Politically Correct Alexander? Not Always

His very first chapter deals with events as recent as the election of the President of India in 2002. Alexander recounts with bitter irony how an eminent and dedicated public servant like himself, who had been closely associated with three Congress prime ministers (Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao), was tricked out of the highest office through low and base intrigue. In this riveting political drama, scripted as a high-paced thriller, Alexander assigns to Natwar Singh the role of the chief of the ‘dirty tricks’ department and the main hatchet man. It was Natwar who’s said to have informed the Congress president that Alexander had ‘wangled’ a second term as governor of Maharashtra. In other words, he had joined the enemy camp. Natwar had told important Congress leaders that Sonia Gandhi was unhappy that Alexander had accepted a second term as governor. Alexander says he met Sonia in September 1998 to protest against the malicious stories being circulated about him as he was "burning with righteous indignation". The meeting, according to Alexander, "ended on a happy note", but the vilification campaign did not end. When Alexander’s candidature became highly probable, he again met her in August 2001 to make it clear to her that he had not sought, or canvassed for the high office, adding that were he be nominated, he’d like to be a consensus candidate with the backing of all major parties.

Sonia did not give him any assurance, according to Alexander, but he left with the impression that "she might be willing" to support his candidature. When the news of his nomination became public, the smear campaign resumed. Alexander relates with undisguised hurt that "utter falsehoods about me like, for instance, that I had been suspected of having links with the CIA or that I had been leaking secrets about India’s nuclear weapons programme" were fabricated to sow "doubts in the minds of the top leaders in the government". The coarsening of the political discourse had in his eyes reached its nadir.

Worse was to follow. Alexander believes Natwar and A.B. Vajpayee’s principal secretary Brajesh Mishra came up with a "last-minute proposal" of sponsoring Krishan Kant, the then vice-president, a smart move to derail his candidature. This proposal pitted the Telugu Desam against the nda and sealed the fate of the Alexander campaign. But the politics of vendetta knew no limits. Even his candidature for the Rajya Sabha was opposed. But fortune belatedly smiled on him. He won handsomely without having campaigned for a single day.

Alexander’s anguish at the sorry turn of events that thwarted his ticket is not so difficult to understand, though being a student of history he should have known better. The drive for political ascendancy implies, as Machiavelli counselled his Prince, that good and virtuous behaviour can be dispensed with in case of political necessity and ‘evil’ means employed to gain political objective. The Prince still has its uses in realpolitik. The Gandhi-Subhash, Indira-Morarji and Nehru-Kripalani episodes are variations on the same theme.

Alexander is well-known for the restraint and sobriety of his public utterance. His uncharacteristic use of strong language in relation to Natwar and, to some extent, against K.R. Narayanan, reveal that iron has entered his soul. His version has been hotly disputed by none other than Natwar, as was to be expected. We have not heard the last of this acrimonious and distressing controversy.

The more substantive part lies in Chapters 7-10 that deal with his tenure as principal secretary to Indira Gandhi in her second coming. In this period (1981-84), he was involved "not only in government matters but also in political and party matters", the very stuff of political history. The mountainous details of the day-to-day business of government, so competently and diligently compiled here, will perhaps satisfy the curiosity of the initiated, but the lay reader will delight in Indira Gandhi’s personal working style, her habit of exchanging notes with her staff on slips of paper (four examples of which are reproduced in the text), her habit of doodling when she was apparently bored by whatever was happening around her, her flashes of temper, her meticulous attention to the way she dressed.

It’s possible to glean from the interminable detail of comings and goings, the plethora of meetings and discussions, and the frenetic backroom preparations for important speeches and press conferences—all the accoutrements of the mystery of government—the basic drift of the polity during this time of troubles. One discerns the continued weakening of the Congress, revealed in an intensification of factional discord in different states, sharp electoral reverses in elections to the state assemblies, the rise of regional political formations such as the TDP, the aggravation of strains in the relations between the Centre and the states dramatised by the arbitrary dismissal of the NTR ministry, beginnings of the disastrous course of events in Kashmir symbolised by the toppling of the Farooq Abdullah government, the stirrings of intra-ethnic tensions in the Northeast that were to lead to horrific incidents of violence, and the growth of vicious militancy in the Punjab with secessionist undertones that was to claim hundreds of lives, including that of Indira Gandhi herself.

The Punjab crisis is the centrepiece of his narrative. He loyally defends Indira Gandhi, saying the decision to send in the army was forced on her by the escalating violence. But he has his own doubts about the way the operation was botched up by the "top-level" generals. As decided on May 25, 1984, the plan essentially involved siege of the gurudwaras, including the Golden Temple, to flush out the terrorists. The details were finalised on May 27. However, the army leadership, General Vaidya and Lt Gen Sundarji, changed the plan on May 29 and aimed at a swift operation inside the Golden Temple to seize the terrorist stronghold while keeping siege operations intact for the other specified gurudwaras. The rationale of the changed strategy, namely, the need to checkmate any possibility of a mass upsurge in the countryside in the event of a prolonged siege of the temple, was discussed with her and was approved after much questioning by her of the implications. Alexander does not blame Indira Gandhi who had always believed in setting clear and precise political objectives for her military leaders, leaving them in full control of strategy and tactics: "Indira Gandhi did not consider Operation Blue Star a mistake. The mistake was in the manner of implementing the decision...." Where does this leave the political advisors, including the civil service establishment, in terms of responsibility for what happened? The field remains wide open for further investigation by historians when they have access to official records.

In his telling, he emerges as the quintessential liberal, counselling that the assembly was the proper forum for testing the majority of the Farooq government, advice that went unheeded. He is the healer of schisms in the Congress in Kerala, a major influence in undoing the constitutional wrong in Andhra, the mender of fences with mgr, a supporter of intrepid individuals active in the promotion of art and culture, the advocate of a major revamping of the party and government to inspire confidence among the people on the basis of an updated Kamaraj Plan, an indefatigable negotiator in the cause of peace and reconciliation in the Punjab and a champion of upholding the time-honoured principles governing the civil service that had received a severe battering at the hands of the Janata government. It’s a record many in the government then would immediately recognise as authentic.

There’s much more to be quarried from his rich mine including his role as governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. But when one takes leave of this gorgeously produced book, one’s left with an uneasy feeling that most of the problems he delineates are still with us. Was there no time to reflect in the rush of myriad things to be done? Is there a gravitas gap waiting to be filled? Of course, there’s still time to turn. One’s grateful for what one has, a most readable and instructive rendering of the sadder parts of our contemporary history.

(Gopi Arora was special secretary to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.)