‘A Maverick in Politics’: Mani Shankar Aiyar, a man of many parts, in his own words

Mani ShankAr Aiyar, an alumnus of Doon School, St Stephen’s College and Trinity Hall, is now 85. However, to me, he is still that 45-year-old young person I first had the privilege of getting acquainted with in 1986 when he served as Joint Secretary, Information and Coordination, in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), coordinating the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s tours and drafting his speeches.

He is still bubbling with ideas, energy and anecdotes, with a scathing wit to boot. A regular in the Track-II circuit, he adds immense value with his wide experience, knowledge and foresight.

A former Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, he was ostensibly a member of the Marxist Society at Cambridge. In 1989, he quit the IFS and joined the Indian National Congress. Two years later, he was elected as an MP from Mayiladuthurai constituency in Tamil Nadu, an election that was marked by the tragic assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

He was re-elected in 1999 and 2004 and went on to serve as the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Panchayati Raj, Tribal Affairs, North Eastern Development and Youth and Sports Affairs in the UPA-I government from 2004-2009.

He lost the 2009 parliamentary elections by a narrow margin of 36,000 votes primarily because of the situation in Sri Lanka, where former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had rained artillery fire on civilians as the army moved in for the final denouement of the LTTE. His opponents circulated a morphed photograph of him apparently welcoming Rajapaksa to his daughter’s wedding.

He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha as a presidential nominee and served till 2016.

Aiyar is known for his conviction that India must find a modus vivendi with Pakistan that can smoothen the uneasy relationship. It’s an unpopular cause these days, given Pakistan’s repeated perfidy.

An avid writer, columnist and orator, he has 11 books to his credit. The latest, ‘A Maverick in Politics’, chronicles his life between 1991-2021, a time both of glory and deep reflection. This book is the last in the trilogy, the first being ‘Memoirs of a Maverick’, that documented his life between 1941-1991. It was published in 2023. The next was a companion volume, ‘Rajiv I Knew’, also published in 2023. The last essentially records his life in politics, including and not limited to his ministerial years.

The book can be divided into four sections: Aiyar’s years in and out of Parliament between 1991 and 2004, the ministerial years between 2004-09, his stint in the Upper House between 2010-16 and the period from 2016 to 2024. The book is full of anecdotes, deep insights and exults the high points of his political career while bemoaning the nadir. The interesting aspect about this book is that it subconsciously narrates the effortless transition that Aiyar made from his life as a civil servant to that of a political activist.

Not many may be aware that while working in the PMO, he would regularly brief the Congress Working Committee (CWC) at Rajiv Gandhi’s instance between 1987-1989 about the evolution and contours of the Panchayati Raj Constitutional Amendments that were in the works. As a young national president of the National Students Union of India, I had the occasion of attending those profound deliberations when the CWC would consist of 15-20 of the seniormost Congress leaders, with the heads of frontal organisations being special invitees, unlike today: a gathering of 85-odd people.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments that institutionalised Panchayati Raj bear the indelible stamp of Aiyar, a seminal contribution he has made to broadbasing the structure of democracy in India.

Chapter eight narrates as to how and why he became Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas rather unexpectedly in 2004 and lost it in circumstances he found strange in late January of 2006. I recall when in early February 2006 — he had just taken over as the Sports and Youth Affairs Minister — I escorted him to the Qila Raipur Rural Sports Festival in Ludhiana from Chandigarh, where he was staying with friends.

He was pretty bewildered and a tad disappointed if not disgruntled on losing the Petroleum and Natural Gas remit. On why he thinks it happened, you have to read the book. I may though hasten to add that it really is the prerogative of the Prime Minister as to who would serve in which capacity.

He ends the introduction of his book with rather poignant lines from Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’: If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!

Mani Shankar Aiyar has a lot of beans left in him still. His book is worth a read.

— The reviewer is the Chandigarh MP