The season for political memoirs continues, and this time it is the big one -- Pranab Mukherjee, the President of India, whose memoirs, The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years, published by Rupa are to release on December 11, his 79th birthday.
The 352- page book, with 16 pages of photographs, look back on the 1970s, the decade that marked Mukherjee's entry and rapid rise in politics and the government under the tutelage of Indira Gandhi. "This is a very important period in India's political history, and the president is the most respected politician whose memoirs offer important revelations of those years," said Kapish Mehra, managing director, Rupa.
The publishing house is also coming out with two more tranches of Mukherjee's memoirs -- the second, dealing with the 1980s and 1990s, late next year, followed by the third, bringing the story up to his election as president.
Mukherjee's memoirs, says Mehra, speak about all the important milestones of the 1970s -- India's support for the liberation struggle in Bangladesh and India's decisive victory under the decisive leadership of Indira Gandhi; the Emergency, and the rise of the Janata Party coalition in the later years.
Defending Indira Gandhi's rejection of the calls for her resignation midway through her term as prime minister, Mukherjee writes, "Which democracy in the world would permit of a popularly and freely elected government through means other than a popular election? Can parties beaten at the hustings replace a popularly elected government through sheer agitation? Was it not prudent for those who were determined to change the government to wait till the elections which were but round the corner?....How could anybody replace her when the overwhelming majority of Congress MPs -- with a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha -- resolved that Indira Gandhi should continue as the party's leader in Parliament and thereby as the prime minister of India?"
Though Mukherjee was an Indira loyalist, he left the Congress for some years after her assassination in 1984 -- sidelined, it was said, by Rajiv Gandhi because he had revealed ambitions of becoming prime minister. Mukherjee's memoirs talk about this difficult period in his political career as well, says his publisher.
Very highly regarded for his political acumen, administrative experience and extensive reading, 79-year-old Mukherjee has held several constitutional and government posts -- he's been cabinet minister for finance (the youngest ever to occupy the office the first time he took charge in 1982), commerce, external affairs and defence; leader of the House of the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha; and deputy chairman of the Planning Commission.
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