अल कायदाचे धागेदोरे मुळ लेखक - इम्तियाज गुल अनुवाद - रेखा देशपांडे (दर्जा **)

पाकिस्तानमध्ये लष्कर-राजकारणी आणि दहशतवादी संघटनांच्या घुसळणीतून काय घडत आहे, हे जाणून घेणे भारतासाठी अत्यावश्यक ठरते. मात्र इस्लाम, त्यांचा अर्थ लावणारे घटक, त्यांच्या परस्परांत टकरा, आंतरराष्ट्रीय पवित्र्यांचे परिणाम अशा प्रवाहांचीही नीट माहिती आपल्याकडे करून घेतली जात नाही. मुख्य धाराच नीट माहीत नाहीत, मग बारीकसारीक तपशील कोण पाहणार? मात्र पाकव्याप्त काश्मीरचा अफगाण सीमाप्रदेश, त्याचे सात विभाग, तिथला भूगोल, टोळ्या, आर्थिक-भौतिक मागासलेपण-त्यातून पाय रोवण्यास दहशतवाद्यांना अनुकूल भूमी याची विलक्षण तपशिलात जाऊन माहिती पाकिस्तानी पत्रकार इम्तियाज गुल यांनी गोळा केली. स्वत:चा जीव अनेकदा धोक्यात घालून पायी हिंडणे, भेटीगाठी, एखादा धागा पकडून त्या संघटनेच्या नेत्याला भेटणे, मिळालेली माहिती विवेकाने तपासणे, त्याआधारे आणखी तपशील असा हा विस्मयकारी प्रवास आहे. त्याचेच प्रत्यंतर रेखा देशपांडे अनुवादित ‘अल कायदाचे धागेदोरे’ हे पुस्तक वाचताना येतो.

अल कायदा, तालिबान वहाबी इस्लाम, दहशतवाद, आयएसआय... आदी शब्दमालिका भारतात उच्चारली म्हणजे, अशिक्षित सामान्य जनांपासून वर्तमानपत्रांचे वाचक, दूरचित्रवाणीचे प्रेक्षक ते आपापसात शांत चर्चा करणा-यांपासून हमरीतुमरीपर्यंत जाणा-या सर्वांच्या मनात एक शब्द उमटतो, ‘पाकिस्तान’! बहुविध संस्कृतीचा आलेख मान्य नाही, अशा अतिरेकी भूमिकेतून जन्माला आलेला हा देश. याला जन्म देण्यासाठी जे काय उपाय योजले गेले त्यात ‘डायरेक्ट अ‍ॅक्शन’ या नावाखाली दहशतवादी प्रवृत्तींना आवाहन केले गेले. 1971 नंतर हा मूलतत्त्ववाद अधिक विखारीपणे जोपासण्यात आला. शाळांच्या क्रमिक पुस्तकांपासून पुढच्या पिढ्या याच मानसिकतेत घडवण्याचे प्रयत्न राज्यकर्त्यांनी केले. केवळ लष्करशहा झिया-उल-हक नव्हेत तर तथाकथित ‘सेक्युलर’ झुल्फिकार अली, बेनझीर भुत्तो व नवाज शरीफ यांनीही तेच केले. जेव्हा रशियन सेना अफगाणिस्तानात उतरल्या, तेव्हा आपल्या व्यूहात्मक बांधणीला ‘खतरा’ या नावाखाली अमेरिकेच्या आर्थिक-शस्त्र मदतीच्या पाठिंब्यावर दहशतवादी तयार करून जोपासले गेले.

अर्थात ‘दहशतवाद’ हा मानवाच्या इतिहासात नवा नाही. भारताच्या संदर्भात महाभारतातला बकासुर हा त्या काळचा ‘दहशतवादी’च आहे. तसेच पांडवांनी वनवास काळात मारलेला ‘किर्मिर’ हा बकासुर आपला भाऊ होता, असे म्हणतो. किर्मिर ठार झाल्याची बातमी कौरवांना राजसभेत हेरांनी सांगितली तेव्हा दुर्योधन हताश झाला, धृतराष्ट्राने निराश होऊन सुस्कारे सोडले, या महाभारतातल्या उल्लेखांवरून पांडवांना मारण्याची ‘सुपारी’ दुर्योधन-धृतराष्ट्राने किर्मिराला दिली होती, हे उघड होते. मध्ययुगात ब्रिटन-फ्रान्स यांच्यात युरोपात तणातणी तर आशिया-आफ्रिकेत साम्राज्यनिर्मितीची स्पर्धा होती. त्या वेळी ‘फ्रान्सची व्यापारी जहाजे लुटा, आमची सुरक्षित ठेवा’ अशा करारासाठी भूमध्य समुद्रातल्या सागरी चाच्यांना ब्रिटन पैसे चारत असे. मात्र फ्रान्सचा पराभव झाल्यावर ‘गरज सरो’ या चालीवर ब्रिटनने हे सर्व चाचे संपवले. याशिवाय अमेरिकेतला माफिया प्रसंगी अमेरिकन शासनानेही वापरल्याची उदाहरणे ज्ञात आहेत. तर दुस-या महायुद्धात फ्रान्समध्ये तिथला माफिया दोस्त राष्ट्रांनी वापरला होता. त्यामुळे दहशतवाद व राजसत्तांनी त्याचा केलेला वापर हे जगाला नवे नाही.

नवा घटक आहे आज तो या प्रवृत्तीला राज्ययंत्रणेने पूर्ण पाठबळ देणे व हे सर्व एका तत्त्वज्ञानाच्या चौकटीत बसवणे. परंतु हा भस्मासुर आता पाकिस्तानमध्ये मात्र मोकाट सुटला आहे. अशा वेळी ‘शासन’ (स्टेट) यांचे नियंत्रण स्वत:च्याच अंगोपांगांवर राहत नाही. म्हणूनच भारतात, भारताबाहेर, खुद्द पाकिस्तानात रोज घडत असलेले दहशतवादी हल्ले हे प्रत्येक वेळी शासनाच्या आशीर्वादानेच घडवले जातात, असे नव्हे. अनेक गट, त्यांच्या आपसातल्या लढाया, काही कृत्यांना शासकीय संस्थांची छुपी मदत यामागे सत्तास्पर्धा उभी असते - अंतर्गत व आंतरराष्ट्रीयसुद्धा. हे सर्व नेस्तनाबूत करणे, किमान आटोक्यात आणणे, यासाठी जी इच्छाशक्ती (पोलिटिकल विल), राज्ययंत्रणेवर पकड लागते ती आज पाकिस्तानात अस्तित्वात नाही, हे उघड आहे.

यात दोन घटक आणखी आहेत. पाकव्याप्त काश्मीरचा टोळीप्रदेश आणि पूर्वीचा वायव्य सरहद प्रांत, बलुचिस्तान असा जो अफगाणिस्तान-इराणला लगत ‘टोळी’ वाल्यांचा पट्टा आहे, तिथे कुठलीच राज्ययंत्रणा आधुनिक शासन अमलात आणू शकत नाही. हा सर्व भाग शस्त्रोपजीवी आहे. वंश, भाषा, बोली या निरनिराळ्या आहेत. ब्रिटिश राजवटीत या टोळीप्रमुखांना पैसे देऊन आटोक्यात ठेवले जात असले तरी ‘संपर्क जेवढा कमी तेवढे संबंध चांगले’ असे ब्रिटिश धोरण होते. या टोळ्यांच्या आपापल्या परंपरा, सवयी, नीतिमूल्ये, पंचायती आहेत. त्यात हस्तक्षेप सहन होत नाही.

ओसामा-बिन-लादेनची अल-कायदा आणि इतर दहशतवादी संघटना या पार्श्वभूमीवर हालचाली करतात. शिवाय याला शिया-सुन्नी, पॅलेस्टाइन, मध्यपूर्वेचे राजकारण, तेलाचे महत्त्व या सर्व घटकांचा संदर्भ आहेच. शीतयुद्धाच्या काळात तर हा रक्तरंजित आखाडाच होता, याचेच दर्शन आपल्याला प्रस्तुत पुस्तकाद्वारे होत राहते. पुस्तक पत्रकार, प्रशासन, विद्यापीठे यांना अतिशय उपयोगी आहे. या ग्रंथाचा रेखा देशपांडे यांनी केलेला अनुवाद सुरेख झाला आहे. छपाई उत्तम. अशा ग्रंथात नकाशे फार आवश्यक असतात. ‘फटा’ भागाची भौगोलिक माहिती समजून घेण्यासाठी समोर मानचित्र असेल तर सोयीचे असते. परंतु   योग्य ते नकाशे नसणे ही ग्रंथाची मोठी त्रुटी म्हणायला हवी.

Dongri to Dubai by S. Hussain Zaidi (Rating : *****)

Every country has its reallife version of the fictional mafioso Vito Corleone. Dawood Hasan Ibrahim Kaskar is not as charismatic as Mario Puzo’s enduring creation, but he does display a Corleone-esque tendency to vapourise all his enemies. Ibrahim has featured in so many movies that it is safe to attribute a sub-genre to him. S Hussain Zaidi’s new book Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia already has a cinematic connection: ten of its 63 chapters will be used in the screenplay of the forthcoming Sanjay Gupta movie Shootout at Wadala, about the murder in 1982 of Manya Surve, who reportedly killed Ibrahim’s brother Subir Kaskar.

“Dawood was always known to be unforgiving,” Zaidi writes about the mobster, who ordered the hit. “He decided to avenge his brother’s killing and eliminate each and every person involved in the murder. He had no personal enmity with Manya… But Manya will have to pay for this, Dawood swore.” Replace Manya’s name with any other and Ibrahim’s story stays the same. The fugitive from justice (believed to be hiding in Pakistan after spending several years in Dubai) fought and shot his way to the top of the underworld. The hoodlum’s journey as charted by Dongri to Dubai is signposted by acts of personal vendetta which later crystallise into a take-noprisoners attitude towards his rivals, especially Chhota Rajan.

Dongri to Dubai is an intermittently fascinating account of Ibrahim’s transformation from neighbourhood thug to global gangster. Zaidi is nicely placed to record Ibrahim’s rise. The crime reporter has built up a reputation for scoops and access to elusive criminals. He is one of the few journalists to have scored an interview with Ibrahim. Zaidi worked his phone book to the maximum for Dongri to Dubai, but even he drew a blank for the concluding chapters, which track Ibrahim to Pakistan. “The toughest part for me was getting information about his Pakistan days,” said Zaidi, who wrote Dongri to Dubai over seven years between several job changes. “The book was like Draupadi’s sari – it was unending,” he said.

The book, Zaidi’s third after Black Friday and Mafia Queens of Mumbai (co-authored with Jane Borges), is at its strongest when it’s talking about Dongri rather than Dubai. Zaidi reaches back into Ibrahim’s growing-up years in the central Mumbai neighbourhood that folds in several evocatively named mohallas (Irani, Sidi, Israeli) and the city’s only hamam. Zaidi paints Mumbai as a city bubbling over with crooks of all hues. “Mumbai has always been a magnet for people with a criminal bent of mind,” the 44-year-old reporter declared. “Even in 1947, when the tricolour was being unfurled, there were three stabbing incidents on that day.” It was in the 1960s that gangs identified with their leaders began to be established, Zaidi said. When Ibrahim dropped out of school and began his life in crime a decade later by peddling fake watches and holding up Marwari traders, more established criminals like Haji Mastan, Karim Lala and Pathan don Ahmed Khan aka Baashu Dada called the shots. His constable father Ibrahim Kaskar maintained links with several hoods, but Zaidi claims that it was the police who created the man who would later be instrumental in the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai. In the chapter “A Seed is Sown”, Zaidi reveals how police officers, on the advice of a reporter, used Ibrahim to checkmate the Pathan mafia.

Dongri to Dubai is written in a dramatic style that will be familiar from Zaidi’s newspaper reports and Mafia Queens. He has used some creative licence in describing certain incidents. Sample this fantastic-sounding account of Ibrahim being shifted to Jeddah following the death of Osama Bin Laden by US Marines in Abbotabad: “As Dawood stood in front of the mirror, he saw a man with a dark complexion, fast receding hairline, a hint of gray on his eyebrow, and a hardened, ruthless face staring back… As he walked towards his car, he was assailed by a feeling of déjà vu. Memories kept coming back to him, flashbacks, and he tried to ignore them.”

Zaidi, the son of a tailor, grew up in the northeastern Mumbai suburb of Vikhroli and studied commerce at Chetna College. He is a self-described “failed businessman” who later joined a small magazine, Exhibition World. Zaidi then met crime reporter Velly Thevar, whom he would later marry. On her advice, he joined Asian Age in 1995, and gradually started covering the crime beat. Those were early days for cell phones in India, so Zaidi would get postcards from his sources, some of whom were in jail. One gangster’s coded message was, “I love you, Rachna.” If he wanted to meet Zaidi urgently, he would say, “I want to love you today itself.”

The flamboyance of even small-time hoodlums has not left Zaidi unaffected. But while his writings may be spiced up, there’s nothing artificial about the flavour, he insisted. “None of my details were challenged in Mafia Queens,” he said. “Not a single scrap of information has a ring of falsehood or fiction. And I never reveal my sources, which is why the gangsters trust me.”

The Story of My Experiments with Truth by M. K. Gandhi (Rating : ****)

Gandhi's nonviolent struggles in South Africa and India had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation, and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. Although accepting of his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence, and, just then, colonialism, Gandhi feared that enthusiasm for his ideas tended to exceed a deeper understanding. He says that he was after truth rooted in devotion to God and attributed the turning points, successes, and challenges in his life to the will of God. His attempts to get closer to this divine power led him to seek purity through simple living, dietary practices (he called himself a fruitarian), celibacy, and ahimsa, a life without violence. It is in this sense that he calls his book The Story of My Experiments with Truth, offering it also as a reference for those who would follow in his footsteps. A reader expecting a complete accounting of his actions, however, will be sorely disappointed.

Although Gandhi presents his episodes chronologically, he happily leaves wide gaps, such as the entire satyagraha struggle in South Africa, for which he refers the reader to another of his books. And writing for his contemporaries, he takes it for granted that the reader is familiar with the major events of his life and of the political milieu of early 20th-century India.It is one of the best things that ever happened to me. The events described in the book are a hundred years old, but Gandhi has a way of describing their essence which is timeless, and will grip you in a way that makes them entirely relevant to today's world. It made me wonder how the world might have been if people today only followed his ideas. But this is no boring lecture on politics or nonviolence. In fact quite the opposite - it is the sparkling story of a very special man told in his own words. We learn about truth and non-violence in the best way possible, by observing Gandhi's actions as he goes about matters small and big. It brought Gandhi to life in a very special way. I always admired his principles, but now feel closer to Gandhi the man. This is a first-hand account that cannot be ignored. My only regret was that the book ended much too soon (mid 1920's) and there was nothing to cover the rest of his life. I can think of no person of any age who would not be greatly enriched by this book.

There is a lot of discussion as to whether this book is actually an autobiography or not. I am not sure whether it is really a question relevant to the work, but it is probably relevant for people who want to decide whether or not to buy the book. So. It is a recounting by Gandhi of his life as it related to his search for truth. It is not a general autobiography, although you will find autobiographical details. It is also not a series of essays about truth-- Gandhi writes very personally about his search for truth, not necessarily about what he found there. I would say that an autobiography about this specific aspect of his life is a fair enough description.

The book is divided into many small chapters. It is clearly intended for a large audience and the chapters are largely able to stand on their own and simply written. Gandhi addresses issues such as food habits, comparative religion, political involvement, justice and the law, and chastity.

I found it quick and easy to read. I liked his voice as a writer very much. I had the feeling that he was not hiding or leading. He left the reader free to either agree or disagree with his actions and conclusions. Most writers in this space have neither the clarity nor the confidence exhibited in The Story of My Experiments With Truth. More, I enjoyed the book. The tone is often wry and sprightly, and as a whole it is very engaging to read. I might have wished that Gandhi had spent more time on some of the subjects, but that was not the purpose of the work.

Recommended for people with an interest in Gandhi, Indian/South African history, or spiritual exploration. The simple accessible style should make it available to a wide range of readers across virtually all age groups.