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Haryana villagers angry over Fiji leader's ouster

Tara Shankar Sahay in Bahu Jamalpur, Haryana

Alleged corruption by Fiji coup leader George Speight led to his being thrown out of a company by deposed prime minister Mahendra Pal Chaudhry, according to a relative of the latter.

"Speight worked as general manager in an Indian company in Fiji and when his scam was exposed, Mahendra Chaudhry had him dismissed," said Mahavir Chaudhry who introduced himself as the deposed Fijian leader's brother-in-law.

"The international community knows that Mahendra was deposed as prime minister and taken into custody by Speight and his thugs. But every resident in this village is optimistic that the coup will not last because there is too much international pressure and the prime minister will return to office," Mahavir Chaudhry pointed out.

The Fijian leader belongs to this tiny hamlet (population: 3,000) situated at the Hissar highway barely 10 km from Rohtak. His grandfather Shriram Singh migrated to Fiji in 1912 when the British government sent Indian labour to the tiny island nation to work in the sugarcane fields.

The residents of Bahu Jamalpur are proud that a son of the soil rose from the ranks through sheer hard work to become Fiji's prime minister. "Our hearts fill with pride when we hear strangers questioning how a lad from Jamalpur could rise to become prime minister of a foreign country," said another relative, Raj Singh.

"Now you know Haryanavis, especially the people of this village, are second to none in any field," he adds with a smile.

Mahendra Chaudhry's family still owns 11 acres of land in Bahu Jamalpur where relatives grow various crops including wheat. "His relatives make use of the produce from his land, but make no mistake, nobody can take the land belonging to the prime minister of Fiji," Raj Singh said.

Bahu Jamalpur is a typical Haryanavi hamlet boasting olde worlde dignity and encroaching modernity. Modern tractors and cable television antennae jostle besides groups of elders taking long pulls from their ubiquitous and gurgling hookahs. Nobody appears to mind the squalor lining the narrow lanes and heaps of dung from which will be made the cakes for cooking fuel.

"We have electricity, schools, adequate water for our fields. We are a satisfied lot. But ever since Mahendra Pal declared about a week ago that he would shortly visit India, especially this village, we became very happy. We knew that if the prime minister of a foreign country visited this village, development work would be taken up in a hurry. We were looking forwards to paved lanes, renovation work and the like. After all, Prime Minister Vajpayee and our Chief Minister Om Parkash Chautala would not like the Fijian prime minister to visit a village which did not get a pronounced facelift," Raj Singh ventured, ruefully adding that "but fate ordained otherwise."

Village elder Manju Chaudhry shyly pointed out that Mahendra Chaudhry's wife Birmati had let the villagers know on Saturday morning that even though her husband was still in detention, the other family members were "safe."

"This fellow's allegation against Mahendra Pal is that he is favouring Fijians of Indian origin over indigenous people is a lie because there are more indigenous Fijians in Mahendra Pal's cabinet than people of Indian origin. Even the Fijian president's daughter Adi Koila Mara Nailatikau has been taken hostage by Speight's thugs," Mahavir Chaudhry said angrily, trailing off into a stream of unprintables.

He said another allegation against Mahendra Chaudhry was that he was going to extend the lease of cultivable land to people of Indian origin, but "there is nothing wrong in that because these people are hard workers."

According to Mahavir Chaudhry, the villagers of Bahu Jamalpur have written to Vajpayee and Chautala to ensure that their kinsman is unharmed and immediately released.

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