By Madhusree Chatterjee
“The British, The Bandits And The Bordermen (From the diaries and articles of K.F. Rustamji)” edited by P.V. Rajgopal; Publisher: Wisdom Tree; Price: Rs 495

Gabbar Singh, the dacoit who became a cult figure after the release of “Sholay” by Bollywood filmmaker Ramesh Sippy in the 1970s, had a strange connection with India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The dacoit, whose life and crimes inspired “Sholay”, was a “gift to Nehru on the former prime minister’s 70th birthday by the Madhya Pradesh police”. Gabbar Singh and his gang had been killed in an encounter in Bhind district the previous evening (Nov 13, 1959).

Of such nuggets is made “The British, the Bandits and The Bordermen”, a biographical account of the founder director of the Border Security Force (BSF), K.F. Rustamji, based on 3,500 pages of journals and diaries that the BSF top cop maintained.

Rustamji recalls in the book: “Nehru’s 70th birthday was observed on Nov 14, 1959. When I met him in Delhi, I wondered what I, his former CSO for six long years and the chief of the Madhya Pradesh police, could present him with.” Nothing better than the head of a dreaded dacoit.

“I conveyed the news of Gabbar’s death to him and that was the gift Madhya Pradesh police presented. He appeared happy.”

Gabbar Singh, known in the ravines as the nose-chopper, “had vowed to cut off the noses of 116 people, and had already succeeded with 26″. He was one of the most brutal in “the ignoble gallery of the Madhya Pradesh dacoits”, the BSF founder DG writes in the book edited by former director of National Police Academy P.V. Rajgopal.

The book, published by Wisdom Tree, is a racy narrative of Rustamji’s first person account of some of the most stirring and epoch-making events in Indian history from November 1938 to 1976. After retirement, Rustamji contributed articles to newspapers and magazines.

Two of his articles in Indian Express formed the basis of the country’s first Public Interest Litigation suit in 1979, the beginning of “judicial activism in India”. They were Rustamji’s accounts of the callous treatment of inmates in the jails of Patna and Muzaffarpur.

The book is replete with gripping anecdotes and photographs and provides startling insights into the evolution of contemporary India. One such account is the attempt to hijack former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s aircraft in July 1970.

“A bright officer of the BSF intelligence infiltrated an agent of a group that wanted to liberate Kashmir by sabotage. The BSF agent was trained in guerrilla activities by Pakistan and was taught how to hijack a Fokker plane with a hand grenade to liberate Kashmir.” Rustamji found out that the pilot on the Jammu run was then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv, who was an Indian Airlines pilot. After receiving the information, he had a “brief chat” with the former prime minister.

“On 30 January 1971, two young men Hashim Qureshi and his cousin Ashraf Qureshi hijacked the Indian Airlines flight from Srinagar to Jammu. It was taken to Lahore. There were 26 passengers and and four crew members on board, who were allowed to return to India February 1. The hijackers were treated as heroes in Pakistan,” Rustamji recalled.

The former police officer also reminisces about the BSF’s “active involvement and his own contribution to the War of Liberation of Bangladesh. “I was given a laconic directive by the Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi) - ‘do what you like but don’t get caught’. The Indian Army leaned on the BSF for information and coordination with the Mukti Fauj and local knowledge,” Rustamji said.

The book is divided into six sections, dividing the writer’s life from 1916 to 2003. It covers many important events - independence, partition, accession of princely states, the Nehru years, Vinoba Bhave’s mission, Chinese aggression, India-Pakistan wars and the liberation of Bangladesh.

From a man, who was in the thick of things all his life, nothing could have been more rewarding than this insider’s account of some of the nation’s most newsy events - in a style that does not allow the reader to put down the book.