I have made mistakes and regret it: Kazini

Sikkim’s absorption into the Indian Union and its integration with the mainstream has always been a touchy and a very controversial subject. This chapter will not deal with every aspect of the ‘merger’, but will mainly focus on certain important issue of the ‘terms of the merger’ under which the tiny Himalayan Kingdom became a part of the Indian sub-continent almost two decades back. It will also reflect on the general mood of the people in the post-merger era, and reactions of those who played a major role in what many perceive as the annexation of Sikkim.

  Nari Rustomji, a noted author and authority on the eastern Himalayas and the Northeastern region of India, in an article in the Literary Supplement of the Sunday Statesman on July 22, 1984, wrote: “I had not met the Kazini of Chakung for several years, and recently called in at her home in Kalimpong on my way from Sikkim to Shillong. It had not been my intention to discuss with her or with her husband, the former Chief Minister of Sikkim, the politics of the country, but the options were not open to me. I barely stepped out from my car into her brightly-spangled parlour before she burst out with her dramatic confession.”

   And what was Kazini’s dramatic confession? As reported in the article, Kazini told Rustomji, “You and the Chogyal were absolutely right. It has all been a terrible mistake.”

   Surprisingly, Kazini, in a letter to the editor of the Statesman, denied having stated this to Rustomji. Unfortunately for Kazini, very few people would be convinced that Rustomji was lying and that she was telling the truth. Even her own husband, who after having lived for years under her shadow, has been making startling statements over the outcome of the merger of which he was its chief architect. If Kazini had confessed that merger was a mistake, then Kazi has stated that the Sikkimese people have not benefited from it.

   Five years after her reported confession with Rustomji, Kazini made another startling confession: “I have made mistakes and I regret many things I have done.” This confession, even more dramatic than the previous one, made in April 1989, was to be her last few words to the people before her death. Her candid admission that she made mistakes and regretted them, was made in her residence in Kalimpong in the presence of her husband, friends, relatives and two journalists from Sikkim, who had come to see her after she survived a critical liver complication.

   Upon learning that Kazini had survived another attack, Ranjit Devraj, UNI (United News of India) representative in Sikkim, and I rushed to Kalimpong to see her and to find out about her views on her long and chequered semi-political career. It was to be a historic moment for us and we didn’t want to miss this chance. After waiting in the parlour over a cup of tea for a while, we were finally ushered into Kazini’s bedroom. There were already some guests present in the room when we got in. More followed after we entered the room. Everyone was aware of the significance of the moment.

   The room was quiet and I could feel that the atmosphere was quite tense even as the 85-year-old lady, who once led a vigorous life in the hills, lay sick and helpless on her bed. I had never met personally, but Kazi, to my pleasant surprise, later told me what she was quite fond of me. I think she got to know me through my writings, which appeared in numerous local and national publications. She took a careful look at us when we entered the room and then asked us to come closer to her. And while everyone in the room waited with bated breath for her to say something of historical significance, she finally spoke up.

   “Jigme, you write well,” were her first words. She asked me to sit beside her. The compliment was quite flattering and totally unexpected. I just stood there quietly beside her without uttering a word. Although I must admit that I was quite flattered by what she said, I had not come all the way from Sikkim to hear a few kinds words from the old lady about myself. I expected more from her.

   When she saw the notebook in my hand and realized that we had come to her for more than that, she adjusted herself and finally spoke up, loud and clear for all to hear. Besides being the wife of the former chief minister, Kazini was also a journalist in her younger days. She actually took a live interest in the Himalayan Observer, an English week published from Kalimpong, which virtually became the mouthpiece of the Sikkim Congress led by Kazi. Having been a journalist and perhaps being aware of the role of the media in her life, she must have instinctively realized why we had come and the importance of what she spoke.

   “I would like all the people in Sikkim to be sustained, to live together, and to have a common destiny,” was Kazini’s first statement. The fact that the Government of India had, in the past, used her and her husband to cause divisions among the three ethnic groups in Sikkim, with the sole objective of weaning Sikkim closer towards India, was an open secret in Sikkim. Kazini knew full well that the people were suspicious of her own role and her party’s activities in Sikkim, particularly between April 1973 to April 1975, when the political upheaval, which began in early April 1973, finally led to Sikkim’s merger two years later. The division between the minority Buddhist Bhutia-Lepchas and the majority Hindu Nepalese reached its peak during this period, enabling Kazi’s Sikkim Congress to grab the seat of power with the tangible backing of the Indian Government.

   It was Kazi’s Sikkim State Congress (SSC) in 1953, which demanded ‘accession’ of Sikkim to India, and eventually it was his Sikkim Congress which put an end to the Chogyals’ 333-year rule, and made Sikkim a constituent unit of India in April 1975. Instead of maintaining its international status and framing its own Constitution for a more democratic set-up, Sikkim was made to accept the Constitution of another country. No wonder Karma Topden, till recently Sikkim’s Rajya Sabha MP and formerly the Chogyal’s ADC, reportedly commented during the merger period: “Everything comes to us ready-made from India these days, even constitutions.”

   After painfully witnessing what was taking place in Sikkim in the one and a half dacades since the kingdom’s entry into the Indian Union, and having been a party to the total disintegration, destruction and division amongst the Sikkimese, Kazini finally yielded to her long-suppressed emotions and accepted defeat. She actually acknowledged her devious role in Sikkim politics, admitted her mistakes, and expressed regret. And then, perhaps seeing a ray of hope, advised the people of Sikkim to “live together and have a common destiny”. She, however, did not specify what she really meant by a “common destiny”, and left it for posterity to interpret. Realising the state she was in, we refrained from asking further questions. That Kazini attained political maturity at this late stage after so much of damage and so many bitter experiences is regrettable. The only guidelines she left for the people was to ask them to learn from her past mistakes.

   The next solemn confession made by Kazini to all of us in the room concerned her past activities in Sikkim. “I have made mistakes and regret many things I have done,” she declared. I realized that while she was speaking to us, she was not just making a quiet confession about herself and her work, but her words came out quite spontaneously and there was an air of confidence and conviction in how she delivered her statement. She was not just talking to us, but seemed to be declaring something important to all in the room in her rather commanding and authoritative voice, so that posterity could take note of it and remember how she lived and died.

Kazi, Kazini and Prime Minister Morarji Desai in Gangtok, 1979.

   If Kazini had acted mischievously in the past and let down the Sikkimese people, she at least had the courage and the decency to actually come to terms with herself and the people, and admit her mistakes. It certainly takes a rare courage for anyone to admit, in the last hour of one’s life, that whatever was done in the past, was a mistake and, therefore, regrettable.  

   And finally, her last few words concerned her beloved husband, who was beside her when she made the statements. “Anything I have done which has upset my husband, I regret,” is how she put it.

   In the final days prior to the merger, Kazini made a last-minute bid to save the separate political entity of the kingdom. But she was unsuccessful, and the events of the day overtook those who tried to outmaneuver New Delhi’s men in Sikkim. According to some Sikkimese, what Kazi really wanted in Sikkim was a more democratic set-up and closer ties with Indian, while maintaining Sikkim’s distinct personality as separate from India. The merger was, therefore, unnecessary and a mistake. It was, to borrow Jawaharlal Nehru’s phrase, like “killing the fly with a bullet”.

   In just forty two words, Kazini summed up how she felt about her life, her husband and the people of Sikkim. “I Regret” should have been her epitaph.

(Ref: Inside Sikkim: Against The Tide, Jigme N Kazi, 1993)