Intertwined Lives

Title: Intertwined Lives: P. N. Haksar and Indira Gandhi

Author: Jairam Ramesh

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2018 (First)

ISBN: 9789386797261

Pages: 518

Nepotism and corruption were the hallmarks of Indira Gandhi's tenure as the Prime Minister of India. As soon as her sons came of age, she allowed them, especially the younger Sanjay Gandhi to dabble in administration that finally turned out to be disastrous for herself, her party and the nation itself in the form of Emergency declared in 1975. One wonders what would have been the outcome if she had sponsored Rajivfirst who was mild and gentle, as he was fit for it being the elder of the two. When the dynastic continuity was not ready during the period when the children were studying, she appointed cronies to positions of power. This caused resentment and she engineered the first split in Congress in just five years after the death of Nehru, her father. ParmeshwarNarainHaksar was a Kashmiri Pandit lawyer who was friends with both Indira and her husband Feroz in London in the 1930s. He was deputed from the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and made the principal secretary to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from May 1967 to January 1973. He was the ideological compass and moral beacon of her in that period. His decisive contribution to some of the very crucial policies such as the nationalization of banks, coal and oil industries, abolition of privy purses, victory over Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh and integration of Sikkim to Indian Union is well acclaimed. Haksar has not published any memoirs of his official life and Jairam Ramesh steps in to rectify that anomaly with a comprehensive narration of the man's life which is marked by hard work and steadfastness to ideals. The author is an economist and politician of the Congress Party. He is known for his affable manners and wide friendship cutting across party lines. This intellectual has also served as a Union Minister under Manmohan Singh.

They Nehru family’s rule is marked by the ease with which people with the right connections could flout norms at will. Haksar joined the Foreign Service as an officer on special duty on temporary basis for preparing a report on the communal disturbances in India. Obviously, the home ministry objected to the foreign ministry handling this internal job. So, the program was cancelled and Haksar was confirmed onthejob! This somewhat explains Nehru's concept of equal opportunity to all. Haksar was then put on the Indian delegation to UN with Nehru's special interestand which discussed the Kashmir issue. He joined the service at a comparatively late age of 35 and had many younger colleagues senior in service to him. Haksar was peeved at this but could solve this problem by influencing Nehru and arranging a promotion after just six years of joining. The next milestone came in May 1967 when he was chosen as the secretary to the Prime Minister. Ramesh hints that part of the selection motive was his acting as the local guardian of both Sanjay and Rajiv who were studying in England. He used every open avenue towards reaching his targets. His retirement was due in 1971 at the age of 58. With two more months to go for that date, President VVGiri wrote an unusual letter to Indira Gandhi asking her to retain his service. It is fairly evident that Haksar was the prime mover in this extraordinary correspondence. The book has effectively exposed the wily face of a bureaucrat intent on self-preservation and scoring a point over his colleagues.

Another debilitating factor in India's economic backwardness of the Nehru-Indira era was the ubiquity of left-leaning bureaucrats and politicians in positions of responsibility and power who moulded the national policy to mirror their flawed ideology. Haksar was a former member of the Communist Party of India and maintained his ideological affiliation till the end. He was put in charge of repatriation of Korean POWs as part of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission set up in the aftermath of the Korean War of 1954. He locked horns with its chairman Lieutenant General Thimmayya on account of his supposed American preferences. He played a very decisive role in the nationalization of banks in 1969 and the abolition of Privy Purse and other princely privileges in 1970. Haksar’s old school socialism proved to be a millstone on the neck of the country’s economy. In place of a private small car project for which permission was sought by its promoters, Haksar suggested improving public transport and scooters for the employees. When a request came for enhancing the manufacturing capacity of a company producing scooters, he scuttled that too, with the argument that such a facility should come up in the public sector. His Anti-American sentiments put the country to unnecessary embarrassment. He once refused permission to the University of Chicago to set up an institute in Varanasi to study South Asian art. His curt advice was to constitute such a centre in their own country. His partisan approach was exposed when the issue of development of oil exploration came up in the Gulf of Cambay. He cut down the proposal for test drilling by the US companyTenneco upon the advice of Soviet experts. His visceral hatred towards America is evident in his terming New York as a ‘cerebrally arid’city. Is it any wonder that the US ditched a country in which people like Haksar called all the shots and instead went to Pakistan with open arms? In an extreme step, he suggested nationalization of land in urban areas with no private ownership allowed. Luckily for India, sanerminds prevailed over this hot-headed idea. While serving as an employee of the government, Haksar was used for political purposes too. He was tasked with preparing speeches, influence rebels in the party and playing the background drama ahead of party meetings including putting up his opinion even on cabinet reshuffles.

The author is somewhat reticent in openly discussing the Sanjay factor that resulted in Haksar’s ouster from Indira Gandhi’s inner circle. Even while in England, Haksar was instrumental in extricating Sanjay from youthful fracas involving wine, women and cars. The young man could not stand the old man's pontificating demeanour. After Indira became Prime Minister, Sanjay was illegally given a letter of intent to manufacture 50,000 small cars a year without any foreign collaboration and without any imported raw material. After tinkering with other people's money for a few years, the ‘prince’ understood that this was not feasible. Sanjay was first given six months time to convert the letter of intent to a licence. This was then extended to eighteen months and the import restrictions fully waived. Eventually, it was granted in 1974 without producing a single car. Haksar opposed him at every stage and even suggested to Indira to ask her son to move out of the prime minister's official residence. Haksar was a fearless critic when the need arose. He pointed out Nehru's faults even when he was working with him. It is only natural that he took Sanjay head-on on his pampered antics.

The author vividly portrays Haksar’s fall from grace. Sanjay and his coterie smoked him out of the PM’s office. Haksar retaliated by refusing to testify in Indira Gandhi's favour in the Allahabad High Court which was examining the witnesses in a case filed against her for electoral malpractices. The court eventually decided against the prime minister, stripping her of the parliament seat. She responded by declaring an internal Emergency that suspended all democratic rights in the country for twenty-one gruelling months. The dynasty took their revenge against him within three weeks after the onset of Emergency. Haksar’s aged uncle and his brother-in-law were arrested from their business shop on the flimsy charge of not affixing price tags to a set of bed sheets. Haksar was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission at that time, but in Indira’s reign, anybody not in her kitchen cabinet was impotent. Both Indira and Haksar kept the slight a point of contention in their future interactions. When a commentator later called Haksar ‘the conscience keeper of Indira Gandhi’, he replied with contempt that he could not be the keeper of something which did not exist (p.482). However, they kept good outward appearances and courtesy in letters and public functions.

India's economic miracle was unveiled after 1991 when Narasimha Rao scrapped the labyrinthine rules and procedures that regulated industrial investment. It is now taken for granted that India before and after the liberalisation are two distinct entities. However, the author seems to be in a time warp, praising Indira and Haksar for strengthening planning and the public sector to ‘rebuild the economy’! It also makes some tall claims on the contribution of mediocre leaders like V K Krishna Menon whose only part in setting India's foreign policy was to antagonize the US with his outspoken and irrelevant criticism. The author claims that Krishna Menon’s efforts resulted in an armistice in the Korean War (p.59). Ramesh is very careful not to put in comments or observations that might alienate the Nehru family who still commands the Congress party of which he is a member. Utmost care seems to be the trademark of the book.

The author has not bothered to establish a structure for the droll narrative which is more like excerpts from a diary. The myriad number of verbatim quotes from letters, documents and office memoranda are trying the patience of the readers. An amusing factor that adds to the book’s appeal is a series of twelve candid photos of Indira Gandhi taken by Haksar while on a river cruise in Dhaka in 1972 during the period of about half an hour.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star