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India on the MoveUPA’s Man for all Seasons By Manish Chand
A canny politician and a formidable negotiator who could sup with Marxists and rub shoulders with saffron leaders without anyone questioning his loyalty, Mukherjee is the man the Congress party turns to when the going gets tough be it rescuing the nuclear deal from ideological fanatics or stitching up the numbers for winning a confidence vote. Although no official announcement has been made about Mukherjee officiating as the prime minister, a spokesperson for the government said Mukherjee he will be chairing cabinet meetings in Manmohan Singh's absence. "He will also be handling finance ministry (additional charge of the prime minister) in his absence," the spokesperson added. "He has vast administrative and political experience. He brings to the table a unique blend of original intellect and grassroots political experience," says Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari. Even his party's critics admire Mukherjee's statecraft. "Pranab Mukherjee is a politician with statesmanship. There is no statesmanship in our politics. Mukherjee knows this art," says A Vijayaraghavan, deputy leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in the Rajya Sabha. The 74-year-old Mukherjee is no stranger to governance. Although he is barely two years younger than Manmohan Singh, his association with the Congress is at least a few decades longer than that of the prime minister. When Mukherjee became finance minister in the Indira Gandhi government 1982-84, Manmohan Singh was the governor of the Reserve Bank of India. In the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, where he started as defence minister, he now heads over half a dozen inter-ministerial committees in areas ranging from telecom spectrum to finance, and no big decision is taken without his nod. In fact, Mukherjee, the number two in the Manmohan Singh cabinet, is seen as a natural for handling prime ministerial responsibilities. He is perhaps the only minister in the UPA government who has been finance and defence minister before he returned to South Block for a second innings as foreign minister over two years ago. A workaholic who is known to take cabinet files home and pore over them till well past midnight, Mukherjee is now spearheading India's diplomatic offensive against Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai savagery. Not a day passes without Mukherjee putting Pakistan on notice for its alleged involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks. The media-savvy politician is much in demand for sound byte-starved television journalists. Mukherjee, who is currently serving his sixth term in parliament but who won his first popular election only in 2004, has often surprised his colleagues with his photogenic memory of some stray incident that occurred decades ago or what he read in some book years ago. An outstanding MP, remembered by many for his impassioned defence of the nuclear deal, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, in 2007. He studied law at the University of Calcutta and worked as a teacher, journalist and lawyer before taking a plunge into politics. He alienated the Gandhi family when he is said to have indicated he should get the top job after Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984. He himself has denied that he had voiced his ambition then, but the thinking still persists a quarter-century later in the absence of any clarification from the Gandhi household. This consigned him to virtual political wilderness as Rajiv Gandhi excluded him from his cabinet. His languishing political career was revived when then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao appointed him first as deputy chairman of the planning commission and later as external affairs minister (1995-96). However, the archetypal survivor that Mukherjee is, he soon mended fences with the Gandhi family and mentored Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia Gandhi in the finer aspects of politics in the 1990s. Fortune smiled on him again when the UPA won the elections in 2004, but the top job again eluded him despite being the most experienced politician in the party. It intrigued many when Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, chose Manmohan Singh for the top job, over other contenders that included Mukherjee. Party insiders point out that Mukherjee was kept out for precisely his strengths that could have made him an independent power centre in the ruling combine. The trust deficit came into play again when Mukherjee was briefly considered for the position of president, but the party opted for a little-known loyalist in Pratibha Patil. This pattern has again repeated itself with all eyes on Mukherjee as Manmohan Singh went in for a bypass surgery Saturday. He will be handling the prime ministerial responsibilities, including chairing cabinet meetings, but he is nobody's favourite for the top job in the next elections.
R. Venkataraman: India’s Copybook President
Venkataraman's tenure in the Rashtrapati Bhavan - from July 25, 1987, to July 25, 1992 - passed through one of the most challenging periods in the country's politics. Aside from the instability of having three governments in as many years, it was a period of turmoil with the self-immolations against the Mandal Commission report, the violence during Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani's Rath Yatra and the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Venkataraman died Jan 27 in a Delhi hospital at age 98 after prolonged illness. In the 1989 general elections, the Congress lost its majority though it obtained the largest number of seats in the Lok Sabha. Venkataraman set the precedent of inviting the single largest party in the Lok Sabha to form the government in the event of a hung parliament. Accordingly, V.P. Singh got the opportunity to form the government only after Venkataraman sounded out Rajiv Gandhi, who had declared that the Congress would not form the government. When the V.P. Singh government fell in 1990, the president went down the list of parties in the order of their strength and sounded out the Congress, the BJP and the Left Front before he invited Chandra Shekhar to form the government. He obtained a personal assurance from Rajiv Gandhi that his party would support the 54-member splinter Janata Dal to ensure the stability of the government. In 1991, he administered the oath of office to P.V. Narasimha Rao as the leader of the largest political party in the Lok Sabha following general elections during which a suicide bomber blew up Rajiv Gandhi. In his book "My Presidential Years", Venkataraman explained his actions of November 1989: "I saw substance in the plea that a defeated ruling party should not be asked to form the ministry as it had forfeited the mandate of the people. But I also saw the danger of vesting discretion without objective criteria in the president." Venkataraman adopted the single largest party principle as he believed that any other action would require the president to use his discretion and that could be viewed as partisan since the president was elected with the support of the ruling party. Venkataraman was born Dec 4, 1910, in Rajamedam in Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu. He had his education in Chennai, obtaining a law degree from Law College. He married Janaki in 1938 and they had three daughters. He practiced law at the high court and the Supreme Court. He took part in the Quit India movement of 1942 and was jailed for two years. Later, he specialised in industrial relations law and edited the Labour Law Journal in Chennai. It was his interest in labour issues that brought him into politics. Venkataraman became a member of the Constituent Assembly and was elected to the first Lok Sabha in 1952. He became secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party in 1953. In 1957 he returned to Chennai and spent the next 10 years as a minister in the state government. A confidant of veteran Congress leader K. Kamaraj, he often acted as his translator. He was known as a bureaucrat-politician because of his emphasis on development and meticulous attention to details. Venkataraman was credited with the industrialisation of Tamil Nadu when the state's growth rate rose to the second highest in the country. He was brought to New Delhi by Indira Gandhi, who appointed him a member of the Planning Commission in 1967. In the post-Emergency general elections in 1977, Venkataraman withstood the anti-Congress mood to be elected from Madras (South) constituency. He became India's finance minister when the Congress returned to power in 1980. He was later the defence minister. In 1984, he became vice president of India for three years before being elected as president in 1987.
Military might cohabits with cultural diversity
Under a gentle winter sun, thousands of soldiers as well as paramilitary and police personnel marched from Vijay Chowk near the Rashtrapati Bhavan or presidential palace to the Mughal-built Red Fort seven kilometres away here in an annual event that began on a modest scale in 1950 when India unveiled its constitution. For the first time, there was no prime minister on the Rajpath, the boulevard that links the Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate, a World War I monument. In the absence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in hospital after undergoing a heart surgery Saturday, Defence Minister A.K. Antony officiated. Manmohan Singh, 76, watched the parade on television from his hospital bed, doctors said. Marching along the soldiers on Rajpath were hundreds of school students who presented stirring songs and dances denoting the varied cultures of India. President Pratibha Patil, India's first woman president, took salute as supreme commander of the armed forces. Kazakhsthan President Nursultan Nazarbayev was the chief guest and watched the 150-minute spectacle with keen interest, occasionally applauding the marchers. There was hushed silence as Patil gave away posthumous Ashok Chakra awards, the country's highest gallantry award in peacetime, to 10 widows and a mother of soldiers and policemen who died fighting terrorists in Mumbai, New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. A sombre Patil patted each of them on their shoulders and shared a few comforting words with them. This is the first time such a large number of Ashok Chakras have been awarded on a single occasion. The ceremony could not have been more apt as Monday marked two months since the Nov 26-29 Mumbai terror carnage that claimed over 170 lives. Six of the Ashok Chakras were given to security personnel who died at the hands of the Mumbai terrorists who India says were Pakistanis. If the Indian Army showcased its lethal T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers, bullet-proof vehicles and other heavy equipment, the Indian Air Force displayed a mock up of its soon to be acquired Phalcon airborne warning and control systems (AWACS). The increasingly assertive Indian Navy displayed a model of its newly acquired INS Jalashwa troop carrier that can transport into action a full battalion of 900 soldiers. The Defence Research and Development Organisation displayed a range of missiles, including the nuclear-capable Agni-III that has a range of over 3,000 km and the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile jointly developed with Russia. The parade began with a contingent of the 61st Cavalry, the only such horse-mounted regiment in the world. Overhead, four Mi-17 helicopters showered rose petals on the spectators along Rajpath. The crowds on both sides of the roads extended all the way up to the Red Fort. Marching contingents of the army, navy and air force besides paramilitary and police forces stood out for their colourful uniforms and headgear providing a vivid contrast of reds, greens, blues, blacks and khaki. Military bands followed them, some from individual regiments and some a combination of units playing the much loved "Saare Jahan Se Aacha" as well as "Deshon ka Sartaj Bharat". Bringing up the rear were 16 tableaux depicting an eclectic canvas ranging from the fauna of Assam's Kaziranga National Park to Kerala's Onam festival. Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev appeared to be captivated -- as were thousands of others -- at the sight of army personnel forming a human pyramid on nine motorcycles, holding aloft the Indian flag. The grand finale was the flypast by the Indian Air Force. A variety of aircraft ranging from helicopters to combat jets zoomed across the sky and literally brought the spectators to their feet. The Republic Day was also celebrated under tight security in all states and union territories, from the terror-hit city of Mumbai to the placid Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Maharashtra Governor S.C. Jamir paid tribute to the victims of the Mumbai terror attack at a function at the Shivaji Park in Mumbai. Jammu and Kashmir Rural Development Minister Ali Mohammed Sagar urged Manmohan Singh to resume the peace process with Pakistan stalled since the Mumbai killings. In Orissa and Chhattisgarh, thousands of people defied boycott calls from Maoists to attend the Republic Day functions. The official functions drew large crowds all over the northeast despite boycott calls by militants. Jharkhand Governor Syed Sibte Razi voiced unhappiness over the state's poor economic development in the eight years since it has been carved out of Bihar, blaming political instability for this.
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He may not have made it to the country's top job for reportedly wearing his ambition on his sleeve over two decades ago, earning him the lasting grudge of the powerful Gandhi family. But External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress-led government's man for all seasons and a veteran trouble-shooter, is set to run the country for the next few weeks while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recovers from bypass surgery.
As the eighth president of India, Ramaswamy Venkataraman, known to friends as RV, had the unique distinction of swearing in three prime ministers -- and heralding the era of coalition governments.
Blending military might with the country's rich cultural diversity, India celebrated its 60th Republic Day Jan 26 with a grand and colourful parade in the capital and similar but smaller parades all over the country.
I can't go on, says Beckett's Unnamable. I will go on. A writer's injuries are his strengths, and from his wounds will flow his sweetest, most startling dreams.
And Proust, too, killing himself to write his book comes close to the concept of dharma when, echoing Balzac, he says that in the end it's less the desire for fame than 'the habit of laboriousness' that takes a writer to the end of a work. But dharma, as this ideal of truth to oneself, or living out the truth in oneself, can also be used to reconcile men to servitude and make them find in paralyzing obedience the highest spiritual good. 'And do thy duty, even if it be humble,' says the Aryan Gita,
'rather than another's, even it be great. To die on one's duty is life: to live in another' death.
My discovery over the years is that the mother tongues have so much in them, so much that is alive, and are much more pervasive, in all strata of society, in all ages from children to the very old, men and women, literate and non-literate. What holds them together? It's not Sanskrit. It's these mother tongues. I think I went into linguistics because of that. That spoken languages had to be very, very important. It was important in my youth to have discovered this.
Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them. Maybe I wanted to find more rigorous ways of thinking. We are talking now about the earliest writing I did and about the power of language to counteract the wallow of late adolescence, to define things, define muddled expression in economical ways. Let's not forget that writing is convenient. It requires the simplest tools. A young writer sees that with words and sentences on a piece of paper that costs less than a penny he can place himself more clearly in the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by daemons. He doesn’t know why they chose him and he is usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.
I am trembling with cold