An invite to a diplomat''s dinner

Hassan S. Mejie

Recently I received an invitation to a dinner hosted by a career diplomat in honour of a visiting dignitary. Considering it an honour for me, I attended it but made a silent exit soon thereafter in a bit of dishonour. Here is what happened.
In North India, especially among Punjabis, it is a very common way of starting a conversation by mentioning matters of mutual interest. Way back in the 1980s when I was living in London, I happened to be invited to a dinner at the House of Commons. The then Indian High Commissioner to London was also present at the dinner and so were British and Indian members of Parliament, besides members of the Indian diaspora living in London. Those were the turbulent days in Punjab and Punjab bashing was the order of the day for diplomats to justify the then Indian leadership's actions and inaction as in the case of anti-Sikh riots. The High Commissioner of India, addressing the British MPs, reiterated that he failed to understand the stand of Sikhs and farmers of Punjab who were a pampered lot and drove around in Mercedes Benz cars, saying that the government of the day was giving them subsidised diesel and fertilisers etc, and in spite of the government's benevolence, they still wanted to break away.
Being the only one at this dinner who belonged to Punjab and the farming community, this statement was stinging and unwarranted. I knew the exact plight of farmers in Punjab, from their meager earnings to equally meager land holdings. Let alone owning a Mercedes, they could not even afford to maintain their tractor and farming equipment, and they could not send their children to good schools, nor afford higher education for them. They could not buy branded clothes, shoes and fashionable food and drinks as the city folk could. I checked with a scholar from Punjabi University and was informed that the average holding of a Punjabi farmer was less than four acres. Their living standards were as high as that of an urban street hawker and they lived in unfinished houses.
In comparison, children of the diplomats and other elite could only talk of their schooling in Eton and Harrow and of Cambridge and Christ College Oxford, about their summer and winter vacations to the most elite destinations like St. Moritz and Bahamas and of eating out at chic joints like Hard Rock Cafe and dancing all night at the Hippodrome.
Coming back to the recent dinner, as a true Punjabi I thought it a good idea of striking a conversation with my host, and innocently mentioned that “we have something in common in terms of the families being landlords of our respective states”. I had hardly completed this sentence hoping to create a base for further dialogue, when to my utter surprise and bewilderment, my host leaving all diplomacy aside, flew into a rage, saying that if I was referring to the diplomat's father, he was an honest man and did not own a single acre of land in their state in his name. I was accused of slandering his great father’s name, fuming as to how I dared speak about the father owning land, mentioning that he was not corrupt in any way and accused me of spreading these lies to others.
What surprised me most other than this undiplomatic outburst was that a career diplomat felt that being a farmer was synonymous with being corrupt. Secondly, it was a completely innocent comment and I had no idea that this was a sore point for him, and thirdly, I thank God, that we had not met 30 years ago when his father was at the zenith of power. Otherwise I could have landed in jail, like some of this family's adversaries. I learnt, rather in a milder way, that silence is gold.