Mani Shankar Aiyar releases his second volume, narrating a period from 1991 to 2024
Mani is bound to startle, not that he intends to. It is his irressistable self that finds instant expression, often you may wonder if he knew the impact of what he was saying. But the fact is, that he speaks the truth as he knows it, not knowing else. This conversation with Vir Sanghvi, on the occasion of his book launch was no different. The book relates to a period in more recent history, between the years 1991 to 2024, a period that saw the big reforms, when Mani was a senior cabinet minister, heading critical portfolios such as oil and sports. He was also the inspiration of the ministry of panchayati raj, having inspired his boss and then prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, to create this ministry for a first time, in their shared belief that grassroot development will come from down up, and not the other way around. So, the moderator, Vir Sanghvi, started by saying that we can take it for granted that the book has been read, and let us tread into areas that the book may not have delved into.
One important take was Mani’s resistance to then holding of any international Games in the country, when it appeared he had all but scuttled India’s effort to host them. Defending his position, he stated he was not against holding of the games, more to say we should first become a sports playing nation, before we host any sporting events.
They talked of his then tussle between him and Suresh Kalmadi, then chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee. Judging from his revelations, Kalmadi was for himself, with little or zero accountability, with no checks on him. Kalmadi was delaying expenditure accounts and expecting further release of funds, and repeatedly. The Finance Ministry did not discharge funds directly, except through any nodal ministry of the government, in this case, the sports ministry. Not even the Finance Minister himself, whom Mani suspected was somewhere in the audience, was in any position to help.
On his being summarily dismissed from the charge of Oil and Petroleum ministry, he said he was surprised, but gathered later, that this charge was possibly given to him as an additional assignment, till such time that his predecessor could win a seat in parliament. In his short tenure, he believed he did a well-done job, leveraging upon his diplomatic background to improve our relations but major suppliers and execute beneficial deals. He also said he met Mukesh Ambani only once, a meeting that did not seem to have gone down well.
A thoughtfully penned book, immensely readable, full of narratives that would enthral any avid reader of history. And we quote a few most revealing paragraphs that, among others, hold the key to the book:
I never learned whether Sonia Gandhi read the speech (his maiden one in parliament that had created a furore and then advised by Pranab Mukherjee to apologise), or extracts from, or not. I had hoped these arguments would reach the higher echelons of the party. I don’t think they did. And I was too much of a coward, too overawed by Madam Gandhi, too dependent upon her patronage, to risk the cutting edge of her tongue to give her the speech and seek her understanding – which would have been the correct ‘maverick’ thing to do. In the end I blame no one more than my own pusillanimity for the decline in my relationship with our party’s First Family. So, my isolation from my party’s mainstream continued. Saifuddin Soz, leading the party in Jammu and Kashmir, told me he had suggested my name for general secretary as I was considered the most sympathetic Congressman in the Valley, but a horrified Congress President how so sensitive a post could be given to a ‘loose cannon’!
Another nugget, of how politics plays out, leaving one high and dry, when you least expected, he talks of how he was told his seat in Tamilnadu had been given over to the alliance partner of the Congress party in the state. He was promised a seat in Rajya Sabha. When the time came, Venugopal turned a deaf ear to being reminded,
Rahul resigns and orders exploration of other options We drifted along aimlessly despite the unexpected opening to the leadership of the party that had arisen with Rahul’s exit, leading to much speculation within the party. I attended a dinner thrown by Shashi Tharoor, at which I was taken aback to see even P. Chidambaram present. His son Kartik and Kapil Sibal were amongst the most vocal in seeking free, fair and democratic elections to the party presidency as the key to rejuvenating the party. But nothing further came out of this dinner and the initiative passed to a group of twenty-three prominent Congressmen selected by Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was both chairman and spokesman of group. I was deliberately excluded because Azad suspected I might be a fifth columnist for the Gandhi family! I realized that I was unwanted by both the party leadership and the most prominent dissidents. This revealed to me, as never before, the extent of my failure to integrate or ingratiate myself with any section of the party, starkly revealing to me the extent of my isolation.
Talking of his time when he saw he had begun to fade out, he writes of the advent of the social media, and his failure to adapt to the emerging needs:
My TV appearances also dried up, especially when anchors like Rajdeep Sardesai discovered me adamant in describing the Gandhi family as the would disintegrate ‘bonding adhesive’ of the party, without whom the into several factions. Knowing that I was being pushed to the margins, I think Rajdeep was disillusioned to find me still playing the ‘loyalist’. He did not see that I was actually playing the ‘realistic’, because even in its darkest days, which was the period 2019-2022, the party workers and leaders instinctively saw that without the Gandhi family holding the party together, it was not revival but anarchy in our own ranks that stared us in the future. This, plus my absence from the list of Congress official spokespersons, led to my fading out from TV screens and even from much of the print media. Of course, the exciting new media was social media; but I was really too old a dog to learn new tricks and, therefore, was not even on Twitter or WhatsApp, let alone Facebook or other such platforms. My daughters are now threatening to teach me the ropes and put me on social media.
So, there the narrative rests, and so does any judgement, if there needs to be one. Was Mani self-inviting his isolation, unable to contain himself, becoming unacceptable. With such depth of self-discovery, uncommon in today’s political context, while he may have been truthful to himself, he well might have landed being as an ungrateful and undependable political asset, in fact, more of a liability! And as he counted his days, he began to pen down his memoirs, as only he can. In his inimitable style, say all, regardless of its consequences.
