'Pranab Mukherjee blamed himself for Gandhi family's impact on Congress'

Interview/ Sharmistha Mukherjee, dancer, author

PRANAB MUKHERJEE wrote in his diary every night. Journalists who knew that the veteran leader kept a diary would speculate about its contents since he had been at the centre of the most momentous political developments in the country. They would wonder how and when they would become public. A senior journalist once asked Mukherjee when he would publish his diaries, and he simply said he would leave the diaries to his daughter, Sharmistha.

He left 51 volumes of his diaries to Sharmistha Mukherjee. The earliest diary dates back to 1973. The diaries have been in Sharmistha’s custody since 2012, when Mukherjee had moved to Rashtrapati Bhavan. However, he forbade her from reading the diaries till he was alive. Three years after Mukherjee’s death, Sharmistha has come out with her book, Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers, that brings to the fore unknown facets of the Congress veteran’s political career, based on the diary entries and also her own conversations with her father.

For 58-year-old Sharmistha, the process of going through her father’s diaries was an emotionally daunting task and she broke down often while reading them. Sharmistha, who has been a Kathak dancer and has had a brief stint in the Congress, says there is a wealth of information in the diaries and not everything could be brought into one book.

In an interview with THE WEEK, Sharmistha talks about some unknown aspects of her father’s politics as gleaned from his diaries, which range from what he thought was the real reason why he could never become prime minister to how he looked at the Gandhi family’s hold over the Congress to his opinion of Rahul Gandhi as a politician and also his rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Edited excerpts:

Q/ You begin by writing about the time Pranab Mukherjee became president. But we know becoming prime minister was his unfulfilled desire.

A/ Yes, definitely. Sometime during UPA (United Progressive Alliance)-I, it was one of those rare evenings when baba was free, I asked him, ‘Baba, do you want to be prime minister one day’? He said, ‘Of course. Every politician of any kind of consequence wants this. But just because I want it doesn’t mean I am going to get it.’ So I said, ‘Why don’t you talk to Sonia Gandhi?’ He said, ‘And say what?’ And then, he changed the subject. Once I asked him, ‘Are you angry with Sonia Gandhi for not making you prime minister?’ He said in the cut-throat world of politics, everyone safeguards their interests, and Sonia was safeguarding her own and her family’s interests. So, she chose somebody who she felt was better suited for the job. She had the power to choose, so what is there to argue about? Then I said, ‘But you would have been a better prime minister.’ He said, ‘That is your subjective opinion. Ask Dr Manmohan Singh’s daughters. They would have a very different opinion.’

Later on, when I went through his diaries, especially of the later period, I felt that he was quite grateful to God―he was a deeply religious person― for what he got in his life rather than being bitter about what he did not.

Q/ So he had the ability to look very objectively at the issue.

A/ Absolutely. As a result, he did not have any anger towards Sonia Gandhi and absolutely, definitely not towards Dr Manmohan Singh.

Q/ In your book, you have sought to set the record straight about the impression that after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Pranab Mukherjee had expressed the desire to be prime minister, and that haunted him throughout his political career.

A/ That is why I have written at length about the incident, because I felt that my father definitely would have wanted me to. I found some handwritten notes in his papers. He gave his own reasoning for Rajiv Gandhi’s and later on that of Sonia’s mistrust towards him. He gave his own analysis about why there was mistrust and why Sonia did not make him prime minister. Only Sonia can give the true answer. But that was his analysis, and I tend to agree with it, that this mistrust arose because of my father’s assertive nature. He wrote, ‘When I look back, I think Rajiv was correct in not incorporating me in his cabinet, because he realised that I am a tough nut, I do not toe a line easily.’

Q/ Was your father able to bridge the trust deficit?

A/ Yes, after being in political wilderness for a few years. By then, Rajiv was also in a position where his old friends left him and there was the Bofors scam. Perhaps Rajiv felt betrayed by the people who he thought were close to him. He said in an interview about my father, and other people like Mr (R.K.) Dhawan that a lot of things which were said about them were not correct. Unfortunately, Rajiv Gandhi died very young. This was my father’s greatest regret, that he could not work closely with Rajiv.

Q/ Towards the end, your father wrote that his blind loyalty towards Indira Gandhi was not correct.

A/ Baba always called his association with Indira Gandhi the golden period of his life. He always said that Indira ji not only taught him the intricacies of politics and the art of diplomacy, but even what kind of clothes to wear and how to behave in Parliament. His admiration for Indira Gandhi never diminished. But after 50 years, especially with the Congress in a state of decline, that made him introspect. He was a great admirer of Indira Gandhi, but he could not overlook the responsibility of Indira ji as having begun the process of centralisation of power, of decimating state leaders, stopping organisational elections and replacing it by nomination culture.

Q/ Back in the 1980s, your father had warned about the legislation brought to negate the Shah Bano judgment.

A/ He was a big admirer of Rajiv Gandhi and he felt he had done some marvellous work in the five-year period he got. But overturning the Supreme Court judgment in the Shah Bano case, and the opening of the Babri Masjid locks, my father felt were absolutely wrong decisions. He felt that trying to balance Hindu votes and Muslim votes did not gel with the Congress ideology. It polarised society even more, and gave the BJP an issue.

Q/ The UPA years were difficult for your father.

A/ There are many instances where I found that he had resigned. Of course, it was not accepted. Especially during UPA-II, from his diaries I got the feeling that there was a sense of despondency and frustration. Physically also, he was getting tired, because of his age and the immense overload of work. The prime minister’s authority within the government, it was felt, was getting diminished because the chiefs of regional parties did not always adhere to the values of cabinet functioning. There is one incident I read about in my father’s diary. Mamata Banerjee wanted to bring a white paper on the railways in Parliament, but nobody had read it. My father told Mamata that she should show it to the cabinet or at least to the prime minister. Baba wrote that she grumbled and protested. Then she announced that railway workers would be given a bonus, but she did not consult the cabinet, not even the finance ministry. There were all the scams and the Anna Hazare movement. So UPA-II was a tough time for the government, for the Congress, and for my father till he was in the government.

Q/ There was some friction between him and Manmohan Singh. The prime minister did not invite him to lunch with a foreign dignitary, a signal of the tension.

A/ The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was invited to lunch. The economic relationship between India and the US was very much on her agenda. Baba was finance minister. When he was not invited, it raised eyebrows. About a month later, baba wrote in the diary that there was a dinner for judges where the law minister was invited, and among the other ministers, only my father was invited. There he referred to the Clinton lunch. He said perhaps he was being included because of the earlier exclusion.

Q/ Did he suggest early elections to Sonia Gandhi when UPA-II was besieged by problems?

A/ The government was not able to take decisions because of the opposition of coalition partners, and there were the scams and everything else. That was the time baba suggested to Sonia Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh to dissolve the Parliament and go to the people for a fresh mandate. But nobody listened.

Q/ At that time, there was speculation that Manmohan Singh could be replaced as prime minister.

A/ He was sure that it was not going to be him. So there is nothing written about this. But before the announcement of presidency, one day, Ahmed Patel (Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary) came to see him. And he told baba that he suggested to Sonia Gandhi to let baba become prime minister and Dr Manmohan Singh could be made president. Baba wrote later in his book, The Presidential Years, that when he went for a meeting with Sonia Gandhi, he had this feeling that she might make him prime minister and elevate Dr Singh as president. My personal guess is that the conversation with Ahmed Patel might have triggered the last hope in him, that he might become prime minister.

Q/ You write that Pranab Mukherjee doubted Rahul Gandhi’s suitability as a politician.

A/ There are very few mentions in my father’s diaries about him. I don’t think there was too much interaction between them, because baba was far more senior and he was too busy. One of the earliest references I found was at the end of UPA-I. There was a Congress working committee meeting in which Rahul spoke very strongly against coalitions. My father told him that he should elaborate on his ideas and put those more logically. Rahul said that he would come and meet him. Then I read that a couple of times he came and met him.

Baba says he is very courteous and full of questions. He took it as a good sign, that he wanted to learn. And whenever Rahul would make a good speech in Parliament, he would be happy about it. I think baba’s faith in him was shaken with the infamous trashing of the ordinance (when Rahul tore a copy of an ordinance that allowed convicts to contest elections).

In another entry―it was after 2014 (Lok Sabha elections defeat)―Rahul came for lunch. Baba wrote that he gave his analysis of the elections in a most detached manner, as an outsider, as if he was not the face of the party, as if it was not his party that faced such a devastating defeat. He was surprised by this lack of attachment.

Then he really started getting worried about Rahul’s frequent disappearing acts. After 2014, there were long absences, and there was intense media speculation. For my father, politics was a 24x7, 365 days job. He wrote, ‘Can he revive the Congress? I do not know’.

Q/ It was you who broke to him the news about the ordinance incident.

A/ Oh, yes. And the way he shouted at me, it was as if I had done that.

Q/ You write that you had never seen him that angry.

A/ I had seen him angry, but never that angry and never for such a long time.

Q/ In this connection, he said Rahul had all the arrogance of a Gandhi-Nehru family [member], but without their political acumen.

A/ That is something he wrote later at night. He wrote that Rahul had all the arrogance of his Gandhi-Nehru lineage without their political acumen.

Q/ And he also remarked that this was the final nail in the coffin of the Congress.

A/ That he said to me much later, in 2015. He was telling me why he thought the Congress faced such a devastating defeat. He said if the vice president of your party showed such disdain for his own government’s decisions so publicly, why should people vote for you.

Q/ One of his last diary entries was about the Gandhi family’s impact on the party.

A/ Yes. He also held himself responsible for this. He said it was because of him and people like him. ‘Aren’t we accountable for the decline of the party by mortgaging the party to the Gandhi family and their interests and by stopping the democratic process of choosing leaders by election?’ But these kind of things can come only in hindsight.

Q/ He had backed the family staunchly.

A/ His reasoning was that even during PV’s [Narasimha Rao] time, 10 Janpath remained a very strong power centre. Even a seasoned politician like Narasimha Rao could not diminish its importance. So he thought that it was better to make somebody from the family the party president so that the responsibility was channelised along with authority.

Q/ In 2004, did your father expect Sonia Gandhi to decline prime ministership?

A/ It took him totally by surprise. He mentioned so in his diaries.

Q/ The book also looks at the uneasy relationship your father had with Mamata Banerjee.

A/ From my father’s diaries and from what I have read about Mamata Banerjee, there was an election for [West Bengal state Congress] presidentship. Mamata lost by a very narrow margin to Somen Mitra. Perhaps she held my father responsible for that. Mamata also felt that my father was very soft on the left. The relationship was, I could not find any other word to use, stormy. Also, I don’t understand the political reason for Mamata Banerjee to oppose the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee for the post of president. Finally, she supported him. I would like to thank her for that.

Q/ You write about the warmth in the association between your father and Prime Minister Modi. But they came from very different ideologies.

A/ Both of them acknowledged that they came from different ideologies. Mr Modi himself told me this―when he went to meet him as prime-minister-designate, he was nervous. My father told him very candidly that they belonged to different ideologies, but people had given him the mandate to govern. ‘Governance is the responsibility of the prime minister and his cabinet, so I am not going to interfere in that. If you need any help in constitutional matters, I will definitely help you,’ baba told him. While narrating this to me, Mr Modi said it was a very big thing for him to say.

One of the most important reasons why there was no conflict was the personal regard. And my father’s understanding of the constitutional role of the president and the limitations. My father was very clear that he wanted to be a copybook president. He never tried to be an activist president.

Q/ But this was not appreciated by his Congress colleagues.

A/ His personal relationship with Narendra Modi is not unique in the sense that my father had a good relationship with people across the political divide, whether it is Jyoti Basu or Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who were left leaders, to Arun Jaitley, L.K Advani or Sushma Swaraj who were from the right. He had an excellent relationship with Nitish Kumar, who broke the ranks with the National Democratic Alliance to vote for him.

Q/ But he was not comfortable with the way the Modi government has dealt with the legacy of former prime ministers like Nehru.

A/ He was very unhappy about it. From his diaries, I learned that he advised Mr Modi not to ignore Pandit Nehru’s contributions. But baba was also critical about the way the Rahul-Sonia regime ignored other prime ministers, including Congress prime ministers. He was also very upset with Savarkar bashing. He said it was the Congress that established democracy in this country, so more than any other political party, it was the duty of the Congress to adhere to the ethics of democracy.

Q/ Pranab Mukherjee’s term as president was also known for the large number of mercy petitions he rejected. You write the petitions took an emotional toll on him.

A/ He used to feel very bad about it. There are a couple of criteria he always used. First, the judgment had to be unanimous. And it had to be recommended by the government. But he told me that he could not sleep for nights after this. He felt that except for cases involving crimes against the nation, death penalty should be abolished.

Q/ You were very unhappy when he went to the RSS headquarters.

A/ When I look back, it was foolish on my part. He believed that in a democracy, different ideologies had the right to exist. He believed there was nothing wrong in having a dialogue with the RSS, especially considering the fact that the people had chosen an RSS pracharak as prime minister. He actually used the RSS platform to preach Congress ideology. He might have made the current Congress high command or the leaders unhappy, but he truly upheld the Congress ideology.

Q/ When he was conferred Bharat Ratna, the Gandhis stayed away. How did he feel about that?

A/ When I asked my father, he said Sonia Gandhi did not allow Narasimha Rao’s mortal remains to enter the AICC, despite him being a former Congress president and prime minister. My father had always been very upset about it. He had at that time requested Sonia Gandhi to let the body into [the AICC office], but she remained quiet. Many a time he mentioned that and said that it was wrong and shameful on the part of Sonia Gandhi and her children.

Q/ What kind of response are you getting from the Congress about the book?

A/ I am not looking at my social media because I know I will be trolled badly. Just today I sent a copy to Sonia Gandhi. I would definitely want her to read it. She would definitely disagree with many things, dislike many things, but there are some things perhaps she would recollect and smile about.