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| Edited By: Kumar Ketkar |Source: DNA |Updated: Jul 08, 2018, 10:12 AM IST
Very few people know him or much about him today. He passed away 20 years ago. Most TV media anchors or even editors of dailies or magazines may have vaguely heard of him, if at all. But they do not really know the man who was at the centre of power and sometimes the epicentre of controversies in the 1960s and 70s. Not their fault. Some of them may not have even been born when this legendary person towered over that period. He was Parameshwar Narain Haksar (PNH).
Jairam Ramesh, politician and historian (only a few can merit the joint credentials), has resurrected the man who had become a figure buried in bureaucratic files and in the memories of people who lived in that era. The title, Intertwined Lives: PN Haksar And Indira Gandhi, is a little misleading though. The book narrates the whole life of PNH, even giving of his ancestral family, but does not go into a similar, comprehensive journey of Indira Gandhi.
Sure, major episodes in her life, from her days in London, pre-marriage encounters with Feroze, her slow rise in politics, her relationship with her father, raising children Rajiv and Sanjay, family turbulence, their marriages, the tragic end of their lives and such other events are documented. The 'intertwining' of her life with Haksar Saheb, as he is fondly called, is established, but the camera is focused on PNH. That is natural too because Indira's life is by and large known. It is Haksar who has been given 'life', as it were, bringing him into contemporary history from oblivion.
This resurrection of a legendary character such as Haksar was profoundly necessary because his role in the momentous political, economic and strategic decisions was not given its due in Indira's various biographies or in the political history of that period.
Ramesh has virtually excavated his psychological, social and political life with magnificent research into the multiple aspects that shaped this intellectual giant who straddled almost the entire 20th century. But for this research, the history of the 1960s and 70s would have remained incomplete. Many events and quite a few policies that affect our politics today were influenced by these 'intertwining lives'.
The hero of the book is obviously PN Haksar. Indira Gandhi is present throughout but as an accompanying shadow. In real life, of course, she was the hero and PNH was the shadow (the cover aptly shows this!). Sometimes they were even comrades in arms!
Was Haksar a bureaucrat, most senior and influential, or a politician in disguise? Was he a strategist and globe-trotting diplomat, or a trusted friend? What was the secret of his enormous clout and actual power? His post or his proximity to and trust of the Prime Minister? Or did it lie in the very strength of his personality, defined by scholarship and vast intellectual command? Of course, all these attributes contributed to his mesmerising appeal. (I may also add that I was fortunate to know him and must confess to having come under his spell.)
Questions have been raised about professional and procedural conventions and whether he violated them. Did he trespass the thin red line of bureaucracy and take direct part in political process and action? The book brilliantly discusses these hugely complex scenarios, in India and internationally; it was essential that somebody of the stature and knowledge of PNH get involved.
Dealing with diabolical US strategists like Henri Kissinger and the cunning political games being played by China, by Mao Zedong and Zhou En-Lai, required a kind of statesmanship that was possible only with the assistance of Haksar. Of course, the courage to confront the issue politically, and readiness to face consequences were virtues that Indira possessed. How many of her colleagues in the party understood the intricacies of international politics?
Pandit Nehru was a giant and a statesman with vision and a worldwide network of contacts, and yet he required VK Krishna Menon, India's League freedom campaigner, as a consulting colleague and sounding board. What Indira Gandhi inherited was the highly tense Cold War. Independence struggles in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, American subversions in Iran and intervention in Vietnam, the Arab-Israel war of 1967, the politics of oil and Islamic countries' identitarian rise were also complicated to deal with.
Though the Congress was a grand old party, after Nehru, there were no statesmen of his stature in the party. But people like Haksar, who were trained in the Nehruvian world view, were of immense help, which Indira took and he gave willingly and actively. Therefore, while the questions raised about the bureaucrat's violation of convention is technically correct, considering the political crises and turmoil globally, Haksar did nothing unethical. In fact, his involvement has been proved to be not only justified, but also historically fruitful.
The politics and economics of bank nationalisation and the overall approach of strengthening the public sector have come under severe criticism these days, and even the author seems to be sympathetic to that critique. But taking into account the economic and political context of the late 1960s, those policies have proved to be extremely beneficial.
The relationship with the Soviet Union, leading to the Indo-Soviet treaty, and confronting the new-imperialist games played by the United States, were not easy to work out. The strategies of facing Pakistan and helping directly the liberation of Bangladesh by going for all-out war, and also to declare unilateral peace were part of a grand sub-continental vision. Haksar was the main ideological and political force behind these policies. Indira deserves credit for implementing that vision and Haksar for designing the political geography. That made it an 'intertwining' relationship.
Any such relationship, howsoever close and trusting, has its inbuilt tensions. The two factors that changed the dynamics of the relationship were both personal and political. Haksar was of the firm view that Sanjay Gandhi must not continue with his enterprise, the controversial Maruti project. Certainly not from the PM's residence. It is rather obvious that Sanjay was deeply hurt and viewed this as a kind of hostile obstruction. He, it seems, used the Emergency conditions to take revenge. Haksar's close relation's office and houses were raided, the family members arrested and humiliated. Either Indira Gandhi did not, or could not, intervene. That led to a sharp misunderstanding and drop in trust towards each other. It was further complicated by public outbursts.
Equally significant is the issue of the Emergency itself. Despite the fact that Haksar was Indira's most trusted advisor, he was not consulted while taking such a momentous decision. The Emergency measures curtailed democratic rights of the people and established authoritarian rule. Haksar was a committed liberal democrat and could not reconcile with the idea of authoritarian structures. Indeed, he often blamed himself for creating that structure.
However, it also must be stated that neither Indira nor Haksar terminated their contact with each other. She kept on giving him various important assignments, national and international, and he too followed them diligently and with full dedication. After her assassination, he was shattered. His affection and respect for her, as well as the legacy of the Nehrus was so deep that he could not have shrugged it off. He continued his close association, even with Rajiv Gandhi and was his special emissary to China in 1987. In fact, the foundation of the renewed Sino-Indian diplomacy after Rajiv's visit to Beijing in 1988 was laid by Haksar. He remained close to the family and involved with several art, literary and cultural institutions
Ramesh takes the reader through the entire saga of the radical political life that Haksar led. His personal and political life was woven into one integrated persona. His circle of friends was astoundingly large. In London there were great historians like Eric Hobsbawm and communist theoretician Rajani Palme Dutt as well as VK Krishna Menon. He had direct association with the British Communist Party, Communist Party of India (he was secretary of the CPI in Nagpur) and its stalwarts like Comrade Mohit Sen (direct disciple of Comrade SA Dange). In fact, he called himself an unrepentant Marxist till the end. His world view, his philosophy and his politics were Marxist/Communist to the core.
But his personal association with people transcended politics and even ideology. It was at his initiative that, after the sudden demise of Vikram Sarabhai, space scientist Satish Dhawan was chosen to head the Indian Space Research Organisation. He brought into the system agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan. It is not known to many that Dr Manmohan Singh was also a choice of Haksar. So was PN Dhar, who replaced Haksar in the Prime Minister's office. Both of them were liberal economists (not neo-liberal) and did not belong to the Haksar'ite school. Then there were many leading luminaries like TN Kaul and RA&W chief RN Kaio (in a lighter vein known as the Kashmiri mafia!) who were his proteges.
Haksar was the quintessential intellectual-scholar-radical-activist. He was a polymath, often described indulgently as the 'Renaissance Man'. Conversing with him was like attending a grand intellectual tour-de-force. He was well versed in Urdu and Sanskrit, Bengali and Arabic, and, of course, English and Hindi. (With me, he also conversed in Marathi and told me that he picked up the language during his trade union days in Nagpur. Comrade AB Bardhan, who became general secretary of the Party in the 1990s was his protege in the early days.) He was a pungent critic, a blunt man who spoke truth to power, unencumbered by worldly achievements, a thinker and a backroom strategist. He refused the Padma Vibhushan offered directly and personally by the Prime Minister herself. He was always fighting from the front, as it were, and, in that sense, he was not only Indira Gandhi's acomrade in arms but also her fighter in arms!
This book takes the reader through the entire twentieth century, the Second World War, the Cold War, India's independence, Partition, birth of Pakistan as well as the birth of Bangladesh. From the peak of Soviet power to the collapse of the USSR. In that sense, it is a nostalgic journey through times for those who saw the end of the historic 20th century and rise of the 21st. Through the life and career of PN Haksar, Jairam Ramesh has provided a historic canvass to our lives.
Parameshwar Narain Haksar, advisor to the first female Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was the epicentre of controversies in the 1960s and 70s; however, only a few may be familiar with his works
Though a backroom strategist, Haksar was instrumental in dealing with diabolical US strategists like Henri Kissinger and political games being played by China, by Mao Zedong and Zhou En-Lai
The author of the book Intertwined Lives, Jairam Ramesh takes the reader through the entire saga of the radical political life that Haksar led
Ramesh also encapsulates the major historic events of the entire 20th century through the life and career of PN Haksar
