The Captive Candidate

In New Delhi last month, the 500 members of India's Parliament prepared to go home. In the great olive green chamber, amid laughter, chatter and happy wishes for a pleasant vacation, hardly anyone noticed a strange, solitary figure in a yellow silk tunic and turban, slumped over his desk, weeping bitterly.

Finally, one of his colleagues walked over and asked him what the matter was. The man did not understand: he spoke only a strange tribal dialect. At length, an interpreter was found. The weeping Deputy turned out to be Muchaki Kesa, duly elected representative of 700,000 Indian citizens, and there were good reasons for his tears.

The Jungle's Choice. He was a chief of the Gonds, a tribe living in the dense jungles of the former princely state of Bastar, in central India. Among his own people, Kesa was a great man, a mighty hunter with bow & arrow, the husband of 14 dutiful wives. For years, Kesa had run the affairs of his tribe under the benevolent rule of his master, the Maharaja of Bastar. But then, in 1950, democracy came to the jungle. The new constitution abolished the rule of the maharajas and elections were to be held to send representatives to Parliament. The Maharaja persuaded Chief Kesa to run for office. The chief took the stump, speaking in the villages and the jungle clearings, assuring his friends that a vote for Kesa was a vote for progress.

The tribesmen overwhelmingly elected Kesa, the Jungle's Choice. When it was time for the new representative to leave for Delhi, the Maharaja thoughtfully provided him with a secretary to guide him through the intricacies of modern life and parliamentary government. But the first thing the secretary did was to use Kesa's first-class government travel allowance for himself and put the chief into a crowded third-class compartment. In New Delhi the secretary rented two rooms in the chief's name, moved into one room himself, sublet the other, and made Kesa sleep on the veranda. He also took all of Kesa's money.

Back from the Veranda. The secretary led Kesa to Parliament, and told him where to put his thumb mark on official papers in lieu of his signature, since Kesa could not write. Otherwise, he left Kesa alone at his desk, to make of the proceedings what he could. Kesa did not understand a word of what was spoken, but as the session wore on, he began to understand something of parliamentary principle. He saw that even Prime Minister Nehru was the servant of Parliament, and could be shouted down and booed. He began to realize that Representative Kesa was by rights the equal of any man in the assembly.

Emboldened by this great discovery, Kesa revolted against the secretary: he wanted his money, he wanted to get off the veranda, and he wanted to play a part in Parliament. But the secretary merely cut off Kesa's food allowance, and left him to fend for himself, hungry, broke and unable to speak to anyone in the great, strange town. That was why Kesa, the brave hunter, had wept.

Moved by the story, his colleagues took charge of Kesa. They got some of his money back, but the secretary fled. So they got Kesa a ticket back home to Bastar and promised him protection--and another secretary--for the next session. Meanwhile, last week, Representative Kesa was happy among his constituents and his 14 wives, with plenty of time to exercise his long neglected bow & arrow.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.