This father-son duel, in Aurangzeb style…

Harish Khare

AURANGZEB Alamgir, the Mughal emperor who ruled India for nearly 60 years, is universally believed in India to be the most prominent villain of Indian history. And this bad reputation has accrued to him primarily because he had done bad things to his father — grabbed his throne, and made him a prisoner in a dungeon.

Recently, when Akhilesh Yadav took on his father Mulayam Singh, he was accused of doing an ‘Aurangzeb.’

Now, Jayant Sinha, a minister in the Union Council of Ministers, has stirred many an emotion by publicly refuting and repudiating his father Yashwant Sinha’s views on the sorry state of the Indian economy. A son attacking his father is just not done. It is not Indian, certainly not part of our Bharatiya sabhyataa. 

Not surprisingly, no one is inclined to believe the son when he says that he was not asked to do so by his political bosses and that he chose to cross swords with his father entirely on his own. This disbelief emanates from the simple fact that Jayant Sinha, after all, is part of a crowd which specialises in glib-talking, now officially called jumla-baazi. 

Many people have commented, in disbelief and dismay, on this father-son duel. Perhaps the best comment came from Mr Fali Nariman, India’s most prominent and most respected legal luminary. He is troubled by Jayant Sinha taking a public stand against his father. In a communication, he expresses his pain at this so very un-Indian, so very inexplicable lapse in good manners: “In college, our teachers of Hindu Law dinned into us the concept of the pious obligation of a Hindu son to pay his father’s debts! But I know of no precept of Hindu Law that exonerates a son from extreme filial discourtesy, as displayed by the Minister of Civil Aviation — who for obvious motive — promotion, chamcha-giri and the like — took upon himself the task of lambasting his father in public! Absolutely shocking.”

No one could have put it better than Mr Nariman. And that is because it pretty much sums up the scene of shabby calculations and shabbier ethics in the so-called “New India.” 

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YET another veteran Congressman is gone. Makhan Lal Fotedar passed away last Thursday. The most common salutation used for him by obituarists was that of a Family loyalist. And the Family: the one and only “Gandhi Family.”

He was once a very powerful political aide to a powerful prime minister, Indira Gandhi. He was unflinchingly loyal to her. His job was to watch her interests, within and outside the party. That was the time when most of the political alignments and betrayals used to take place within the Congress. Having been baptised in that finest school of political intrigue and thuggery, the Kashmir politics, he was at his joyous best when he was pitting his wits against Indira Gandhi’s adversaries and rivals. He had a natural talent for conspiracy and combat. 

After all, it was his responsibility to see to it that the bureaucracy and party fell in line with the prime minister’s preferences. That is a job every modern executive has to get done; every prime minister or president has to have a “Fotedar.” The job has various uncomplimentary descriptions — a hatchet man, the enforcer, a consigliere, the designated son of a bitch, etc. Yet the job has to be done. Someone has to break the eggs in order to make the omelets. 

Fotedar was picked by Indira Gandhi just before her second political innings began in 1979. Between 1977 and 1979, so many of her comrades had walked out on her that she needed a relatively uncontaminated political aide to mind the door and watch her back. 

By sheer diligence, intelligence and loyalty, he won her confidence; he became her principal interlocutor with the party hierarchy, chief ministers, cabinet ministers, AICC functionaries, etc. 

After Indira Gandhi was shot dead, Fotedar was happy to help her son out. But it was just not the same thing. Perhaps, could not be. The son had his own crowd — and Fotedar was given an honourable exit: a cabinet berth. The son had made a grave error of judgment. Deprived of Fotedar’s counsel, the son just could not cope with the machinations of inimical forces.

After Rajiv Gandhi’s death, Fotedar simply could not abide by the thought of a non-Family PV Narasimha Rao occupying the same chair once graced by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. He conspired, plotted, schemed and intrigued against PV. But the old PV proved to be a wily and worthy antagonist. He got Fotedar expelled from the Congress. Stymied, he instigated the birth of a breakaway group, the Tiwari Congress.

Again, Fotedar was the one who marshalled the forces on behalf of Sonia Gandhi when the incumbent and elected Congress president, Sitaram Kesri, had to be pushed out to make way for someone from “the Family.” Though it was Kesri who as Congress president had rescinded his expulsion, Fotedar had no qualms in brandishing the knife, driven as he was by a burning loyalty to the Family and a feeling of its indispensability to India’s well-being. 

For a while, Sonia Gandhi allowed herself to be guided by Fotedar, but gradually she came to lessen her dependence on him as probably she sensed — and, only she could sense —  that he represented an outdated approach. Sonia Gandhi understood that Indira’s India had been changed, first by her husband and then by the PV-Manmohan Singh-led economic reforms; whereas Fotedar had remained locked in a moment that passed long ago and was unlikely to return soon. 

He thought his unadulterated loyalty entitled him to an access, a voice, and an authority that Sonia Gandhi was not comfortable conceding. Eventually, he came to feel that his loyalty was not sufficiently requited. He felt he was being shunned by Rahul and Priyanka, both of whom wanted to do “new politics.” 

He died an unhappy, and disappointed man at what had been allowed to be done to Nehru’s India. But he remained till the last a very proud man, a self-respecting man — because he was also a man of immense personal integrity. 

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EXCEPT on Sundays, most newspapers are obliged to express their ‘opinion’ on the editorial pages. It is a sacred ritual to be performed routinely and diligently. The ‘editorials’ represent the authoritative voice of the newspaper. The ‘editorials’ help the reader see a shade of gray in a black and white situation; and there are supposed to be nine shades of gray. 

Every editor in a major newspaper has to have a team of ‘edit writers.’ These are mostly anonymous craftsmen, who practice a very special art. And that art does not come easily; it involves considerable familiarity with the language, a sophisticated understanding of social and economic forces at work, and a gift for making an argument with relevant facts, a capacity for getting angry at injustice and unfairness and hypocrisy, and, above all, not to be afraid to speak up to the authority. 

My senior colleague and Associate Editor, Nirmal Sandhu, who retired yesterday, is a master of this craft. For two decades, he had been a part of The Tribune’s “edit team.” In the last many years, he carried the major burden of ‘edit’ writing, as well as anchoring the editorial page. Every day, there was a display of intellectual robustness and political savvy in his writings. I would often get praise for his succinct and sharp writing — and, I would happily pocket the compliment. 

Nirmal Sandhu is a thoroughbred Tribune man. A man of dignity, integrity and intelligence, quintessential qualities The Tribune seeks to inculcate in all its journalists. 

Nirmal Sandhu is threatening to leave Chandigarh and settle down in Amritsar, that most authentic patch of Punjab. 

On my part, I will try to find every excuse to travel to Amritsar, just to share a cup of coffee with him.

kaffeeklatsch@tribuneindia.com