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Distance makes the heart less fonder

Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two sizable states with sixty-five Lok Sabha members between them, elect new assemblies in a few weeks. But neither I nor the readers of most newspapers in Delhi have any idea what is going on there. All we get to read about is of the squabbles over Delhi.

There is a major crisis in the Karnataka unit of the Janata Dal, the sole state ruled by that party. The revolt in Bangalore has been brewing up for a long time. But can you remember any television channel reporting on it before Deve Gowda loyalists actually attempted a coup against chief minister J H Patel?

You don't have to look too far to find the reason for such lapses from both the electronic and the print media. Most editors and almost all news programmers are utterly parochial. Fortunately or unfortunately, journalism in India revolves around two major centres -- Bombay for economic news and Delhi for almost everything else. Other places in India gain or lose importance in direct proportion to their distance from one of the two cities.

If a Rajasthan, a Karnataka, or even a Madhya Pradesh are too distant to bother insular Delhiites, is there any state that does concern them? Proving my point that geography matters, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh -- which surrounded Delhi -- can always make the news.

It is, I admit, rather tough to ignore a state the size of Uttar Pradesh. As many as 85 members of the Lok Sabha are elected by Uttar Pradesh. (Bihar, which comes next, has only 54). But is Haryana in the same league?

It sends only ten representatives to the Lok Sabha, half the size of the Kerala contingent. But can a Keralite become Defence Minister or Deputy Prime Minister? (Of course, given Krishna Menon's record up to the disastrous Indo-China War, nobody wants another Keralite in the Defence Ministry!)

Haryana, however, carries a weight that is out of all proportion to actual numbers. In the dark days of the Emergency, Defence Minister Bansi Lal, a Haryanvi to the core, was arguably the second most powerful man in India, next only to Sanjay Gandhi. Chaudhary Devi Lal was the deputy prime minister in the administrations of V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar.

It is like a bantam-weight boxer entering an arena reserved for heavy-weights -- and actually winning a silver medal. The Union cabinet may not have anyone from Haryana in the offices once occupied by Bansi Lal and Devi Lal, but that doesn't mean the state has lost all opportunity to make news.

Take a recent outburst from Om Prakash Chautala, Devi Lal's son and leader of the Haryana Lok Dal. He loudly protested against Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma being replaced by Sushma Swaraj. He described it as an insult to all farmers, especially the Jats. It was, according to Chautala, so serious an issue that the party would have to reconsider its policy of supporting the Vajpayee ministry.

This was a farcical thrust. Chautala's party does not rule Haryana, and his lifeline to relevance in Indian politics is his support of the Vajpayee government. But Haryana is just across the borders of Delhi, thereby assuring an eager audience in both media and political circles.

Part of the reason why Haryana carries so much weight is the sheer longevity of its leaders. For all practical purposes, the state has had just three leaders since it was created in 1966 -- Devi Lal, Bansi Lal, and Bhajan Lal. Almost every chief minister has been either a relative or an acolyte of one of the three.

Such stamina is considered a virtue in political circles. In an age when even senior leaders must work to be re-elected, politicians admire a trinity who have displayed such lasting power.

But that isn't the whole story. E M S Namboodiripad, to name but one, was a figure of consequence in Kerala for over four decades. But he never had the assured audience in the Delhi media which Haryana's leaders take for granted.

It is a peculiar situation. Haryana can't match Uttar Pradesh's numbers, nor the sheer financial clout of Gujarat and Maharashtra. It can't boast of Kerala's literacy rates, nor the cultural traditions of Bengal or Tamil Nadu. But arithmetic, commerce, education, and history count for nothing before geography. Haryana is important because it neighbours the capital; Kerala is half-forgotten because it is at the other end of the subcontinent.

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T V R Shenoy