Tariq Ali's Perspective on the Rushdie Fatwa, Benazir Bhutto, and Related Matters as Discussed by Farrukh Dhondy
Vegging Out on Cabbages and Kings
"Kings and gods, truth and beautySynchronize their dance?
Or is every realm simplyNature's wild, untamed chance?
Oh, Bachchoo, fervently prayThat it's not all selfish strife!In the end, we know with dismay—Life's not all peace and sweet life..."
From the Pens of Tariq Ali, the Enduring Radical
Tariq Ali, the battle-hardened leftist firebrand, has penned another hefty tome, this time an 800-page autobiography he cheekily entitled "You Can't Please All."
Dude, My Executive's Juggling ActBorn in Pakistan, Tariq, affectionately known by his peers as "the street fighter," stirred up trouble as a schoolboy, spearheading protests against unsavory nation embassies. His sophomore autobiography, the first being titled "Street Fighting Man," spans the eight tumultuous decades of his life, cataloguing world politics and his interactions with people and events along the way, as well as stories from his writing and journalism escapades.
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray's MissiveThis serves as a little introduction, dear reader, as I've been asked by the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival in London to have a sit-down with Tariq.
On the day of our conversation, Tariq bid me to handle his prepared questions, but offered something simpler: "Yaar, Farrukh, let's chat." And we did.
I started the chat by asking Tariq his reasons for becoming a socialist. He reminisced about his parents' passionate membership in the Communist Party of India before Pakistan's formation. Their household was brimming with leftist discussions, and, of course, he was swept up in their progressive current.
Manish Tewari's RecollectionsAs for me, my family didn't lean politically, but I spent quite a while with an ardent Gandhian granduncle, whose strict adherence to khadi, vegetarianism, and aversion to leather put me off Gandhism entirely. What converted me was witnessing the poverty and irrational religious practices that pervaded India.
Ketan's TaleAnd then there was my neighbor, Aspy Khambatta, a sceptical "Marxist." A few years older than myself, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde-haired, Aspy grew up in straitened circumstances due to his mother's financial struggles. To maintain a veneer of middle-class Parsi respectability, she relied on the charity of neighbors and her other children.
By the time I crossed paths with Aspy in my teenage years, he was an avid socialist, and my friends and I listened engagedly, if without perfect comprehension, to his detailed accounts of Soviet agricultural policy and Lenin's works. He was vehemently critical of Indian superstition and religious practices. My first rationalist role model?
Aspy joined the Indian Civil Service and was dispatched to the United States on a trade delegation. He met a woman there, quit his service, and never returned.
Fast forward to my tenure at UK's Channel Four, and he wrote me from America, pitching a documentary about the Devil traipsing the earth in three forms: Hitler, Yasser Arafat, and someone called the Rev. "Joe Blogs" (I forget the precise name)—leader of a rival evangelical cult in his town. Did I greenlight the production? Is the Pope now a MAGA Trumpist?
I then posed a question about Tariq's play, "Iranian Nights," which revolved around the fatwa on Salman Rushdie. It was enacted in several mainstream theaters and featured a plot twist: Sheherazade served as the narrator. Salman wasn't fond of the play and made his displeasure known publicly. Tariq informed the audience that Ayatollah Khomeini, who didn't read English, issued the death penalty "recommendation" after being told that the book was blasphemous and Muslims were burning copies in Bradford and Pakistan...
I remember telling Salman that I had no qualms about book-burning, provided that people purchased 30,000 copies of my books and set them ablaze. A lighthearted retort, before the fatwa was issued. A moment of regretful levity.
At Channel Four, I recruited Tariq and his companion Darcus Howe to start a show called "The Bandung File." During the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival, I asked Tariq to reminisce about the triumphs of this series, such as when they managed to expose the corruption within the Bank of Credit and Commerce and snared a Pakistani vote-fixer, admitting electoral fraud in Roy Hattersley's UK constituency.
A simple chat with the old warrior, Tariq Ali, ended with an anecdote about interviewing Benazir Bhutto, who invited Tariq and me into her private chamber with grace, but when the guard departed, Benazir flung herself into Tariq's arms, nervously questioning, "Tariq, kya ho raha hai? What does it look like from the outside?"
Books and celebrities intertwine in Tariq Ali's life, as he recounts his interactions with Salman Rushdie and Benazir Bhutto, both significant figures in pop-culture and world entertainment. Ironically, amidst the turbulent backdrop of politics and societal issues he addresses in his work, Tariq finds himself embroiled in the realm of entertainment, offering an unexpected blend of entertainment and truth.
