JYOTI MALHOTRA
New Delhi, July 9,2007 : Between bouts of hospital visits to treat his multiple myeloma, a galloping variety of blood cancer, former prime minister Chandra Shekhar had an unusual visitor in his South Avenue home a couple of months ago : Sonia Gandhi.
Although the hurly-burly of politics often allows for a range of role reversals, this one seemed particularly compelling. After all, Chandra Shekhar’s four-month-old government in 1991 had been pulled down by none other than Rajiv Gandhi.
Sonia had a simple request, that the Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP), headed by Chandra Shekhar support the UPA’s candidate for president.
So as the fire claimed Chandra Shekhar’s body on the banks of the Yamuna today, a cross-section of the top political leadership in attendance, former colleagues reminisced about the time Rajiv Gandhi, 16 years ago, had waylaid the course of history.
According to then Finance minister Yashwant Sinha, whose stillborn package of economic reforms had to wait for a Manmohan Singh reincarnation, ``if Chandra Shekhar had been given just one year in 1990-91, that one year would have turned out to be the most remarkable in Indian politics.’’
Basic to the outside support offered by the Congress at the time, said Sinha, was a promise by Rajiv Gandhi that he would let Chandra Shekhar remain in power for one year. ``Chandra Shekhar worked on the basis of that understanding,’’ said Sinha.
But as the former PM moved closer to solving the three most difficult problems of the time -- the Babri Masjid-Ram janmabhoomi issue, the Jammu& Kashmir problem and the India-Pakistan problem – Rajiv Gandhi pulled the rug from under his feet.
Moreover, Sinha argued, if the Congress had allowed him to present his first Budget in February 1991, the question of who is the father of India’s economic reform would not be a question today.
Truth was that Sharad Pawar, a close friend of Chandra Shekhar, ``innocently told Rajiv Gandhi that Chandra Shekhar was very close to a solution on Ayodhya,’’ said Sinha.
The question before Rajiv Gandhi was whether he could allow such a thing to happen or not. ``Could he allow Chandra Shekhar to become a man of destiny,’’ asked Sinha.
``The answer was obvious. Rajiv Gandhi snatched away one year from us,’’ Sinha said.
The Congress accusation that two Haryana constables were spying on Rajiv Gandhi and they could possibly not be expected to support Chandra Shekhar’s government, was simply an excuse, he said.
But Sinha also blamed the enormous personality differences between the two men. Chandra Shekhar was an archetypal politician, a man of the masses, he had an unkempt beard. Rajiv Gandhi was certainly different.
Moreover, ``by his very nature, Chandra Shekhar was not willing to report to Rajiv Gandhi every day, or every two days, what was going on his government. That was the main problem,’’ he said.
Gandhi and his team, on the other hand, ``felt that our government was a pawn in their hands and things should be done as they wished.
``But Chandra Shekhar was very much a master of his own mind,’’ Sinha said.
The two men were unable to establish a constructive and cohesive dialogue, he added.
On India-Pakistan, it is said that Chandra Shekhar was such good friends with then Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, that when Saifuddin Soz’s daughter was kidnapped in Kashmir, Chandra Shekhar called up Nawaz.
Something has to be done, he said. That night, over Pakistan radio and TV, Nawaz Sharif appealed to militants to let the girl go, kidnapping her could not be an Islamic act, he said.
Then there was the time at the SAARC summit in the Maldives, when Chandra Shekhar read the first few paragraphs prepared for him by the MEA. Realizing that they were much too dry for the occasion, he put aside the prepared text and spoke from his heart. India and Pakistan needed to be friends, he said, there could be no alternative to that.
ENDS
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