New Delhi: By diplomat, politician and author, Mani Aiyar’s substantial three-part memoir ends with this last volume covering the years 1991-2024. Here his wife Suneet is the heroine, his constant supporter during successes and reverses, the role occupied by his indomitable mother in the first volume.
In his constituency of Mayiladuturai from where he was MP thrice, and to which he devoted great attention, he learned the truth of I.S Gujral’s dictum that work in one’s constituency did not guarantee election success. Some other truths become evident from reading this book; becoming the darling of the media comes with hazards of being misreported; relying on high-level support without a political base is a weak foundation irrespective of passion that informs one’s work; and it is less risky to be bland than aspire to witticism and rhetoric.
Aiyar carried conviction with Prime Minister Narasimha Rao because of ‘his entirely mistaken impression that I was [Sonia Gandhi’s] confidant’ but he states there will always be ‘serious consequences to expressing opinions contrary to those of one’s party and government.’ In his parliament terms (1991-6, 1999-2004, 2004-9, 2009-15) he frequently spoke against the government, at odds with Congress on the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh scandals and subsequent financial improprieties amounting to criminality that followed the economic reforms, the Israel/Palestine issue, delays in bringing the commissions on Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination for parliamentary scrutiny, lack of interest on the 1988 Rajiv Gandhi plan for nuclear disarmament, failure to call for a debate on Kargil campaign, the India-US nuclear deal and ‘secularism without socialism.’ He was blindsided with Manmohan Sigh declaring his disbelief in the trickle-down theory, noting sadly that ‘economic equality was the bridge across which harmonious social relations were built.’
He was defeated in the 1996 election due to the Congress/AIDKM alliance – ‘It is not constituency work but political winds that determine the outcome of an election.’ But he used the interregnum to become ‘the highest paid columnist in India’ and drew up a charter for Panchayati Raj (PR), for which he was given a ministerial portfolio from 2004-09. He underlines his regret that Congress left unexplored his opinion that elected PR officials of whom there were 3.2 million including 1.5 million females, could form the support-base for the party. He stood as independent in 1997, coming third but with a strong showing that led to his recall to the party where, by 1999, Sonia Gandhi’s hold was ‘in full bloom’.
In the 1999 elections, Aiyar was back in parliament, one of only two Congressmen who had won from TN, and was given more opportunities to address the house. In Gujarat he was warned not to associate Muslims in political campaigns or refer to secularism, leading him to believe Congress could never defeat BJP by using a ‘soft saffron’ approach.
Aiyar won the 2004 election with DMK’s help and became minister of petroleum. He took to learning the industry rather than using patronage in allotments of petrol and LPG retail outlets and tried to inject vigour into this ministry despite frustrations with the Foreign Office, He was regarded in the media as the best minister and hailed by parliament as its outstanding member for 2006, but in that year he was removed from this portfolio, suspecting Reliance and USA for his ouster and because he failed to garner funds for his party. ‘While the sun shone on me I received high recognition. An ex-minister has as much news value as a dead fish.’
He remained PR minister for the full term of 2004-9, but admits that it was a niche area ‘of little or no interest to anybody else.’ The problem with this portfolio was that it was a state subject and Southern states were averse to the centre’s involvement, despite Aiyar’s efforts to convince them that devolution at the local level was the best foundation of democratic order. Both from centre and states, there was push back by vested interests, who did not wish to lose leverage as principal agents of rural development. In pleading for PR to win over Naxalites he fell out with home minister Chidambaram which was a ’heavy political price,’ since this was a topic which made Sonia furious, described him as a ‘loose cannon’ and ‘signaled the end of a personal relationship with her.’ The Planning Commission was not supportive and Aiyar was ‘too frail at political craft.’ He also fell out with MK Stalin temporarily, which caused him to lose the 2009 election, the only cabinet minister to do so.
As minister of youth and sports (2006-8), Aiyar found it impossible to counter the corruption of Kalmadi of the Olympic Committee. He made his opposition known to the broken promises, failures and corruption, and the cost of Rs 70,000 crores ‘on a showy and transient event’ against an estimate of Rs 900 cr. Rather than encouraging youth in urban and rural communities, ‘potbellied politicians’ as heads of sporting bodies were attracted by the glitter of domestic and international competitions.
There was no ministry Aiyar enjoyed more than covering the Northeast (2006-9) but his vision statement for agriculture, tourism and connectivity lay neglected after the next lost election. After loss of his seat he was given a nominated Rajya Sabha berth by Sonia though with little leeway to speak. His report on the Rajiv nuclear disarmament plan to make India the first nuclear weapon state to advocate their abolition went nowhere, as did a report on zonal cultural centres and a report on the quarter million panchayats. Rahul Gandhi became vice-president of the party in 2013 but neither he nor Sonia ‘was to ever again to interact with me on the subject.’
There was a paralysis of governance from 2012 to 2014 when both the prime minister and Sonia suffered health issues, but Manmohan Singh was retained as prime minister while the more suitable Pranab Mukherjee was made president. The government was unable to rebut allegations of corruption against several ministers or to counter Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign.
In the Rajya Sabha, Congress ‘preferred demonstration to debate,’ though to his credit Aiyar makes clear he did not believe in walkouts or trooping before the Speaker’s chair. His tenure as a nominated member ended in 2016 which began his decline in public life. ‘The one personality trait that politicians need is persistence in the face of setbacks in the hope and expectation that today’s defeat presages tomorrow’s victory’ but ‘I was a holdover from the past, not a player in the present.’ His hopes reposed on Rahul who became Congress president in 2013 but ‘I was once favoured, this changed …from 2010 onwards…veterans who fall don’t have the time left to recover their earlier standing.’ He did not receive a nomination for the 2019 or 2024 elections, and realized he had failed ‘to integrate or ingratiate myself with any section of the party.’
Against the boundless enthusiasm that marked Aiyar’s work, his quest ’in my naïve blundering way’ for the mot juste and witticisms in word and print often brought him trouble and defamation suits. This was the case with references to Jayalalitaa in 2003 and Modi in 2014 and 2017. Extreme opinions and slips of tongue and pen resulted in apologies and interdictions by Congress leaders who lacked a sense of humour and effort to check the veracity of what had been reported. For news value and controversy, he was a media favourite, but lacked ‘the charisma to rise in public esteem’ and ‘Without any political base of my own, [I was] wholly dependent…on the goodwill of the Gandhis. I was politically dispensable.’ Undaunted, he solicited from Sonia in 2024 a nomination for election, but Rahul disfavoured it. He felt that his atheism and secularism ‘sat ill with [Rahul’s] deep interest in Hindu philosophy and mythology.’
Aiyar shows adulation for the Gandhi family; his interactions with Sonia’s smiles, hints, whispers, snubs and praise are diligently recorded. Some curious snippets emerge; Sonia did not express a wish to meet someone; they had to request a meeting, and she and Rahul disapproved when Aiyar showed proper respect for Vajpayee.
Aiyar’s concluding reflections are on Nehru’s legacy, foreign policy, Pakistan and Hindu-Muslim relations, socialism, secular syncretism, Hinduism and Hindutva. With total recall or meticulous record keeping, Aiyar provides candour and granular detail which, ‘may overburden the general reader,’ but this book serves as both history and autobiography. The production is generally good, with few typos, but the Index is far too ‘select’ to be useful, and a Table of Acronyms, badly needed, is absent.
(Krishnan Srinivasan is a former foreign secretary. His latest books are ‘Power, Legitimacy and World Order’ and the fictional ‘Right Angle to Life’.)
