menon seemed to size me up carefully before answering. ‘In one of the interviews you gave shortly after your book was published, you said you chose this year – 2012 – as
the
year in your story because you thought this was the most likely year in which a coup could happen.

‘The year 2009 was just after the last elections, so it was unlikely that the voters would regret their mistake that early – or even acknowledge that they could have erred in choosing their government.

‘And 2010 was still too close to the election year. The Opposition is still in disarray, there is this energy that comes with a second term, the government is still sopping up the goodwill from all their populist measures in their manifesto . . . above all, there is no real political threat for them to combat, and so it would be business as usual.

‘Two years after the elections – 2011 – is when the disenchantment starts to set in. The blinders are off, the
donors are demanding their pounds of flesh, the Opposition is organizing itself, people are waking up and finding out that the sops are starting to disappear. State elections start throwing out their incumbents. A trend is appearing . . .

‘Which brings us to 2012. That’s when it all comes to a head. Populism has left the economy in a mess, coalition politics have broken down policy-led governance, disappointed donors are now looking for alternatives. So the government has no choice but to go on the defensive – which means, to go on the offensive. Slap arbitrary cases, stifle opposing opinions. There are still two more years left for a possible change – so the people are also getting restless. The lifecycle of the government starts to decay as more scams are unearthed. Frustration in the air, in all directions.’

He paused, as if waiting for applause. To be honest, I was impressed. He had neatly paraphrased my entire interview to the magazine
Mirror
in 2010, given just a couple of weeks after my book sold its first copy. I nodded appreciatively as I said, ‘All of which I grant. We are exactly at that point of the public psyche right now . . . but this is not the first time it’s happened, and it’s not going to be the last time either –’

‘Have you studied history, Mr Selvam?’

‘I have. Who hasn’t?’

‘What started the First World War? What triggered off the Second World War? How did Kargil start? What was the Boston Tea Party, with respect to the American war for independence? What set off the revolt of 1857?’

‘Why are you asking me all this?’ I asked, mimicking his tone and finishing his flow.

He chuckled. ‘Because there is a trigger for everything. Even a coup. Or rather, should I say,
especially
a coup. There is some incident that captures the public imagination, that fires up the violence in the soul, that is a call to arms and to action. What was the trigger in your story?’

‘The imprisonment of a popular anti-corruption crusader,’ I replied. ‘The death of some of his staff members when he refused to stop his fight.’

‘Exactly.’ Menon snapped his fingers. ‘Wouldn’t you say that the mood in our country is on edge right now? Doused in fuel and waiting for someone to strike a match?’

‘You are getting your metaphors mixed up,’ I pointed out, perhaps unnecessarily, but his ghoulish excitement was getting to me. As a victim of mob mentality, I still feared the wanton destruction such a state of mind could unleash – and I feared how close I was to agreeing with his assessment.

Menon, however, shrugged off my criticism. ‘You get my point, don’t you? This country – of a billion people – is just waiting for an excuse to revolt and fight for better leadership. They want a political class that’s scared of them, not the other way around. They want a system that’s fixed, not one that’s irreparable. They want to be taken care of, not be left to die by the side of the road . . . and it will take just a little spark for them to realize exactly how badly they want this.’

‘A spark?’ I was sure now that the so-called PR officer sitting in front of me was a certified lunatic. I was about to say something sarcastic when he spoke again.

‘A billion soldiers marching for a common cause. Now that’s a powerful motive for change, isn’t it?’

My thought process snagged on his statement. A billion soldiers. A billion . . . No, not a billion. One. One soldier.

One soldier who died before he could see justice meted out.

‘Major-General Iqbal Qureshi,’ I said slowly. ‘He committed suicide – or he was killed – last night. He’s your trigger. He’s your martyr.’

Menon said nothing. But I knew from the dark flicker in his eyes that I was right.

2

16th September 2012. New Delhi.

‘That’s unacceptable, Colonel. I expect you to call me back within the next ten minutes with the confirmation that all your men are back on base and at their stations. Any soldier who does not comply will face the severest consequences the Army can think of.’

There was silence at the other end.

‘Well?’ an already-combative Brigadier prompted his subordinate, a Colonel in charge of one of the barracks that dotted the NCR.

‘Permission to speak freely, sir,’ the Colonel ventured eventually.

‘No,’ the Brigadier snapped. ‘I gave you an order. I expect an affirmation, Colonel. Not a goddamned permission-to-speak-freely-sir!’

‘Yes, sir.’

Silence followed once again.

‘Well?’

‘Sir?’

The brigadier held the phone away from his face, looking at it with as much malevolence as he could muster, wishing that the conversation had been face-to-face so that he could have given the colonel the tongue-lashing he deserved. Only his temporary reliance on the colonel to know what was going on in the barracks of the 21st Battalion – he would have been at the base himself, but for the meeting with his superiors that was scheduled to begin in the next few minutes – only that dependence held him on the verge of civility with his stubborn colonel.

After all, if any of his superiors caught wind of what was happening in his command, what his men were doing . . . the consequences were simply too painful to imagine. More than anything else, the loss of face. He would never be able to look his officers in the eye if he did not recover the situation within the next few minutes.

‘Colonel, I am waiting for an answer.’ he finally said. Say yes, he willed his colonel. Just say yes.

‘No, sir.’ The answer was delivered in the crisp, professional manner he had always heard the colonel agree in. It took a couple of seconds for the two words – for the first word, really – to sink in.

‘What?’

‘Sir?’

‘Explain yourself, Colonel!’

The brigadier could not see him, but the colonel had a sombre expression on his face as well. ‘As of zero-seven-hundred hours this morning, every jawan on base – and officers to the rank of major – have returned their arms and ammunition to the quartermaster and left the base. They refuse to return to duty unless their demands are met.’

‘You told me that already,’ said the exasperated brigadier. ‘You are their commanding officer – why the hell can’t you get them back on the base, Colonel?’

‘Because we are joining them as soon as I end briefing you on the situation, sir.’

16th September 2012. Mumbai.

Gyandeep Sharma hit a button on his phone, cutting off the irritating monologue that apologized for not being able to connect his call. His despondency at having failed to stop Kalyug had lasted for all of a few minutes, during which time his niece had nervously fiddled with her mobile, before he roused himself out of his reverie. Pulling out a directory from under his contact list, he had dialled one number after another. Every attempt yielded the same result, a pre-recorded woman’s voice regretting that the line was busy and asking him to try again.

His latest attempt – the one that precipitated his violence towards his phone – had also been his last choice. Even that last choice, he thought bitterly, had failed him now.

Joseph Karpov Thevaraparambil, only son of Karpov Varghese Thevaraparambil, the chief minister of Kerala, had always been a thorn in Sharma’s side. His stint in an Australian university had turned a harmless imbecile into a loud-mouthed showman who had to be the centre of attention – unlike his father, who had quietly purchased his way to power. Gyandeep despised the visibility that Karpov lusted after; in fact, he had strongly suggested to the right people that Karpov be discouraged from joining his father’s legacy. After the elder Thevaraparambil had baulked at the suggestion and threatened to divert his funds to untraceable locations, a compromise had been worked out. Gyandeep had sworn to have as few dealings with the second generation as possible.

But what concerned him right now was not the latter’s flamboyance. It was the fact that he had no one he could reach at Ghaziabad. And Ghaziabad was where most of his political contacts would be for the weekend. With good reason.

The conference, ostensibly titled, ‘National Conference on Good Governance’, was for all intents and purposes a horse-trading fair. Despite having the numbers on their side, at least for the moment, the ruling alliance was always conscious of the risk of depending on their mercurial members’ whims; the Opposition was always on the lookout for a breakaway faction or even a whole party; the fringe players – especially the ones who still dreamt of their small party’s parochial chief installed on the prime minister’s chair – haggling for each and every concession from the two vendors.

As he sat at his desk pondering his next step, Gyandeep remembered something else as well. An observation Leela had made, dismissed at the time as inconsequential, might well have been the clue that should have alerted him.

They had no idea who had arranged the whole thing.

He shook his head at the ingenuity of it. Orchestrating an event like this took immense cunning and planning – both of which he had long ago resigned himself to be up against. Almost instinctively, he could understand how someone might have executed it. Unsigned invitations that received knowing sniggers from the invitees, each side assuming that some other had sent it; rumours started in the right places – defections, betrayals and volte faces – and the panic fanned with even more rumours, subtly planted; bribes transferred where inferences had failed; blackmail where bribes had failed.

It was a tactic that Powerhouse had employed so many times since its inception, that insiders often considered it a matter of routine. No other organization could have matched the smoothness of their execution.

But now, it seemed, one organization could.

22nd March, 2012. New Delhi.

Major-General Qureshi stared at the other man, who stared right back at him. As if his earlier demeanour had been a mere act, there was no trace of hesitancy or deference in the body language of Raghav Menon. Instead, he sat ramrod straight, his fingers joined in a loose steeple, lips pursed tight, and shoulders straight and perfectly horizontal. His was a picture of stoicism, a direct contrast to the sense of barely-contained anger in the serving soldier’s face. The report lay between them, like a prize for the one who blinked last.

Without taking his eyes off the other man, Major-General Qureshi pulled out his pistol and laid it on the table. On the report. Out of the corner of his eyes, Raghav imagined he could see the safety thumbed off.

‘Who are you?’ asked the General, sounding much more composed than he felt. ‘Whom do you represent?’

Raghav Menon shrugged. ‘Does it matter? We are probably never going to meet again, and whom I work for is something you are better off not finding out. Trust me, you don’t want to dig into this. It’s something that’s just not in your . . . job description.’

With his index finger, Major-General Qureshi tapped the report. ‘Seventeen men died in the last one week. Seventeen good men. My men. That, you motherfucker, makes it part of my “job description”.’

‘But you are a soldier, a commander,’ countered Menon without raising his voice. ‘Losses are part and parcel of the life. Even the ones who died knew that when they signed up.’

‘But not when you’ve been killed by the greed of your own countrymen,’ hissed Qureshi. ‘Like your bosses. You don’t know how easily I could shoot you right now, no questions asked, because the people who sent you here would be too terrified to acknowledge your existence – or make a noise about what happened to you.’

‘I may be dispensable, but you know just as well as I do that I won’t be the last. Next time, they will just try harder. And if that fails, then even harder. And it won’t be you they come after. Your family. Your reputation. Whatever you’ve got, they will put a price on it – and there will be some bloke somewhere who’ll sign up to destroy it. Face it, Major-General Qureshi. Compared to the rest of them, I’m the nicest gentleman you are going to meet.’

Instead of replying, the older man calmly picked up the report and dropped it into his drawer. He reached for his pistol, and caressed it almost lovingly before turning it on Raghav. He cocked the hammer slowly, pulling it all the way back, before moving the muzzle from where it pointed – Raghav’s face – to the broader expanse of his chest.

Raghav held his breath. There was no way the major-general would shoot him in cold blood in his own office, he reasoned; another voice in his head pointed out that the soldier had probably taken his share of kills in the battlefield. That voice also pointed out that the gun was deadly still, without even the slightest hint of a nervous wobble.

Major-General Qureshi smiled before he pulled the trigger.

16th September, 2012. New Delhi.

The brigadier walked into the conference room with the air of a condemned man. He collapsed into his allotted seat and placed a hand on his forehead, massaging it, hoping that he would wake up to discover that it had all been a bad, very bad, dream. Around him, other brigadiers – summoned to this meeting from all across the country – were networking in different groups, the brotherhood of officers too low to be insulated and too high to be on top of the little things.

The murmur of conversation in the room died out the instant the four remaining major-generals marched into the room. The assembled brigadiers clapped their feet together and saluted smartly; the major-generals faced them and returned the salute before occupying the first row of seats.
They did not sit, for they knew that the lieutenant generals were right behind.

The two lieutenant generals who followed the major-generals were saluted by those already inside and returned the gesture with the easy grace of men to whom it was second nature. Unlike the major-generals, however, they were not to sit with the audience – they were to be on stage, facing the brigadiers and the major-generals, only one and two ranks, respectively, below the next two people to enter the room.

The general, a white-haired veteran of two wars, escorted the defence minister into the room with a resolute expression that had been on his face since his first promotion. Despite his age, and the injuries accumulated over a lifetime of being at the frontline, his gait was uncompromisingly rigid, as his first trainer had drilled into him. The cane that he was forced to use – a recent imposition, and one that had made his imminent retirement more acceptable to him – tapped the ground noisily, adding a sharper flavour to the heavy sound of his boots. That was still not enough to drown out the wheezing sound from behind him.

The defence minister was almost five years younger, ten kilos heavier and out-of-shape to the extent that he was already reaching a hand out to his personal secretary for help to recover his wind. The personal secretary – a man who had been young and hungry once, before his elevation to the current status because of his political and personal connections – scurried to his side and helped him cover the last few yards into the middle of the room.

The general turned around and saluted him. The defence minister, still gasping a little, flopped a hand weakly to his forehead – a comrade’s salute, more than a soldier’s, thought the general with disdain.

As the minister was led to his seat, his secretary took a spot behind him with a smug expression. He knew the general
had argued against his presence during such crucial meetings, stating that the secretary had not sworn any oath to secrecy and was not bound by any Official Secrets Act, but the minister had prevailed. The secretary counted that as a personal victory against the general, who was probably resentful of the influence he commanded.

The general did not bother sitting down. Instead, he pulled out a folded sheet of paper from a chest pocket and opened it. A slight smile escaped the corner of his lips.

‘18th Battalion, Madras Sappers. 21st Battalion, Kumaon Regiment. 6th Division, Gurkhas. 32nd Division, Delhi Infantry. Will the brigadiers of these commands stand up?’

Four men stood up, the brigadier one among them. He looked around, a little relieved that he had company who were as nervous as he was, more than a little worried that the highest officer of his Army had specifically called him out.

The general looked at each of them, meeting their eyes until they looked away, and then he calmly folded the paper before putting it back in his pocket.

‘Brigadiers,’ he said, his voice cutting through the silence. ‘Where are your men?’

16th September, 2012. Ghaziabad.

The cell phones didn’t work. The satellite phones weren’t working either.

It was the shorter American who figured it out first. ‘Jammers,’ he said, snapping his fingers. ‘They must be using jammers to ensure that no one can make calls.’

‘Yeah?’ responded the other laconically, although he was secretly irritated at himself for not having thought of it. ‘But what they hell are they doing? Sure ain’t no drill that’s happening – they don’t do drills with their lawmakers at a
secret
meeting like this.’

‘Maybe they just got their wires mixed up,’ offered Shorter. ‘Someone got lazy and forgot to check that the place would be empty.’ He walked over to the mini-bar and poured himself a drink. ‘Damn, you’d think it’d be a little cooler in September – but this place has me sweating like June in Texas.’

Taller ignored his partner. He twisted the knob on his binoculars and tried to zoom in on the main doors as much as possible, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was happening inside as soon as anyone opened them. Through the headphones that now hung limply around his neck, he could still hear the static from the parabolic microphone that they had tried to use to listen to the proceedings inside. When the microphone had stopped working two hours ago, he had assumed that it was malfunctioning.

Now, his excitement mounting, he had another explanation. He now regretted the fact that they had not thought of bugging the whole conference hall, but since WikiLeaks, in the interests of deniability, such measures were typically frowned upon. Besides, he reminded himself, John – as true a pseudonym as his was Jack – was the primary on this while he had just tagged along. If something happened, his partner would take the credit; so if something had to go wrong, so be it. His partner could take the credit for that as well.