What did we gain from the Afghan war?

AS war in Afghanistan comes to its logical conclusion, people are justifiably asking the most pertinent question: “What did Pakistan gain or lose?” And then “What is going to happen to us now?” Of course, the ultimate answer will be provided only by history, and history takes too long to shape up its answer.

To some opinion leaders in Pakistan and abroad, we stand today at the doorstep of our long lost paradise and all that is required to begin the journey is to take the first step. To others, Pakistan has arrived at the edge of disaster and one wrong step could launch it into unending morass. Is this the best of times or the worst of times? The trouble is, both schools of thought base their opinions on facts and arguments that are so concrete that it is not advisable to brush them away. So, let us have both the good news and the bad news. good news first.

From the optimist’s point of view, Pakistan appears to have emerged from the crisis superbly. Consider the state of affairs before September 11. Economically, Pakistan faced a dismal situation. In spite of the efforts made by the government, the IMF and other agencies were dragging their feet, a new aid-package seemed a far cry and the country seemed to be at its wit’s ends to finance debt-servicing.

All that has changed. Debts have been rescheduled so hugely that for this generation at least, debt is not a major problem any more. Foreign exchange reserves are close to a previously unbelievable figure of five billion dollars and the rupee is amazingly steady at a strength no one could have thought possible a few months ago.

For the last several years Pakistan was facing serious cash shortage problems with the result that developmental activities were at the minimum. Fall in revenues inevitably accompanied cuts in the PDSP as well as the flow to provinces. All this has changed too. Cash flow problems are gone, at least for now. Increased investment in education and health as well as other infrastructure will not only build the nation but also increase employment and reduce poverty.

Although the stronger rupee may make competition in foreign markets tougher, the cut in import duties announced by the EU, will set off the disadvantage and Pakistani exporters should get into serious business soon. The considerably cheaper dollar should encourage industrialists to modernize their factories and to invest more. Raw materials’ prices have also gone down because of the steep fall of the dollar and this should encourage production of goods for local consumption and exports.

The happiest development, by far, is the potential for investment in Pakistan by the Pakistanis. Until now Pakistanis were shy of investing their money in their own country. There were long queues of affluent Pakistanis spending millions to migrate to the US and Canada, taking away billions with them.

Those who could not go themselves sent their funds to safe havens. When the country’s own nationals were taking capital away from Pakistan, it was naive to expect foreign nationals to take the risk of bringing their capital to invest here. Most of this scene has also changed. No, there is no patriotic surge. The change of heart has been forced upon us by America and Europe. Migration has been virtually stopped and all money is looked upon with suspicion.

News in the market is that dirty money brought back by Pakistanis for fear of its being frozen abroad is sitting timidly in the country, waiting for avenues of investment. Dollar buying is out of fashion as there is no hope of its rise in the near future. Stock market is uncertain and in any case it is small and can take only a limited amount. So, huge heaps of money are waiting patiently to be employed into the service of industries and businesses in Pakistan. A little innovative trigger from the government will make this happen.

Another happy development is that virtual brakes have been applied to the brain-drain that was sapping the energy of this nation. Muslims, especially Pakistanis are not welcome in the greener pastures any more. Talented young boys and girls especially those with IT and other high technology degrees will now be constrained to find opportunities in the domestic field. It might look bad in the short run. In the long run, it is good for the country by all standards.

As dust settles down, Pakistanis should look forward to an abundance of opportunities in the redevelopment of Afghanistan as well as exploitation of natural resources in the Central Asian Republics. Their capital and expertise could

be put to use for immense benefits to themselves and the country.

Political advantages derived from the crisis are by far the greatest and the most significant. The best thing that has happened to Pakistan is freedom from obscurantism. For decades on end, rulers of this country remained hostage to the abstract yet frightening power of the hidden hand of religious fanaticism. Pragmatic and progressive leaders since the late eighties, whether civilian or military, found themselves unable to speak up against this mysterious force, which never obtained the votes to challenge them openly, yet always had the awe and power to keep them cowed down.

The lady had to cover her head every minute, the slightest change in Blasphemy Law had to be taken back, the madressahs were not to be touched. All this too has changed. Government functionaries are now actually able to give them orders. Hopefully they will also get their orders properly implemented and bring these forces under the law of the land.

The fear of “Talibanization”, which had taken away peace of mind from our ladies and indeed given sleepless nights to most decent citizens has receded

into oblivion, at least for the present.

From defence point of view, Pakistan appears to be better placed because of the American support coupled with the commitment of other allied powers for the safety of this country. In the near future at least, India will not attack.

Afghanistan may not be friendly but neither will it be an enemy. It will surely remain neutral. Iran has certainly become friendlier after the elimination of the main cause of friction, the Taliban.

The economy, which was already unhinged before September 11, has come to a virtual halt. The exporters are still reeling from the cancellation of their orders; their containers are still lying at American ports and fresh orders are as distant as the UFOs. Garments and leather exporters make their yearly earnings in the Christmas season which this year has yielded zero income and it is unlikely that they will be able to make up the losses any time soon. the consequent fall in the country’s earnings is to the tune of three billion dollars and no amount of aid, loan or rescheduling of debts will offset this loss of real income.

According to exporters, the waiver of import duty by the EU is only to the tune of 4.5%, and will not make Pakistani products competitive enough to increase sales. Both in Europe and America, importers have become averse to Pakistani products and no orders seem to be forthcoming. If this trend continues for a few more months, many markets may be lost permanently, with irreversibly adverse affects on the economy of Pakistan.

The American war on Afghanistan, followed closely by the Israeli aggression on Palestine has given birth to a new definition of self-defence. The new, acceptable international principle called “self-defence against terrorism” goes like this: “If a nation is victim of suicide attacks by terrorists, it has the right to attack the country where these terrorists reside.”

Thus the recent attack on the Indian parliament seems to have given India the right to attack Pakistan. The US has publicly recognized India’s right, but has requested restraint, only because of the present circumstances. Which means that as soon as the time is right, India may launch a massive or incisive attack on Azad Kashmir or Pakistan. Irrespective of our ability to withstand such an assault and whatever the results of such a war, it will surely take us back a hundred years.

Add to the above scary picture the pessimist’s insistence that America is here to stay, not only to exploit the region’s oil and gas reserves but also to watch over China and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, then colour it with the latest news that Americans are building air-conditioned bunkers at Jacobabad airport and the doomsday becomes inevitable. This school of thought believes that Pakistan is now faced with an enemy-like situation at both its western and eastern borders and authenticates it with the news that already a substantial part of the armoured corps, has been shifted from its traditional deployment to the border with Afghanistan.

According to this theory, the second phase of America’s war against terrorism is to dig out and destroy Pakistan’s nuclear facility as well as to eliminate all kinds of jihadi outfits, after which we can forget about Kashmir and begin the life of a vassal state.

Having stated both extreme schools of thought without comments, it is important to make two crucial comments: (a), The actual state of affairs is somewhere between the two extreme viewpoints and (b), the future of Pakistan from this point on will depend upon how the leadership of Pakistan handles the conflicting circumstances as they unfold.

In spite of all the external pressures, the future of this country is still in our own hands if we play a pro-active role

with courage and determina-

tion.

Rise & fall of Muslim power

WHY is it that throughout history the great empires of the past flourished and fell, and why is it that some nations gain power while others lose it? All the Great Powers, to paraphrase Bismarck’s famous remark, are travelling on the ‘stream of time’ which they can neither “create nor direct”, but upon which they can steer with more or less “skill and experience”. For a proper understanding of what went wrong in the Islamic world, we have to begin at the beginning.

The story of the Muslim voyage on the ‘stream of time’ and the rise and fall of Muslim power begins with the death of the Holy Prophet. Differences over succession to the Caliphate and the nature of authority in Islam after the death of the Holy Prophet had split the world of Islam into Shia’a and Sunni warring camps. The group that now forms the majority of the Muslims, the Sunnis, claimed that authority passed to the Caliphs while the Shia’as believed that the Prophet’s authority passed to his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and to his descendants. In political terms, the Umayyads and the Abbasids were Sunnis while the dynasties that challenged their authority were Shias.

The Abbasids tried to transform the state from an Arab state into an Islamic state. With the transfer of the capital of the empire from Syria to Mesopotamia, power passed from the conquering Arab minority to the non-Arab majority. Non-Arabs were no longer discriminated against, as they had been under the Umayyads. The Abbasids prided themselves upon the fact that they had brought into power Islam, which had been suppressed during the Umayyad period.

The work of collecting and reducing the Prophet’s traditions to writing was begun and completed during the Abbasid period. All the four great schools of Muslim law flourished under the early Abbasids and Muslim Law codified. Progress was made in almost all branches of knowledge — history, science, laws, etc. The cumulative result of all this was that Muslim civilization came to maturity in Baghdad which became the foremost seat of culture and civilization in the world.

However, as pointed out by Pervez Hoodbhoy, the immediate successors of the enlightened and progressive caliph, Mamun, persecuted the Shia’as, the Mutazilites and all those who did not conform to the orthodox interpretation of Islam.

Inevitably, persecution encouraged rather than repressed the development of several most remarkable religious and philosophical movements, notable amongst them was the Qarmatian or Ismaili propaganda which culminated in the establishment of the Fatimid Anti-Caliphate of North Africa and Egypt. To a distinct degree, the fierce response to the Shi’ite religious challenge reflected and anticipated a hardening of official attitudes towards all forms of free thought.

The second characteristic of this period was the ascendancy of the Turks, who through sheer force of circumstances, had become absolute masters of the Abbasid empire.

In the absence of a law of political succession, which inevitably led to uncertainty, civil wars, wars of succession etc., force was the sole arbiter. But as Rousseau said, ‘however strong a man is, he is never strong enough to remain master always unless he transforms his might into right and obedience into duty’.

President Ayub faced the same dilemma: how to acquire legitimacy? He created 80,000 basic democrats. President Zia ul Haq held a fraudulent referendum and when a small percentage of people voted for Islamization, he concluded that it was a vote of confidence in him and on the strength of this verdict he could rule for five years. President Musharraf faces the same dilemma today.

While the Islamic world was caught up in wars of succession, civil wars and internal dissensions and stood still, the rest of the world moved on and advanced to the centre of the world stage. By AD 1661, the western society was just one among half a dozen societies of the kind that had arisen in the old world.

It is true that by that date, the West had won the command of the ocean, and had thus made itself the potential master of the whole surface of the planet. The western people had already discovered and monopolized the new world. But in the old world, the western people in AD 1661, were still perched precariously on the tip of the European Peninsula of the great Asian continent, and it was not yet certain that they might be pushed right off even this patch of the old world ground.

When in AD 1682, Qara Mustafa Pasha led the Ottoman Turkish expeditionary force westwards, his objective was not merely to make a second Turkish attempt at taking Vienna; he was intending to carry the western frontier of the Ottoman empire up to the line of the Rhine; and if Qara Mustafa had reached the Rhine, the rest of western Europe would surely have succumbed to the Turks sooner or later. With the failure of the second siege of Vienna, the situation changed decisively. Then, at last, the West was relieved from the pressure that the Osmanlis had been exerting on West’s eastern land frontier for the past 300 years.

It was only then that the western people could concentrate their energies on converting their already achieved command of the ocean into a domination of the world. It was only then that western natural science consummated its marriage with technology and thereby generated for the West a material power that quickly put the rest of the world at the West’s mercy. A conventional date for this marriage is AD 1660, which is also the date of the foundation of the Royal Society in England. The marriage between science and technology was, indeed, an historic event. It was a new thing in the world’s history.

The first reaction to it was alarm; the second was emulation in self-defence. Within less than 40 years of the foundation of the Royal Society, Peter the Great was making the self-educational tour of the workshops of Holland and England. Other non-western countries — for example, Turkey and China were slower in reading the western signs of our modern times, and when they did reluctantly read them, they were less resolute in taking action.

Contemptuous of European ideas and practices, the Turks declined to adopt newer methods. The armed services had become a bastion of conservatism.

Despite noting, and occasionally suffering from, the newer weaponry of European forces, the janissaries were slow to modernize themselves. Their bulky cannons were not replaced by the lighter cast-iron guns. After the defeat at Lapanto, they did not build the larger European type of vessels. In the south, the Muslim fleets were simply ordered to remain in the calmer waters of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, thus obviating the need to construct oceangoing vessels on the Portuguese model.

On May 28, 1998, more than 300 years after the western world natural science consummated its marriage with technology, an event of great significance took place. Pakistan took a quantum leap in the field of science and technology, exploded a nuclear bomb, acquired a nuclear umbrella and joined the nuclear club. But has it enhanced our sense of security? I am not too sure because the dominant impulse in Pakistan today continues to be that of fear, pervasive, oppressing, strangling fear, not physical fear but fear in the mind, which distorts our decision making.

What should we infer from this narrative? One thing is clear. External enemies and personal failings of the rulers do not provide a full explanation of the decline of Muslim power. Nor does the tussle between the Mutazilites and the predestinarians which Pervez Hoodbhoy has so well expressed. Muslims must recognize that in the Islamic world the trouble started brewing among the contenders for power soon after the death of the Holy Prophet, resulting in the formation of warring camps, rebellions in the outlying provinces, decline of central authority and the superiority of centrifugal over centripetal forces.

Second, the absence of a law of political succession was, and continues to be, the principle cause of the instability and decline of Muslim rule from Maghrib to Indonesia. Third, the question of legitimacy, which has plagued the Muslim world from the very beginning remains unresolved. Fourth, no political institutions e.g. parliament, independent judiciary, Rule of Law, party system could develop in the Islamic world mainly owing to political uncertainty, insecurity and lack of continuity.

Fifth, in the absence of a law of political succession, force remained the ultimate arbiter. The contender’s title to rule was in direct proportion to the length of his sword and the sharpness of its blade. This continues to be the case till today throughout the Islamic world.

Today the number of choices that are available to the Muslims are fast diminishing. Hereditary monarchy, narrow nationalism, socialism, military dictatorship, liberal (and illiberal) democracy have all been tried in different Islamic countries and found wanting. Islam — not the scholastic, institutionalized, fossilized Islam coopted by corrupt rulers — but the true, dynamic, pristine, revolutionary Islam of its early years with its emphasis on equality, egalitarianism, social justice and accountability is emerging as a challenge to western concepts of governance, and is perceived by the West and the Muslim elite as the greatest threat to the established order based on exploitation, injustice and inequality of opportunity.

It is now abundantly clear that the West, in its own interest, will not allow the emergence of truly Islamic governments anywhere in the Islamic world. It would prefer to maintain the status quo and do business with corrupt, despotic, autocratic, pliant governments which it would protect and defend against its own peoples. The day is not far off when the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination, the Palestinian Intifada and their struggle to recover their lands illegally occupied by the Israelis is dubbed as terrorism and the full might of the West used to crush them. We have finally returned to a dark time when might alone is right and law comes out of the barrel of a gun.

Portents of war in South Asia

THE December 13 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament threatens to unravel the fragile peace existing between the two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals. If the hard-hitting statements emanating from across the border are anything to go by, it is clear that the BJP leadership is keen on teaching Islamabad a lesson for its hand in what Delhi calls “cross-border terrorism.”

“we have reached the limits of our tolerance,” declared Prime Minister Vajpayee ominously, a day after the attack. Clearly pointing fingers at Islamabad, he said “regimes that seek to promote their untenable goals by sponsoring terror are doomed in the face of the collective will of the international community.”

This latest round of verbal bellicosity by Indian leaders is tragically familiar, yet dangerously different. Fears are that Delhi has found a convenient cover in the US actions in Afghanistan as well as the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian authority for threatening to attack alleged militant targets inside Pakistani territory.

While the international community is once again urging India to show restraint lest things spiral out of control, the million dollar question is: will it really up the status quo ante? And how best can Islamabad play its cards as the noose of anti-terrorism tightens around Pakistani jihadi groups? Lastly, what is the appropriate course of action for the US and its western allies for diffusing tensions in a region already embroiled in conflict?

On the diplomatic front, India has stepped up efforts to rally US support for its “Kashmir problem” by attempting to link it to Washington’s dire need to curb global terrorism. This way, it hopes the guns of the US wrath on terrorism can be turned on Islamabad. However, the US-led coalition’s urgent need for Islamabad’s support in the on-going military campaign in Afghanistan makes that highly unlikely for now. India will also have to think twice before embarking on a military course of action, as it will not only impede that campaign but further destabilize the region.

But this does not mean that all is well on the home front. The Bush administration has already moved to freeze the assets of Jaish and Lashkar and put them on the State Department’s designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations’ list. Unofficially, it has repeatedly asked Islamabad to close down the training camps. Reports that the Chinese too intend to press Islamabad to clamp down on jihadi groups, a reflection of Beijing’s growing unease with Muslim separatism in its north-west Xingjiang region, should worry the military regime. Moreover, September 11 has drastically reduced international tolerance for the use of violence by non-state groups and the states that harbour these groups. The military establishment’s alleged duplicity — allying itself closely with the US-led anti-terrorist coalition while turning a blind eve to jihadi organizations operating in Kashmir — can thus be disastrous for Pakistan.

What should Pakistan do? For one, the establishment could start by adopting a tough line against the militants. Statements by leaders of jihadi outfits alluding to the government’s hands-off approach not only belie official posturing but clearly harm our already tarnished international credibility. In a re-defined geo-political environment, Pakistan can ill-afford to be seen with its hands in the cookie jar.

The establishment would also do well to recognize that Washington perceives its relationship with Delhi as a strategic partnership. To the US India is a friendly democracy which could act as a potential counter-weight to China. It also has a naval presence stretching from the Malacca strait to the Arabian Sea required by the US and Japan to keep the sea lanes free for the shipment of oil, and last but not the least, it is a vast technology market. In this backdrop, the recently concluded Indo-US defence policy dialogue assumes added significance. Maritime cooperation is already underway, joint efforts for non-proliferation and counter-terrorism are on the cards, and so is a comprehensive review of India’s defence shopping list.

As for Pakistan, the US has lowered its standards of aid eligibility, defence cooperation and democracy only because of its short-term interests in the region. The moment Pakistan falls off the US strategic priority radar, it will be dropped like a hot brick much like in the 1960s and 1980s.

In the most obvious sense, there are no simple solutions to the decades-old conflict in Kashmir. But as much as policy-makers on both sides would hate to admit, Delhi and Islamabad can’t wish or bleed each other away. There is simply no way out of their mutual geography. Left to their own devices, however, the two sides are unlikely to sue for peace, given their diametrically opposed positions. The only pragmatic solution — accepting the Line of Control as the international border — remains unacceptable to both parties. Thus the international community has a legitimate role to play.

But this role must go beyond the customary prodding of the two parties to show restraint and engage in dialogue. There is an urgent need for actively engaging the two sides both bilaterally and unilaterally. The primary objective of such a two-track approach would be to stabilize the situation with sustainable confidence-building measures, besides facilitating the evolution of a dialogue framework which both sides perceive as mutually beneficial. But before the two sides can sit at the negotiating table, they must be persuaded to abdicate the political one-upmanship that has so far characterized their bilateral interaction.

On its part,Delhi must recognize that Kashmir is not merely an internal issue fanned by “cross border terrorism.” Islamabad too must not hide behind its “core issue” intransigence and shoulder the responsibility for fuelling the insurgency in Kashmir. At the very least, this could set the stage for the long over-due peace process in the region.

Institutional constraints notwithstanding, for now the military regime must exercise restraining control on groups India accuses of spreading mass terror, if only to show the world that Pakistan is a responsible member of the international community, and means what it says. And tempted as the BJP leadership might be to use this opportunity to shore up its flagging political fortunes as it faces key state elections next year, the Indian government must exercise utmost restraint to save the region from another round of conflict with possible nuclear dimensions.

The boy with the golden voice: PRIVATE VIEW

ANYONE with even a passing interest in music is familiar with the two Saghar Nizami ghazals sung by that extraordinary child prodigy, Master Madan, who died some years before independence. He was not yet fifteen.

The two ghazals which have retained their magic after more than sixty-five years are ‘Yoon ha reh reh ke hummain tarpaiyay’ and ‘Hairat se tak raha hai jahan-e-wafe mujhay’. One listens and marvels at the perfectly modulated voice of this child who, had he lived, would have flowered into one of the great maestros of the subcontinent’s music.

What made the listening of the two ghazals that he left us even more poignant was the thought that he did not leave us with more.

Well, there is good news and the good news is that Master Madan recorded six more songs which he rendered just as beautifully as the two that have kept us captivated with their haunting quality all these years.

This great discovery, I hasten to add, is entirely to the credit of my friend and classmate, M. Rafiq, who has lived in England for over thirty years, each one of which he has spent - besides teaching English - in collecting the most detailed and meticulously researched information on the subcontinent’s cinema and its music. Some months ago, we began to correspond about Master Madan and the great pity of his having left the world of music with no more than two recordings. I even checked with Saeed Malik in Lahore, whose knowledge of music and musicians few, if any, in Pakistan can equal. He too confirmed that Master Madan had left only two recordings.

But Rafiq was not satisfied. His curiosity had been aroused. He spent the next couple of months digging everywhere and one day he hit paydirt. He discovered six of Master Madan’s recordings that nobody ever knew existed. I have them on tape and a copy is now on its way to Saeed Malik for his opinion and listening pleasure.

Master Madan was born on 28 December 1927 in village Khankhana, built by Emperor Akbar’s courtier Adbul Rahim Khankhana, in District Jullunder. His father, Sardar Amar Singh, was employed at the Ministry of Education and Health in New Delhi (he died on 13 December 1981). His mother Puran Devi died soon after Master Madan death on 5 June 1942. His elder brother, Master Mohan, was musically gifted and his elder sister, Shanti Devi, is alive and well in Rana Pratap Road, Delhi. Mohan’s daughter, Ravinder Kaur who never married and his son, Jaspal Singh Pali, both live at New Bootale Building, Lower Bazar, Simla, where the family has resided for nearly eighty years.

Some time ago, H.M.V. (India) brought out ‘Ghazal Safar’, a set of 10 audio cassettes which included the two well-known Master Madan ghazals. The set was introduced by music director Gulzar and ghazal singer Jagjit Singh, both highly knowledgeable experts. They said that Master Madan died at the age of 13 and that the music for the two ghazals was composed by the Master himself. In both details they were wrong: he died at the age of 14 years, 5 months and 11 days and the music for the two ghazals, recorded in 1934, when Master Madan was just over seven years of age, was scored by Pandit Amarnath, later of the ‘Mirza Sahiban’ (1947) fame. Pandit Amarnath used his own harmonium, while the tabla was played by Hiralal and the violin by Master Mohan, Madan’s elder brother. The poet, of course, was Saghar Nizami.

Ravinder Kaur and Jaspal Singh Pali both believe that their uncle Master Madan never made any other recording except the two ghazals. H.M.V. also say the same thing and their catalogues of those years make no mention of any other recording by Master Madan.

All of them are wrong. The little master made three more records, two at H.M.V. and one under the Twin label. Rafiq traced and acquired these records and explains why no one knows about them. Master Madan, born in an orthodox Sikh family, was a Bal Yogi or child ascetic, something that he took from his mother. He always carried on his person Guru Nanak’s portrait, wrapped in silk, a rosary and the Guru Granth Sahib. To this day, all three are preserved in Bootale Building, Simla, by his aunt. The Granth Sahib bears Master Madan’s signatures in Urdu.

Master Madan began to perform as early as the age of two or three and quickly became a craze all over India. His astonishingly mature voice left a deep impression on the more devout of the Sikhs who urged him to sing some ‘shabds’ and some Punjabi songs. H.M.V. was approached but did not think it made any commercial sense.

Finally, some of his Sikh admirers financed three private recordings, two ‘shabds’, two Punjabi songs and two light classical items. The few copies made were distributed privately. The recordings never came to public notice because they were never released. Rafiq obtained the recordings from the descendents of the families that had sponsored them.

‘Listeners’ Bulletin, a newsletter produced periodically in the last 30 years in Kanpur for private circulation, is to Indian music and film news what ‘Wisden’ is to cricket. In its last issue, it said that Master Madan had made three more records but no one could be sure since the records were nowhere in existence. Well, they were and they have been found. How did Master Madan start out?

His elder brother not only sang but played the violin as well. At the time, K L Saigal, who was working for the Remington Typewriter Company, was also in Simla. Often he would bring his harmonium to New Bootale Building and the two would have long singing sessions. Madan, who was about two at the time lived with his brother and was always present on these occasions.

After a few months, he began to sing. It was a rare gift and it is hard to believe that a mere child could have such a cultured, perfectly modulated voice with an uncanny sense of ‘sur’ and ‘taal’. Before long, Master Madan’s fame spread all over India and he began to perform in public. In 1940, when Mahatma Gandhi came to Simla, few people turned up at his meeting because most of them had gone to a Master Madan concert. The young singing sensation was a particular favourite of the rulers of Indian states who conferred many medals on him which he invariably wore at his performances.

He was always on the road and the family was thrilled because he was being showered with money and presents. But this took its toll. Because of the great strain under which the young boy lived and worked, his health began to fail. He would complain of exhaustion and he was always running a low fever. Sadly, he was provided no proper medical attention, and when, eventually, he was taken for an examination, he was found to be terminal. The diagnosis was a slow poison that had wasted away his vital organs. The doctors said they could do nothing for him. There were no antibiotics in those days.

The boy genius with the immortal voice died in Simla on 5 June 1942, several months short of his 15th birthday. He was cremated wearing all his medals. There were many rumours as to the cause of death. One rumour went that one time when he was performing in Ambala, the local singing girls had invited him to their ‘kotha’ and doctored his ‘paan’. Another said that at the radio station in Delhi he was given mercury in his drink by a jealous performer. Yet another rumour was that in Calcutta after a sensational concert at which he sang ‘Vinti suno meri Avadhpur ke basayya’, a thumri in raag Bagehswari, someone gave him a slow-acting poison in his drink. It was noticed, in retrospect, that he never recovered his voice after that particular performance. There was even some mention of K.L. Saigal.

However, the fact is that it was the greed of the family that killed Master Madan, exactly in the same way as the greed of the family killed another legendary singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, exactly 55 years later in 1997.