“Tarun Tejpal’s The Story of My Assassins –Making Sense of Contemporary India” (The

Quest -A Peer-Reviewed International Literary Journal,Vol.25.No.1., June 2011, pp.116-

122).ISSN:0971-2321

Tarun Tejpal’s The Story Of My Assassins-

Making Sense of Contemporary India.

Dr.Rositta Joseph Valiyamattam

Introduction
Indian English literature, especially the Indian English novel has always reflected the
story of the Indian nation .Post 1980, after Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, writers began
to express and deconstruct national realities in new ways. (1) Caught betwixt the forces
of western corporate globalization and anti-western extremist movements, the writer
becomes merely an instrument to express the paradoxes of a nation that is too complex
and unreal to be portrayed accurately. (2) Tarun Tejpal too belongs to the same school.

In the glittering arena of post-1980 Indian English fiction, Tarun J. Tejpal, firebrand
journalist turned novelist, has made his mark as one of the most attractive Indian writers
in English of his generation. A veteran mediaperson, his news organization Tehelka
organized sting operations exposing the corruption in the Defence Ministry in 2001, and
the conspiracy behind the Gujarat riots in 2007.Tejpal and his organization had to face
the wrath of the Indian State as also death threats His best –selling debut novel The
Alchemy of Desire (2005) was hailed by V.S.Naipaul as ‘brilliantly original’..

Tejpal’s second novel, The Story of My Assassins (2009),is a brutally blunt, extremely
incisive and deeply sardonic comment on twenty-first century India.Tejpal has succeeded
in narrating the true story of a nation and presenting the intricate intertwining of personal
and national destinies in post-independence India.

The novel contributes to the corpus of post-colonial studies on ‘the nation’. It is yet
another testimony of the heroic battle of the ordinary, freedom-loving individual against
the neo-colonial forces of the State.

From the wider perspective of post-1980 Indian English fiction, Tarun Tejpal’s work
successfully amalgamates two traditions in Indian English fiction- the older concern with
social realism and national history, and the new, post-modern innovations perfected by
the post-Rushdie generation

The Indian Nation and Tejpal’s work

Tarun Tejpal’s work forces us to take a new look at ourselves as a nation. Though his
first novel The Alchemy of Desire is the passionate portrayal of the inner life, love and art
of a writer, it also contains an authentic picture of society, politics, culture and history in
20th century India. His second novel The Story of My Assassins is undoubtedly an attempt
to deconstruct India and bare her myriad identities. Like Salman Rushdie and Shashi
Tharoor before him, herein he tries to reflect the new ways in which the nation has been
re-imagined - as a fragmented entity or as an endless narrative. In his essay entitled
‘Indian Novel in English of the 80s and 90s’, Jon Mee observes that post-1980, male
writers in India seem to have been drawn to presenting the nation on an epic scale,
though their novels ultimately fail to fully reflect all aspects of national history.( 3 )
Tejpal’s novel also, despite a bold attempt, cannot give a definite definition of the
unfathomable mystery called India. Like the blind men who tried to describe an elephant,
he provides us with a myriad pictures of India. Though the novel has definite political
colouring and is scathing in its attack on the political establishment, the writer seems
largely ambivalent in his attitude towards the Indian state. He alternates between viewing
the State as manipulative,cruel and oppressive on the one hand and as a necessary evil on
the other hand..He makes a character in the novel declare, “The nation is a vast and
complex and glorious enterprise. Any truth that does not fit into it is dangerous and anti-
national and has no right to exist.” (p.491)

The Story Of My Assassins

Tarun Tejpal’s The Story Of My Assassins is several stories operating at several levels. It
is the story of an unnamed, unassuming journalist, whose expose of crime and corruption
in high places creates bloodthirsty enemies. It is also the tale of the lives of five criminals
who are charged with attempting to kill the journalist. It is the saga of glittering Delhi
with its educated elite-But, it is also the story of the dark underbelly of Northern India- In
its analysis of the interface between the life of the nation and the life of the individual,
this novel focuses on five distinct representative groups- the government machinery, the
privileged, the underprivileged, the criminal, and, the media. The tensions that emanate
from the mutual interaction of these groups reveal the history of modern India. They give
us a glimpse into the love-hate relationship between the citizen and the State. With the
repressive State and social machinery on one hand and the freedom loving individual on
the other, with the legislature, executive and judiciary of India on one side and the
journalist-narrator and his five assassins on the other- the battle becomes a highly
intriguing and interesting one. The narrator finds that he and his assassins are infact on
the same side and are fighting a common enemy- the State.

The novel opens with the narrator and protagonist, a nameless Delhi-based journalist,
receiving the shocking news that the police have foiled an attempt on his life. Overnight,
this man who was being targeted by the government for exposing its corrupt members,
becomes a national hero and is given round the clock security cover by the same
government. Little does he know that he is only a pawn in a much larger game being
played by the State against its own citizens. The battle lines are drawn immediately. On
the one hand is Sara, his lover and mistress, a firebrand activist who fights the
Machiavellian political machinery. Sara becomes the author’s mouthpiece in commenting
on Indian politics in 2000, when the NDA government was in power:
On the other hand is Sub-inspector Hathi Ram, in-charge of protecting the narrator, the
perfect representative of a docile police force that blindly obeys those in power. The
narrator uses the constant police presence around him to dissect the working of the Indian
police. He portrays how poor village lads bribe their way into the force and spend their
lives as servants to corrupt politicians, in the struggle for survival. There is an ironic
comment on the Welfare state :“After all, the government, the sarkar , was maibaap-
father,protector,keeper.”

The scene shifts to the Patiala House Court where the five criminals are produced. The
narrator has never seen them. However he uses the opportunity to describe the Indian
judicial system in all its glory and grandeur, its chaos and apathy, its appalling corruption
and horrifying inefficiency.

Tejpal now proceeds to narrate in detail, the life-stories of the five assassins. The stories
of these dreaded criminals, unearthed by Sara, become representative of the stories of the
subaltern in the country, who are forced to resort to a life of crime in order to give
meaning to their existence.

The first criminal is Tope Singh alias Chaaku, hailing from a family of army men in the
remote village of Keekarpur, Haryana. Victim of poverty,ignorance and the tyranny of
the powerful,of the State and police machinery, a Rampuria knife becomes his means of
asserting himself in the face of persecution. He earns the title of Chaaku, having learnt to
strike terror into the hearts of oppressors by carving their bodies with his knife,without
killing them.

The second criminal, Kabir M, is drawn from yet another subaltern group-the minority
community.Brought up in constant fear of the majority community, in the shadow of the
Partition riots, he becomes a rebel, a master thief and conman. There are horrifying
descriptions of his torture in prison. He becomes a classic example of the perverted
psychology of a suppressed minority community that has failed to find its own identity in
the national mainstream. As Kabir’s grandmother says, “We are not Hindu or Muslim,
men or women-we are just small people who can stay safe by making ourselves
invisible.”(p.215) Tejpal’s rendering of the Partition massacres is truly poignant : “Wilful
men had sliced the earth with no regard to the arteries of love,
family,community,history,animals,trees that they were cutting. The news was that the
blood from the severed arteries was beginning to flow everywhere.”(p.204)

Kaaliya and Chini – master impersonators and drug-dealers are then introduced to
us.They have grown up on railway tracks, forced into crime by both the State and by
criminal gangs. Often,they suffer inhuman torture in prison. Tejpal thus depicts another
subaltern-the slum child , whose age and poverty make him or her doubly victimized, the
weakest of the weak, in an unending struggle to reach the glitter and warmth of the city.

Chaaku, Kabir, Kaaliya and Chini have never taken a human life. But,their lives change
forever as they are summoned for a greater mission by Hathoda Tyagi, the most dreaded
criminal in Northern India, “future king of Western U.P”. (p.81) who kills by smashing
his victims’skulls with a hammer. Born in a village in Western Uttar Pradesh to a very
poor family and having taken to crime to avenge the rape of his sisters, he becomes a
member of the gang of Donullia Gujjar, the dreaded dacoit , a modern day Robin Hood,
who has dedicated himself to saving the weak and oppressed and destroying the strong
and the rich. The narrator observes, “Between the police, the upper castes and the
landlords, there was enough oppression going around to fuel endless platoons of angry
revenge seekers. Donullia offered dignity, vendetta and the matchless pleasure of a
metal-spitting gun. For men who had spent a lifetime cowering under a lathi, this was an
offer made by the gods. Donullia .. ..was a secular modernist. He ran a casteless and
religion-free gang.” (pp.405-6) Uttar Pradesh is ruled by Donullia, the invisible king and
his political ally Bajpai. One day, Hathoda and the four criminals are ordered to eliminate
the narrator. who they are told, is an enemy of the Indian people.

Thus, with the description of the five assassins who are hired to eliminate the journalist,
one movement in the novel comes to an end. Tejpal seems to be firmly on the side of the
anti-State criminals, who are the creation of the injustice and inequality in the State, and
who end up as pawns in the hands of the real ‘criminals’, the political machinery of the
State. He lambasts the State and its criminal justice administration for its blatant violation
of human rights.

The second movement in the plot begins with the revelation of the nexus between the
media and the corporate world. This is how the corporates are described, “These men
existed outside the grand vocabulary of state and governance and citizenship and the
ideas of privilege and responsibility. They were all man of the world, uncontaminated by
any sense of larger agency or greater good. They were driven each moment by self-
interest…” (p.179) The all-powerful influence of the corporate world extends naturally
into the realm of the media, reducing the freedom of the press to a farce.Tejpal re-creates
the Tehelka expose and shows how,despite the power of the media, it is suppressed and
made to serve as handmaiden to corporates who dominate the State.

The crucial third movement in the plot outlines the role that the Government or the State-
its machinery and its agencies play in the lives of citizens cutting across barriers of caste
and class. The framework for such an exposition is provided by the erratic actions of the
government. Both the protagonist and his so-called assassins are used to settle scores
between powerful State functionaries. Tejpal highlights several representative agents of
the State- the robotic, submissive cop, the maddeningly dishonest magistrate, and the
omnipresent,omnipotent politician. The dreaded criminal comes out as a saint, more
sinned against than sinning, when compared to the soulless politician. Politicians are
described as “…men who commandeered the fates of millions, outside whose doors the
rich and the influential bowed and scraped, who could transfer officials with a nod, grant
licenses with a squiggle, make and break careers and fortunes between the taking of
toast and tea.” (p.30) But the criminal is depicted as “…more considerate than the
police, more humane and generous than the state.” (p.402) The narrator’s visit to the
central investigative agency, closely modeled on the CBI, is a masterly analysis of the
functioning of the political machine that is so intricate that even its operators do not
understand it fully..

The fourth movement in the plot focuses on the private life of the narrator. His outwardly
blissful family life is almost dysfunctional He finds solace in two persons-Guruji,his
spiritual guide and Sara,his young lover. Sara, the fiery activist and intellectual goes all
out to oppose the fascist State and save the five criminals . The narrator’s stance is more
passive, like that of his Guru, allowing things to take their own course. Guruji, saint,
miracle worker and counselor, is a follower of a great Sufi saint and his vision represents
a mature understanding of the Indian State. He views the entire political set-up as a
necessary evil- something that has existed for ages, that has its own cycle of birth,death
and rebirth, wherein both rulers and ruled are destiny’s puppets.This is reminiscent of the
stance taken by Arun Joshi in his political novel The City and the River. Also, in
Gurcharan Das’ A Fine Family, we find two kinds of characters- those who are actively
involved in the political life of the nation, and those who keep aloof and take a spiritual
view of events. The trick is to maintain a balance between the spiritual, temporal,material
and political aspects. Rohinton Mistry in his political novel A Fine Balance echoes the
same views. In a chapter entitled ‘The Art of Balance’, Tejpal presents Oriental
philosophy as the solution to the conflict between the State and the citizen, the pre-
colonial and the post-colonial, the East and the West. “ The art of balance demands you
know your designated role in the game of life..an absence of panic.. knowledge of
timelessness…The art of balance demands that you know the world cannot be fixed, it
must be endured ; it must, simply , be kept forever in splendid play.” (p.94) Ironically, all
the five criminals are depicted as true Karmayogis, rising above joy and sorrow and
desire, adhering to the philosophy of the Gita.

A master story-teller, Tejpal keeps up the suspense till the very end. until all the varied
strands in the plot come together, and the conspiracy to kill the narrator is finally
unraveled. At an airport in Muscat, one Iqbalmian reveals the truth to the narrator. Uttar
Pradesh politics was controlled by Donullia Gujjar, the mighty dacoit, and Bajpai, the
cunning upper-caste politician. When differences cropped up between them, Bajpai
decided to kill Hathoda Tyagi, Gujjar’s right-hand man. As per Bajpai’s plan, Tyagi was
asked to kill the narrator. The police were ordered to shoot Tyagi after he had killed the
narrator. Thus the voice of the oppressed would be silenced and the heartless Bajpai
would reign supreme. But Tyagi pities the narrator and does not kill him. Hence, he is
arrested and later killed. The novel ends with the narrator closing down his magazine and
taking up freelance writing and returning to his wife and family.

Thus, the criminal, represented by Hathoda Tyagi, is justified and hailed as a champion
of the subaltern, whereas, the politician, the voice of the State, symbolized by Bajpai,
stands condemned. To quote Michael Bakunin, “The State is the organized authority,
domination, and power of the possessing classes over the masses . . . the most complete
negation of humanity. . There is no horror, no cruelty…that has not been or is not daily
being perpetrated by the representatives of the state,… ‘for reasons of state’.” (4)

The Story Of My Assassins is an ambitious novel. The canvas is vast and a bold attempt is
made to include and decipher almost all major aspects of life in contemporary India,
weaving together the lives of the elite and the underclass, the villages and the cities. Both
with regard to theme and technique, it is a post-modern novel. There is infact not much of
a plot or story as such. What one gets is ultimately a mosaic of voices and pictures from
the Indian heartland, a series of narratives, of authentic musings and observations about
the people and the nation, in which it is easy to lose oneself Manjushree Thapa calls it
“the definitive Great Delhi Novel of our times.”(5)

The technique is a combination of stream-of-consciousness and linear narration.The

narrative voice seems tough and acerbic. An attempt is made, consciously or
unconsciously, to infuse the plots, dialogues and styles of, as also references to Hindi
cinema into the narration, perhaps to appeal to a wider audience.

The language is full of typical North Indian flavour and coarse humour, partly
reminiscent of Mulk Raj Anand’s novels. His prose is sharp,powerful, full of linguistic
brilliance and deep insights into life. In an interview, Tejpal has confessed to his struggle
for twenty years to find the tone to tell the kind of story he wanted: "For an Indian
author it is not always easy to write in English. The English language represents the
character of the people it was born out of; it is a language of understatement, reserve,
and coolness. But the Indian reality is anything but that - it is noisy, emotional,
overheated, anarchic, swinging pell-mell between rationality and irrationality."(6)

The characters are well-delineated. They gain the our sympathy because they are like
most of us, with just the right mix of heroism and villainy to be normal.

One finds the concern with social realism that is a feature of early Indian English fiction.
This is the inevitable result of Tejpal’s journalistic background. But there is also the
fragmentation, alienation, playfulness, black humour, irony, absurdity, that characterizes
the post-Rushdie generation. There is often no clear distinction between right and
wrong,illusion and reality,and the resultant confusion is reminiscent of a Beckett play.
The absurdity of every great human emotion is revealed.

The Story Of My Assassins ably incorporates several themes and vital issues. With
surgical precision, brutally blunt honesty and dark yet humane humour, it presents the
naked core of twenty-first century India. The lawlessness, police atrocities, class-
wars,and illicit arms trade in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are exposed. Nobody is
spared and Tejpal declares that even those who oppose State fascism are part of the same
system. Secondly, it exposes the massive divides of class and caste in Indian society. . As
the author opines, “ Generation after generation learns that the equalities of the
schoolroom are a delusion. You pass through the greatest educational mixer-grinder and
when you emerge on the other side what remains unshredded and intact are class,
caste,religion and wealth.” (pp.261-2) The deep darkness of the underbelly of the nation
is also laid bare. For instance,migrant labourers are described thus, “… stick limbs and
burnt skins and blank eyes. Inside themselves they carried a deep well of loss and lack
and sadness and exploitation and struggle and uncertainty, a well so deep that they could
hardly see anything around them, anything outside of them. Death, disease,
destitution,trauma could not distress them, for they were all of it.” (p.133) Again, it is an
interesting study of the codes of power and wealth that propel the country. Tejpal also
analyses a new kind of subaltern in India-“the criminal”– his life, psyche, motives, and
ethos, his role in the life of the nation.A host of post-colonial issues are addressed, even
as the neo-colonial global order uses the local power-centres to exploit national
resources.The novelist complains that urbanization has robbed the dignity of the farmer
and the IT revolution has reduced all human feelings to onscreen images. Finally, there
is the depiction of how the life of each character in the novel is shaped by national
politics.Journalists turn philosophers and criminals turn saviours.
.

Conclusion-
Tarun Tejpal’s The Story Of My Assassins, both in its subject and in its style, stands apart
and on a higher plane, when compared to the many contemporary novels that have been
written on the areas of darkness in modern India. Tejpal does not find pleasure in
highlighting the poverty and injustice in India, Neither does he romanticize or glorify the
defects of Indian society.According to S.Prasannarajan, “ The Story of My Assassins is
an argument with power, a counter-narrative from someone who has been chosen by the
State to sustain a lie.” (7) It speaks of victimhood, of the deceptions of power, of the use
and abuse of power in India. Without resorting to propaganda, the writer shocks our
collective conscience and shatters the illusion that we belong to a tolerant and just
society.The novel never departs from a tone of calmness and normalcy, yet makes it clear
that, “the worst horrors take place around us while we go happily about our everyday
lives” (p.16 ) It depicts an India where life is nasty, brutal, dispensable.,where power is
measured by violence and fear,where there is no moral certainty, no right or wrong.
Tejpal himself describes his novel as“ a journey into the heart of power, the exploration
of power,” (8) Thus, “In trying to deconstruct the hierarchy of power it has successfully
departed from conventional Indian fiction in English." (9)
.
Secondly, Tejpal asserts that the very nature of the novelist is to be subversive, just as it
is the role of the journalist to be socially engaging rather than just descriptive or just a
narrator of events. (10) He succeeds in shaking us out of our reverie. Through the
protagonist of the novel, Tejpal reflects and condemns those of us who are removed from
the realities of this country and are happy to live a purposeless life.

Above all Tejpal’s commentary on India is neither positive nor negative. For him, India is
what she is, a place where the people who are considered ‘small’ display the qualities of
humanism which the so-called ‘great’ people lack. This true re-appraisal of India sides
firmly with the subaltern and the rebel.

NOTES

1 Naik,M.K. and Shyamala A.Narayan. “The Lie of the Land: Introduction.” Indian
English Literature 1980-2000 – A Critical Survey. By Naik and Narayan. New
Delhi: Pencraft International,2001.16-17.Print.
2 Baral,K.C. “Imaging India:Nation and Narration.” Rethinking Indian English
Literature. Ed. U.M.Nanavati and Prafulla C.Kar. New Delhi: Pencraft
International,2000.71-72.Print.
3 Mee, Jon . “After Midnight: The Indian Novel in English of the 80s and 90s.”
Rethinking Indian English Literature. Ed. U.M.Nanavati and Prafulla C.Kar.
New Delhi: Pencraft International,2000.35-48.Print.
4 Bakunin, Michael. Qtd. in Chomsky, Noam. For Reasons of State. New
Delhi:Penguin Books India,2000.Print.
5 Thapa, Manjushree. “Nailed to the Edges”. Outlook India-Review. Tarun Tejpal’s
official website.. Web. 26 October, 2010. <www.google.com>

6 Tejpal,Tarun.Interview . Tarun Tejpal’s official website.. Web. 26 October, 2010.

<www.google.com>
7 Prasannarajan, S. “India Unedited”. India Today Review- Tarun Tejpal’s official
website. Web. 26 October, 2010. <www.google.com>
8 Tejpal,Tarun. Qtd. in John, Binoo K. “The Ripper of Accepted Notions”.Mail
Today-Review. Tarun Tejpal’s official website. Web. 26 October, 2010.
<www.google.com>
9 Himal-Review. Tarun Tejpal’s official website.. Web. 26 October, 2010.
<www.google.com>
10 Tejpal,Tarun.Interview . Tarun Tejpal’s official website.. Web. 26 October, 2010.
<www.google.com>

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Dr..Rositta Joseph Valiyamattam

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