A Maverick Whose Instinct Worked | N. Sathiya Moorthy

BOOK REVIEW

A Maverick in Politics

by Mani Shankar Aiyar

Juggernaut

Pages: 410 Price: Rs 711
ISBN: 9789353457679

At a time when commentaries on current affairs have become a rarity, three-term Congress MP, Mani Shankar Aiyar’s ‘A Maverick in Politics (1991-2004)’ is something that Gen Z enthusiasts of the Indian political scenario can well do with. Yes, it is one man’s view, his perspective on the events and developments, as a follow-up to the first part of his autobiography, and is mainly subjective in matter.

Yet, it is the kind of book that refers to issues and developments that had marked and/or marred Indian history in the post-Rajiv Gandhi era. Considering that the author was/is a Rajiv loyalist, having served the then Prime Minister as a speech-writer, the former member of the prestigious Indian Foreign Service (IFS) makes it a compelling prose, as well.

To be fair to Aiyar, he had a small fan-club for his language and writing skills, after Kushwant Singh and before Sashi Tharoor hit the scene running. In the book that is sprayed with fun and pun all through, ‘A Maverick in Politics’ may not be your last word on contemporary Indian politics but can very well be among the first word thereof.

That is also because, true to form, the author has limited his observations mostly to information that was personally privy to him, without going as far as to endorse or contest other views and perspectives available to him at the time of those events. This aspect of the book makes it a near-honest appraisal of things past, and makes individual assessments of the times equally so.

Take for instance, Aiyar writing about what then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao told him about his ‘Ram-Rahim Yatra’, which was the author’s personal response to the much bigger, more sinister ‘Ayodhya Rath Yatra’ of rival BJP leader Lal Kishen Advani, which led to the demolition of the contested Ayodhya site in end-1992. According to Aiyar, Rao had told him how ‘India is a Hindu State’, a view held by the BJP-RSS then and propagated by the present-day government leaders, since.

This particular one sentence, which remains uncontested, should put the lid on the controversy surrounding PM Rao’s strategic silence on the day of Ayodhya demolition, 6 December 1992. It is another matter, Rao’s supporters within the ruling Congress Party put out the story that by literally sleeping over the demolition, the Prime Minister had also sealed the electoral fate of the BJP rival, at least for the time being.

After all, the BJP was strong (only) on politics, driven by its evolving Hindutva agenda at the time, and was a big zero on the economy, which Team Rao, with Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, had made as the nation’s chief agenda of the times – and successfully so. Yet, when it came to the controversial ‘Harshad Mehta scam’, Aiyar claims that the Prime Minister had deliberately distanced himself from the fallout of criticism from the political Opposition and the public alike – allowing Singh, the fall guy. If the latter’s turn came in his second term as the UPA-II Prime Minister, when Singh distanced himself from all the governmental scams, but as ineffectively as his one-time mentor, Aiyar does not say so.

Where Aiyar fails as a raconteur is in not providing an adequate backgrounder about both issues, and such other issues, with the result a casual reader unfamiliar with the subjects under discussion is sure to lose the import of the final outcomes. After all, much was happening all around in both cases, both in capital Delhi and across the country, especially on the ‘Ayodhya front’, but the book has not brought out the multiple dimensions – for reasons already stated.

For instance, when the Harshad Mehta scam was unfolding in the capital Delhi, the BJP-sympathetic (at least at the time!) Supreme Court lawyer Ram Jethmalani told newsmen in distant Chennai, then Madras, how the scandalous stock-broker had claimed to have personally delivered a suitcase with Rs 1 crore at the Prime Minister’s official residence. It was another matter that hours before Jethmalani’s Chennai news conference, copies of his Press Note had made their way to the BJP national executive, meeting in Bengaluru, then Bangalore.

Made, unmade

Of course, enough has been written since the publication of the book about Aiyar’s views on how his political career was ‘made and unmade’ by the Gandhis, rather, the Nehru-Gandhi clan. He has detailed his three meetings with Sonia Gandhi over two decades and the revival of his electoral hopes – only to be denied the Congress ticket from native Mayiladuthurai constituency in Tamil Nadu (supposedly by Rahul Gandhi).

As is known, the ubiquitous high command hurriedly suspended Aiyar from the Congress Party over his ‘controversial remarks’ about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but he continues to plead his innocence in the matter – but to no avail. This begs the question as to the real reason, if any, for the Congress so very completely side-lining him, and if the high command was possibly waiting for an opportunity to do it. That reason remains a mystery still, and will remain so unless other principal players come up with their version(s). It is another matter that other Congress spokesmen might have said worse things about PM Modi, but only after they were seemingly convinced that the latter’s proverbial honeymoon with the voter was behind them.

Otherwise, Aiyar was synonymous with Rajiv Gandhi’s Panchayati Raj initiatives, something that one does not associate with a member of the elite IFS who had gone to Doon School, Dehradun. Until the political weather began blowing against him, or rather consumed him, his heart was set on the track. Today, minus Aiyar, ‘Project Panchayati Raj’ has been languishing for want of a promoter and propagator.

There is of course no denying Aiyar’s over-reach on the subject. He had convinced the then Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa that a system similar to the Panchayati Raj was the best solution for the island-nation’s vexatious ethnic issue and the consequent civil war. Up to a stage, the Rajapaksas too took it seriously and offered it as an alternative to the Tamil leaders, who were aghast at the proposal.

After all, they were fighting for a provinces-based solution, which again Aiyar’s mentor, Rajiv Gandhi, had obtained for them through the India-Sri Lanka Accord, 1987. The expectation was that Aiyar, for one, would press the case for the full implementation of the provincial scheme, enshrined in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. After all, Sri Lanka has had its District Development Councils scheme, which was seen as a failure and also inadequate to meet the ‘legitimate aspirations’ of the Tamil people, as Rajiv Gandhi and Establishment India had seen it, all along.

Last but not the least, Aiyar was also the all-important Petroleum Minister under Manmohan Singh’s UPA-I. Like with the Panchayati Raj, he was known to have done his homework sincerely and seriously and consulted a wide range of academics familiar with multiple aspects of the subject. That did keep him in good stead, though not always to the liking of influential players in the industry – or, so it felt, at times.

Political instinct

At the end of the day, no one listened to Aiyar’s cautioning the Congress leadership, often through public platforms and his media columns, about the impending disaster that awaited the party in the face of the Commonwealth Games fiasco and others that marked the downfall of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from where Finance Minister Manmohan Singh had left him. He was also of the view that it was time for Singh to be elevated (kicked upstairs?) as President while Pranab Mukherjee took over as Prime Minister.

Was it among Aiyar’s sins that cost him his political future? Whatever that be, as his predictions showed, the Congress-led UPA-2 lost the historic parliamentary polls of 2014, thanks to the scams that negatively impacted on the party and the government – and which image and imagery the Congress leadership is yet to live down, for it to make a come-back in any of the three elections in a row, ending the one in 2024.

And that was saying something for his political instinct, which many peers had concluded was no substitute for their long years of experience, grassroots, upwards. If thus, Aiyar now feels like quoting the Shakespearean line, ‘Had I but served my God….’, so be it!

— Chennai 15 January 2025

(Review author: N. Sathiya Moorthy is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator)