Even to someone in their 50s, Rajiv Gandhi is a wraith, an apparition, like a school acquaintance from many years ago — familiar but not really.
One reason is of course distance. It will be 33 years next month since his assassination. The other is that he was in the public eye for such a brief period, a mere six years from his swearing in to his passing. Indians may have known about his infamous younger brother, especially in the decade before Rajiv took office, but not the future prime minister. And it was a single term, even though one with a lot packed into it, as Mani Shankar Aiyar recounts it in , at a time when media exposure of prime ministers was not what it is today is.
Mani Shankar Aiyar
The Rajiv I Knew and Why he was India’s Most Misunderstood Prime Minister
Juggernaut, 2024
This book, or parts of it, was cleaved from the autobiography Aiyar wrote a few months ago. His editor felt that the bits that referred to Rajiv Gandhi should be a separate book. It is also something of a history of that period, since it deals with the government, and for this reason it is doubly of interest.
In it, Aiyar takes us through six chapters dealing with Rajiv in government. The chapter opening the book is on the accords that he signed. Some of these live on with us in effect, such as Assam, while others like in Kashmir, have been effaced by subsequent events. The most successful of these was in Mizoram, which Aiyar feels is the high point of Rajiv’s leadership.
The chapter on controversies opens with the Shah Bano issue, which is thought by many – incorrectly, in my opinion – to be the catalyst for the rise of Hindutva politics. Aiyar walks us through the change in the law, the judgments that came after it, including the Supreme Court one that upheld the change in law, and why it does not merit the accusation of ‘appeasement’. Aiyar peppers the book with anecdotes and asides that make some episodes come alive. On the issue of maintenance and the law ‘even Sonia does not agree with me’, Aiyar was told.
Other issues, now hazy, like Bofors which was and remains especially unsatisfying and Sri Lanka, Aiyar takes up in detail. The chapter on panchayati raj, in which Aiyar had the starring role, also will interest those curious about our modern history and what systems were added to the administration over what the British left behind.
Alert readers will observe that Aiyar does not in this book make reference to Rajiv’s role in or reaction to the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984. This may seem disappointing, even if Aiyar believes Gandhi had no role in spreading it or no ability to stop it.
The atrocities of course did not end with the violence. People accused of leading the pogrom, such as Kamal Nath, were patronised by the Congress party and continued to be patronised after Rajiv’s murder. Even those convicted, such as Sajjan Kumar, were in leadership positions and given tickets – which could have happened only with the consent and comfort of the Gandhis. This omission makes the book feel incomplete.
It should be made clear, however, that the subject was taken up by Aiyar in his previous book. There he has written over a few pages of six mistakes or omissions. First, Rajiv should have apologised to Sikhs, which he never did; second he should have fired his cousin, the additional police commissioner of parts of Delhi, Gautam Kaul; third, he ought to have immediately, and not after six months, ordered an impartial inquiry; fourth, he should have called in the army to stop the pogrom; fifth, he should not have reposed such faith in home minister P.V. Narasimha Rao; and sixth, though Aiyar gives him something of a pass here, the ’when a tree falls’ remark was galling.
While there is an inclusion at the end of some excerpts from the previous book, the autobiography, pertaining to Rajiv, it may have been apposite to have included the part relating to 1984 here instead.
Let me now turn from the book to the author.
Those who do not know him personally will not be aware that Aiyar is great company and enormous fun. He led a track II delegation to Pakistan with Salman Khurshid in the early months of Modi’s first term. Such outreach is unthinkable today of course, but even then nobody from the BJP was willing to come across the border including Swapan Dasgupta, likely for fear of angering his majesty. What resulted instead was a delegation comprising primarily of hacks: Dileep Padgaonkar, Barkha Dutt, Siddharth Varadarajan, Jyoti Malhotra, yours truly and a couple of retired bureaucrats, Sanjeev Ahluwalia and another gentleman, Jha, whose first name eludes me.
On day one, we came into the meeting and were seated facing each other, with Aiyar and Khurshid at the head of table so to speak. Ranged on the Pakistani side were proper influencers: a retired chief of army staff, other generals, retired ambassadors and so on, whom the Pakistani delegation head, former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, had gathered. If anything were ultimately decided regarding possible ways forward, the Pakistani establishment, as the army is quaintly referred to, would receive the message. With our side not so much.
Anyway, Kasuri delivered his opening remarks and then handed the baton to Aiyar, who wished us a good morning, declared proceedings open and then almost immediately fell asleep. Properly asleep, with his head dropped on his shoulder and snoring rhythmically. After five minutes of so of this, and if I remember it right it was during the time when we were introducing ourselves, one of the Pakistani generals opposite us got up, walked up to stage and switched Aiyar’s microphone off. Play resumed till the break, which was a couple of hours later, about 12:30 pm or so. We applauded our progress and this hubbub woke Aiyar. He straightened himself in his chair, turned his microphone on and delivered over a couple of minutes the perfect summary of what had been discussed while he slept. How he did this, none of us could figure out. The only explanation was that, having grasped the quality of his team, he understood that this would likely be our output.
At close of play, the Pakistani press were angry, having been made to wait two hours while the two sides struggled to work on a joint statement. Aiyar was sent out to pacify them. ‘I don’t have a problem arriving at a consensus with the Pakistanis,’ he told them, ‘I have a problem producing a consensus among the Indians.’
That made them laugh.
This review may well be turning out to be more ’The Mani I know’ rather than the subject at hand. However, I felt I should tell readers who may be familiar with him only by reputation or the slandering of him in the media, of the sort of person Aiyar is in the flesh.
Lastly, he is one of the better writers and is always rewarding to read for his turn of phrase, as much as for his content.
Aakar Patel is a senior journalist and columnist.
