Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  Now, the shots were becoming louder than earlier. The assailants had also moved to other positions it appeared from the way the firing had spread. I walked leisurely to the main entrance of parliament, the door of which was closed. Within a few seconds I heard a loud explosion, followed by another.

  It never occurred to me that the main wooden gate of Parliament House could be smashed and the assailants could march in. The massive walls of Parliament House gave me a curious sense of security. After 10–15 minutes of firing, I heard a bell ringing and sirens blaring a warning. Probably an afterthought; someone had suddenly remembered the safety rules.

  The rumour among members was that one assailant had escaped and was hiding somewhere in inside the building. Security personnel scurried hither and thither. I was locked up in a lobby for 45 minutes after which I was let out, I went to the courtyard within Parliament House where life-size statues of Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad stood. I wondered whether it had ever crossed their minds that one day the institution of democracy which they had nourished with their blood would be sullied by the blood of those who believed in violence and murder. The terrorists had shot at the guard when they were stopped at the gate. The police intervened and four militants were killed. Five policemen and security guards also lost their lives.

  Tempers were frayed in the Central Hall. Two hours after the first shot was heard, the minister for parliamentary affairs, Pramod Mahajan, stood up on a table in the hall to announce that MPs could now leave, women first. The members of parliament were not panicky even in the first instance but appeared more than relieved when they heard that all was over. Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj refused to go with the caravan of women. I heard her saying something like, ‘Let me find out what really happened’. By then, the army had arrived. The defence minister had personally rung up to summon the force. I saw some members thanking him, including those who had sought his resignation. It was a curious kind of camaraderie, reflecting a unity which the country assumes when confronting an external threat.

  Was this an act of war? Parliament represents India’s sovereignty. Alternatively, was it only the work of some bigoted extremists who had been brainwashed to understand the normal functioning of a society such as India’s? I saw the body of one of the terrorists lying outside Parliament House’s main gate and some pieces of luggage littered around. Democracy is an idea; a nation’s determination that extremists can never understand. They only strengthen the belief that no price is too high to sustain freedom and democracy. I returned to parliament the following day as usual, as others did, to reaffirm our faith in the institution and to warn the assailants and their masters to keep their hands off.

  Pramod Mahajan, who was the minister in charge of BJP’s parliamentary affairs, was totally against my becoming a member of any of the committees. As we, the nominated and independent members had formed a group we were entitled to a seat in any of the House committees. He would say he was willing to nominate anyone as member but not Kuldip Nayar. I even wrote a letter to A.B. Vajpayee to draw attention to Mahajan’s remark but did not receive even an acknowledgement. Mahajan was angry because I had criticized him in my columns. The first time he read one of the columns he rang me up to inquire how he could improve his image, to which I suggested that he could do so ‘by talking less’.

  Before Mahajan’s order could prevail I had been elected to the Joint Committee on the Central Vigilance Commission Bill, 1999. In their judgement (December 1987) the Supreme Court had struck down, what had come to be known as the ‘single directive’. This meant that the CBI could not investigate high-ranking bureaucrats (joint secretaries and above) without the prior sanction of the government.

  After the first meeting of the committee I wrote a letter to Sharad Pawar, who was the chairman, to let every member of the committee declare his or her assets. I received no reply. When I raised this point during the committee’s meeting, members laughed at my proposal and resumed their discussion.

  The joint committee rejected the Supreme Court decision and restored the status quo ante. The result was that the government once again acquired powers to shield pliant and like-minded ‘delinquent officers’. Such public servants who carry out the nefarious diktats of their political masters go scot free because permission for their prosecution is not forthcoming.

  The report was unanimous barring my dissenting note in which I, inter alia, said:

  Some sort of quid pro quo has come to be established. The officer concerned may be making money on the side and his political bosses may be shutting their eyes to this because of ‘services’ rendered to them. Corrupt officers have come to rule the roost due to their proximity to the seats of power. Increasingly, public servants are ceasing to be aware of what is right and may not have even desire to act according to what is right.

  In my note I referred to the N.N. Vohra Committee Report which had pointed out the existence of a nexus between politicians, civil servants, and criminals; a mafia parallel to the government. ‘If there is a prima facie case against anyone the CBI should straightaway move against him or her whether or not their rank is joint secretary or above’.

  MPs from the Left sided with the government at the committee meetings. When I criticized them they promised to support me when the necessary legislation came before the House, but to my dismay they too went along with the government. I realized that the communists, who had governments in West Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura, were under the ‘same compulsions’ as the central government. It was strange to see the establishment and the Opposition uniting when it came to their personal interests.

  The worst act of the Rajya Sabha was to amend a bill relating to election to the House. The operative clause substituted India in place of state. The amendment did away with the requirement of domicile for a Rajya Sabha member. According to the parliamentary rules and the spirit of the constitution, a candidate to the Rajya Sabha had to be ‘ordinarily a resident of that state’. The substitution of word India and the deletion of state made a mockery of the constitution makers because they had provided for two Houses in parliament, one, the House of the people (Lok Sabha) for the country as a whole, and the second, the House of states (Rajya Sabha) to represent the states.

  The bill also sought to do away with the secrecy of voting, fundamental in a democratic polity. A state legislature is not an auction house where a show of hands decides who among the members had garnered this or that number of votes. Money had begun playing a decisive role because a buyer could see for himself the number of votes he would get. In the past, some members would exercise their vote against the party’s directive but now, according to the new bill, they had to show the ballot paper to the party’s agent, and violation would cost them their membership. Curiously, election to the upper house in the states continued to be as of old, through a secret ballot, but the procedure for the Rajya Sabha was to be changed.

  When the bill was passed despite my one member opposition, I wrote an article pointing out how the complexion of the Rajya Sabha had been changed. After reading the article, former President R. Venkataraman, a member of the constituent assembly, wrote to me that the amendment would defeat the real purpose of the Rajya Sabha, which was to give representation to the states. He referred to his discussion with the then law minister B.R. Ambedkar who had piloted the bill in the constituent assembly. Ambedkar had assured him that the purpose was to institute one house of the people and another representing the states.

  On the basis of Venkataraman’s letter and my article which appeared in the Indian Express, I wrote to the then Chief Justice of India V.N. Kher to argue that the new method of election to the Rajya Sabha defeated the letter and spirit of the constitution. Treating my letter as a public interest litigation (PIL), he immediately arranged for a hearing, about which the Registrar informed me just a night before.

  I went, accompanied by my brother-in-law, former Chief Justice Rajinder Sachar. When I appeared before a division bench,
presided over by the chief justice, the latter insisted on my arguing the case. ‘We have read you and we want to hear you,’ he said. I was somewhat nervous, but nonetheless stood before the bench and said that when I was studying at Law College, Lahore, my greatest ambition was to appear before the highest court of the land. I was unable to pursue the legal profession because of Partition and entered journalism. ‘My dream has been realized today,’ I said.

  My plea was that the amendment had defeated the real purpose of the Rajya Sabha, the representation of states in parliament. Under the new dispensation, any person from any part of the country could get elected to the Rajya Sabha, without his or her being a resident of the state, and unfamiliar with its language and culture.

  The division bench accepted my petition and stayed the elections to the Rajya Sabha and asked the constitution bench to decide upon the validity of the amendment. When I asked one judge on the division bench at a reception that very day why they had taken so little time in accepting my plea, he said: ‘You were precise and to the point’. I wondered then whether I had missed my true vocation.

  A lawyer representing the EC too was present at the hearing. I had sent the commission a copy of my letter to the chief justice. Even so, the commission went ahead with a notification of elections to the Rajya Sabha. I again knocked at the door of the Supreme Court. The vacation judge, Justice Ruma Paul, granted me a stay and ordered the EC to stop the process of Rajya Sabha elections until the disposal of my case. It created a furore in civil society.

  The government woke up and appealed against Justice Paul’s order to the division bench. As expected, the division bench, headed by Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, lifted the stay and ordered an early hearing of my case by the constitution bench. To the delight of the Congress and the BJP, the election to the Rajya Sabha was held.

  Justice Santosh Hegde was heading the constitution bench at that time. He was willing to take up the case, but the opposition lawyers said that they would need some time to place their point of view before the court. The real reason was that they did not want to face a tough judge like Hegde, known for his integrity and independence, who they knew would soon be retiring.

  The case did not come up for hearing for several months. Chief Justice Y.K. Sabarwal, after assuming office, constituted a five-judge bench to hear the case. It was heard daily for nearly two weeks. Justice Sachar and Fali Nariman argued on my behalf while Solicitor General Ghulam Vahanvati, now attorney general, opposed the petition. Arun Jaitley also chipped in on behalf of the Opposition. The judgement was reserved for a few days, but when it was pronounced it was a unanimous 5 to 0 verdict in favour of the government’s point of view. It was a perverse judgement, and I said so in an interview to the media.

  The court upheld the amendment which had done away with the residential qualification for a member of the Rajya Sabha and introduced an open rather than a secret ballot. The court failed to appreciate the role of the Rajya Sabha which was now in effect no longer a council of states but a council of freelancers.

  The Supreme Court saw no merit in the elected member being from the state concerned, arguing that ‘the electorate that is electing him is required by law to do so’. It was strange logic to justify the election of an outsider. The point at issue was not who could be elected but who could represent the state. Obviously, a person who normally lived in the state should be preferred to someone who had not, the former being familiar with the region’s culture, problems, and aspirations.

  My feeling is that the judges had political considerations at the back of their minds in arriving at the verdict. They were aware that Dr Manmohan Singh was a Rajya Sabha member from Assam and did not reside in the state. The domicile qualification, if retained, would have morally embarrassed him, although his membership had been legally upheld by the Supreme Court.

  The Supreme Court gave a new title to the Rajya Sabha as a revising house. It was an independent house with its own duties and obligations whose role was not secondary to that of the Lok Sabha. All bills, except those relating to money matters, could be introduced in the Rajya Sabha. In matters concerning the states, the Rajya Sabha came first. All questions relating to the central services and the like were to be initiated in the Rajya Sabha. If the Supreme Court logic were to be accepted, the Lok Sabha would become a revising house for whatever emerged from Rajya Sabha. The bench had failed to understand that.

  It is sad that the Supreme Court judgement has opened doors of the Rajya Sabha to money bags, the mafia, or the undesirable. It is becoming a hunting ground for those who have clout or deep pockets. Political bosses are now free to bring their favourites into the House from any nook and corner of India. The constitution lays down that only twelve members will be nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Now the entire strength of the House will be nominated by our political masters.

  During my tenure as a member of the Rajya Sabha three general elections took place (1996, 1998, and 1999). In the 1998 election A.B. Vajpayee lost by a single vote. However, during his 13- month tenure he had the nuclear device exploded to go down in history. Vajpayee had asked the atomic scientists even in 1996, when he came to power, to explode the bomb. They were not, however, able to do so because his government lasted only thirteen days. Now they had all the necessary time.

  India conducted five nuclear tests in Pokhran in May 1998, three on the 11th and two on the 13th. The US intelligence agencies failed to detect from air the movement of vehicles and men to Pokhran, the site of the explosion. Former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had tried to explode a nuclear device but the US had detected the movement of vehicles from the air and stalled his initiative. The BJP government ensured that all movements took place stealthily in the dead of night.

  President Bill Clinton was furious about the nuclear tests and announced all manner of sanctions to punish India, snapping all ties to ban the import of even low-level technology from the US. The enthusiasm in the country was at such a high pitch at that time that nobody bothered about what the US said or did.

  Vajpayee, however, also realized that if he had to face Washington’s wrath he must try to normalize relations with Islamabad. At Srinagar he declared that he would be travelling by a bus from Amritsar to Lahore meet Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This announcement transformed the atmosphere not only in the two parts of Kashmir but also in India and Pakistan. Vajpayee’s words evoked a sense of expectation.

  Two days before the bus journey the Pakistan high commissioner met me at a reception. He complained that the list of passengers notified to them comprised only secretaries to the Government of India and some other top-level officials. He said this was a good opportunity for the leaders of different political parties to travel by bus and meet leaders of the political parties in Pakistan. I told him that transporting politicians and secretaries in the bus was undertaking a useless exercise. I suggested that writers and artists be included. I took up the matter with prime minister’s principal secretary, Brajesh Mishra (who I knew of through his father D.P. Mishra, a friend), at the reception itself. He said he favoured my proposal and promised to place it before the prime minister. Vajpayee welcomed the idea. (While Morarji Desai was prime minister he had at the instance of his friend D.P. Mishra’s suggestion, superseded many foreign service officers to appoint Brajesh, his son, as India’s representative to the UN.)

  I was informed by the prime minister’s press secretary Ashok Tandon that I was to travel in the prime minister’s bus. I had been critical of the BJP but the criticism did not come in the way of selection. We flew to Amritsar where the chief minister of Punjab Prakash Singh Badal joined us.

  With drum-beaters and a colourful bhangra party in front, the bus moved slowly towards the border. It was a ceremonial departure over in a few minutes. The bus was full of people who had distinguished themselves in the fields of film, dance, literature, and journalism. I remember among the passengers Dev Anand, Javed Akhtar, and Mallika Sarabhai. Scores of journalists and photographers
had gone ahead, to the other side of the border to report the arrival of bus carrying the Indian prime minister, men of letters, and artistes.

  It was a short trip of about 25 kilometre from Amritsar to the border. When travelling towards Pakistan, Vajpayee called me and showed me a message he had received: Twelve Hindus had been killed in the upper reaches of Jammu. ‘What should I do?’, he asked me. He had to bear in mind Indian public opinion. I said that terrorists had always tried to sabotage talks between India and Pakistan. This was yet another example of that.

  Soon after I came back to my seat, I could hear the beat of drums from the Pakistan side; we were in fact on Pakistan soil. The ceremony was short and simple. The then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hugged Vajpayee and welcomed him. The three service chiefs of Pakistan registered their presence but did not salute the Indian prime minister. It was a defiance of sorts but they probably nurtured a guilt conscience because they had already planned the Kargil war.

  During Vajpayee’s stay at Lahore, a roadmap was prepared for the solution of the problems between India and Pakistan, including Kashmir. According to Mushahid Hussain, who was the minister in waiting, both sides came to an understanding that they would establish a back channel to discuss possible solutions within a fixed time-frame.

  During the last months of his 1998 government, the Vajpayee government lost its majority in the Lok Sabha because the AIADMK withdrew its support. Fresh polls seemed inevitable, but President K.R. Narayanan, wishing to avoid the huge expenditure on elections, invited the next largest party, the Congress, to form the government.

  Sonia Gandhi was keen to become prime minister. She was able to cobble together the required numbers apart from the thirteen votes of Mulayam Singh Yadav, which would give her a majority. As she had assured the president that she would be able to form the government she used the CPM to win Mulayam Singh over to her side. Mulayam Singh, however, stipulated that his Samajwadi Party should be represented in her cabinet. She, on her part had publicly made it clear that hers would be a purely Congress government.