heyOn a chilly Sunday evening in Delhi, some of Pranab Mukherjee’s former colleagues, friends, contemporaries and students gathered to remember the ‘master negotiator’. Soon, the discussion turned to ‘what if’ and how ‘they could be given their due’ – the prime minister.
“The two people who could have become the prime minister were both Bengalis – Jyoti Basu [former West Bengal Chief Minister] And Pranab Mukherjee,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said at a panel discussion ‘Remembering Pranab’ organized by the Pranab Mukherjee Legacy Foundation on 8 January.
Yechury remembered the late President as someone who celebrated India’s plurality. “He believed that Parliament is a sacred institution of nation-building; You argue and disagree, but you decide.”
Sharmistha Mukherjee, founder of the Pranab Mukherjee Legacy Foundation and the politician’s daughter, had set the tone for the evening. It was about his father: President, statesman, parliamentarian and “consensus builder”.
“Parliament was my father’s first love. He always wanted to be a good Parliamentarian. In his later years, he was deeply troubled by the way Parliament was being run, the way ordinances were being made and passed without any proper debate,” Sharmistha told the audience, adding that Most included academics, politicians and bureaucrats who were just starting out in their careers. In the early 1980s.
Among the speakers at the event were Pawan Verma, former diplomat and parliamentarian; Shekhar Dutt, former Governor of Chhattisgarh and former Defense Secretary; and N.K. Singh, Chairman of the 14th Finance Commission of India.
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There was overwhelming agreement for a ‘consensus builder’: all agreed that Mukherjee was a key instrument of dialogue – not only as a parliamentarian but also as an interlocutor between the Congress and the Left.
Mukherjee was the only president in India’s history to hold multiple portfolios within the central government, from defense to foreign affairs, commerce to finance. He also played an important role during the tenure of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, where he was the ‘point person’ for building a consensus between the Left and the ruling Congress party.
But the story changed soon after Rajiv Gandhi assumed the reins of Prime Ministership in 1984 following his mother’s assassination. Indira’s demise led to a rift in the party leadership, as Mukherjee was widely regarded as the late PM’s ‘rightful successor’. Mukherjee then formed his own party, the National Socialist Congress, in 1986. However, after discussions with Rajiv, it merged with the Congress in 1989.
He said, ‘Undoubtedly he could have been the choice for the post of Prime Minister. Even becoming president had a lot behind the scenes, including within his own party. Destiny treated Rajiv Gandhi unfairly after he came to power. he [Mukherjee] In fact the actual number was two. He was a senior member of the cabinet with a vast experience in governance. Then he was treated in such a way that he was forced to live in the forest for five years,” said Verma.
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According to Professor Dinesh Singh, former vice-chancellor of the University of Delhi, Mukherjee, as India’s finance minister from 1982–1984, helped raise the morale of the country’s disaffected youth population.
“Some of us were just starting our careers. Most of us were disheartened by what was happening with the condition of our country. Terrible predictions were made that India would soon become a Banana Republic. There was a time when India paid a heavy price loan from the IMF,” Singh said.
He said the loan was not only not fully utilized but “prematurely returned as India did not need it”.
The last tranche of the loan – $1.1 billion – was returned as it was not needed by India while the rest was paid on time. “All this happened because of his guidance. People started looking at India with some degree of respect.
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bitter memories are missing
The trip down memory lane was fraught with bitterness. Yechury and some other panellists, like Mukherjee’s daughter, lamented the passage of time and the changes it has brought.
Sharmistha said, “My father, when he was president, and in the years following his presidency, kept saying that disruption of parliament hurts the opposition more because then they don’t get a platform to speak.”
Without naming anyone, the conversation turned to how politics and Parliament are different now. “That was a different era of politics and it is difficult to find now,” Verma told ThePrint.
Yechury said, “I think we have left the Rajya Sabha at the right time.” “Today, Parliament does not function the way Parliament should function.”
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)