When Dev Anand formed a party to ‘teach politicians a lesson’

Even as the country celebrates the birth centenary of screen icon Dev Anand, the evergreen hero had admitted in his memoirs how he had tasted failure in both love and politics. In Romancing With Life (Penguin 2007) author Dev Anand gave a graphic account how he fell in love with Suraiya, the reigning singing film actress of that era. “Suraiya and I fell in love when we started working together. She was a very nice girl who radiated warmth and friendliness. She was an established star but had no airs about her. I was passionately in love with her. I was young. It was my first love and it was very intense.” Suraiya would later admit that she had similar sentiments about Dev: “Dev was the first young, handsome hero I worked with. He was very charming. It is very difficult for me to say what exactly it was that I really liked about him. I think it was his overall personality. I remember the first time I met Dev, it was on the sets of Vidya. I was already an established star and he was a newcomer. He was very nervous, especially in the romantic scenes.” “Soon after, we were shooting in a boat and it capsized but Dev saved me from drowning. I told him, ‘if you hadn’t saved my life today, it would have ended.’ He just said quietly, ‘If your life had ended so would mine.’ I think that’s when we fell deeply in love.” The lovers had given each other nicknames. Dev called her Nosey (because Suraiya had a long nose) while she addressed him as Steve after Dev Anand had rejected his resemblance with Gregory Peck. The four-year-long love affair between 1948 and 1951, however, faced stiff opposition from Suraiya’s dominating granny Badshah Begum and a maternal uncle. Dev Anand was dismayed to know that Suraiya’s family had given a communal twist, instigating religious sentiments. “A Hindu marrying their Muslim daughter was sacrilegious! They kept on hammering the thought into the minds of all her family members, during their daily tête-à-tête with them. The granny, who controlled the ethical, moral, and religious code of the family, as also the purse strings, became the main opponent of our relationship though I always felt that Suraiya’s mother was sympathetic to our cause.” Suraiya did not marry for the rest of her life. The actress stopped taking singing assignments. When her end came in 2004, aged 75, an obituary in The Hindu newspaper read, “What can you say about a lady, who was courted by Dev Anand, respected by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, but feared by Lata Mangeshkar! That she was beautiful, talented, adored by millions, but died a lonely single woman? Or, that she was the best ever superstar singer-actress of Indian films, yet walked away to a self-imposed exile at the height of her glory? Yes, Suraiya was all this, plus ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’ who resolutely shunned screen and media once she departed from the arc lights.” Dev Anand did not attend her funeral, but remarked, “I felt sad on her death. I did not go to her funeral because I would have been reminded of the past. I cried from a distance.” Dev Anand’s autobiography was released by the then prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh [Dev Anand shares his birthday with the good doctor], in 2007. The actor was asked about his affair with Suraiya and his reply was, “It was destined that way. Had I gone to her, my life would have been different. Had I married her, life at her end would have taken me to a different course. Then maybe I would not have been the Dev Anand I am today.” While romance was his constant companion, Dev Anand was passionate about politics too. He had opposed Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. Sometime in 1976, the actor was asked to say a few words in appreciation of Sanjay Gandhi and the Youth Congress; Dev Anand had refused, responding to what he described as a “call of conscience”. The actor’s films were subsequently banned from being screened on television while All India Radio forbade any reference to his name. When the 1977 parliamentary elections were announced, lawyer Ram Jethmalani urged Dev Anand to join the Janata Party and its campaign against Indira Gandhi and her son, Sanjay. He agreed to share the dais with Morarji Desai and Jayaprakash Narayan, whom he admired deeply, and make a short speech condemning Indira Gandhi. The Janata Party experiment would, however, disillusion him soon. Desai resigned as Prime Minister in July 1979 following internal differences and Indira withdrew support to the Charan Singh government that followed weeks later, paving the way for the 1980 general election. It was at this point that Dev Anand decided to “teach the politicians a lesson” and formed his own party — the National Party of India (NPI). He envisaged a party that would include the country’s luminaries. “If MGR could spell magic in Tamil Nadu, why not me in the whole country?” he had told his supporters, who included Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit. “We felt it was time for intelligent, well-informed, well-meaning figures to represent India’s electorate in Parliament,” the actor would say later. On the eve of the 1980 general election, Dev Anand was dreaming big. Ideas kept surging in his mind. “A giant forward leap was required to link the ancient civilization with modern India. What if all villages are transformed into neat small towns flashing with electricity and gushing merrily with water facilities… What if English is taught to all and farmers, labourers, coolies and aristocrats move around in cars, waving at each other in a spirit of bonhomie. It was the utopic vision of (a) visionary, and I wanted to make it happen if I joined politics,” Dev Anand wrote in his autobiography. The National Party of India, with Dev Anand as its president, would, however, close shop within months when, first, Nani Palkhivala and then Vijayalakshmi Pandit declined to contest the Lok Sabha elections. Palkhivala, a noted jurist and economist who had attended the actor’s Shivaji Park meet, reportedly sent a message saying that while he was open to the idea of joining the Rajya Sabha, he was reluctant to contest for a seat in the Lower House. Dev Anand had prepared his party manifesto but learnt subsequently that his party colleagues had modified some of his radical suggestions. Moreover, there was no sign of the funds that certain affluent individuals had promised him. Even finding candidates for over 500 Lok Sabha seats proved a Herculean task. In Dev Anand’s own words, “The inertia already visible amongst the early enthusiasts dampened my spirits… And that was the end of (the) National Party. It was a great idea that was nipped in the bud.” Until then, Dev Anand was brimming with his characteristic hope and confidence. “Why not, for a change, and for the sake of the country we love, form a political party that would transform the ugly slushy shape of things and give it a new shape as magnificent and glittering as a grand film?” These were the words the actor would use in his autobiography to describe his feelings then. While releasing the party manifesto, Dev, who looked every inch an angry young man, told the media that they were launching a crusade… a crusade against poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and corruption. A party to promote a prosperous and growth-oriented society.” The speech, in retrospect, sounded part Narendra Modi, part Arvind Kejriwal. But it did not get much media attention at that time: it was dismissed as just another film promotion. The writer is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ‘24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .