In this autobiographical account the R.D. Pradhan shares memories, anecdotes and incidents that throw light on important events and prominent political personalities including Pranab Mukherjee, Dr Manmohan Singh, Sharad Pawar, Arjun Singh and Arun Nehru.
My Years With
Rajiv And Sonia
R.D. Pradhan
Hay House India
Pages: 311; Price: Rs 499 |
R .D. Pradhan (it doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone to state what the initials stand for) must be one of the most fortunate, if not talented, members of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) which he joined in 1952 hardly five years after Independence.
He served his country in various capacities. In the early 1970s he was posted at the United Nations in Geneva. After a long 10-year spell abroad, he was appointed as Maharashtra’s Home Secretary in March 1977. By then he had been India’s representative to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and United Nations Confer¬ence on Trade & Development (UNCTAD).
Following 1977 he was to witness several political events and turbulence like the Gas Leakage at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, what followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 the general elections that followed when Congress came to power with a large majority and Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister.
Following that he was summoned to Delhi to be the Union Home Minister and from then on life took an unexpected turn. It wasn’t that he had no friends in Delhi. His wife’s cousin, for instance, Gen. Arun Shridhar Vaidya was Chief of Army Staff and he knew many in the political field, especially among Maharashtrian politicians, quite well.
After retirement in June 1986 he served for some time as Governor of Arunachal Pradesh and Bihar, later became a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council (196O) and served as President of the Centre for Advanced Studies (a Think Tank on Defence Matters). Then, in a sense he got into politics and a new Pradhan was born.
The book is divided into 26 chapters, each chapter dealing with one specific subject. What is important to know is that Pradhan worked very closely first with Rajiv Gandhi and then, after his assassination, with Sonia. Names of people deeply involved with politics startle pages literally by the dozens.
He liked Rajiv, indeed in very high regard and in turn, Rajiv liked Pradhan. Quite early Rajiv told Pradhan: “Pradhanji, I know you can work within a political system. You are also a Congress MLC. You have been a Governor and you can deal with party heavy weights. I want you to create space around me so I can function effectively.” That was it.
That was exactly what Pradhan wanted and what he desired, he got without asking. Soon Pradhan was to be in Rajiv’s inner circle rousing jealousy among senior civil servants like Natwar Singh and later on within the closed circle of Sonia herself. Indeed Pradhan owes a great deal to the Gandhi couple which comes through clearly, as in the dedication of the book to both husband and wife “two individuals who enriched my post-retirement life” as he put it.
That comes through in the over dozen odd chapters such as” Restoring Peace in Punjab, Rajiv Gandhi’s first Sign-up, The PM’s relations with the President, Security Nightmares, Could Rajiv Gandhi’s Life Have Been Saved? (it could have, had he listened to advice), Joining Rajiv Gandhi’s Team, The post Assassination Scene, Sharad Pawar vs Narasimha Rao, The Emergence of Sonia Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi Takes Control, The Revolt Within the Congress – all of which showing how close he was to the powers-that-be.
Sharad Pawar does not come through as a trustworthy colleague. Great was his ambition to be Prime Minister and he seemed willing to do anything to achieve his great – and unjustified – dream. That Pradhan tells how deftly Narasimha Rao pinned Pawar to the post. By itself it is a fasci-nating story.
As to Rajiv’s assassination Pradhan suspects some foul play in certain unnamed circles. As he put it, one needs to ask whether the then Governor of Tamil Nadu had taken adequate personal interest in connection with the security arrangements and whether he had taken the initiative to get Rajiv’s visit to Sriperumbudur rescheduled.
Pradhan says: “How did the LTTE outfit come to know precisely the date, time and venue of the assassination without the local police or the Tamil Nadu Intelligence set-up getting a whiff of the conspiracy hatched either in Sri Lanka or the state?”
After Rajiv’s passing away Sonia Gandhi continued to take Pradhan’s help in many ways. Writes Pradhan: “From the outset we started working with mutual trust and respect. The more I interacted with her, the more I found that she had a great depth of understanding of the Indian political scene that was astounding in a person of ‘foreign origin’ and one who had an aversion to politics.”
Pradhan got along very well indeed with Sonia who, at one time even supported his desire to get into the Rajya Sabha. To Pradhan’s personal ambitions there seems to have no end. But he was cheated by Sonia’s “enemies” – and that tells a lot about the inner workings of the Congress. Within it there were at least three people who wanted Sonia out and who tried their best to get their way. They, of course, failed.
Pradhan excels in story-telling. There is one story about how Rajiv tried to stop security men from following him, that is unbelievable. But, says Pradhan: “All said and done, Rajiv Gandhi was a thorough gentleman. He respected his senior bureaucrats, perhaps more than his senior Ministers. Sometimes he could be unreasonable or indulge in one-upmanship publicly (as when he publicly sacked the then Foreign Secretary A.P. Venkateswaran which was in so much bad taste). There was no malice in him, although he exposed himself to malicious comments arid jokes by the media in general and the cartoonists in particular. But Rajiv could laugh at his own foibles and make up by apologising for unintended slights. I attributed his behaviour to his youth and his misplaced notion of openness. However on certain matters he was firm. He could neither suffer fools nor repose trust in anyone who had once lost it!”
It would seem that Rajiv had scant respect for many of his senior political colleagues. All this comes out in what can be described as raw history which this book is. The time came when Pradhan – getting on to 75 years decided to quit politics. That is a tear-jerking story. Read it.
M.V. KAMATH
