Life Among the Scorpions

by Jaya Jaitly

  ~

  When country went into elections in 1998, the group that formed the first NDA had learned a lesson: they had to come together with a clear programme and team. The National Agenda for Governance (NAG) was formulated steering clear of ‘contentious’ issues like Article 370, Ram Temple/Babri Masjid, and the Uniform Civil Code. The plan had pretty much worked for us and the BJP at the level of Bihar, so a larger national view touching on all aspects of governance was not hard to formulate and adopt. George Fernandes became NAG’s secular face although he never subscribed to such designations, as he reassured all other parties who were hesitant the first time around to come on board.

  As usual, George Fernandes did not want to join the government. He always felt constrained and wanted to be among the people, fighting for justice wherever needed. There was much work to do, he always muttered. Since I had a tough time when he was in power, this position was fine for me, but his close friend Jaswant Singh later came over on behalf of the prime minister and pleaded, even shedding tears, saying they all thought the government would not have the credibility it required if he were not in it. Vajpayee had threatened to go to the President and tell him they would not form the government. All this succeeded. George Fernandes had no option but to succumb since he had worked so hard towards creating a viable non-Congress option.

  Vajpayee had planned to give Ramakrishna Hegde the Defence portfolio but he offered George Fernandes a choice between Defence and the Human Resource Development Ministry. About the latter, he confided in me that it had nothing of worth to handle as education was a state subject and there were only few central educational institutions like central universities, and the IITs and IIMs, to handle. This did not interest him much. The next morning I telephoned him really early as some thoughts had come to me at 5 am. I came straight out with it: ‘You know, I seem to get my brightest thoughts at the crack of dawn. Today I woke up and my first thought was why don’t you consider accepting Defence?’

  George Sahib said, ‘What will I do among those stiff-uniformed fellows with so much saluting and Sir-ing?’

  I shared my view that this was a minor part of the job at hand, and that here was an opportunity to reformulate India’s security policies vis-a-vis Burma, Tibet and China. We had known for long that the Foreign Ministry’s line of thinking had favoured Nehru’s position on remaining soft and on the backfoot, and the Left had never considered India’s interests on such matters. It had kept us weak and subservient in terms of our own strategic interests. I reminded George Sahib that our Party had even held two important international conferences on Tibet and on the restoration of democracy in Burma for India’s strategic interests apart from needing democracy in our neighbourhood. One of these had been held more recently at Mavlankar Hall which former prime ministers like I.K. Gujral, Deve Gowda and others had attended and lent their support to. These were strong concerns of the Samata Party. ‘Here is your chance to hear the Defence and armed forces’ viewpoints, which has till now been subsumed. You can give their voice some space for consideration in our policies,’ I argued.

  As a Party of socialists, we had argued at many conferences that it was important for India that Tibet remained a buffer and zone of peace, and that as long as China strengthened the hands of the ruling generals in Myanmar, India would be at a strategic disadvantage in our Northeastern states. Serving and retired armed personnel had engaged with us discreetly at these conferences and we knew that they wished to express their views on national security more freely before the political class and had never been given a fair opportunity. (At a reception at the Taj Mansingh Hotel soon after the government was formed, a young Foreign Ministry official joined our conversation and soon began to boast about how the old China policy may be sought to be changed by the new incumbent but that he wasn’t worried because the Ministry would soon set him right! It was amusing that he was so confident. I remained silent as I did not want to introduce myself and spoil his mood.)

  ‘Hmmm,’ George Sahib responded on the telephone in a distant, non-committal sort of way. I didn’t, however, detect a negative or dismissive tone in the response. I was silently pleased that my advice had been considered worthwhile when he did agree with me later in the day and took on the job with a passion and vigour that was typical of George Fernandes.

  Little did I realize that while Vajpayee and the NDA were happy with his being part of the government, I was going to be attacked later by the scorpions in full force till I actually quit party politics, discreetly, but in disgust.

  ~

  Around ten days after coming to power in 1998, the NDA government conducted the Pokhran nuclear tests. Pakistan, too, demonstrated its nuclear capabilities to the world soon after. It was widely believed they had China’s support in the process.

  A few days later, Karan Thapar had the now famous television interview with George Fernandes in which he said China was ‘Potential Threat No. 1’ in answer to a question about whether China was Enemy No. 1. George Fernandes had very clearly and deliberately answered, ‘No. Potential Threat No. 1’. This created a major furore amongst the opposition, particularly the extremely voluble communists and the Congress who were seen as having played footsie with China from a position of disadvantage for years. George Fernandes was repeatedly attacked for saying he had called China ‘Enemy No. 1’ which he had not, but the media was happy to play the opposition’s take on this for years even after repeated corrections and clarifications from the Party and Karan Thapar himself.

  Manoj Joshi, a senior and more balanced journalist, wrote a perceptive article in India Today of 18 May 1998 titled ‘George in the China Shop’.* The article begins thus:

  In sabre-rattling on China, George Fernandes succeeded in shifting India’s security concerns to where defence specialists, and indeed the Ministry of Defence’s own annual reports, have been saying they ought to be—somewhere between Islamabad and Beijing.

  This echoed what I had conveyed to George Fernandes that morning on the phone when he was reluctant to accept the Defence portfolio. I felt that my political perception was not so far off the mark.

  ~

  By 2003, China was keen to invite Prime Minister Vajpayee to visit. They believed they needed to overcome George Fernandes’s years of hostility and reservations first. The Chinese Ambassador made a few courtesy calls at his Raksha Bhavan office, where a tapestry reminding the world of the horrors of Hiroshima hung on the wall above the visitor’s sofa area. These culminated in an invitation for George Fernandes to visit China to pave the way for Vajpayee’s visit. Their invitation was very warm and generous. They offered him an aircraft to visit any part of China the Defence Minister wished. Perhaps this meant a visit to Tibet too. He was terribly excited about the visit. It was not surprising, despite his stand towards them vis-a-vis India’s strategic interests and his support for Tibet. It was a major historic moment for him in his political journey. He saw this as an immense opportunity for him to personally pave the way for cordial relations between the two countries. I knew he was eventually a highly practical and pragmatic politician. Additionally, he was highly diplomatic and a thorough gentleman in his dealings with other countries.

  China was in the throes of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic. Everyone was shown wearing masks. George Fernandes carried loads of anti-SARS vaccines among other gifts but chose not to wear a mask. This impressed the people of China. His visit was an eye-opener. He returned to share with us his perception that the two countries shared two goals: overcoming rural poverty and bringing about economic development. He had discussed other commonalities with the Chinese President and the Prime Minister: of corruption, and the immense poverty both still had. While on his visit, he was shown a Buddhist monastery in Beijing where the Prime Minister’s wife worshipped regularly; they were telling him they were not godless. He was highly impressed by their efficiency. Also, George Fernandes did not use their aircraft to go anywhere.

  Bhartendu Kumar S
ingh, a research scholar from JNU, sums up (better than I could) the significance of his visit in a paper titled ‘George Fernandes and Sino-Indian relations’:*

  The recent visit to China by George Fernandes got good media coverage both within and outside India, despite the international focus on Iraq. The reason lay not in his being the first Defence Minister of India to have visited China in a decade, but his being ‘George Fernandes’. It is, therefore, interesting to know what makes George Fernandes so important for Sino-Indian relations. Despite being a proclaimed ‘socialist,’ George Fernandes, in his over five-decade long political career, has associated himself with nearly everything that makes China uncomfortable…. He was very pessimistic of Nehru’s friendly overtures towards China, and was very vocal when India surrendered its special privileges in Tibet under the 1954 Treaty. Post-1962, he was even more aggressive towards China. This is documented in his 1966 discussion with a Geneva-based Sinologist, Edgar Snow, author of Red Star Over China. George presented the case for an independent Tibet. This would have taken care of Tibetan’s search for national identity and met India’s security needs. George continued to speak out for Tibet even after the PSP faded away…

  His recent visit has enabled George Fernandes to undertake this image-building exercise. From his speeches and statements during his visit, he wanted to convey that he was ‘pragmatic’ in his approach. Instead of dwelling on threat perceptions, he talked about China’s developmental success, its excellent work culture, and lessons for India. Moreover, the timing of his visit, when China is facing the ‘SARS’ challenge, earned him the goodwill of his hosts.

  Prime Minister Vajpayee finally visited China in July and this was hailed as a historic visit. George Fernandes was only happy to do his bit to facilitate things as much as possible for the country’s good.

  ~

  Meanwhile, only a couple of us in the Party know about an extremely tense episode that took place while George Fernandes visited China.

  It is hard to tell the time difference between New Delhi and Beijing at this point of time but the Fernandes entourage had just about arrived in China when at midnight, I was woken from my sleep in Delhi by Nitish Kumar asking for George Sahib’s contact number there. I asked what had happened. He said it was an urgent Party matter. I gave him his personal assistant Ashok Subramaniam’s mobile number. At 6 am, Party General Secretary Shambhu Sharan Srivastava rang me to say Nitish Kumar was desperate to speak to Sahib. He was at war with Raghunath Jha and some senior Parliamentarians from Bihar for challenging him on some irrelevant matter and wanted George Fernandes to immediately dismiss them from the Party. I was astounded. If he managed to make this happen, the consequences were hard to imagine. Shambhu fully agreed with me. I called Ashok in Beijing right away and told him what was happening. He said Nitish had spoken to him at 2.30 am but Sahib had been sleeping and so nothing had been conveyed as yet. By then, George Fernandes had woken up. I told him an ugly internal tussle was going on here which would break the Party. More importantly, it would be a huge embarrassment for the country if the Defence Minister was seen giving priority and attention to petty squabbles back home. I strongly advised against it. George Fernandes didn’t indulge in any further discussion. He agreed and suggested I draft a note. He said I should convey it to Ashok. His mind was focussed on China. I hastily scribbled a few words on a sheet of paper by my bedside, called Ashok again, and dictated it to him. I still have that sheet and can quote verbatim:

  I earnestly request my colleagues in the party to refrain from mutual recriminations and organisational complaints at a time when I am preoccupied with a prestigious and historic visit to China.

  In China, I am a senior representative of the NDA govt & our country & not just the leader of the Samata Party. Any disharmony or demands on me to attend to party squabbles not only minimizes our fight against Lalu Yadav’s misrule but will denigrate our party, and the govt of which it is a part, and the country, in the eyes of the international community.

  I am sure that my colleagues will not mind exercising some restraint for a few days. Personal complaints and egos could be kept aside till I return—in the interests of party unity and national prestige.

  Ashok did the needful and the visit went on without any further hitch. Nitish Kumar may or may not know about my role in this.

  I kept behind the scenes on many such matters as I would have been considered ‘out of line’ in the larger scheme of things, but my political instincts had developed quite strongly by then, and I often had to deal with such problems which thankfully got nipped in the bud very quietly.

  *See Gujral’s Matters of Discretion: An Autobiography, New Delhi: Hay House Inc., 2011, p. 335.

  *See http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/china-is-the-potential-threat-no.-1-says-george-fernandes/1/264241.html

  *See http://www.ipcs.org/article/china/george-fernandes-and-sino-indian-relations-1044.html

  16

  CHERCHEZ LA FEMME

  A Typical Scorpion’s Agenda

  SOME POLITICAL PERSONALITIES ENJOYED WHAT is called ‘phokat mein prachar’, or free publicity, even if it was negative. Not being prone to performing in public as most politicians are primed to do, I didn’t seek it. I was a performer on television as Party spokesperson, but that was by default. I suppose viewers did find me a bit different, as I didn’t evade issues, spoke softly, and was more proactive than my appearance indicated. When a handloom sari-wearing woman with a big bindi and silver earrings spoke sharp politics in a pretty polite but no less combative manner, curiosity was bound to arise.

  The media’s natural modality in covering political incidents is to sniff the air for gossip, concoct a theory around it, toss out a story with the pretence of some evidence and wait eagerly for combat and controversy to fly around. And if a woman is a part of the story, that’s a ‘wow!’ Otherwise, their output is boring. The last time I was significantly in the news for controversial nonsense was the time when my appointment to head the NID was cancelled. There were some odd stories about my work in the crafts, and some Party-related reports that didn’t attract the interest of spice-seekers, or ‘knicker-sniffs’ as George Fernandes derisively called those who made it their main vocation to sniff around for any possible smell of dirt.

  During the V.P. Singh regime, friends outside the Party told me they had met businessmen at social occasions who gossiped that while Fernandes did not take bribes, his colleague Jaya Jaitly willingly accepted them in the form of gold jewellery. Known socialist colleagues in the Party were worse. Nearly everyone wanted to be on some railway committee or the other to entitle them to free travel. Others wanted their kin to be passed in an exam or cleared in an interview without the requisite marks, insisting that ministers’ offices and colleagues in earlier regimes had helped them do so. One of them regularly brought me his cronies demanding I hand out money to them for travel. I would be asked to arrange railway passes for them and others. Friends would request seats for family travel on the minister’s quota. I would ask George Fernandes’s permission before doing anything of this nature. He would refuse saying that neither was the government a charity establishment nor should his office be used as a travel agency. Of course, I would get the brunt of everyone’s anger as they would not dare approach or blame him. George Sahib too was happy to avoid them by using me as a convenient shield.

  Eventually, this person, who has remained a non-entity in national politics and should remain so, felt he had enough of my lack of help. He wrote a long letter to Nitish Kumar and some other leaders in the Party under an assumed named with many complaints against me. The most astounding on the list was the accusation that I sent my daughter out to different important politicians’ homes to further my interests. It is particularly tragic that when women in public life are to be attacked, people think nothing of dragging their daughters into the mix. No one mentioned it in the Party. It was hard for me to maintain a stoic face and pretend I had no knowledge of it. Later, I even managed t
o conquer my anger and feel a little superior by helping this particular individual financially when he broke his leg and was helplessly marooned for a while. People imagine women get a lot of benefits by being close to famous men in power. Well, that must be a joke.

  Quite soon after George Fernandes took over as defence minister, a strange issue cropped up. The Air Force Wives Welfare Association (AFWWA) occupied defence land at the roundabout near the prime minister’s house. This attractive little shopping complex called Santushti is popular among diplomats and the elite. There was apparently some file moving within the Ministry about a proposal to withdraw it from commercial use. Based on sheer gossip, a story came out at the bottom of the front page of The Indian Express around this exercise, alleging I was behind it. Apparently, I wanted the defence minister to withdraw the allocation to AFWWA and hand it over to me for another ‘Dilli Haat like space’ for me to run. Since I had established Dilli Haat, it probably seemed credible that I was now greedy for more space for craftspersons.