by Kuldip Nayar
Once the Congress party decided to support Third Front candidates comprising non-Congress and non-BJP members it became clear that one among them could become prime minister. Their first choice was V.P. Singh but he vanished from his house and could not be traced. All eyes turned towards Jyoti Basu, the then communist chief minister of West Bengal. He was inclined to accept the offer provided his party’s politburo permitted him to do so, but permission was denied. Anil Biswas, the then CPM general secretary in West Bengal was quite adamant. He explained to me that they did not wish to form a government until their party achieved a majority in the Lok Sabha. I told him that such an expectation was a pipe dream.
The hardliners, who held the majority in the politburo, were ideologically correct but they lost an opportunity which Jyoti Basu later described as a ‘historic blunder’. The problem with most politburo members was that they had little contact with the outside world, and this was illustrated by the photographs they displayed at their office. They were of Stalin, Lenin, Engels, and Karl Marx; they continued to live in a world that had collapsed after the end of the Cold War in 1990. The hardliners could not visualize the boost the party would have got and its expanded base with Jyoti Basu at the helm of affairs. I knew Jyoti Basu well and felt that India had lost an opportunity to be ruled by an individual with a strong commitment to the amelioration of the conditions of the poor.
When Jyoti Basu declined, the Third Front settled on Deve Gowda from Karnataka whose name was proposed by Lalu Prasad Yadav. Perhaps the name of Ram Krishna Hegde, also from Karnataka, would have won the day if he had been present at the meeting. However, as he told me later, he was intentionally misled about the venue of the meeting.
Deve Gowda was a disaster as prime minister (from June 1996 to April 1997). He claimed he would perform miracles for Indian farmers but got mixed with dubious deals through his Man Friday C.M. Ibrahim who was the information minister in his government.
Deve Gowda’s known contribution was the Ganga water sharing accord signed on 12 December 1996 between him and the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The Farakka Barrage Agreement, as it is called, owed a lot to then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. He agreed to release more water than he had been willing to do earlier. This was a great sacrifice on his part as he had built the second Hooghly bridge sufficiently high to allow the passage of large ships to the Calcutta port. Besides that, Haldia port was also endangered because the silt in the Hooghly might not one day allow tankers to reach the oil refineries.
Basu’s gesture was hailed by Bangladesh. Many years later, Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal chief minister, let down Dhaka, particularly Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when she did not honour her word to release more water from the River Teesta. She changed her mind because of the Communist threat. This lost India Bangladesh’s goodwill.
The Congress was soon ‘disillusioned’ with Deve Gowda and wanted the Third Front to elect a new leader. Harkishan Singh Surjeet, the CPM general secretary, who was Deve Gowda’s mentor, tried his utmost to sustain his prime-ministership but the ambitious Sitaram Kesri, then heading the Congress, had his eye on the office. He found no support either within his own party or from the Third Front. The Congress was still unable to muster the necessary support it sought. The party which had provided the Third Front with the numbers necessary for its survival as a government insisted on a new leader. Deve Gowda had no choice but to submit his resignation. The fact was that Sonia Gandhi wanted more time for the Congress to rehabilitate itself.
The names of Inder Gujral and Chandrababu Naidu came up. The CPM general secretary, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, again opposed both but did not pursue the matter. He zeroed in on Mulayam Singh Yadav and brought Jyoti Basu around to accept his candidature. Basu counted a great deal because the communist members represented a sizeable chunk of the Third Front.
Surjeet was strongly opposed to Gujral, having scores to settle with him from the days when they were both members of the communist party in Lahore. It was a miracle therefore that Gujral did eventually become prime minister.
As luck would have it Surjeet had to go to Moscow on the day the Third Front was to elect a leader. Gujral was a friend of mine and I was keen that he become prime minister. He rang me up and asked me to meet Jyoti Basu at Bangla Bhawan in Delhi on the morning of the election. When I met him, Sitaram Yechuri was sitting with him. I cautioned Jyoti Basu that Mulayam Singh had a reputation of sorts, and Yechuri confirmed this. It appeared that Jyoti Basu was not particularly against Gujral but had gone along with Surjeet because he depended upon ‘his judgement’ in such matters. Jyoti Basu agreed that Gujral would make a better prime minister than Mulayam Singh, and the latter was considered for deputy prime-ministership. Gujral did not however favour the proposal and I think that Naidu could have got the post but he said that he had to strengthen his party in Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam. At that time N.T. Rama Rao’s wife, Lakshmi Parvathi, posed a challenge by presenting herself as her husband’s successor. Gujral was rung up. By the time I contacted his home, he had already been conveyed the news and was closeted with Basu.
The Gujral government (April 1997–March 1998) was known for its accommodation with neighbouring countries. He respected their sensitivities and went to great lengths to fulfill these. This policy of placating neighbours even at the cost of compromising some of our own interests became known as the ‘Gujral Doctrine’. This without doubt brought about a marked improvement in our relations with Pakistan.
At the summit at Male, Gujral was able to persuade the then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resume trade between the two countries and at the same time to appoint a committee to discuss Kashmir. The important point here was that trade would not be dependent on the progress of talks on Kashmir.
The two prime ministers also agreed to institute a barter system to enable both India and Pakistan to exchange goods, without, for the time being, having to bother about the adverse balance of trade. Sadly, the mind-set of the bureaucrats from Pakistan ruined the deal. One of them said during the meeting: ‘Mian sahib, what about Kashmir?’ Nawaz Sharif remained silent and then went on to discuss trade with Gujral. Trade was, however, never resumed and it became apparent that the bureaucrat’s remark proved to be the last word.
On Kashmir, Gujral and I had frequent long discussions and we agreed that an autonomous status within India was the way out. As prime minister, he declared during his visit to Srinagar that the solution had to be within the parameters of the Indian union, but not necessarily within the ambit of the Indian constitution. There was a strong adverse reaction to this statement and Gujral had to change his position and announce that what he had meant was within the limits of the constitution. Both RAW and IB blamed me for Gujral’s original statement.
When Gujral was prime minister, Yasin Malik was again imprisoned in Delhi for having threatened to go on a fast outside parliament to protest against oppression in the Valley. CPI leader Indrajit Gupta was the home minister then.
I met him in connection with Yasin Malik’s release. Indrajit Gupta was himself unhappy about the detention. His secretary rang up the jail authorities, and I got him released. Parliament was still in session then. The following day some members attacked Indrajit Gupta for ‘hobnobbing with the separatists’. His response was that he wished he could contact more and more of them and persuade them to join the mainstream.
While Gujral was at the helm, he undertook a tour of South Africa and Egypt in October 1997. I accompanied him as a journalist. My purpose was to see the country where Gandhi had experimented with his satyagraha, an antidote to the class struggle, because a satyagrahi was required to purify himself in order to serve the society without any ulterior motive. I visited the railway station where a pamphlet is available relating how Gandhiji was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment exclusively reserved for whites.
When visiting various parts in South Africa, particularly Cape Town, I felt that by and large the blacks
still lived at the margins. True, apartheid had been dismantled and political power transferred to the blacks but the reality was that both the blacks and whites still lived in two different worlds, the former still generally poor and the latter abnormally well off. I found the blacks frustrated that they still had not received their due in their own country. The whites owned vast tracts of land, lived in luxurious villas, and held top jobs in the bureaucracy. I wondered whether the country was sitting on a volcano which would burst one day. The presence of Nelson Mandela had a soothing impact, but for how long it was difficult to gauge.
It was my long cherished desire to meet Nelson Mandela. He had retired from the position of president he had occupied after the apartheid had ended. I asked him how long the blacks would wait. He said that Mahatma Gandhi had taught them that violence or force did not solve any problem; generosity and forgiveness were the ultimate values.
I changed the subject and asked him how he had spent some twenty-three years in the jail on an island which was visible from Cape Town. He said that the jail staff had been kind to him and allowed him and his comrades in jail to be together all the time. ‘Every piece of news reached us,’ he said, ‘and we knew that we would one day win the right to rule ourselves.’
What surprised me was his preference for Nehru over Gandhi. South Africa wanted to pursue Nehru’s path of rebuilding the country and imbibed his approach of harnessing the support of their erstwhile British rulers to develop the country. Nehru had built institutions like parliament and the judiciary. These had ensured that India would remain democratic and pluralistic, Mandela said. He had created an atmosphere that radiated self-confidence and self-reliance and permitted the development of a normal and friendly relationship with the British.
My meeting with Mandela was a memorable moment in my life. Later, at night, there was a banquet in honour of Gujral where Mandela broke into dance and dragged Gujral on to the floor.
While we were on a state visit to South Africa, at home, a constitutional crisis awaited Gujral. Joginder Singh, director CBI, was determined to arrest Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav with the help of a local army contingent because the deputy commissioner had refused to do so. Gujral got Lalu to step down and his wife, straight from the kitchen, sworn in.
Gujral’s bonanza to government servants on the recommendations of the pay commission was too heavy a burden on the exchequer at a time when India was not in sound economic health. Had he implemented the other recommendations, such as the 30 per cent cut in the bureaucracy and extended working hours, some balance might have been struck. Gujral was under pressure from the trade unions and the Left. The hike unbalanced the Central budget and was beyond the capacity of the states when they too were obliged to follow suit.
Kesari’s personal ambition did not permit another non-Congress government to continue and therefore fresh elections were inevitable. By then I was in the Rajya Sabha to which Gujral government had nominated me.
17
My Tryst with Parliament
The Right to Information Act, Kashmir and Pakistan, the Terrorist Attack on Parliament, Elections to the Rajya Sabha, Vajpayee’s Bus Ride to Lahore
With mixed feelings I entered the Rajya Sabha: mixed because I held the House in high esteem and had witnessed some of the most eloquent addresses by distinguished orators and dedicated public servants as Bhupesh Gupta, Hiren Mukherjee, and Hridaynath Kunzru. In the face of this I found myself vastly inadequate in terms of eloquence or erudition. I also had reservations about how the political parties would react to my presence because I had relentlessly criticized them in my columns. Would I be able to make any substantial contribution to the deliberations and the legislation in the House was the question uppermost in my mind.
I was delighted to find my entire family in the visitors’ gallery when I took oath in the Rajya Sabha. My wife Bharti was there as well as my sister, Raj, brother-in-law, Rajinder Sachar, their daughter Madhu, my daughters-in-law, the two Kavitas (both of them have the same name), my sons, Sudhir and Rajiv, and my grandchildren, Mandira, Kartik, and Kanika. They were thrilled to see me taking a seat in the house.
The first thing I did after taking the oath was to send a statement of assets, my own and those of my wife, to Chairman Krishan Kant. The Rajya Sabha secretary told me that there was no such practice and the secretariat did not know what they should do with a declaration of assets. I told him that he should file it wherever he thought fit and should compare it with that I submitted the following year.
Subsequently, when the business of the House was marred by frequent walk outs and forced adjournments, I wrote to the chairman that I did not wish to draw any allowances on days when the House failed to transact any business. The chairman was nonplussed and referred the matter to the law ministry. I was happy to learn that the ministry was agreeable to my proposal. I continued this practice to forego the daily allowance whenever the House did not transact any business.
The coldest reception as a Rajya Sabha member I received was from Congress MPs. They nurtured a grievance over my vehement criticism of Indira Gandhi’s rule during the Emergency. I found even Manmohan Singh, then the leader of the Opposition, who knew me personally, deliberately distancing himself as if afraid to be on familiar terms with me.
My nomination was for eminence in journalism (literature). Six more joined me to fill the vacancies. Under the constitution, the President of India could nominate twelve members, one-third retiring every year, for having ‘special knowledge or practical experience in respect of … literature, science, art and social service’.
The BJP was understandably angry with me because of my criticism of their policy for Hindutva, but even so several of its members were warmer than the Congressmen. The greater part of my six-year tenure (1997–2003) was during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition government, headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was at least civil and polite to me. We had once been very close. I, together with the late J.D. Sethi, an economist, used to have tea with him virtually every evening. Vajpayee was fond of jalebis and kachoris and so were we. These two delicacies were specially brought from Chandni Chowk.
My maiden speech, which lasted 30 minutes, focused on the nation’s failure to establish a secular polity. I wondered where we had gone wrong and why our efforts had not shown results. True, I ascribed most of the blame on communal forces without naming any specific party and lamented that the secular forces had not been sufficiently strong or cohesive to prevail. I reminded the House of the nation’s struggle for Independence under Mahatma Gandhi who preached secularism to his last breath.
When I came to the contribution made by Jayaprakash Narayan to the country I saw Pranab Mukherjee leaving. He was in fact formal and distant throughout my tenure in the Rajya Sabha. Even when he was the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, of which I was a member, he was correct but not warm.
I recalled his phone call to the Statesman when I was resident editor, requesting me to have tea at his house. He held no government office then. We three, including his wife, sat on the floor and sipped tea which she had prepared. They had very little furniture and no servant. This reflected the austere living style of an average Bengali who had moved from a state to the nation’s capital. His wife was a struggling dancer seeking to gain recognition. When he requested me to give her publicity, I realized why he had invited me to his house.
I met the same Mukherjee some years later during the Emergency. His house exuded opulence and the sitting room was cluttered with stylish furniture, plush carpets, and sparkling silver. He was then commerce minister, a trusted hand of Sanjay Gandhi.
In Rajya Sabha, the nominated members sat together in the centre of the hall. Dr Raja Ramanna, a distinguished scientist, sat to my left and the famous film director Mrinal Sen to my right. Shabana Azmi was at the beginning of the row. As Mrinal showed up very rarely, Shabana and I sat together most of the time. I had great respect for her as an actor, y
et finding her next to me made me happy in a different way. Though I did not attempt to flirt with her, the temptation was there. Her attitude was so matter-of-fact that she deterred me. Once I told her that despite my best efforts she did not care a fig. Her reply was: aisi bhi baat nahin.
We would discuss a variety of subjects, largely concerning poverty in India. She was doing commendable work for the people living in the slums of Mumbai. We were like-minded in the sense both of us were secular in our outlook and left-of-centre in ideology. One thing about which we strongly concurred was that marriage should be a contract for a fixed period and automatically end after the expiry of this. She would often urge me to reply to Arun Shourie, a BJP member, who frequently expressed his jingoistic views laced with the BJP ideology.
Dr Ramanna once related to me how Saddam Hussain had, when he visited Baghdad, offered him a blank cheque for know-how for the construction of a nuclear device. Saddam was surprised when Ramanna refused to divulge any details. Ramanna never visited Iraq again for fear of Saddam’s ire. Before meeting as members of the Rajya Sabha Ramanna and I had met at Tirupati, the temple town, where we both received awards for contributions in our respective fields. He confided to me then that both Pakistan and India had nuclear bombs. The information about Pakistan came as a surprise because its possession of a nuclear device became public much later.
Within a few days of my nomination to the Rajya Sabha, a member of the House met me to inquire what I proposed to do with my Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) allocation of a crore of rupees. Before I could reply, he said that I need only sign the papers for withdrawal of the fund allotted to me and he would give me Rs 50 lakhs. I was shocked by the offer, but asked how this was managed. He said that on paper a bridge or a road would be constructed and then washed away by rains. This would also enable the sanctioning authorities to receive their share from the money drawn.