Tag: P.V. Narasimha Rao

Indira Gandhi to Manmohan Singh: How Prime Ministers Decided for India

Veteran journalist Neerja Chowdhury’s book ‘How Prime Ministers Decide’ sheds light on how key political decisions taken during the tenure of six prime ministers affected the course of India’s political history.

Veteran journalist Neerja Chowdhury is one of India’s finest political reporters and commentators. An award-winning journalist, she has been covering political developments in the country for nearly five decades. She has provided eye-opening accounts of how some of the most important political decisions in independent India were taken by various prime ministers. Her first and latest book, How Prime Ministers Decide, is based on her first-hand information or straight from the horse’s mouth. She covered the tenures of six prime ministers, namely Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, V. P. Singh, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Manmohan Singh from 1975 to 2014.

A prolific writer, she meticulously tells the story of the functioning of the country’s prime ministers in a lucid way through the prism of six decisions of historic significance.

How Prime Ministers Decide by Neeraja Chowdhury. Publisher: Aleph Book Company. Photo: Amazon.in

These are as follows: the strategy that Indira Gandhi adopted in breaking the Janata Party in 1979 and returning to power in 1980, after her humiliating defeat in 1977; the error of judgement on the part of Rajiv Gandhi to undo the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Shah Bano case, and his parleys with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders eventually paving the way for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to come to power; V.P. Singh’s implementation of the Mandal Commission report to save his government which changed the face of contemporary politics; P.V. Narasimha Rao’s decision that resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid; the rapidly changing political scenarios that turned the avowed pacifist Atal Bihari Vajpayee into a nuclear hawk who greenlighted the testing of nuclear devices; and the mild professor Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as one of the country’s weakest prime ministers, who defied interest groups and foes within the political establishment to seal a historic nuclear deal with the United States.

Indira Gandhi and underhand dealings with the RSS  

The book’s first chapter starts with Indira Gandhi with the title, “The Secular Prime Minister Who Undermined Secularism”. Chowdhury writes, “Indira Gandhi was a Hindu first and a Hindu last.” She writes that the RSS had made overtures to Gandhi all through the Emergency. RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras had written to her several times. Some RSS leaders had reached out to Sanjay Gandhi through Kapil Mohan. Now, in 1977, she would have to see how to respond. “But she would have to play this one very carefully,” Chowdhury writes.”Just as the RSS brass had reached out to her for help, she too used the RSS for her purposes – but carefully kept a distance between the organisation and herself. For all her opposition to the RSS, she had managed to get it to support the Emergency.”

Gandhi was also described as a great usurper and a true proponent of Machiavellian politics who used not only her left-socialist friends in her own party to fight with the old syndicate in 1969, but opposition parties and RSS as well. The RSS was full of praise for her during the Bangladesh war, which resulted in the division of Pakistan in 1971, and fully supported her on her comeback to power in 1980. The RSS also supported her during the 1983 Jammu & Kashmir state assembly elections and after her death in 1984 to the Congress party, led by her son Rajiv Gandhi. In that election, the BJP was almost wiped out and got only two Lok Sabha seats. Even the tallest leader of the BJP, Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost badly in Gwalior.

Also read: With the Creation of Bangladesh, a Longstanding Dream of the RSS Was Achieved

Neerja Chowdhury provides insights into how Gandhi benefitted from the infighting within the Janata Party during 1977-79, and how she used her non-political contacts like Kapil Mohan of Mohan Mekins beverages (makers of Old Monk Rum and Golden Eagle Beer) and his nephew Anil Bali to woo rebel Raj Narain to break the Janata Party. She also writes about how Sanjay Gandhi used to meet Raj Narain at Kapil Mohan’s Pusa Road house in New Delhi. According to her, Gandhi’s close aide Anil Bali – whom she quoted in her book extensively – “The RSS helped Indira Gandhi come to power in 1980.”

“She knew the RSS had supported her but she never acknowledged it publicly. She used to admit privately that had it not been for the support by the RSS, she could not have won 353 seats, one more than she had won in her heyday in 1971,” Bali claims. He adds that “increased temple going was not lost” on the RSS leadership.

“RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras had once remarked during the course of a conversation, ‘Indira Gandhi bahut badi Hindu hai’ (Indira Gandhi is a staunch Hindu). Balasaheb Deoras and his brother saw in Indira Gandhi a potential leader of the Hindus,” Bali is quoted as saying.

The soon-to-be-launched book, published by Aleph Book Company, also says the RSS in 1971 praised Indira Gandhi for hiving off Bangladesh and weakening Pakistan. But the book also claims that in 1980, BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee was trying to secularise his image while Indira Gandhi was trying to Hinduise the face of the Congress.

“The then RSS chief Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, popularly known as Guruji, wrote to her, ‘The biggest measure of credit for this achievement goes to you.’ In 1974, she won the RSS’s admiration again for exploding the nuclear device – the RSS had always advocated a militarily strong India,” it says.

After coming back to power in 1980, she did sense unhappiness amongst Muslims about the Congress. However, she still wanted to “Hinduise her politics” fully aware of the fact that a silent nudge from the RSS or even a neutral stand by them towards her might help in her political journey, says Chowdhury in the book. And this was the reason she asked her son Rajiv Gandhi to cultivate contacts and relations with RSS.

The book says, “Although RSS had reached out to Indira, she refused to meet its leaders during the Emergency or in its immediate aftermath. But in 1982, halfway into her term, she asked Rajiv to meet Bhaurao Deoras, the brother of RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras, and open a dialogue with him. The meetings were fixed by Kapil Mohan. Bhaurao was then looking after the political wing of the RSS”.

“Rajiv met Bhaurao thrice between 1982-84, when Indira Gandhi was still PM, and once in early 1991, when he was out of power. The first meeting was held in September 1982 at the 46, Pusa Road residence of Kapil Mohan. The second meeting also took place at Pusa Road, the third one was held at Anil Bali’s residence in Friends Colony. The fourth meeting was held at 10, Janpath,” the book says.

“After he became prime minister, Rajiv did not meet Bhaurao. But they remained in touch. Halfway into his term, the RSS had made a request to Rajiv to facilitate the telecasting of the Ramayana serial by Ramanand Sagar on Doordarshan – it had run into hurdles. Congress leader H K L Bhagat, later to become minister for Information and Broadcasting, was alarmed when Rajiv mentioned the RSS request to him; he warned Rajiv that it would open Pandora’s box – and generate a climate in favour of the BJP-VHP-RSS-led Ram Janmabhoomi movement… Rajiv did not pay heed to Bhagat’s apprehensions.”

Rajiv Gandhi and quid pro quo politics

While the book reveals several previously unknown details about what transpired behind the scenes that led to the Rajiv Gandhi government’s decision to bring a Bill to negate the Supreme Court’s order in the Shah Bano case, one anecdote stands out.

Shah Bano. Credit: Wikimedia

“Rajiv, if you can’t convince me about this Muslim Women’s Bill, how are you going to convince the country?” Sonia asked Rajiv, according to D.P. Tripathi, the late Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader who was then a member of Rajiv’s inner circle. “You must stand by the Supreme Court judgment,” she told him. “This Sonia said in my presence (sic),” the book quotes Tripathi as saying.

In fact, undoing the Shah Bano judgement of the Supreme Court through a constitutional amendment bill by parliament was a quid pro quo for a Ram Temple in Ayodhya. It was the Rajiv Gandhi government who opened the locks of Babri Masjid through a Faizabad court and televised it on national television Doordarshan on February 1, 1986. In 1989, it was the Rajiv Gandhi government who struck a deal with VHP to do shilanyas (foundation stone) at the disputed site in Ayodhya through his home minister Buta Singh and then Uttar Pradesh chief minister N.D. Tiwari.

V.P. Singh and the new wave of political polarisation 

After Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, the third chapter of the book is about V.P. Singh who became prime minister after the Congress party was routed in the 1989 general elections. Although this chapter begins with how Singh was elected prime minister on December 1, 1989, through the Janata Dal parliamentary party meeting in the Central Hall of Parliament by maneuvers, deceit, and diplomacy of Arun Nehru, it also provides information about Singh’s politics after his exit from the Congress party and the subsequent formation of Janmorcha and Janata Dal, the National Front, and the formation of his short-lived government with the support of right-wing BJP and Left front communist parties.

After eight months of forming his government, Singh sacked deputy prime minister Devi Lal, signalling the beginning of the end for his government. To counter Devi Lal’s politics, he suddenly announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, which recommended 27% of reservations in government jobs for the OBC and backward castes. This report was submitted to the President in December 1980 but was in ‘cold storage’ during the Congress governments throughout the 1980s following which VP Singh suddenly announced its implementation. This pandora’s box opened a new chapter in Indian politics – polarisation on the basis of religion and caste, upper castes versus backward castes, Mandal versus Kamandal, and Mandir versus Masjid – paved the way for BJP to emerge as a big political force in the country.

Narasimha Rao and temple politics 

The fourth chapter of the book is about P.V. Narasimha Rao and how he presided over the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The book captures, in vivid detail, the sequence of events that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. It mentions a meeting journalist Nikhil Chakravartty had with Rao days after the demolition. The two had been friends.

Demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. Photo: PTI

“I heard you were doing puja after twelve o’clock on December 6,’’ Chakravartty teased Rao. A stung Rao shot back at Chakravartty, “Dada, you think I don’t know politics. I was born in rajniti (politics) and I have only been doing politics till today. Jo hua voh theek hua…. (What happened, happened for good.) Maine is liye hone diya…ki Bharatiya Janata Party ki mandir ki rajniti hamesha ke liye khatam ho jaaye (I allowed it to happen because I wanted the BJP’s temple politics to finish forever).”

Also read: Babri Masjid: The Timeline of a Demolition

Quoting Rao’s then media advisor, P.V.R.K. Prasad, the author says Rao instructed him to create a trust which could build a temple where the mosque had once stood.

“On the Sunday after the demolition (December 13, 1992), Prasad had gone to see Rao. He had found the PM alone and in a reflective mood. ‘We can fight the BJP, but how can we fight Lord Ram?’ he asked Prasad pensively. ‘When we say that the Congress is a secular party, it does not mean we are atheists,’ he went on. ‘How far are they (BJP) justified in hoodwinking people by monopolising Lord Ram under the pretext of constructing a temple in Ayodhya?’

Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Pacifist to nuclear hawk

The fifth chapter of the book is about Atal Bihari Vajpayee and how the once-avowed pacifist turned into a nuclear hawk by greenlighting the testing of nuclear devices in May 1998. According to the book, “In May 1998, India successfully conducted nuclear tests in Pokhran, a crowning glory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s premiership. But way back in 1979, when he was External Affairs Minister in the Morarji Desai cabinet, Vajpayee had opposed testing.”

Manmohan Singh and the historic nuclear deal 

The sixth and final chapter of the book is about the making of Dr. Manmohan Singh as prime minister in the year 2004 and how the mild professor, widely regarded as one of the country’s weakest prime ministers, defied interest groups and foes within the political establishment to seal a historic nuclear deal with the United States. Remember Singh became prime minister with the support of Left parties, but he betrayed them to strike a nuclear deal with the US.

George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh, 2006, when they sighed the India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh, 2006, when they sighed the India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The book reveals details about a meeting that was held at 10 Janpath in the afternoon on May 17, 2004, paving the way for Manmohan Singh to become PM.

“According to K. Natwar Singh, Sonia, Priyanka Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were present in the room when he reached. She (Sonia) was sitting there on the sofa…. Manmohan Singh and Priyanka (were there as well)… Sonia Gandhi was looking distraught…Then Rahul came in and said in front of all of us, ‘I will not let you become prime minister. My father was assassinated, my Dadi was assassinated. In six months, you will be killed. Rahul threatened to take an extreme step if Sonia did not listen to him. ‘This was no ordinary threat,’ recalled Natwar Singh, ‘Rahul is a strong-willed person. He gave Sonia 24 hours to decide…”

Sonia was in tears after Rahul said he was prepared to “take any possible step to prevent his mother” from taking up the prime ministership. And the rest is history.

On being asked in various interviews why she has not covered Narendra Modi’s tenure and his important decisions which influenced people and politics, Chowdhury says “his term is a work in progress as he works towards a third stint”.

In the epilogue of her book, she explained, “I decided, in the interest of fairness and accuracy, not to include the incumbent prime minister in this book. For one, his term is a work in progress and two, unlike with other prime ministers, what would have been missing with Modi would have been the power of hindsight, the journalist’s sole beacon to illuminate the inner working of a prime minister’s tenure and the PMO.”

But she confessed that “this book will be incomplete without a word about India’s fourteenth and, arguably, its most powerful prime minister seen in the context of his predecessors”.

This book by Chowdhury illustrates how the power of the prime ministers played out under majority rule as well as in a coalition government. According to the author, her book is about power and how it was exercised by those who held the highest public office.

How Prime Ministers Decide is an excellent book about modern Indian politics that views how prime ministers governed the country and how their decisions changed the course of the country’s history.

Qurban Ali is a tri-lingual journalist who has covered some of modern India’s major political, social, and economic developments. He has keenly followed India’s freedom struggle and is now documenting the history of the socialist movement in the country. He can be contacted at qurban100@gmail.com

Jawaharlal Nehru – The Student, the Author, the Analyst, and the Communicator

The 2023 edition of A.K. Damodaran’s book, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru: A Communicator and Democratic Leader’ is a reminder of the Himalayan gap that has come to exist between the intellectual calibre of India’s first PM and that of the contemporary political leadership.

I first met A.K. Damodaran, diplomat-scholar, in the early 1980s in a most unlikely place – the American Studies Research Centre (ASRC) at Osmania University in Hyderabad. We were speaking at a conference on the US-India relations hosted by Manoj Joshi, who was then part of the research staff of ASRC.

Over the next decade, he was known as ‘Uncle Damu’ to many of us who regularly interacted with him either at the India International Centre or his home in Delhi’s Green Park. Like the defence strategist K. Subrahmanyam, whom we referred to as ‘KSubs’ and ‘Bomb Mama’, Uncle Damu had a way of relating to young people, making them feel comfortable in their towering intellectual presence. He belonged to a generation of diplomats that was steeped in scholarship and from whom one learnt a lot because they had time for the younger generation.

I regard it, therefore, both an honour and a pleasure to have this opportunity, thanks to the editors of The Wire, to comment on a new edition of Uncle Damu’s book on Jawaharlal Nehru’s record as a communicator of ideas.

First published in 1997, the 2023 edition comes with a foreword written by historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee. As Mukherjee notes, Nehru was not a ‘natural communicator’ and till he became prime minister, he communicated more through the written than the spoken word. His speeches were crafted in simple language, but his letters and books were written in elegant prose.

A.K. Damodaran, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Communicator and Democratic Leader, Primus Books, 2023. (First published in 1997, Price: Rs 1,450)

Mukherjee also notes that this book is not just about Nehru as a communicator but also about his intellectual persona.

In this age of visual and verbal communication on the part of political leaders, there is no political leader who has the scholarship and the skill to communicate serious ideas in writing. The thought, therefore, that a prime minister and a political leader can also be a scholar sounds bizarre.

In recent memory, we have the example of a P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was a scholar in his own right, an ashtavadhani, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was a poet. However, no prime minister has come anywhere near Nehru in the ability and commitment to communicate serious political ideas through the medium of the written word. Manmohan Singh is a learned economist but has rarely put pen to paper to communicate as a political leader and statesman.

Nehru’s education and erudition apart, what defined his influence as a political leader was the power of his pen.

“It is not merely because of his position within the Indian national movement in relation to his great predecessors and contemporaries,” says Damodaran, “that Jawaharlal Nehru becomes interesting as a representative political figure, a communicator, and an agitator, who learnt his trade through long years of apprenticeship, and finally ended up by becoming the accepted instructor, so to speak, in democratic values and the scientific temper, to a whole nation.”

Rather, Nehru’s influence was defined by his scholarship, his ‘sensitivity to new ideas’ and his ability to remain in step with a changing India.

Damodaran examines four dimensions to the Nehru of the pre-Independence period – the student, the author, the analyst, and the communicator. Nehru was a devout student of history and literature and hence his writings, even on mundane matters, were informed by his grasp of both historical fact and shaped by literary elegance.

The ‘tryst with destiny‘ speech of August 1947 was not a one off instance of elegant prose. It, in fact, represented the essence of Nehru’s oratorical style and prose.

Also read: India’s New Tryst With Destiny Has No Place for Jawaharlal Nehru

Damodaran refers to the range of scholarship from Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw to Swami Vivekananda and Gopal Krishna Gokhale who influenced Nehru. He was as familiar with the writings of Bertrand Russell and M.N. Roy as he was with those of Mahatma Gandhi and Annie Besant.

In this Nehru was not an exception in his times. His seniors in the national movement like Pherozeshah Mehta, Dadabhai Naoroji, Romesh Chunder Dutt, Surendranath Banerjee, and so on were all erudite, scholarly and had a profound grasp of history and India’s destiny. “It is in this line of remarkable achievers,” says Damodaran, “that Nehru has his own special place in the annals of popular politics in modern India.”

It was a rare constellation of patriotic and enlightened men and women that provided the intellectual fodder for the national movement and Nehru was very much a part of that firmament. What enabled Nehru to communicate his views was the spread of the printing press, of newspapers, and the assurance of a certain kind of freedom of expression that characterised late colonial rule in India.

To quote Damodaran, “It is then as a great communicator in the special conditions of the British Empire in India, with its institutions, with its reasonably free press and its limited but real rule of law regime that the contribution of Nehru to the freedom movement has been analysed in these pages.”

Nehru wrote frequently and extensively on a variety of topics, from the very local to the global. He wrote for The Hindu, The Independent, The Leader, The Bombay Chronicle, and of course National Herald, which became his main platform. While Mahatma Gandhi became identified with Young India and the Harijan, Nehru never came to be identified with any one platform because he wrote often and widely. Apart from his columns, his three famous and popular books – Glimpses of World History, Discovery of India, and An Autobiography – became important prisms through which the people of India viewed their history and the world, and the international community came to view India and its struggle for freedom from European colonisation.

While Mahatma Gandhi remained the main political and emotional inspiration for the national movement nationwide, its soul and voice, Nehru, became the medium through which Gandhiji’s own views as well as the views of a wider leadership were articulated in prose to the nation and the world.

Also read: Jawaharlal Nehru Was a True Democrat With Strong Secular Ideals

“In the totality of Nehru’s achievements as a communicator,” concludes Damodaran, “it is the written word which is central.”

The emergence of Nehru as a writer in English on the political and economic problems of the country, observes Damodaran, “was a major factor in the attempts of the national movement …. to reach out to a wider audience.”

Regardless of the thinking of the publishers on the relevance and significance of re-publishing this book a quarter century after its first publication, it’s clear to me that the book is a reminder of the Himalayan gap that has come to exist between the intellectual calibre of India’s first prime minister and that of contemporary political leadership across the entire political spectrum.

Consider the fact that among the many controversies that have come to define the persona of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the most farcical is the one about his educational qualifications and whether it is true or not that he has a masters in ‘Entire Political Science’.

Sanjaya Baru is a writer and policy analyst.

Veteran BJP Leader C. Janga Reddy Passes Away

C. Janga Reddy was one of the two BJP MPs elected to the Lok Sabha in 1984.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday paid tributes to C. Janga Reddy, one of the two BJP MPs elected to the Lok Sabha in 1984, saying he devoted his life to public service.

Reddy died earlier in the day at 86 years of age.

“Reddy Garu was an effective voice for the BJP at a very critical phase of the Party’s trajectory. Spoke to his son and expressed condolences. Om Shanti,” Modi tweeted.


“Shri C Janga Reddy Garu devoted his life to public service. He was an integral part of the efforts to take the Jana Sangh and BJP to new heights of success. He made a place in the hearts and minds of several people. He also motivated many Karyakartas. Saddened by his demise,” he said.

Reddy had also served as an MLA in the undivided Andhra Pradesh assembly but it was his Lok Sabha win in 1984 from Hanamkonda that brought him political fame, especially within the BJP as he was one of the only two winners the party had in the polls when its leading lights, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, lost in the pro-Congress wave caused by the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Reddy had defeated Congress stalwart P. V. Narasimha Rao, who went on to become India’s prime minister in 1991.

(PTI)

As the Rich Receive State Patronage, Modi Has Left the Poor to Be ‘Atmanirbhar’

Under Modi, the state bears the losses of the rich, with tax concessions and state subsidies. But, working classes have to live through complete doing away of fertiliser subsidies, and petrol and diesel subsidies.

Last year on May 12, in the peak of COVID -19-induced lockdown, when the poorest of the poor migrant workers were walking thousands of kilometres to their homes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the insight of an oracle declared that “the state of the world today teaches us that Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) is the only path. It is said in our scriptures – Eshah Panthah. That is self-sufficiency”.

Some economists were quick to point out that there is confusion in the statement, for ‘self-reliance’ and ‘self-sufficiency’ are not the same and have different connotations. Self-reliance basically meant that we have enough foreign reserves to pay for what we import, while self-sufficiency meant that the country produces all the goods and services it wants and does not need to depend on any other country.

Also read: Only 33% Foodgrain Allocated for Migrants Under Atmanirbhar Bharat Was Distributed

Some thought that this would lead to an economic autarchy or isolation, but it was soon clarified by the patriarch of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Mohan Bhagawat, that we would continue to import what we want from whomsoever we want but “on our terms”. On whose terms we imported earlier was not clear. The opposition members remarked quite cynically that this meant “fend for yourself” as the government seemed to be uncaring of the migrant workers’ plight, having imposed the harshest ever lock-down on the country due to the pandemic.

It was also pointed out that there was nothing new in this concept, as almost all our Five-Year Plans starting from 1951 have been focusing both on self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Due to this, we had achieved self-sufficiency in food, milk and dairy products, cement and steel to a large extent, power generation and supply, production of skills in engineering (IITs and hundreds of engineering colleges) and medicine (AIIMS and other medical colleges), DRDO for defence research, HAL for Aviation, ISRO for space, BARC for nuclear energy, CCL, NTPL and GAIL for energy resources, etc. And the list goes on.

Nirmala Sitharaman Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Photo: PTI/Files.

A total of three Atmanirbhar Bharat packages worth Rs 29.87 lakh crore ($420 billion) were also announced by the Modi government. The focus here is not so much on the economic package and its benefit to the poor but on the socio-philosophical underpinnings of this concept and how it is different from the earlier Nehruvian model of self-reliance.

In the earlier notion, ‘self-reliance’ applied to the government as an aspirational objective to be achieved and not a cross to be borne by the individual. The ‘Mai-Baap Sarkar’ continued to be the source of succour for jobs and livelihood. Nehruvian socialism was based on the idea that the state was the provider of food, shelter, jobs, livelihood, education and health. Private business was largely ignored, if not openly scoffed at, and the unstated belief was that business was inherently unethical and profits were sin. Equality of opportunity was mistaken for equality of outcome and distributing the cake equitably became the main task of the government, however small the cake was. And the cake got smaller and smaller as the population swelled.

Economic reforms

All this changed in 1991 when the Congress party jettisoned the ideal of socialism, based on the License-permit Raj system of a regulated economy, and embraced neoliberal economic reforms. Suddenly the virtue of the free-market was discovered and private businesses not only became legal but also ethical and profits were no longer sinful. ‘Free enterprise’ and ‘animal spirits’ were unleashed and the economy took off to dizzying heights.

In less than three decades since 1991, the Indian economy had grown nearly nine times with the GDP racing up from $266 billion to $2.3 trillion, the budget size had grown 19 times and average incomes had gone up by five times. Our Forex reserves had reached $432 billion at the end of 2017, in comparison to 1.1 billion when finance minister Manmohan Singh presented his budget in July 1991. Over 200 million people were lifted out of poverty. Neoliberal economics seemed to have worked well for a large section of the population and there was no going back on it.

Also read: The Atmanirbhar Bharat Spirit Should Extend to the Way We Look at the Big 4 Auditors

“The market had become the determinant for our success rather than patronage from Delhi,” wrote N.R. Narayan Murthy on ‘The Impact of the 1991 Economic Reforms on Indian Businesses’. Many would argue that patronage from Delhi has returned to become the determinant of success today, at least for some businessmen. Nevertheless, the markets are largely free and remain a vibrant force for most businesses.

Reforms 2.0

If the 1991 economic reforms were heralded as the first phase of neoliberal reforms for the industrial sector, the recently passed farm laws were claimed to be reforms 2.0 for the agricultural sector. There is, however, much more to it than what meets the eye. There is a new socio-political underpinning in the notion ‘Atmanirbharata’ or self-reliance that is largely thrust upon the individual and not the state. But before we come to that it is important to get a clear understanding of what neoliberalism is all about.

Farmers protesting at Ghazipur border. Photo: PTI.

Professor David Harvey in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism states that it is a doctrine that regards market exchange as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action. He adds that its spread has depended upon a reconstitution of state powers such that privatisation, finance and market processes are emphasised. State interventions are minimised, while the obligations of the state to provide for the welfare of its citizens are diminished.

“With the reorientation of the state and the curtailment of its welfare and social sector function, the enterprising neoliberal citizen is supposed to be self-reliant, self-governed and self-disciplined, prepared to take responsibility for his own well-being, for managing risks and vulnerability…the state is being re-engineered from an interventionist institution to a regulatory one, primarily as the enabler of the market and of business, with a secondary role in the provision of public goods and services, which is to be increasingly shared with private businesses,” says Nandini Gooptu, a professor at Oxford University.

Also read: No Atma, Lots of Nirbharta: The Socio-Ecological Bankruptcy of Modi’s Self-Reliance Stimulus

Both the farm laws and the Workers Code enacted by this government are in line with this thinking. Further, Prime Minister Modi has openly aligned the state with the big industrialists by calling for support to businesses while the working class and the farmers are called upon to be Atmanirbhar. The reduction or stopping of subsidies for fertilisers, or for petrol and diesel prices, is a step in this direction. As for workers, the recently passed Workers Code has enabled businesses to hire and fire without government permission, make them work longer hours without overtime, and restricted their right to go on strike.

In the new Atmanirbhar Bharat, it will be socialism for the rich, as the state socialises the losses of the rich, asking banks to take a haircut and ‘free enterprise for the poor’. The worst of all possible outcomes.

Ravi Joshi was formerly in the Cabinet Secretariat.

Home Secretary Had Warned That UP Government Won’t Keep Babri Promise, Says NCP Chief Sharad Pawar

Pawar said then Union home secretary Madhav Godbole had said that Kalyan Singh-led UP government would not keep its promise of protecting the structure.

Pune: NCP chief Sharad Pawar said on October 2, 2020, that the then Union home secretary had warned before the demolition of the Babri mosque that the Uttar Pradesh government would not keep its promise to protect it.

Pawar, who was in then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s cabinet when the mosque at Ayodhya was demolished by kar sevaks in December 1992, was speaking to reporters here.

A CBI court earlier this week acquitted 32 people including senior BJP leader L.K. Advani in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

Asked about the verdict, Pawar said then Union home secretary Madhav Godbole had informed that Kalyan Singh-led UP government would not keep its promise of protecting the disputed structure.

“But prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was of the opinion that the Centre should trust the chief of the state. Unfortunately, Godbole’s opinion was not considered and what he anticipated took place,” Pawar claimed.

He also said that demands for construction of temples at similarly disputed sites in Kashi and Mathura were worrisome from the viewpoint of social harmony.

‘For a Politician, Economy Is the Last Priority’: Pranab Mukherjee Agrees With Yashwant Sinha

Sinha extensively detailed in his book about how he realised consequences of not presenting a regular budget but was told “saving the government was more important than the economy.”

New Delhi: Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday released the autobiography of Yashwant Sinha and agreed with his observation that economy is “the last priority” of a politician in India.

Quoting from the Relentless, penned by Sinha who served as finance minister in Chandra Shekhar government (1990 1991), Mukherjee said that he could have become the first reformist finance minister of the country.

The Chandra Shekhar government supported from outside by Congress was formed in November 1990 and collapsed in June next year after the grand old party withdrew its support to it.

“The dictum which he (Sinha) said is absolutely correct that for a politician economy is the last priority in India,” Mukherjee said reading paras from the book.

Also read: Book Review: Discovering Nanak Singh, Rediscovering ‘Khooni Vaisakhi’

Referring to the developments surrounding the Chandra Shekhar government, Mukherjee said: “Yashwant Sinha could have become the first reformist finance minister of the country but he was prevented from presenting a budget that could have changed the economic landscape of the country.”

Sinha extensively detailed in his book about how he realised consequences of not presenting a regular budget but was told “saving the government was more important than the economy.”

India was passing through one of its worst economic crises in the early 1990s which was later addressed by P.V. Narasimha Rao government in which Manomohan Singh served as the finance minister.

Sinha also served as finance minister from March 1998 to July 2002 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Also read: Book Review: Lisa Ray’s ‘Close to the Bone’ Celebrates Life, not Cancer

At the event, Sinha lashed out at the bureaucracy accusing it of “indulging in sycophancy” and showing contempt towards politicians in opposition.

Speaking at a panel discussion on the occasion, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor and former Union minister Arun Shourie also highlighted various aspects of the book.

The event was also attended by Shatrughan Sinha, AAP MP Sanjay Singh, former National Minorities Commission chairman Wajahat Habibullah among other politicians and former bureaucrats.

(PTI) 

Book Review: Clashing Historical Narratives, From Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi

Parsa Venkateshwar Rao’s book, ‘Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi: Broken Polity, Flickering Reforms’, debunks several myths that have pervaded the Indian psyche.

The three decades between 1984 and 2014 was an extraordinary period in Indian history, as the country left the past behind and embraced the future.

The two prime ministers fencing this era on both sides – Rajiv Gandhi and Narendra Modi – although dramatically dissimilar in their social upbringings and political orientations, represented the ‘new’ India – a phrase now used by the latter as if he has a monopoly over the ushering in of reforms and newness in the country.

Although Gandhi was born in 1944, six years prior to Modi, both are the quintessential ‘post-midnight’ children. Like Modi, Gandhi’s eyes and ears opened in an independent India and he, too, was not encumbered by past memories and previous benchmarks.

After 2014, it was claimed by Modi bhakts that he was the first prime minister to be born after independence, but he squandered this marginal head start with his backward-looking ideology.

In fact, despite his lapses and inadequacies, Rajiv Gandhi had a socially forward-looking vision in contrast to Modi, who has done precious little apart from harping on culture, tradition and the ‘Indian ethos’ to justify physical and verbal attacks on fellow Indians who use a different prism to view politics and society.

Also Read: Past Continuous: Will Modi’s 2014 Mandate Be Wasted, Like Rajiv Gandhi’s 1984 One?

Gandhi’s modernist outlook – which possibly enabled him to usher in India’s communication and computer revolutions – also made him the first one to talk about preparing the nation for the 21st century. This was particularly paradoxical because he rode to office by creating a majoritarian scare – of borders shrinking to citizens’ doorsteps.

Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr
Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi: Broken Polity, Flickering Reforms
Sage, 2019

In contrast, Modi entered office, as Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr notes in Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi: Broken Polity, Flickering Reforms, on the promise of development and change, and yet went back to what remained in his heart – a malicious ideology which turns people against people and fosters prejudice as a political tool.

Historical overview

This book is, in some ways, a history of this period. Because it draws heavily from ‘official’ sources – parliamentary debates, party documents, budget speeches and of course government reports – there is a greater authenticity in the narrative. It also brings out, as the author appropriately writes, “the unnoticed details of the unfolding of history.”

It is an instance of a reporter looking back at the years of reportage and analysis, but while paying attention to sources which may either have been missed or glossed over in real time due to pressing deadlines. The result is an invaluable reference book which can also serve as a useful source for writers in the future.

Rao rightly argues that “majoritarianism cannot hold India”. The desperation of the present regime is evident in the direction that has been given to its electoral campaign. An interesting argument is put forth on why the BJP appears to be faltering in its efforts to foster populist nationalism within the electoral narrative. The author contends that the “Modi rhetoric of nationalist glory sounds vainglorious because it lacks inner harmony.”

In the chapter on economic liberalisation, the author questions the conventional wisdom of viewing P.V. Narasimha Rao as the premier who fathered the reforms, with Manmohan Singh at the helm of the process. He disagrees with the view pushed forward in recent years that Rao has been denied the ‘credit’ that was ‘due’ to him because he was not ‘family’.

Also Read: Modi Could Take a Leaf out of Narasimha Rao’s Book on Statesmanship

The reality, according to the book, was Rao did not believe or disbelieve in economic reforms. “He implemented them as he found it was necessary to do so.” In effect, this suggests Rao was not the visionary he is often made out to be. It is wrongly argued, says the author, that Rao and his role in reforming the Indian economy are not celebrated because it would have necessitated acknowledging that others in the party too, and not just the Nehru-Gandhi family, had the capacity to formulate watershed policies.

The author is also not particularly kind to Rao over his handling of events leading up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The book cites a Congress Working Committee resolution of July 1992, making it clear that even though there was consensus within the party that the “centre must take strong action and maintain its secular image” and that “it was left to the prime minister to decide about the nature and time of action,” the Rao government continued sleepwalking till the disputed structure was demolished.

The Vajpayee years

The book criticises the BJP too, by pointing out that A.B. Vajpayee had informed the Lok Sabha on the eve of the demolition that the UP government (Kalyan Singh was the chief minister) “has given an assurance to the effect that no damage will be allowed to be caused to the disputed structure and it will be totally protected. Therefore, what are the reasons for doubting the assurance of the government of Uttar Pradesh?”

Narendra Modi, A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. Credit: PTI/Files

Narendra Modi, A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. Credit: PTI/Files

The author further quotes Vajpayee to demonstrate that he was no “right man in the wrong party” and that his Nehruvianism was a charade: “When Russia occupied Warsaw a church was built there. When Poland became, the first thing it did was demolition of the church….When (Arnold) Toynbee visited India he taunted us that it is possible in India alone where a mosque has been created after demolishing a temple.”

The book, packed with details that lie forgotten, provides a nuanced account of the past that is still in the present. There is possible only one ‘gripe’, if one can call it that, about the book – and that too points to it being true to its purpose.

Also Read: Let Us Not Forget the Glimpse We Got of the Real Vajpayee When the Mask Slipped

In meticulously detailing the sequence of events and assertions made by dramatis personae after the fall of the Vajpayee government in 1999, the reader encounters too much of a ‘researcher’ and less of a ‘writer’.

The author cites the dismissal of the Naval chief, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, as the “ostensible reason” for Jayalalithaa’s withdrawal from the government. But what, according to the author, was the ‘real’ reason? Does he believe there is any substance to Subramanian Swamy’s accusation that George Fernandes was pro-LTTE?

Likewise, does the author think there is any substance to the rumours in 2004 that Sonia Gandhi did not assume office because President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam cited an Italian law of having to enact reciprocal legislation to permit Indians settled there to take up high offices? It would have been good to know.

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a Delhi-based writer and journalist, and the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times and Sikhs: The Untold Agony of 1984. He tweets @NilanjanUdwin.

Modi Could Take a Leaf out of Narasimha Rao’s Book on Statesmanship

Narasimha Rao’s decision to not exploit the issue of nuclear tests for political gains is a testament to his credentials as a statesman.

After completing the herculean task of making India a nuclear power, the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao deferred the testing of nuclear weapons due to the proximity of the May 1996 elections, choosing not to conduct the tests and not trumpet the achievement for electoral gains.

Instead, he decided to silently pass the mission onto the hands of his successor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who openly acknowledged that Rao had laid the groundwork for the nuclear programme and that he (Vajpayee) had just test fired it.

Prime Minister Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, are you listening?

Rao had been a part of the decision-making process to establish India as a nuclear power for a long time from his days as the foreign minister to his tenure as the prime minister.

It is a scientific and historical fact that India became a nuclear power in 1993, during the period of a Congress minority government under the balanced and analytical leadership of the dhoti-kurta clad statesman Rao. Never one to crave undue publicity, rich attires or to boast of his defence successes for political exploits, Narasimha Rao and his vision for India are owed a lot for what India is today in the nuclear field.

Also Read: From Unremarkable Congressman to Extraordinary Policymaker

The chapter “Going Nuclear” in Vinay Senapati’s famous book ‘Half Lion” – a biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao – explains his historic role. When Indira Gandhi authorised the testing of a nuclear fission device on May 18, 1974, it was the first major decisive step towards the goal, but at that time, India did not have the missiles or aircraft to deliver nuclear heads to the targets. Without the ability to put the bomb, missile and plane together, the nuclear programme would not have been complete.

Rajiv Gandhi permitted the scientists to do precisely that, with utmost secrecy. Before he became prime minister in 1991, Rao was one of the few politicians who knew about the nuclear weapons programme. By that time, Pakistan was pursuing its own weapons programme with the help of China and others.

V.S. Arunachalam, a nuclear technologist, estimated that Pakistan could make ten atomic bombs. Amidst growing international pressure on India to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970, Rao was heading a minority government while the BJP was strongly demanding that India go nuclear without wasting time. Rao could not have ignored these internal and international pressures.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Pokhran with Abdul Kalam. Credit: PTI

Vinay Senapati says, “The prime minister needed to be ferocious as well as conciliatory. He needed to be half a lion”. Fortunately, Rao was half a lion. Instead of proceeding with the testing, Rao examined the possible effects of economic sanctions that threatened to follow a nuclear test.

One DRDO scientist was quoted in the book saying:

“The usual criticism of [of Rao] was ‘analysis till paralysis’. But I didn’t find that. He would sit and analyse with me. Once we reached a decision… he would go through [with it]’.”

On February 1993, the Prithvi 1 was successfully test launched. It was designed to carry a nuclear load to Islamabad and other Pakistani cities. Ronen Sen says, “…In 1993 we tested our ability to deliver. This is the day India became a nuclear power.”

Prithvi-1 tests were followed by the successful Agni missile tests of February 1994. The Agni missile had a longer range than Prithvi-1 covering both Pakistan as well as parts of China. In the mid-1980s Rao had overseen the final acquisition of Mirage-2000 planes from France. In May 1994, twenty years after India’s first nuclear test, a Mirage plane was fitted with a nuclear weapon. The plane flew to Balasore (missile test site) in Orissa and successfully dropped the bomb on the designated target.

The US protested the deployment of the Prithvi missile into the army. Rao postponed the deployment as he resisted US pressure to sign the NPT during his visit in 1994 saying that India would not sign any agreement that allowed only some countries to keep their weapons. After a month, Rao silently added the Prithvi missiles to the army.

Also Read: Watch: The Life And Politics Of Narasimha Rao, Half Lion, Full PM

He was ‘nara’ (human) when he dealt with international powers in a conciliatory form and a ‘simha’ (lion) when he strengthened the Indian army without the aid of publicity unlike some of his successors.

Cautioning the nuclear scientists about the US satellite surveillance, Rao in 1995 encouraged them to continue their work. India was ready to conduct tests in Pokhran between December 1995 and February 1996. The process was ready for Rao’s explicit approval at four different points: T-30 (30days before testing), T-7, T-3 and finally T-1 (one day before). Abdul Kalam wrote to PM’s eyes only to conduct tests while negotiating on CTBT. At T-7 i.e., a week before the bomb was placed in an L shaped shaft at Pokhran.

Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visiting Pokhran after the 1998 nuclear tests. Credit: File photo

On December 15, 1995 the New York Times reported the presence of scientific activity at Pokhran. After a week, US Ambassador to India Frank Wisner went to the prime minister with satellite photos showing ‘activity’ which foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee denied. Later, US President Bill Clinton called Rao and said, “We are happy to note a clear statement that the government of India is not testing. But Mr Prime Minister, what is this that our cameras picked up?’ Rao replied by saying, ‘This is only a routine maintenance of facilities’, and further added, “there is right now no plan to explode. But yes, we are ready. We have the capability”.

In March, Clinton called and urged Rao to desist from testing, which proves that Rao was actively considering conducting tests. Kalam and the other nuclear scientists were ready to conduct tests. But Rao did not resort to the unethical act of conducting nuclear tests during elections which were scheduled for May 1996. When Vajpayee took over as the PM on May 16, 1996, Rao, Abdul Kalam and R Chidambaram went to meet the new PM.

Also Read: With a Chest-Thumping Speech on ASAT Test, Narendra Modi Has Shown He Is Nervous

What happened then was revealed by none other than Vajpayee, “When I succeeded Rao as prime minister in May 1996, he said the bomb was already in place. I have just test fired it.” He quoted Rao’s exact words by saying, ‘Everything is ready, you can go ahead’.

Vajpayee, also a statesman, withheld the testing of the nuclear weapons as it was clear that his minority government would not last long. Only after he came back in 1998 as the Prime Minister, did he conduct the nuclear tests. Rao’s magnanimity in letting Vajpayee revel in the glory of the nuclear tests is telling. Abdul Kalam said, it “reveals the maturity and professional excellence of a patriotic statesman who believed that the nation is bigger than the political system”.

Truly, the father of nuclear power in India, Rao behaved like a statesman. Otherwise, he could have conducted the tests at time to extract maximum electoral gains. The test was just an indication of the ‘finality’ of along drawn efforts and a vision of dedicated patriots.

Conducting the test of an anti-satellite missile in addition to using a televised address to make the announcement before elections was a clear misuse of power. It seems that for Modi and Shah, not only Rao but even Vajpayee was not a model.

M. Sridhar Acharyulu is a former Central Information Commissioner and professor of Constitutional Law at Bennett University.

18 Years On, Memories of Jharkhand’s Adivasi Anti-Dam Struggle Endure

“We are quiet until the dam is quiet; we shall wake up in rage if the dam comes, like we always have.”

Sitting on the banks of Karo River, Tapkara – a nondescript village, about 80 kilometres from the state capital Ranchi, in Jharkhand’s Khunti district – rose to prominence for difficult reasons. On February 2, 2001 , eight adivasi anti-dam agitators were gunned down by the police. Today, a modest memorial stands to remember the lives the community had to lose to secure its rights.

Late in February, 2019, nearly two decades later, resting squarely on a blue plastic chair outside his residence, in Lohajimi – a few kilometres from the site of firing – Soma Munda’s otherwise firm voice shakes as he recollects the incident of that fateful morning. “The Inspector had shouted “maaro, maaro, order mil gaya!” and then, there was chaos. They started firing, unarmed protestors succumbed to fatal bullets,” he recollected.

On February 1, the local police officer, along with a few officials, had come in their vehicles, destroyed crops worth a year’s labour by driving over them, and later uprooted the gate built at the entrance by villagers to stop intruders. They’d beaten up one villager who protested this. The peaceful demonstration by thousands of adivasis in front of Tapkara police station, that day, was to demand fair compensation for the crop-loss, and to seek the administration’s support for a respectful life for villagers.

Also read: Jharkhand’s Starvation Deaths Raise Questions About India’s Welfare Schemes

Memories of that day are intact for all, across generations, and the fear is still palpable in Lohajimi.

Neelmani Mundain was in her late thirties then. “It was my turn to stay back and take care of the home that day. My husband walked all the way till Tapkara to be a part,” she said. “We had to protest, or else where would we go? It was all those years that we fought to live. ‘Yeh vikas nahi vinas ho raha tha humara (It wasn’t evolution, but our destruction which was taking place)’,”she said. She had not known about the shootings until evening and had patiently waited for her husband and Soma Munda, the leader, to return. “I was shocked when I heard about the deaths. I was happy to see Soma Munda and my husband, but how could I eat that day? Eight of us had died, it could have been us, anybody,” she murmured.

For Soma Munda, the murderous bullets felt close. “The swollen crowd was getting restless, the local MLA had arrived, and there were demands for taking action against the inspector for the wreckage caused a day before. As senior authorities were awaited, someone permitted firing. We were unarmed. The bullets flew in from the edges; there was death and chaos. It was brutal. I heard 56 rounds being fired that day,” he recollected.

The memorial building at Tapkara. Credit: Abinash Dash Choudhury

The protest meeting was a culmination of prolonged attempts by the adivasis to safeguard their homes. Munda’s presence in the protest was not an accident. After serving in the Indian Army for 21 years, he had returned to his native place in 1976 and found himself involved in what would turn out to be one of the most successful anti-dam agitation in independent India. By 1977 he was part of the central committee of ‘Koel-Karo Jan Sangathan’, the front-line organisation which played a pioneering role in averting large-scale displacement.

After the shootings, Soma Munda, along with 11 others were arrested on charges of murder, and 4,000 adivasis were named in an FIR, implicated for murdering a police constable and torching a police van. “I did not even know that a constable had died until the next day’s newspaper report. None of us knew! We were grieving our deaths… they had implicated us after killing us. The law was theirs, the power and the story was theirs. But we knew we had to struggle or die,” added Munda. He was arrested in 2010 for a brief while. About 12 years later in 2014, they were all finally let-off.

The Koel-Karo dam project, which was first conceptualised in the second Five Year Plan of the government of India, was being steered by the then Bihar Government’s State Electricity Board. The final project report was completed in 1973, with the total estimated cost of Rs 137 crore. According to the report, two dams were to be constructed — at Basia on the South Koel River and at Lohajimi on the North Karo River.

The two dams were to be connected by a 34.7 km canal. To facilitate power generation, permission was given for the construction of four large power houses and two smaller ones, capable of generating 710 megawatts daily. The project would take up 22,000 hectares of land which would displace 1,50,000 people in 256 villages.

As government attempts to start the project gained pace, the movement picked up too. In 1978 ‘Kaam Roko Abhiyan’ began. The villagers stopped the unloading of raw materials in a newly-made godown at Pokra. The Munda adivasis – indigenous to this part of central India – had three demands which had to be fulfilled: economic, social and, cultural rehabilitation. “How would they give us our sarna sthal? We knew the dam can never come up with these demands because they would never be able to compensate for our cultural and social loss,” Soma Munda added.

In the midst of this struggle, the project was taken up by the National Hydro-Power Corporation in 1981. In 1984 as NHPC started to hold its fort, surveys began to take place and the company started entering the village with paramilitary force. “The fight against the company took a sharp turn hereon,” said Munda.

The ‘force’ created enormous troubles for the adivasis. Villagers formed special groups to keep it under check. The ‘janata curfew’ – a system where the villagers decided what time the forces could emerge from their camp – was enforced. It became impossible for the armed men to continue staying when the non-cooperation of the villagers reached tipping point, and they refused to share water and other basic amenities with them. Finally, the force retreated.

Neelmani Mundain. Credit: Abinash Dash Choudhury

It was in 1995, Soma Munda recalls, that came their masterstroke. On July 5, P.V. Narasimha Rao was scheduled to lay the foundation stone for the project. “We had news that he will come to inaugurate the place, and had planned to stall it. About 75,000 of us stood guard in an empty field the night before, and did not let his helicopter land. They cancelled his arrival,” he chuckles, “it did not stop there, Lalu could not bear to accept this and offered to lay the foundation stone the same day, but we didn’t budge. He, too, did not come.” It was an unprecedented victory for Munda and thousands of others.

The victory of indigenous residents across the Koel-Karo basin is a poignant story of survival. But it has cost them their lives, where, generations have come together to save their land in extraordinary unity. “This is a living example of how our sweat and blood has saved us,” Soma Munda said. Walking down the lanes, he points to the invisible structures, saying, “That would have been the longest canal joining the two dams, we’d have drowned with the water.”

The dam’s structure might never have come up, but for Soma Munda, it is a living enemy. “They think we have weakened. They must know they are wrong. We are quiet until the dam is quiet, we shall wake up in rage if the dam comes, like we always have,” he warns.

Abinash Dash Choudhury is a Skye fellow. He is currently based in Ranchi, Jharkhand. The visiting team, of which the writer was also a member, comprised of Vivek Kumar and Varsha Poddar. 

R.K. Dhawan, the Man Who Held Indira Gandhi’s Steadfast Trust

Indira Gandhi’s close confidante R.K. Dhawan, once an object of fear and envy in government and Congress circles, passed away in New Delhi on August 6.

Much has been said about R.K. Dhawan, once an object of fear and envy in government and Congress circles. When Dhawan died at the age of 80 on Monday, much that was written about this remarkable character was a re-telling of Emergency-era stories, or tales from the time during which he was sought to be held in suspicion in the aftermath of prime minister Indira Gandhi’s tragic assassination, which he witnessed ‘live’.

‘RKD’, as Dhawan was known at the height of his influence, had joined the government as a stenographer in Jawaharlal Nehru’s days and became prime minister Indira Gandhi’s powerful and trusted secretary, serving her with a rare devotion even after she was dead and could not have commanded or punished him.

A mere stenographer who had come to enjoy the confidence of the prime minister, and was super-efficient in grasping party matters as well as affairs of state when it came to evaluating personnel, was neither liked by top-flight civil servants nor by senior Congress politicians who had to be obsequious to him in order to get past him to reach Indira. A good deal of this was on account of the class factor.

Dhawan was a chap from ‘down there’ before whom they grovelled to move ahead and didn’t like it. At the first opportunity, therefore, they tried to get their own back – usually by going off the record with journalists in venting their spleen.

The Dhawan I ‘knew’ – by pure chance – was knowledgeable, and supremely self-confident. Later, I saw for myself that he was also flexible.

The ignominious Janata interregnum had ended and Indira Gandhi was back at the helm. Dhawan too had returned to his familiar position of being by the prime minister’s side and being her eyes and ears since in some realms she would give consideration to his assessments, although in the end she was known to make up her own mind.

R.K Dhawan with Indira Gandhi.

As a reporter, I was really stuck one day. I thought I had the kernel of a big political story but I was finding it hard to approach sources of sufficient standing in order to proceed. I do not recall the matter too well today. It’s been about 40 years. But if I remember right, the story had something to do with the Northeast and had a China angle too. High-level meetings, with which the prime minister was involved, had taken place. As far as I knew, no other reporter had an inkling of any of this and I pretty much knew the lot.

In desperation, and on a whim, I called the prime minister’s house and asked to speak to Dhawan. The operator asked who I was, and also if I knew him. I said who I was and was candid that I had not spoken with the gentleman before.

Still Dhawan came on the line, although in some of my byline writings I had been critical of the government.

When I sought to present my credentials, he cut me short, saying he was in no position to impart information. The he suddenly added, “I can only confirm or deny the veracity of what you know. From my own side I cannot give any details even if I confirm what you know.”

That is how we got started. His answers were “yes” or “no”, and there was no elaboration. But this was good enough for me and helped me from going astray on facts. I had a decent exclusive. This telephonic relationship came handy from time to time though I told myself I wouldn’t make a habit of it, and I didn’t.

Much happened subsequently – Indira’s assassination, and Dhawan’s practical exile from favour in the Congress. After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. P.V. Narasimha Rao took charge. Rao operated from Motilal Marg. Right at the start of his tenure, he invited some journalists to his residence for an on-the-record interaction.

Chairs were laid out on the lawn. Some of us arrived early. There for the first time I saw an imperious Rao. He was ordering Dhawan around – asking him to carry chairs and place them in rows. I saw Dhawan scurrying and lifting up chairs. Some time later he was brought into the council of ministers and was minister for urban development.

I visited him once in that capacity as a part of a small delegation in connection with housing for journalists. He was open and welcoming and knowledgeable about policy issues. I do recall he was disdainful of NRIs. He felt they try to throw their weight about when in India, and “showed off”. What did they have to show for themselves, he wondered.