BOOK REVIEW - A MAVERICK IN POLITICS by MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

           

                                                    

                                   THE  PERPETUAL  OUTSIDER

I first heard of Mani Shankar Aiyar sometime in 1990 when I was serving with Mr. I.K. Gujral, the Minister of External Affairs in V.P. Singh's government. The Pakistan Foreign Minster had called on Mr. Gujral at South Block and they were reminiscing over old times when the conversation turned to Indian diplomats who had served in that country. Somehow, Mani's (as he was known to both friends and foes alike) name cropped up (he had recently resigned from the IFS and had joined the Congress). The Pakistani Minister chuckled and said: "Oh, Mani! You know, your Excellency, that old adage about Mani being the root of all evil?" And thereby hangs the "maverick" tag!

Thereafter, I would occasionally read about him in the papers, as he made his way through politics like an IED, but never had the chance to meet him. And then, one day in 2023, he suddenly dropped in at my Mashobra cottage with Mrs. Aiyar and a friend. We spent a couple of very pleasant hours over coffee, leaving me with the impression that here was a man with an almost photographic memory of events, an acerbic sense of humour that could shred a reputation in no time with a few well chosen words, further blessed with the story telling powers of a master raconteur! And these three unusual traits are all too evident in this book. Which makes it eminently interesting and readable; Mani pulls no punches and takes no prisoners!

This is the second volume of his memoirs. It begins with his joining the Congress and winning his first Parliament election. He is a quick learner for someone handicapped with a career in  bureaucracy, is eager to dive deep into his constituency's problems, to ensure its development by taking initiatives in industrialisation, shrimp farming, food processing, setting up IT units, tourism promotion. He works hard, in the words of a friend does his best to turn "Mayiladuturai first into a Dubai and then a Hawaii"  but loses his next election, acknowledging the wisdom of IK Gural's advice to him: no MP ever wins a re-election on the basis of his "development work", success is all about alliances, tie-ups, community profiles, etc. He is utterly honest about his failings and deficiencies as a freshly minted politician, but uses them, not as excuses, but as stepping stones to the Union cabinet subsequently.

Aiyar makes a fine distinction between striking a balance between being a "National MP" and a "Constituency MP", and goes on to regale us with little known anecdotes in performing his duties as both- about the events leading up to the Babri masjid demolition, his Ram Rahim yatra to counter the "kar-sewaks", the renaming of Connaught Place as Rajiv Chowk, the Harshad Mehta scam, the ENRON fiasco, the Verma Commission report on Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, the upgrading of diplomatic relations with Israel (which the author considered as a "betrayal"  of Palestine), the twists and turns leading up to Sonia Gandhi declining the Prime Ministership in 2004 (according to Aiyar, solely because of Rahul Gandhi's opposition to it on the grounds of his mother's safety). He is particularly acidic on someone I suspect he did not like- the then Prime Minster Narasimha Rao- but in his trademark acerbic and humorous style. About Rao's now well established masterful inactivity in the days leading up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Aiyar's tongue-in-cheek observation is: "Narasimha Rao has proved that death is not a necessary precondition for rigor mortis to set in." And in case the reader does not get it, he goes on to add that : "Rao knew 18 languages but could not make up his mind in any of them!" The book is liberally peppered with similar mot justes (as we have come to expect from him) and it makes for delightful reading.

Of particular interest are little known vignettes: why Aiyar thinks Pranab Mukherjee should have been made the Prime Minister and Manmohan Singh the President in 2012; how the government mishandled the India Against Corruption agitation and the Baba Ramdev episode; the reasons for his expulsion from the Congress in 2017, something even his Party President was not aware of !; what compelled him to briefly join the Trinamool Congress but return to the GOP in quick order.    

Appointed Cabinet Minister in UPA I, he was given the substantive portfolio of Panchayati Raj and the "temporary" charge of Petroleum and Natural Gas-which lasted for 20 months! Aiyar devotes a full 60 pages to the latter stint (a bit excessive in my view) but perhaps justified in his mind by the initiatives he took to secure India's energy security through new explorations, creating an Asian alliance to counter the western stranglehold on petro-chemicals and striving to build the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) and MBI (Myanmar-Bangladesh-India) pipelines. He candidly admits that he failed, in large part because of stone-walling and turf-guarding by his own parent Ministry of External Affairs and the oil oligarchs of India.

Aiyar's true love, however, is Panchayati Raj and it has been a life-long obsession with him and his mentor, Rajiv Gandhi. He was a votary of local self-governance even earlier, and was made the  Minister of this new Department from 2004-2009: if it has taken constitutional and administrative shape today (however imperfect in practice) he must be given full credit for it. He pursued the idea vigorously, with the cabinet, other Ministries and state governments . The basic concept- making rural India the hub of the country's growth ambitions- had also been the unrealised dream of Mahatma Gandhi: to coopt the village in the preparation, monitoring, prioritisation and funding of development plans. Extending this to the Fifth Schedule areas, where Naxalism had become embedded, the author feels, was the only way to solve the militancy: grass-roots democracy and local empowerment, not para-military guns, was the antidote to this continued violence. Regrettably, even though the PESA had been legislated in 1996, it was never allowed to function to its expected potential.

Aiyar candidly admits that here also he failed, since panchayti raj was "an area of little or no interest to anybody." He reveals in some detail how, even though he had the Prime Minister's support, he was opposed at every turn by Chief Ministers, the Home Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the Planning Commission under his old friend, Montek Singh Ahluwalia-all reluctant to share power and control of resources with village level institutions. In typical caustic humour, he has this to say of Montek: "the only Village Montek knew was the one in Lower Manhattan."

He has an interesting take on why Panchayati Raj has not taken off in the country- the omission in the Constitution to embed local self-governance in the scheme of governance. This was primarily due to the opposition of Ambedkar who regarded villages as "a den of ignorance...leaving the Scheduled Castes in a state of...degradation, dishonour and ignominy." The second problem is that it remained a state subject, ensuring that Rajiv Gandhi's "passion died with him". Aiyar is nothing if not brutal in his honesty.

Two more charges later (Sports and DONER), it was time for the next Parliament elections (2009), which Aiyar lost. This was the beginning of his political decline within his own party, hastened by the "chaiwallah" and "neech kisam ka aadmi" remarks about Modi. Politicians like nothing better than finding scapegoats for their failures, and who better than a Cambridge educated Brahmin with no base within his own party? With his Rajya Sabha term ending in March 2016, the Congress firmly turned his back on him, vindicating the prophetic words of Rajiv Gandhi to him in 1990: "This system will never accept you." As he wryly admits, the family which had built his political career also ensured its end.

What engages me most about this book, however, is not just Mani Shankar the politician, but Mani Shankar the man. He towers head and shoulders above most of his political colleagues in sheer intellect, and has an ego to match. But he wears his heart on his sleeve and is brutally honest, almost to a fault. He cannot dissemble and is completely transparent: what you see is what you get, and if you don't like what you see, you can lump it. Not that he gives a damn!

He comes out as a man of principles, strong beliefs and firm values, and is not ready to compromise on them: the Nehruvian ideals of socialism, the need to regulate a capitalist economy and not let it run amok, making villages the hub of economic development through an enlightened Panchayati Raj, treating Naxalism as a development/ resource exploitation issue and not as a law-and-order one, the imperatives of economic and social equity, the belief in Rajiv Gandhi's vision of nuclear disarmament, the importance of engaging in a sustained dialogue with Pakistan, giving up the bullying attitude towards a neighbour like Nepal, the continued support for Palestine. Not only is he tenacious in holding on to his beliefs, but he is also not reticent in expressing them publicly, as when he opposed the holding of extravagant Games tamashas like Commonwealth Games or Asiad in Delhi (India should "become a sporting nation before it takes to being a sports-hosting nation") and steadfastly opposed Kalmadi's shenanigans within the CWG, much to the annoyance of the Congress leadership. This, according to Aiyar, was one factor which permanently alienated him from the Gandhi family. It is, I suppose, small consolation that, thanks to his rules-based stand on the CWG, he did not have to go to Tihar like Kalmadi did! Or that most of his apprehensions have come true.

Where the reader really gets to know the man, however, is in Chapters 14 and 15 (Musings and Reflections of a Long Life), in which Aiyar lets down his guard, takes off his gloves, and shares with us his innermost thoughts - about his upbringing, his family, his core convictions, the misgivings about the ugly changes taking place in Modi's India, the role of character in shaping a man's destiny, the paradoxes in his own character responsible for both his successes and failures, the regret that he could never gain the confidence and trust of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. There is something poignant in these  confessions of a man who has reflected deeply, felt intensely, believed tenaciously, and strived to maintain his intellectual integrity at all times. In today's transactional India that is reason enough to wear the "Outsider" tag as a badge of honour.

TWO CASES AND TWO JUDGES - A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR INDIA

The second week of December has been a pivotal period for the Indian judiciary, a week in which it has both plumbed the depths of  ignominy, AND simultaneously raised aloft the flag of our constitutional principles. This paradox has been persisting for some time with no corrective action being taken, but it has now come to a head and can no longer be ignored. 

This was the week in which a superior court judge, Justice Shekhar Yadav of the Allahabad High Court, decided that the time was ripe for him to walk out of the  closet in resplendent saffron robes, a kind of perverted Second Coming. We should not have been surprised, of course, for the general portents had been there for a long time among his fraternity, in judgments and obiter dicta: the tet-e-tete with deities for guidance, the call to declare the cow as the national animal, the expressed fear that if conversions are allowed Hindus would become a minority, the verbal defenestration of the Places of Worship Act, the indecent haste in ordering surveys and excavations in mosques, the confession by another judge that he had always been an RSS admirer, the admission of a judge into a political party just days after retiring. But we saw these as mere flirtations-till Justice Yadav decided to tell the whole world about his torrid and hitherto unspoken love affair with the religious right.

In brazenly attending a function of a strident Hindu organisation, by calling Muslims "kathmullahs", in asserting that this country would be governed by the wishes of the majority religion, by diagnosing Muslims as being devoid of any compassion because they slaughter goats, by expressing the view that their children have violence instilled in their pysche, and casting other abominable slurs on the practitioners of this religion, this judge crossed many red lines, lines which had started becoming blurred since 2014 but had not been entirely wiped away.

It is learnt that some Opposition parties have submitted an impeachment motion against him in Parliament; this will be symbolic at best since the government, as per usual practice, is not likely to support the motion and the former lack the numbers. The Supreme Court has asked the Allahabad High Court for a report and summoned the offending judge, and one hopes that it will take the strictest possible action if the report confirms that Justice Yadav violated his oath of office, the Constitution and the Restatement of Judicial values reiterated by the SC. Mere censure or withdrawal of judicial work is not punitive enough- Justice Yadav can no longer be trusted with the administration of justice, he has exposed unrepentently his biases and religious bigotry. The CJI should ask him to resign, and if he does not do so then the SC should recommend his impeachment to both the President and the Prime Minister. The moral imperative in such a message shall make it well nigh impossible for the government to oppose the impeachment motion brought by the opposition parties. This corrective action is essential to retrieve some of the ethical capital which the judiciary has lost in the last few years.

But all was not Cimmerian darkness this week, for, with the change of Chief Justice of India, a beacon which had gone out was switched on again.

A much awaited and much needed judicial high was achieved on the 12th of this month when another shameful legacy of the previous CJI was dismantled by the his successor, Justice Sanjeev Khanna. By injuncting all further petitions and surveys of places of places of worship (read "mosques and dargahs") and restraining all courts from passing any orders on pending cases, he has largely undone the horrific damage Chandrachud had done to our social fabric. CJI Khanna has done more to protect the integrity and plurality of our country and its Constitution in one day than what his predecessor could in two years. Equally important, he has now forced the Central government to file its response to the constitutional challenge to the Places of Worship Act, within four weeks.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. Modi's government reacts in both cases- the impeachment notice against Justice Yadav and the challenge to the POW Act. Will it stick to its unstated intention to suborn the judiciary and its stated aim of demolishing all mosques (I believe more than 1800 of them have been identified for this honour, but this is probably an underestimation), or will it bite the bullet and plump for upholding the law and the Constitution? Somehow, no matter how hard I try, I cannot visualise the latter denouement. But ripping the mask off the face of despotism and bigotry is in itself no mean achievement in these precarious times.

These two cases present a watershed moment for the country, and how our institutions respond to them will determine for the forseeable future the direction in which  the history of this country shall flow.

DIGITAL IMMORTALITY IS ALREADY HERE !

 In his seminal and thought provoking book, HOMO DEUS, Yuval Noah Harari has some very interesting observations about mankind's quest for immortality. He postulates that, having triumphed over starvation (famines), disease (plagues) and violence (war),- the primary cause of deaths over the centuries- mankind in the 21st and 22nd centuries will strive to conquer death and to achieve immortality. For modern homo sapiens death is a technical problem, and for every technical problem there is a technical solution. Harari believes that the pathway to immortality could be found through genetic engineering, regenerative medicine and nanotechnology. Actually, he prefers the phrase "amortal" to "immortal" as people could still die from unexpected accidents, but human life itself (he believes) will no longer come with an expiry date.                                                                                                                                                                                      This is an extremely thought provoking- if not downright provocative- thesis, but maybe we are beginning to see the first shoots of this postulation in the American billionaire, Bryan Johnson, who has made it his goal to not die- to reverse aging and to live to the age of 150 at least, if not become immortal. To achieve this he is using the same three tools Harari had mentioned, and spends two million dollars a year on this effort. He is turning his body, in the words of TIME magazine, into an anti-aging algorithm, is 45 years old but has the body of a 18 year old. He is being closely observed by medical experts, this man who thinks he can live forever and has even written a book whose title is- what else?- DON'T DIE!

But you may well ask- why am I telling you all this?

Because, though biological immortality may still be some way in the future, digital immortality is already beginning to happen. It's something most of us are looking forward to, to reconnect with our loved ones. For instance, we all have our social and familial wealth on our Whatsapp, and if you happen to belong to my vintage (the 1950s or earlier), with every passing year we are beginning to lose some of that emotional capital: one or two accounts are perforce closed every year - loved ones, friends, family members who have handed in their chips and crossed that big rainbow. How many times, on a dreary and cold winter evening, have I  wished that one could chat with them again, exchange an emoji or two, forward a Twitter joke or cartoon? Sadly, they have gone long before before Harari's predictions about immortality could come true. But wait! Digital immortality may be at our doorstep.

The age-old methods for staying in touch or contacting our deceased loved ones have been things like planchette, the ouija board, seances or communicating through a medium. But now digital innovations and AI seem to be taking over. We all leave behind digital footprints on a huge scale- emails, WA chats, posts on platforms like X, Instagram, Facebook, videos on Youtube etc. Emerging digital tools work by datamining this wealth of information to recreate, in a macabre way resurrect, as it were, the person who is no longer with us.

Generative AI, by using the vast power of face and voice recognition technology, can literally recreate the person and make him or her virtually alive again through virtual avatars or holograms He/she can talk to you again on your smart phone, with the same voice and diction you recognise, as if they were flesh and blood again! You can reminisce with them again about past events, friends, relatives,  like they had never left. The algorithms know more about this departed person than you ever did, and can make them virtually alive again, to a point where you wouldn't know the difference.

This digital afterlife is still a few years in the future, but not too far away. Companies like Hereafter, My Wishes and Hanson Robotics are already working on this technology, combining technology with data about the deceased person- memories, texts, personality traits, previous conversations, photos - to enable him or her to interact with you posthumously. It is even possible for someone to leave pre-recorded messages while alive to be sent after death, to maintain the illusion of being present even after death!

These digital afterlife technologies may go some way in offering some comfort and emotional release to those left behind, but they will come with their own set of ethical and legal challenges, including privacy rights, the commercial (and perhaps unauthorised) use of this digital immortality. As Ardif Perdana explains in a brilliant article in the Deccan Herald, governments will have to grapple with these issues, including laws to govern the bequeathing/ ownership of the digital estate left behind by the deceased, just as they have provided for the physical estate. 

Mankind has always been good at creating illusions, the practitioners ranging from spiritual leaders to magicians to politicians to sorcerers to con-men. The digital afterlife will also be an illusion and some may find fault with it. But then again, one is reminded of the words of the Buddha, Aldous Huxley and Albert Einstein- all of whom had said in unequivocal terms that reality is only an illusion. To which I can only add, with the utmost humility- choose your reality, go with the one that comforts you most; comfort and happiness are also illusions, but they make life bearable. While it lasts.

HIMACHAL' S GAME OF SNACKS AND LADDERS

This has been a particularly bad year for Himachal and its embattled Chief Minister, Mr. Sukhu. He has certainly grabbed the TRPs but they are of the negative, Arnab Goswami and Navika Kumar type. Actually, the year began well, in pure eye-ball terms, with our own raging torrent, Kangana Ranaut, occupying the headlines with her sensational win in the Mandi Parliamentary seat. But the torrent soon became a rafting rapids which the BJP kayaks and jan-nayaks found impossible to navigate; she was told to shut up and the snowy peaks of the state have since been deprived of her yodelling rendition of history and politics, more's the pity.

This TRP vacuum was quickly filled, however, with what has now come to be known as the Samosa Kand, not to be confused with Mr. Amit Shah's earlier Pakora theory. It appears that the Chief Minister was presiding over an official function at the Police HQ, and some samosas (at Rs.150 per piece!) were ordered for his refreshment, but they were mistakenly delivered to his security staff: the CM didn't even get a whiff of them. An inquiry was ordered into this "anti-government" activity and some cops even suspended. The mountains are still reverberating with the peals of laughter this episode engendered, quite unfairly, in my view. Because this was a matter of serious portent. For one, the price of the samosa goes a long way to explain why the state has gone belly-up, financially. Ex Finance Secretaries who, in their times were allowed only two Parle-G biscuits, fumed that at the very least an open tender should have been placed in at least ten newspapers for the said delicacies, never mind if that cost five times what the samosa did; rules, after all, are rules! Secondly, and even more seriously, this was a security lapse- if today the CM's samosas can find their way to some hungry cops, tomorrow it may be secret files intended for "his eyes only" or even party funds for "your pockets only". How long, one may ask, can democracy survive if such things are allowed to happen?

                                       

Barely had the fragrance of the samosas dispersed when another stench enveloped the state- a Toilet Tax- confirming that the Chief Minister's advisors had really gone potty, as it were. A tax was imposed on every toilet seat, in order to flush out some more revenue from the sewer lines. As could be expected, there was an immediate uproar, with citizens pointing to the inequity of life: Mrs. Sitharaman's GST taxed everything that went in and now Mr. Sukhu was taxing everything that went out; legal experts opined that this was double taxation and therefore illegal. The government, I learn, is reconsidering the matter, but in the interim no one is holding his or her breath or, for that matter, anything else. After all, when you gotta go you gotta go.

The state had not yet plumbed the bottom, however (to continue with the toilet imagery).  News emerged in September that Himachal had gone practically bankrupt when salaries and pensions were not disbursed on schedule. With an annual budget of Rs. 56000 crore and a population of only 7 million, you'd expect that the state was rolling in the gravy. After all, this translates to Rs. 80000 per Himachali, man, female and transgender-enough, surely, to keep them warm in winter and drunk throughout the year? But never put anything beyond a politician's skills-within two years the state has gone bankrupt, what with unnecessary expenditure on four lane highways, ambitious airports, a platoon of Advisors and superannuated deadwood, free (or subsidised) water, electricity, bus rides, an MSP for cow dung, and what have you. So now the state's debt has crossed Rs. 80000 crore, and there's only one solution to this crisis, in my view.

Hand it over to Mr. Adani (who is already there, making a killing out of buying apples cheaply and selling them at the price of your family jewels). The state should be declared bankrupt and brought before the NCLT under the Bankruptcy Code, with some Adani acolyte like Mahesh Jethmalani or Madhavi Buch appointed as Resolution Professional. Mr. Adani could then buy the state (when he is released on bail by the USA, that is) at the going rate of 10% of the outstanding debt, or about Rs. 8000 crore. It would be a (Monal) feather in his cap. He owns everything except a state government (de jure, I mean, not just de facto); as CEO of a state government he would acquire sovereign immunity from the charges in the USA and could cock a snook at the FBI and its Justice Department. He will, of course, have to contest elections in due course but that is easily taken care of- when the CEC, Rajeev Kumar's tenure expires in the Election Commission, Mr. Adani could reemploy him as CFO (Chief Fiddling Officer): his vast experience in such matters would ensure that Mr. Adani would win by twice the number of  votes cast.

So what does this say about the Chief Minister's myriad Advisors? That is best answered by a joke which was related to me by an attractive World Bank Advisor many years ago at a dinner in Washington DC: An architect, an engineer and a UN advisor (so the joke goes) were having a drink in a bar, discussing which profession should get the credit for creating the Universe. The architect insisted that it was architects who conceived the plan, positioned the planets, stars and suns in a composite whole to ensure that they rotated around each other: they in effect brought order into the primordial Chaos. The engineer disagreed, saying that the basic structure, gravity and atmospheres of the planets were designed by engineers, which made life possible in some of them; it was engineers who gave life and meaning to this Chaos. Throughout the heated arguments, the UN advisor sat quietly, legs crossed and with a bemused smile on her lips. Finally, the other two asked her what the contribution of Advisors was. She uncrossed her legs, leaned forward slightly, and replied softly : "Who do you think created the Chaos?" 

That, dear friends, may go a long way to explain why Himachal refuses to go out of the news these days, and why Mr. Sukhu could do with fewer advisors.