Rahul Bhatia

At 2.44pm on 30 May 2022, I received an email from a professor of horticulture in Haryana. It began with such respect that I, a journalist, was immediately wary:

“Respected Sh. Rahul Bhatia Ji. Namaskar. Sadar Vande.”

It was the text equivalent of a guest who unexpectedly finds himself garlanded and fed sweets while someone rinses his feet. The letter writer introduced himself. He led a department at a “food technology entrepreneurship and management” university, and had one hundred and fifty scientific publications to his name. His most referenced work was about the use of compounds in food waste. But his main work was as a high-ranking officer of the RSS in Haryana.
 
It gave him pleasure to announce that Mohan Bhagwat, the supreme leader of the RSS, would be in Delhi that August for an intimate meeting with people of some importance in public life. “It is our honour to invite you for the said meeting on 25th August in Delhi,” he wrote. “Kindly confirm your availability for the said meeting.”
 
I thought about the said meeting endlessly, conferring with and frustrating my family and friends. Why me? I was only a reporter, not a newspaper or magazine editor. Those guys were more likely candidates for this sort of thing. Perhaps the RSS had heard about the book I was researching. Did they want to know me, and cultivate me? Was a threat implicit in the invitation? Had they heard about the fellowship? I played advocate and was convinced by the arguments, and then devil’s advocate, who I also thought made some good points. I feared, above all, that my appearance at the meeting could be used in some unanticipated way in the future. Perhaps a picture would be unearthed of me shaking hands with men who would be tried in an international court of justice someday. I thought about it, mulled over it, pondered it, and fretted about it – that was how much thinking went on. All this continued for a few weeks until the advocate’s argument could no longer be ignored. Almost two months had passed by the time I made my decision, but I sent off a letter saying yes, and purchased a plane ticket for seventeen thousand rupees. This seemed a good investment for a memorable incident in the book, I reasoned, but it worried people. My daughter woke up with a nightmare that I had been stabbed at the meeting. “Promise me that you’ll take a pocket knife,” she pleaded.
 
On the morning of the event, I visualised how the meeting would go (I do this a lot). To be confrontational with the leader of an unaccountable militia was unwise. Perhaps drawing him out gradually would let him see that I was genuinely curious. I practiced a puzzled look, a look halfway between ‘I don’t understand’ and ‘Why do this at all?’ This was one presentation of the truth. The other, which I did not want to show, was my anger. I calmed myself and wrote down what I wanted to know, questions to answers only he could authoritatively provide. ‘Can you tell us what a Hindu nation will look like? What role will women play? What concept of rights will exist in your Hindu nation? Do you plan to change the constitution? If so, what will you change? Your newspapers spread hatred and encourage people to see themselves in religious terms. Why do they do this? What are you doing to address anti-minority rhetoric?’ Pretty basic stuff.
 
I arrived at the India International Centre at five that evening to attend the closed-door meeting. Powerful governments came and went, but they all had the same taste in haunts. A line of German cars stopped in the driveway, ejecting passengers dressed in suits. A young man in starched clothes opened my door and said, “Your driver can wait in a special area. There’s food for him.” This was North Indian wedding-level organisation.
 
In the lobby, outside the room where the meeting was to happen, a man in a kurta asked who I was. I told him I was Rahul Bhatia, and he smiled and held up his hands to say he should have known. “Of course,” he said, and led me toward the private lawns where well-dressed older men stood and chatted. An organiser standing nearby had overheard our conversation, and he accosted me on the way to ask my name.
 
“I’m Rahul Bhatia,” I said.
 
“What do you do, Mr Bhatia?” he asked.
 
“I’m a journalist,” I said, confused by their confusion. It’s likely they didn’t know about the book.
 
“Ah,” he said, as if he understood. “This is a closed-door meeting. You need an invitation.”
 
“Yes, I do have an invitation,” I said. I showed him the letter and my reply.
 
“What do you do?” he said again.
 
Again, I told him.
 
He thought about it and said, finally, as if it was the only way out of this situation, “This meeting is for industrialists. Thirty-five industrialists have been invited.”
 
I remember my lips parting, and I may have laughed. At the word industrialist, I thought of a man whose electronic correspondence I frequently received. “Regarding my refund issue,” one letter began. “Rude behaviour,” another said. “Pathetic service from Ranchi airport,” was yet another. “Luggage lost… going to do suicide,” said a passenger whose baggage contained all his identification documents. I commiserated with all of them and resolved to never travel on Indigo.
 
“Ah. There’s an industrialist named Rahul Bhatia,” I told the organiser. “He runs the airline.”
 
“That is correct,” he said, smiling brightly. He was pleased that I had put it together. “He will be here.”
 
Should I wait around in case he doesn’t turn up? I wanted to say. But two Rahul Bhatias were one reporter too many in a private meeting between a paramilitary organisation and industrialists.
 
“This is next level,” I said, smiling. He looked embarrassed, and I felt embarrassed for him.
 
“I’m very sorry for the confusion,” he said. “But have some chai and meet people.” He held my hand and insisted. I took it back. I’m not supposed to be there, I said.
 
I crossed the street outside, keen to get away. I stood on the sidewalk with my notebook and thought about the wasted time and money. It’s true: authoritarianism does leave you poorer. Meanwhile the event went on, and more industrialists arrived in a line that was now a jam, while police stationed along the road looked every way for threats to the status quo.