Political India is about one person: India’s Prime Minister.
If strong and charismatic, the Prime Minister of India spreads over more than political India. Everything about India then becomes the Prime Minister’s arena.
India’s identity comes then to be identified with that leader. India’s image, her weight, her worth in the world of power games, of economic status, of technological and scientific stature. Including, very particularly, India’s position in the world of war-weaponry.
And so, in a sense, the very destiny-conscious people of India see in the Prime Minister the palladium of her destiny.
When the Prime Minister of India is neither politically strong nor, in terms of personal charisma, a key-turner, then a kind of fog comes to surround that office. It turns hazy, remote and strangely unimportant. Decisions taken by such a Prime Minister, even of key moments, then look like coins minted by unstable occupants of the throne of Delhi — not in proven metals but aspirant alloys.
Decisions of significance taken by the government of India may be on the letter-paper of one or another Ministry but are, in reality, those of the Prime Minister of the day.
Neerja Chowdhury | Photo Credit: twitter
Process and performance
Neerja Chowdhury’s book, How Prime Ministers Decide, on how six Prime Ministers of India took major decisions is about that process, often opaque, frequently inscrutable, invariably calculated to enhance the Prime Minister’s standing with the people and trump the Opposition. When such decisions are taken exclusively in the interests of the nation, completely distinct from that of the ruling party or the Prime Minister, they may be taken to be the exception that proves the rule.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in Manipuri traditional attire with the folk dancers of Manipur at the Republic Day celebrations, in New Delhi on January 29, 1984. | Photo Credit: PIB
But the book is about more. It is about the political chemistry of those six and includes the fantasies of some of them, their phobias, their compulsions, their vulnerabilities. And naturally, it describes the way their decisions panned out — to their, their party’s and the nation’s good or ill.
There is great rigour in this veteran journalist’s analysis of her subjects. This is the rigour imposed by a commitment to what can be best described as veracity. She is not out to show any of her chosen six in poor light or make her word-pictures of them exciting. That some of their actions do indeed reflect poorly on their intentions and happen, almost in spite of the writer’s aim, to make for sheer reading pleasure is another matter. She is not out to show them in flattering light either. That some of the things they did went beyond small motives, to serve larger goals, is also another story.
Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh being greeted by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi before his swearing-in ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, on December 2, 1989. | Photo Credit: UNI
Chowdhury seeks to share her knowledge gleaned over decades, of her subjects’ thought-paths, working methods and political instincts. And she does it with a raconteur’s aplomb combined with a chronicler’s punctiliousness.
The six Prime Ministers she has chosen out of the 15 are Indira Gandhi (‘I am the issue’), Rajiv Gandhi (‘gravitas and poise’), Vishwanath Pratap Singh (‘crafty’, ‘messiah’), P.V. Narasimha Rao (‘scholarly’, ‘superstitious’), A.B. Vajpayee (‘walking slowly’, ‘forlornly’, ‘sombre’), Manmohan Singh (‘So be it’) come alive in her narration as no biography of any of them can hope to match, let alone better.
And they do that through the one method that any biographer would trade his pen or her pen-drive for: the one-on-one interview, conducted in the hush of confidence and the bestowal of trust. But not in secrecy, knowing full well that the interviewer is putting the almost whispered words on record for the purpose of publication, so that when it is published, there will be no distortion, no sensationalism, no voyeurism. The one being interviewed will (she/he would hope) stand vindicated. So great and so real is the trust reposed by Chowdhury’s interlocutors in her intentions (no ‘expose’ for the sake of drama, no ‘tell-all’ for the sake of scandal’s sales, just recording what happened, why and how and, perhaps, ‘why ever?’).
Candid tellings
As one who has been inured in the civil service’s nostrums of ‘official secrets’ and ‘hierarchical propriety’, I am amazed at the way officers and diplomats have made the choice between sterile tightlipped-ness and frank recollections. Chowdhury’s narrative rings bell-metal true because she says with a candour that is almost incredible for it is so rare: ‘...told me’, ‘...disclosed’, ‘...revealed’. And those ‘tellings’ by a host of her respondents to the ‘me’ in Chowdhury being on record, and therefore verifiable, irrefutable and incontrovertible, add up to a living archive, a speaking book. It makes each of the personal recounting — the staple of the book — an honest confessional, almost cathartic for the speaker.
Dr. Manmohan Singh and P.V. Narasimha Rao in New Delhi, in April 1995. | Photo Credit: UNI
Chowdhury’s book about the six Prime Ministers brings into its scope the political and professional thought-partners and colleagues (I will not describe them as cronies or collaborators) of those six without, to use a hackneyed phrase, affection or ill-will. Chowdhury just lets them talk, talk and talk. And they do that. Result? The biographical equivalent of the records of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It wrings veracity out of reticence, ownings and acknowledgings out of wordless consciences, and history out of closeted memories.
That a large number of those quoted in the book are still around and can vouch for the accuracy of her recounting only seals the trust quotient of her book.
Warts and all
Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa in New Delhi, in May 1998. | Photo Credit: PTI
A final word: Chowdhury, somewhere in her narrative sees its dramatis personae as humans who as humans are inherently and unavoidably flawed. They are as part of an imperfect genera, species that should and can but every so often do not overcome their limitations. The Prime Minister who emerges virtually unscathed by Time’s witnessings as recorded by Chowdhury, is Dr. Manmohan Singh — a felicity I heartily endorse.
A surprising lack in the book may be mentioned. The South of India is far from its gaze. For instance, while Jayalalithaa’s ‘tantrums’ with Vajpayee are touched upon, Kamaraj gets a bare mention, Karunanidhi figures but twice fleetingly and has his name mis-spelt in the index and MGR plays truant.
How Prime Ministers Decide; Neerja Chowdhury, Aleph, ₹799.
The reviewer is a former administrator, diplomat and Governor.
Published - August 17, 2023 04:00 pm IST
