An uncommonly competent Rashtrapati

K. Natwar Singh

Finally, former President Pranab Mukherjee has written a revelatory and eminently readable book. The first two volumes of his autobiography were a huge disappointment. In the present volume too, literary style and forms are missing. This is not a drawback in this instance, because the story is so gripping.

Sardar Swaran Singh before joining Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet had been minister in the cabinet of pre-partition Punjab. He joined Nehru's cabinet in the early nineteen fifties and continued as cabinet minister till 1975, when Indira Gandhi eased him out. He was the only cabinet minister who did not fall in line when Emergency was declared. He was a cabinet minister for an unbroken term of nearly a quarter of a century.

Pranab Mukherjee has overtaken Sardar although he was not a minister between 1985 and 1991. Rajiv Gandhi had expelled Sardar from the party for six years. During this period of political exile, he did not open his mouth. That showed character and wisdom.

Pranab Mukherjee has been an uncommonly competent Rashtrapati. His successor will have to not only work hard, but will also need his vision of India which was soaked in Nehruism.

Jayaprakash Narayan was born on February 11, 1902, and passed away on October 8, 1979. He belonged to the second generation of Congress leaders. The first generation, led by Mahatma, consisted of Motilal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajaji, Maulana Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad. Jayaprakash's contemporaries were Ashok Mehta, Ram Manohar Lohia, Minoo Masani, Yusuf Meher Ali and Achut Patwardhan.

Jayaprakash spent six years in the US where he became a Marxist. On his return, Jawaharlal Nehru took him under his wing. While in jail in 1934, he founded the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). Gandhiji made sure that the CSP remained a part of the Congress. In 1937, Lohia also joined JP.

JP had a striking personality. 6'1", handsome, a fine speaker in Hindi and English. During the Quit India Movement in 1942, JP went underground and kept the British chasing him. He escaped from the Hazari Bagh jail to Nepal. He was, along with Lohia, arrested and kept in the Lahore jail where he was tortured. In June 1945, all CWC members were released. JP was transferred to Agra. He was finally released in 1946. 

By then he was a national hero. Nehru declared that Jayaprakash would play a role in shaping the destiny of India.

Then events took an unfortunate turn. The socialists parted company with the Congress, in spite of Nehru doing his best to keep them in the party. A few years later, JP withdrew from politics and come under the spell of Vinoba Bhave, one of the most impractical individuals.

JP returned to politics during Emergency. Indira Gandhi put him in a Chandigarh jail. There he fell ill and died at a Bombay hospital.

I have written at some length here because in my early youth he was my hero, next only to Nehru.

I had the good fortune to meet him several times. He was an extraordinarily impressive and pleasant man. One of the places I met him was in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1965. He was wearing a suit and tie. He appeared before the UN's De-Colonization Committee of which I was the Rapporteur. His superb intervention earned him the admiration.

The sad part of JP's story is that his was case of promise unfulfilled.

Quadrupeds are having a good time. A panther entered the Maruti plant to choose a car he wished to drive. Unfortunately, it got trapped under the engine. It was pulled out after being tranquilised. 

The bridegroom was sitting on a frisky horse, who suddenly decided to get on his hind legs. The bridegroom fell. No one heard of him for weeks.

One has to watch out for the monkeys on our farm. They come silently and in a flash take away chapatti from the thali. We have four puppies. They are adorable, but excessively destructive. Things are pulled down, furniture destroyed, lawn dug up, food left uneaten till coaxed with folded hands. Now, the cat. It sits on top of the outside wall of our house, waiting for the mouse to appear. The mouse soon obliges and meets its ghastly end even though he was a quadruped.