'The first job for the king is to be there for the land and its people'

P Vaidyanathan Iyer chats with Finance Minister Jaswant Singh on the campaign trail

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh starts early on April 25, the fourth day of his week-long campaign in home state Rajasthan. The previous day was hectic with the first 10 a m public meeting at Mokulsar where the Jain Samaj came in full strength to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Parsavanath Temple.

Subsequently, the minister addresses public meetings at several villages including Asotra and Shedwa and stops at many places for unscheduled welcome meetings.

As I tail Singh in my modest Ambassador en route to Shedwa from Asotra, his white Tata Safari suddenly stops. Singh gets down to wash his face and sip mineral water. His private secretaries Shakti Singh (Rajasthan Civil Services) and Hardayal Singh (Rajasthan Police), who are following the minister in another Safari, close in to ensure everything is fine.

I walk up to Singh and introduce myself. Despite the sweltering heat, he appears far more relaxed and ready to talk here than in the cool, imposing confines of North Block.

He offers to share his simple home-made lunch of chapatis, dal and vegetable, which is served by his younger son, Bhupendra Singh.

Bhupendra closely resembles his father, except that he sports a moustache. Besides chauffeuring Jaswant Singh around Rajasthan, he also films the minister in action with his handycam at every public meeting.

I book my seat in the minister's Tata Safari for the next day's drive. Bhupendra Singh sends across a party worker at 9 a m sharp to ensure that I am not late in arriving at the Defence Officers' Mess, where Jaswant Singh stayed the previous night.

The minister tries his best to stick to his schedule and within 15 minutes, we have hit the desolate road from Barmer to Khalifa ki bawri, a Muslim-dominated area where he is to address a public meeting.

To make up for my sparse knowledge of Rajasthan, he offers to be my tourist guide. "Barmer is a unique constituency. It is about 78,000 sq km "" almost the same size as Assam, and larger than Kerala and a number of smaller European Union countries," he says. You are immediately led to imagine how difficult it is to campaign in a constituency like this.

As we drive along the barren road in the midst of arid land, Singh talks about what can be done in areas like these to generate employment.

"I cannot imagine Barmer becoming a centre for outsourcing. Accessibility is such a big issue here," he says. "This land is rich in lignite. A lignite-based 3,000 MW power project has been languishing for a long time. It must be helped to achieve financial closure," he says, adding that employment generation should be seen in the specific context and requirement of the region.

Singh tells me that he has been a participant in the general elections since 1967. "I was very heartened by the 1984 elections in Rajasthan. Everywhere, there was a demand for education, especially girls' education, and issues like upgrading schools were foremost in the minds of my people. They had come to recognise that education opens the door to tomorrow," he says.

However, the region continues to be illiterate and backward, more because even primary needs like water and electricity have been neglected in the past 50 years.

Taking an indirect dig at the Congress, he says, "Our water management over the past five decades has been extremely short-sighted. For instance, look at this river Loni." We cross a dry bed of a river with little or no trace of water.

Normally, Singh points out, the long banks and bed of the Loni should be an instant source of clean, sweet drinking water. He accepts that the Loni is a seasonal river but says, there is no water today for two reasons.

"Successive state governments, in their short-sighted enthusiasm, began constructing dams all along the catchment area that simply dried up the ingress of water," he says.

And second, the dyeing industry, which requires a certain degree of salinity in water came up here, resulting in heavy pollution.

Moving along, he points to the road on which we are travelling and says, "This is the road that will carry the bus traffic to Pakistan," quickly adding, "If and when it opens." I ask him if he has visited these places before or is it the elections that... Cutting me short, he says, "I have travelled the length and breadth of Rajasthan," he retorts, clearly offended at the question.

We are now just about 120 km from the India-Pakistan border and I ask him about the overt realignment of Muslims with the Bharatiya Janata Party in this region. He answers it differently.

"Muslims are exactly the same as those in Pakistan. We have Junejos and Bhuttos here, very much like those across the border," he points out. The Tata Safari stops when a dozen-odd Muslims stop the vehicle seeking an audience with Singh.

They start complaining about the lack of interest by his party and his immediate relatives. He assures them that he will ensure that their needs are taken care of.

Once we are on the road again, he chides his maternal uncle, who is sitting alongside, for not visiting the people often. "Panchayat kar liya karo," he tells him. His uncle politely replies, "Hukum" (as you say).

By now, the heat is beginning to get to all of us and Singh asks me if I have experienced such conditions before. I pose a question of my own: didn't he find it physically stressful driving 600 to 700 km a day in such weather and responding patiently to people's demands?

"My dear friend, I am the same stock as my people. The party would have arranged for a chopper. But travel by road allows me to pass through the arteries and the nerve centres of my land. See, touch, and smell it from close," he says.

A helicopter, he says, is rapid but "alienating". "It creates a distance and separation. Travel by road, of course, is fatiguing but it renews my sense of belonging in a very real way," he adds.

And then we arrive at Khalifa ki bawri. After his address there, he accepts the local Muslim leaders' suggestion to share meals at a community hall. The crowd wouldn't stop applauding him for this gesture. As we drive away from Khalifa ki bawri, I express surprise that he avoids asking the people to vote for Manvendra Singh.

"My people will mock me if I ask them to vote for my son." he says. "It is socially abhorrent. My relationship with this land is different. The people here will take care of Manvendra. I need not hold his hand," he says.

"For 800 years, we have always fought for this land. If it were to face another challenge even today, I will expect my two sons "" my two sword arms "" to be right in the front. The first job for the king is to be there for the land and its people," he states, unconscious perhaps of the royal reference he's making in a democratic election campaign.

"How do you feel here, away from Delhi?" Jaswant Singh asks me, to which I give a rather stupid answer, not worth mentioning. He says, "Delhi is a maya nagari (land of illusions). Those of us who live and work there lose a sense of reality. Delhi has never belonged to anybody and nobody belongs to Delhi. I do not yearn to be there."

Finally, I ask him, if external affairs was still where his heart was? "My heart is here," he replies elliptically, and starts telling me about Jaisalmer and the historic Pokhran, where he is scheduled to hold a public meeting the next day.