History rarely records processes that culminate into decisions of prime ministers: Neerja Chowdhury

Where does the buck stop in the Indian politics? It stops at the highest office of the government, which is the throne of the prime minister. The prime minister is not only the eyes through which the country sees the world but is also the force that drives the country through its tumultuous as well as glorious phase. But underneath this cloak of the prime minister lives a human who sometimes makes mistakes, sometimes fears resistance to their decisions, and sometimes fails to battle all conflicts thrown at them.

Award-winning journalist and political commentator Neerja Chowdhury in her book “How Prime Ministers Decide” attempts to tell the story of the other side of the prime minister’s life, which is filled with failure, rejection, self-doubt and sometimes even the idea of quitting. 

In a candid interview with WION over her book, Chowdhury speaks about how history has many times failed to capture the processes that have led to the historic decisions taken by the prime ministers.

The book, which is an eye-opening account of the historic decisions taken by the six prime ministers of India, has made it to the shortlist for the 7th annual Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay New India Foundation Book Prize. 

The book was also among the three requested by Delhi’s former chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, when he was in jail. Commenting on this incident, Chowdhury says that she hopes to discuss the book with the Aam Aadmi Party leader someday.

Here is the full transcript of the interview:

A very unprecedented situation arose when Delhi’s then-Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested and sent to jail. During his time in prison, he asked for a few books that included Mahabharata, Ramayana and also your book “How Prime Ministers Decide”. After he came out of prison, he resigned from his position. Do you think that this book may have influenced his decision in some way? 

I got to know that Arvind Kejriwal read it from cover to cover and he liked the book. He wanted to read similar books. So, I said that when he comes out of prison, I would like to meet him and ask him what are the bits he liked. And you know, people said the exact opposite of your questions. Many said that Kejriwal was trying to pick the traits of how he would become the prime minister one day. 

I am sure his aim is to try to reach the top. But I see his resignation as a very smart political move because he was sent to jail with the allegations of culpability in the liquor scam case. I would like to have an opportunity for a chat with Kejriwal on my book, which I feel will be very fascinating.

Also, the fact that the national capital’s then-chief minister decided to read this book when he was at the centre of his fiercest political battle underlines the significance that this book holds in today’s time. How do you feel about that?

Well, I felt good. The book has been written over the years. I wrote the book during the pandemic. During those two years, my movement remained restricted from the computer table to the dining table to the bed.

The book encompasses the intense period of living with the prime ministers and the different political players who shaped things in the last 55 years. I signed up for the book in 2017 but did very little work at that time because of daily commitments.

I pulled out all my notebooks, filled with notes taken throughout my journalistic years, which I had kept very carefully. These notebooks had copious notes of on-the-record and off-the-record information shared by anyone. So, if somebody like Kejriwal read and liked the book, I felt happy. But, I have to say this: I would really like younger people to read it. 

The book has a very fresh humane take on the lives of the prime ministers. Like in the case of Indira Gandhi, we see all shades of her personality – the weak shades and the strong ones. She has multiple roles to play as a daughter, a mother and a prime minister and there is constant conflict in her mind. In this battle of the human self and of a prime minister – who is believed to be on a pedestal which is devoid of these human conflicts – do they eventually lose themselves? 

Jaipal Reddy, who used to be a Janata Dal leader and later joined the Congress and was also in the ministry of Manmohan Singh, once said to me that people do sharp political analysis and don’t look at the human side of the politician. So, I decided to take one decision per prime minister and put it under the scanner to understand the pressures, lobbies involved and many other factors. In this process, what I got was a very holistic picture of them. 

So, I decided to start the book by saying how lonely it is at the top. Many prime ministers have spoken about the awesome feeling that the buck stops at them and their decision is going to impact the lives of millions, maybe for generations. However, most of the decisions of prime ministers were ad-hoc in nature and were dictated by the compulsion of time – either to retain power or to wrest power. Unfortunately, history captures events but rarely records processes that culminate in those events.

Two prime ministers who made political capital out of their loneliness and solitude are Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi.

In the 1989 general elections, after the Bofors case, Congress had emerged as the single-largest party with 197 seats and the Left had 52 seats, which was giving Rajiv Gandhi a fair chance to try forming a coalition government. However, as you have clearly stated Gandhi did not have the stomach to run a coalition government, which is something every good politician in India should have. Why is history so lenient to Rajiv Gandhi?

Look, Rajiv came before the coalition politics set in. After his mother’s death, Congress had secured a whopping majority of 414 in the 1984 elections. There was a coalition government for two and a half years under Morarji Desai after Indira Gandhi was routed out post-Emergency. There had not been a history of coalition governments, so Rajiv having ruled with the majority of 414, obviously did not have an appetite for coalition. 

Maybe, he also knew that the government wouldn’t last very long which is what happened. They lasted for only 11 months. So, it could have been a calculation. 

You have also talked about Rajiv Gandhi getting influenced by the last man he talked to. How do you think this shortcoming of Gandhi affected his political decisions?

I think Rajiv was very politically naive. He got too quickly into the top position. People have called Manmohan Singh the accidental prime minister but I think it was Rajiv Gandhi who was actually the first one. In the morning he was campaigning in West Bengal and by 7 o’clock evening, he became the prime minister of India after her mother Indira was assassinated by her own security people on October 31, 1984. 

When Indira died, Rajiv’s political experience was essentially three years and he had been given easier things to handle. He was forward-looking and talked about taking India to the next century but he lacked experience, particularly of the old India. 

But he failed to understand the caste and community and this was epitomised by Shah Bano’s judgement which came in April of 1985 when an old Muslim woman was granted a maintenance of Rs 119 from her husband who divorced her through Triple Talaq. The Muslims said that the judgement interfered with the Muslim personal law. After this, Rajiv brought a law at the instance of the Muslim community to undo the Shah Bano judgement. It was said that Rajiv was appeasing the Muslims and the word appeasement came into the political lexicon at that time. 

Watch: India: PM Modi Urges People To Guard Against ‘Digital Arrests’

To placate the Hindus, he facilitated the opening of the locks at the Babri Masjid which had been put there in 1949 when an idol of Ram Lalla was smuggled surreptitiously in the the dead of night and kept in the sanctum sanctorum which is when the Masjid became a disputed structure. So, he ended up pleasing neither the Muslims nor the Hindus. 

During PV Narasimha Rao’s tenure as the prime minister, some very significant events happened like the Babri Masjid demolition and Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG) reforms in the Indian economy. However, when the 1984 anti-Sikh Riots took place, he was the man who was holding the position of the home minister. What do you think is the defining legacy of Narasimha Rao?

In 1984, Narasimha Rao was the home minister and was in charge of law and order. However, he did not call the army when the anti-Sikh riots broke out in some parts of North India and Delhi. When Narasimha Rao became the prime minister, the country was in flames – there was Mandal violence, Mandir violence and Jammu and Kashmir was up in arms.

When bureaucrats went to him to get papers signed, he said, “I knew the situation was bad but I did not realise it was so bad”. He dealt with some critical international issues but again he was the one who was responsible for doing nothing to save the Babri Masjid. So, Narasimha Rao has a very mixed legacy, on one hand, he was forward-looking and on the other hand, his non-decision on Babri Masjid led to the rise of the BJP.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was known for his oration skills. He was a poet and a great speaker. However, when he announced the success of the nuclear test, he was seen reading from a piece of paper and had a very statesmanly look on his face. When do you think a politician becomes a statesman and why? Also, now that the speech has stood the test of time, how do you see it in hindsight?

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a great orator. When he had to read out something, Vajpayee was not the same speaker. He spoke very spontaneously and took his time to answer questions. So, on the day of the nuclear test, it was decided what he would exactly speak. This was because the world was watching and every word would be scrutinised. 

So, the speech was worked out very carefully and had very measured words, and Vajpayee didn’t even take any questions that day. 

Through the prime ministership of Manmohan Singh, it was very well known that Sonia Gandhi was pulling his strings. However, she never really held the position. So, where is Sonia Gandhi’s place in the prime ministerial history?

When the prime ministerial story of India will be written, Sonia Gandhi will have a very important place in it. This is because she was the influence behind the throne in the prime ministership of Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh and also played a part in some decisions of Narasimha Rao. So, I have called her half-prime minister during Manmohan Singh’s tenure. 

Out of the 14 prime ministers, eight of them came from Uttar Pradesh. Why has UP been the power centre of Indian politics? 

This is because Uttar Pradesh is the largest state in the country and dominates politics because of the large number of MPs. It was also the hub of the freedom movement. Then, the Nehru-Gandhi family, who played a very important role in the freedom movement, lived in Anand Bhawan, which was in UP.

The importance of the state diminished during Narasimha Rao’s regime. And there was a theory that he did it deliberately and gave much more importance to the South.