It was a lengthy interview with Naga leader Hokishe Sema.
He was a former Nagaland Chief Minister and ex Governor of Himachal Pradesh. My question was --
One of my questions was : “Would you agree that sycophancy has (had) become part of the Congress culture under Rajiv Gandhi?”
His response was emphatic and candid. “It is true, sycophancy has become synonymous with the Congress culture. But don’t blame it on Indira or Rajiv Gandhi only. It is not true that they demanded or preferred sycophancy.
It was a handful of people, your so called coterie who formed such circle....In fact, Rajiv Gandhi was brought down because of this inner circle politics”.
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| Platform : News Clipping (Nagaland) |
Hokishe, a leader from old school, was also critical of the manner the Congress party had brought down Chandrashekhar government.
Post-Rajiv assassination, his observation was:
“This was another act that showed our immaturity. Our leadership started suspecting everybody including two constables who were reportedly seen near Rajiv’s house. Politics is much beyond all these.
A political party should be an instrumental force in serving the public interest”.
It was the year 1991, I had interviewed him on two occasions – May and later in the month of July.
The second one turned quite explosive for in that interview – that was carried in Kohima-based ‘The Weekly Journal’ – Hokishe had called the ‘present leadership of Congress to step aside’. Hokishe’s bête noire of many years, S C Jamir was Leader of the CLP (Opposition) in the state assembly and Shikhio Sema was Pradesh Congress chief.
Both were certainly angry and not without good reasons.
Here I will not discuss much about Nagaland politics.
I would like to refer to Hokishe’s grasp on national politics especially in the context of emergence of P V Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh duo in India’s politics.
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Hokishe with Rajiv : He had handed over this snap to me |
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 and country’s economy was in ruins.
As a Congress veteran Hokishe had good understanding of the functioning style of P V Narasimha Rao. Thus, he obviously hailed the return of the so-called ‘old guard’ at the helm of Congress politics.
Hokishe was delighted that Rao as Congress president had announced organisational elections. This was path breaking.
Hokishe knew last time, the Congress had intra-party polls was in 1972. In 1991, Sema was 70. He knew pretty well how the Congress party functioned between 1972 and 1991. Despite all these, he remained a Congress follower and as expected also a great admirer of Indira Gandhi.
“It has no much relevance whether I am closer to the present leaders in the AICC or not. Some of us have worked together. I know Narasimha Rao well, that’s one issue,” he had said. He also mentioned about several Congress leaders at the national level ‘reconciling’ to the reality that Rajiv had died prematurely and ought to adjust to the new challenges.
“We are entering a new era and it would be challenging times,” he had said.
But at later stage – after a year or so Hokishe was happy that gradually Narasimha Rao was trying to build up the Congress party at the grassroots level. Various regional leaders in the Congress got encouragement and Hokishe appreciated the fact that they were also getting ‘freedom and autonomy’ to build up the party on their own in various states.
He mentioned leaders such as Digvijaya Singh in Madhya Pradesh and S M Krishna in Karnataka.
Among others, he said the state leaders would do well or were already doing well were – Sharad Pawar (then defence minister and who was later shifted back to Maharashtra by Rao as the Chief Minister).
“I admire Rao’s style of functioning. All these state leaders are not nominated and are getting their positions elected and on their merits. This change is refreshing,” Hokishe had diagnosed things pretty well.
“Look here, the Congress is reviving and it’s happening on ground. This augurs extremely well for our party after two consecutive elections”.
Notably, the Congress had lost the polls in 1989. In 1991 it emerged as the single largest party and formed government, but Rao was heading only a minority government.
On a different plane, I still recall an episode wherein he had reprimanded a group of Congress legislators who had met him and urged him to take up with the Rao government for replacement of the then Nagaland Governor M M Thomas.
“I know how important and significant the office of Governor is constitutionally. I was a Governor in Himachal Pradesh myself”.
The argument I would like to push here is that likes of Hokishe Sema believed that under Narasimha Rao, the Congress party was ‘reviving’.
In contrast, Rajiv Gandhi had failed both as the Prime Minister and as the Congress president. It is also a fact of the matter that in 1984 after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Rajiv Gandhi had more than 400 MPs and a historic mandate. But all of it could not be sustained.
I had also probed him on Dr Manmohan Singh as well. Dr Singh was certainly a newsmaker of the post-Rajiv era Congress politics. He was made Finance Minister at a difficult time of Indian economic history.
Hokishe Sema had said it would be premature to comment on an ‘official-turned-politician’. But he believed Dr Singh was a 'talented economist'.
Manmohan Singh’s expertise and experience would help the Rao government, he hoped like scores of other Congressman.
But Hokishe also knew that PM Narasimha Rao had actually taken Manmohan Singh in the cabinet only after I G Patel had declined Rao’s invitation to join the government as the Finance Minister.
Of course, the description about Manmohan Singh – an overestimated economist and underestimated politician had not come into public debate yet.
On anther front ... on the hindside, Hokishe had said, “It was more unbecoming for us to have brought down Chandrashekhar because Congress had brought down the V P Singh government and pledged support to Chandrashekhar. We were single largest party in the ninth Lok Sabha. We could have staked claim. We said we trust Chandrashekhar and then we said - we don’t”.
Rao in centre ::: Deve Gowda, V P Singh and also Gujral and Chandrashekhar
Hokishe claimed after V P Singh government was voted out, even the then President R Venkataraman had weighed in his mind the option to invite Rajiv Gandhi to form government.
Due to Ayodhya-related violence and BJP stalart L K Advani’s arrest, there was unrest in north India in particular and amid all these country’s economy was in bad shape.
Hokishe had claimed that during a meeting, he told Pranab Mukherjee to be ‘more pro-active’.
I had asked whether, he felt Pranab would have been a better Prime Minister (in 1991).
Hokishe's had responded like a seasoned politician - “But Pranab had his problems. After 1984 he had quit Congress for sometime and had returned just around the time of 1989 elections. Pranab was doubly cautious now”.
Another striking feature of India of 1990-91 was on the economy front. Ending of license raj was historic, he said. “Of course, I don’t understand economy much. I cannot tell you what is balance of payment, and so on. But political economy as I understand told me Narasimha Rao was on the right track. Foreign investment was must and we needed to create rooms for Indian industrialists to play”.
On this front, Hokishe said the economic governance under Rajiv Gandhi was pretty bad as media reports have been saying.
This was a major problem area. “The economic collapse that came in 1990-91 was more to do with our own failure. This is a lay man’s diagnosis”.
“I think Prime Ministership had come to Rajiv much earlier than he had anticipated. He lost his mother and the country wanted him to be Prime Minister. But as a young man, he had his limitation.
He had serious problems in man-management. He trusted friends and gave them all power, but did not know what exactly his friends should do in terms of governance”.
ends
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