Broadly speaking, Indian politicians avoid intimacy. The late Pranab Mukherjee was no exception. I knew him well for over forty years. I claim no intimacy.
When I met him at 10 Rajaji Marg about six months back, he said something totally unexpected: “Natwar Singhji (I was six years older than him) I made the worst mistake of my life by becoming Rashtrapati. I don’t like pomp and show. I did my duty diligently, but I never felt at home at Rashtrapati Bhawan. The strict protocol did not suit my temperament. I may not be a mass leader but I have been a public figure for most of my adult life….” I said, “You were among the three outstanding Presidents”. “Who were the other two,” he asked?” “Babu Rajendra Prasad and Dr. Radhakrishnan.”
He was the only politician to become finance minister, defence minister and external affairs minister. He was efficient, exceptionally competent and a forceful minister. He was the best parliamentarian of his time. Although he had a short fuse, he learnt to suffer fools because they are always in a majority. His fertility of political strategy was inexhaustible.
In cabinet meetings, he was most impressive, excelling in reconciling disparate views. In the all-important Cabinet Committee on Security, presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (UPA-1), the other three members, Shivraj Patil, P. Chidambaram and I, were no pushovers, but Pranab Mukherjee was in a higher league.
He relished power, keeping it under wraps with expert astuteness. To cross his path was folly. He never came to a meeting unprepared. His memory was elephantine. He was seldom without a book.
In spite of his rare political abilities, he got scorched at the centenary meeting of the AICC in Bombay in 1985. Rajiv Gandhi was being reminded by his inexperienced, youthful advisers that after Indiraji’s assassination Pranabji as the senior-most minister had not-so-discreetly made it known that he should succeed Indiraji. Whether this was true or not, it stuck. He was expelled from the Congress. Then he erred even more. He floated his own party.
It got nowhere. By 1989 Rajiv realised that Pranabji was so great an asset to the party that he called him back. Thereafter, Pranabji did not look back. In 1993, he joined P.V. Narasimha Rao’s cabinet.
In 2004, Pranab Mukherjee should have, purely on merit and seniority, become PM. Instead, the Congress president appointed Manmohan Singh. One would have expected Pranabji to resign. Manmohan had been his subordinate for a number of years. The remarkable manner in which the two adjusted to this unusual situation does immense credit to both. Manmohan is by temperament a non-ego individual. Pranabji was a non-pretentious person. He conducted himself with supreme maturity and not once did he rock the boat between 2004-2014. He never attempted to upstage the prime minister. The two had a commitment to truthfulness and decency. Manmohan always treated his former boss with respect, even reverence.
Pranab Mukerjee’s three-volume autobiography, though, is disappointing. He was not a natural writer. I drew his attention to what Arthur Koestler wrote in his autobiography, “The virtue of understatement and self-restraint make social intercourse civilised and agreeable, but they have a paralysing effect on autobiography.”I told him that he concealed all the ups and down of his career. “You have been in the midst of momentous events in the political arena. It is your duty to share your unrivalled experiences. You made policy. You made sure that it was implemented without prevarication. Your interventions in the meetings of the Congress Working Committee made all of us sit up. Of how many others can this be said?”
The disarming and uncharismatic former Rashrapati pronounced, “Many truths I cannot tell. These will be cremated with me.”
(The author is a former Union cabinet minister)
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