The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

by Sanjaya Baru

  An amusing early episode featuring some of my protocol- and seniority-obsessed colleagues was played out at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in NewYork in September 2004. Dr Singh had been invited to deliver a lecture at the CFR. When we arrived at the venue both Montek and Mani were whisked into a special room where Dr Singh was to have lunch with the high-profile CFR leadership before delivering his lecture. Since I, along with Montek and Mani, had been closely involved in writing it, I had assumed I would be part of the lunch group. However, I was told that I should sit outside along with other PMO officials. Even before I could protest, the economist Jagdish Bhagwati, a senior CFR fellow and an invitee to the lunch, spotted me and waved. He walked up to me, gave me a warm hug and inquired about my in-laws and Rama, whom he had known for years. He then held my hand and walked me into the room. At the entrance to the room, two foreign service gatekeepers reminded me that I was not on the PMO’s list for the luncheon, upon which Bhagwati told them I was his guest. Protocol had been worsted by family ties.

  Ultimately, more than my rank, it was my proximity to Dr Singh that finally defined my access and influence in the PMO. My equations with the three senior officials in the PMO were also affected by the fact that in the process of resolving their differences, Dr Singh had come to assign me the role of a referee.

  I had a good equation with Mani from our time together in the NSAB in 1999-2000 and our travels abroad as part of India’s ‘track 2’ diplomacy. He quit the NSAB in 2000, but we remained in touch and met regularly after he drafted me into his effort at writing an alternative foreign policy vision for the Congress party. I enjoyed his company, and we were both fond of good Scotch and cigars.

  But within the PMO, Mani’s imperious style inevitably came into conflict with my own more freewheeling and irreverent style of functioning. Our first disagreement was on who could travel with the PM on his official plane. Seeing the name of Times of India journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, who later served as editor of The Hindu, on the media list, Mani sent me a note informing me that Siddharth was not an Indian national but an American citizen and, as a foreign national, was not entitled to travel on the PM’s plane. I was aware of Siddharth’s citizenship, since this matter had come up when I had hired him as an assistant editor at the Times of India. I chose not to make an issue of it then and Samir Jain, vice chairman of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd, the publishers of the Times of India, who took particular interest in the hiring of editorial writers, did not object either. Now the matter had surfaced again.

  I wrote on the file that since Siddharth had recently accompanied External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh on a foreign trip in an official aircraft, the PMO need not make an issue of his citizenship. The file went to the PM with my observation and returned with his signature. I was told that in officialese a signature with no instructions meant the PM had approved the recommendation on the file. Mani was miffed. He returned the file to me with a caustic reference to my signature on the file being in red ink, which I had used without thinking. His note said, ‘Only service chiefs are allowed to sign in red ink!’

  I won that round but some irritants remained. What really bothered Mani was that I would often brief the media on the PM’s views on foreign affairs. Mani wanted all such briefings routed through and approved by him. One day, he issued an office order stating that all interaction between the media adviser and the media on issues pertaining to foreign affairs and national security, and all press statements on those subjects, should be authorized by the NSA. I was livid.

  I drove down to 7 RCR with Mani’s order in my hand, barged into the PM’s room unannounced, showed him the order and asked if it had his approval. Dr Singh was surprised to see the order and said he had not authorized it. I remonstrated that I was as much an ‘adviser’ to the PM as Mani was.

  ‘He is your national security adviser and I am your media adviser. We are both “your advisers”. I see no reason why I should seek anyone’s approval for what I do, apart from yours.’

  After the PM calmed me down, I explained to him that as the only non-civil servant in the PM’s team, I often felt alone and isolated because I had no internal peer group and a gap of more than a decade separated me from my three senior colleagues. The loneliness sometimes got to me and I was not enjoying this job. So if he still wanted me to remain in the PMO, it was important that everyone there understood that I reported only to the PM and to no one else. I told him that I viewed it as my duty to brief the media directly on the PM’s thinking on ongoing events. In the age of 24x7 television, such responses would often have to be immediate. Putting up files and notes and securing approval for a statement to the media was no longer possible. As the PM’s media adviser, I would, I emphasized, also have to function as his ‘spokesman’, offering quotes to the media on his behalf.

  I assured him that on important matters I would seek his approval for any statement I was about to make, but I saw no reason why I should seek any other official’s approval. The PM told me my understanding was correct and that he would sort out the matter with Mani. Late that night, Mani called.

  ‘I say, Sanjaya,’ he said in his usual gruff tone, ‘I am sorry, I made a mistake. PM told me you were upset about some silly note I issued. Tear it up. Come and smoke a cigar with me tomorrow.’

  The next day we met over coffee and a cigar in his room. I remarked that I was surprised he smoked in the office since there were instructions that smoking was not permitted in the PMO.

  ‘I have always smoked in my office. What are all these silly instructions? You and I can afford to ignore such orders,’ he said loftily, puffing away at his cigar. He then gifted me a box of cigars and a copy of a book written by his mother, Ratnamayi Devi, who had had a profound influence on him. I became truly fond of Mani after that.

  While the PM’s core team was in place on the day Parliament opened, 2 June 2004, the government got off to a rough start. Dr Singh was neither allowed to introduce his council of ministers nor make any statement in the House. The BJP had recovered neither from the shock of its defeat nor from the surprising ease with which the Congress had stitched together a coalition and found a credible prime minister to head it. Unhappy with the situation in Parliament, Dr Singh settled down to tying up the loose ends of government formation. On my second day in office, I was summoned by the PM to his room in South Block.

  ‘I have to name a new Planning Commission,’ he said. ‘Can you draw up a list of names?’

  Over the next two days, I prepared a list. One afternoon a meeting was called at which Nair and Pulok were also present. I had my list and Nair arrived with his. As we read out names, Dr Singh would indicate his preference. Nair was asked to secure the consent of those selected, bar one. The one I was asked to sound out was Anu Aga, chairperson of Thermax. Her husband, Rohinton Aga, had been a contemporary of Dr Singh at college in England and she had distinguished herself as a corporate leader when she took charge of the family company after his death. When I called Anu, who was then in London, she asked for a day to consult her family. She called back the next day and accepted Dr Singh’s invitation to join the Planning Commission.

  But when I went back to him with her acceptance, the PM looked sheepish and informed me that he had already agreed to appoint Syeda Hameed, a Muslim writer and social activist, and so, I was told, there was no place left for Anu. Clearly, the ‘gender’ and ‘minority’ boxes had been filled up with Syeda’s appointment. I was left with the embarrassing task of explaining away the confusion to Anu. What I obviously could not say to her was that the political benefits of rewarding a Muslim may well have trumped those of appointing a Parsi! To my dismay, even Dr Singh seemed to take this embarrassment lightly. For those who had served a lifetime in government, such slips seemed to be par for the course. Ironically, while it was Manmohan Singh who had been initially keen to find a niche for Anu, it was Sonia who finally provided one, by inducting her into her NAC in UPA-2.

  Even as the process of
making these appointments was going on, I was summoned by the PM one afternoon and asked if I had any suggestions for who should be named deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. I suggested Montek, who was still with the IMF in Washington DC but was willing to return if asked to do so.

  ‘The party has some politicians in mind,’ he said. He then mentioned the names that had been suggested to him—Digvijaya Singh, S.M. Krishna and Veerappa Moily. All former chief ministers, I thought to myself, and all without a seat in Parliament. So, naturally, the three would covet a job like this one with all the perks of a Cabinet rank and without the necessity of being a member of Parliament. These were good names, I said to him diplomatically, but repeated that if he was thinking of a job for Montek, this would be a good one. As deputy chairman Montek would be able to act as a bridge between the PM and other ministers as well as chief ministers, with whom Dr Singh needed a trustworthy link. Vajpayee had excellent relations with chief ministers across the country whereas Dr Singh knew very few on a personal level. A deputy chairman who was a politician, I reasoned, like the three suggested to him, might have good relations with chief ministers, but might not be a reliable bridge with them.

  The days when the Planning Commission was composed entirely of subject experts were long gone. Various political and social quotas had now to be filled. North, south, scheduled caste, woman, minority. In the era of coalitions, every constituent political party wanted to name a member. For the PM, himself a former deputy chairman, the Planning Commission had become the place where he could park a trusted aide.

  Now that he knew exactly where I stood on the deputy chairmanship of the Planning Commission, Dr Singh summoned Nair and Pulok. When the two arrived, he first asked them for their advice. Nair kept quiet. Pulok said, ‘The party has suggested Mr Moily.’ I assumed ‘the party’ in this case meant Sonia. Dr Singh then turned to me. On cue, I offered my rationale for suggesting Montek’s name. At this point, Nair piped up to say the Left Front might object.

  I knew I was meant to make a good case for Montek’s induction, and so I did. The Planning Commission, I pointed out, was a prime ministerial creation. Nehru had formed the institution through an administrative order to be able to guide long-term economic policy, partly because he had lost control of the ministry of finance to his critics. How could anyone object to the PM naming a person of his choice? If the PM could not name his own deputy chairman, what authority would he have while naming heads of other institutions? The ‘party’ might have good political reasons for seeking one person or another to be appointed, but the PM should name whomever he wanted to. The Planning Commission, after all, was the only institution directly under his charge, apart from the PMO.

  The PM remained silent and there was no further discussion. That afternoon, Montek was in South Block. He had stopped off in Delhi for a few days en route to Beijing. I later learnt that he had a meeting that morning with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram who had invited him to return to his old job as finance secretary. Clearly, Chidambaram did not know that the PM was mulling other plans for Montek. I briefed Montek about the discussions in the PMO. ‘Barkis is willin’,’ he quipped, quoting the famous line from David Copperfield to confirm his interest in the job. When I told him that the Left seemed to be blocking his entry, he replied that he would speak to Prabhat Patnaik, his contemporary from college and now a leading Left intellectual.

  Late that evening, I found the PM still in South Block. In the few days I had been there, I would usually see him leave around 7 p.m. for RCR. Intrigued by the fact that he was in his office well beyond that hour, I came out of my room to see what was happening, found the door of the visitors’ room open and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury waiting there. He had escorted his party boss Harkishan Singh Suqeet, the general secretary of the CPI(M), to South Block. The PM and Surjeet were closeted inside Dr Singh’s room. I chatted for a while with Yechury, whom I knew as Sita from our schooldays in Hyderabad and learnt from him that the opposition to Montek’s name was not the handiwork of the Left but of economist Arjun Sengupta. Arjun (now deceased) had been a member of the Planning Commission during Narasimha Rao’s time and had been an economic adviser in the Indira Gandhi PMO in the early 1980s. Then close to Pranab Mukherjee, he had been leveraging his connections with the Left to become deputy chairman. When Surjeet and Sita left, I went to see the PM to find out what had transpired, but by then he was already on his way out.

  The first thing I did the next morning was to go across to RCR and ask him why Surjeet had come to call on him. He merely said, ‘Montek will be deputy chairman.’ But his smile, exuding both mischief and triumph, gave the game away. One wily Sardar had secured the support of another wily Sardar to get a third one on board.

  The episode gave me some interesting insights into Dr Singh’s ways. Clearly, he had made up his mind to give Montek the job well before he staged that internal debate within the PMO. Before he could get Surjeet to support his plan, he needed arguments to be made to fob off the party hopefuls and the likes of Arjun Sengupta. I had been drafted to make them. It was a role I would be called upon to play on many occasions.

  On 16 June, Montek’s appointment was announced. On the 18th The Hindu quoted anonymous ‘Left leaders’ expressing their disapproval of his appointment. I heard subsequently that the CPI(M)’s Prakash Karat was furious with Surjeet for giving Dr Singh the go-ahead. This was an early pointer to the differences between Surjeet and Karat. To ease the situation, the Left was then approached for a name to be included in the Commission and they suggested Abhijit Sen, a professor at JNU.

  About six months into UPA-1, early on the morning of 3 January 2005, Mani Dixit died of a massive heart attack. His sudden death shocked and saddened Dr Singh. It also put at risk the foreign policy agenda. Dr Singh knew that Mani was capable of taking on the more conservative elements in the Indian foreign policy establishment. With him gone, the danger of Dr Singh’s foreign policy falling prey to Congress party and South Block conservatives was real. Dr Singh realized that he would now have to personally handle things that he could have trusted Mani with.

  On the morning of Mani’s death, the PM was to go to Ahmedabad to address the Indian Science Congress. He first went to Mani’s house, met his wife, Anu, and their family, and drove straight to the airport. He sat shell-shocked, all alone, in his cabin and looked drawn and tired through the day. He issued instructions that Mani should be given a ceremonial funeral at the Delhi cantonment. As the NSA he was, after all, technically the head of the newly emerging nuclear command and the service chiefs reported to him. As soon as he returned to Delhi that evening, the PM issued orders naming the deputy NSA, Satish Chandra, a career diplomat, as acting NSA.

  Soon after, the succession struggle began. The foreign service officers in the PMO, Vikram Doraiswamy and Sujata Mehta, seemed keen on regularizing Chandra’s appointment as NSA. I viewed this as motivated by foreign service loyalty. Dr Singh was clearly not keen on this option but he did not name anyone else either for a full three weeks. Hindustan Times reported that three names were being considered for the job, including India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan, Satinder Lambah, the Indian ambassador in Washington DC, Ronen Sen, and of course, the PMO’s very own M.K. Narayanan.

  The Indian Foreign Service had clearly come to view the NSA’s job as its turf. Both Brajesh and Mani belonged to this service. Thus, the media was effectively deployed by this lobby to debunk MK’s claim. Vir Sanghvi wrote a column in HT dubbing Narayanan a ‘flat-footed policeman’ and pushing the idea that the NSA ought to be from the foreign service. As the days went by, the media became curious about what was going on in decision-making circles and began floating various names.

  One day, I asked Dr Singh if he had made up his mind about what to do. He told me he hadn’t, and added, ‘Will you please ask Subrahmanyam what he thinks I should do?’

  That evening I drove to Subrahmanyam’s DDA flat in Vasant Kunj. We went over the pros and cons of vario
us names being mentioned in the media. He was not sure if Satish Chandra would be the right man for the job but had high regard for both Satinder Lambah and Ronen Sen. ‘In any case,’ he said to me, ‘the NSA should be someone that the PM implicitly trusts.’ At the end of a long evening, with Mrs Subrahmanyam plying us with tea, he suggested three options.

  Option One: Use this opportunity to implement the original idea of moving the NSA out of the PMO. In this case, the NSA’s role would have to be redefined more in line with the role played by the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. This would mean the NSA need not be an IAS or IFS or even IPS officer. He could be from the services, or from a scientific organization or even from a think tank.