‘We have not fully understood the Modi phenomenon which is a response to an India changing’

Once she returned to power, your book says, she asked her son Rajiv Gandhi to meet Bhaurao Deoras, the brother of RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras; Nehru had banned the RSS. Was this change in her approach surprising?

Indira, more than most prime ministers, understood the nature of power. She understood statecraft. It is not that she believed in the RSS ideology, but it was a factor. From the early 1970s, she had her point people who were in touch with the RSS. ML Fotedar (Indira’s political secretary) told me that Indira had told Rajiv not to discuss his talks with the RSS at the dining table since she knew that Sonia was dead against the RSS. Normally, one would think that cabinet colleagues, top bureaucrats, industry people are the source of information about the prime minister. But I found very quickly into political coverage that people who also had access to the leaders at the top were hangers on, aides, attendants, power brokers and lobbyists.

Both Indira and Rajiv kept the RSS and the VHP in good humour. You have written that she tacitly supported the Ekatmata Yatra launched by the VHP in 1983.

One of the things that Arun Nehru told his cousin Rajiv when he was prime minister was, ‘You think you came to power with 414 seats just like that. It is because 5,000 people died.’ He was pointing to the counter Hindu consolidation after the Sikh demand for Khalistan and the anti-Sikh violence after Indira’s assassination. If you want to stay in power, Arun told Rajiv, you will have to do three things — build a Ram temple, bring the Uniform Civil Code and abrogate Article 370. All these are a part of my book.

People used to say that had Rajiv come back to power a second time, it would have been a very different Rajiv. (Source: Amazon.in)

Indira, after the kind of verdict she had got in the 1980 elections, went on to win the Delhi local elections and then in Jammu because of Hindu support — which shocked the BJP. Many people believed the RSS played a role in her victory. She was playing at different levels, which politicians do, but she did it skilfully, reaching out to the Hindus without appearing to be anti-Muslim and many Muslims returned to the Congress fold in 1980. The RSS thought she was a devout Hindu — she practically visited every major temple in the country after her defeat in 1977 — and they praised her for testing the nuclear device in 1974, and the creation of Bangladesh. They felt she could be the face of Hindus. They were unhappy with AB Vajpayee who was trying to secularise himself, had been critical of them and felt the RSS should also be open to non-Hindus.

The perception about Rajiv was that he was too naive. But the other impression is that he was a progressive technocrat prime minister. The book mentions how he tried to scuttle an agreement which was almost reached between the Hindus and the Muslims (on the Ayodhya issue), when Chandra Shekhar was PM.

People used to say that had Rajiv come back to power a second time, it would have been a very different Rajiv. Not the politically naive Rajiv of the first term. When he met Bhaurao for the fourth time, and he was out of power at the time supporting the Chandra Shekhar government, he asked the RSS not to support Chandra Shekhar’s formula on Ayodhya — and shortly thereafter the Chandra Shekhar government fell. By then, the talks between the two sides had made an impressive headway; the VHP and the Muslim side had even thought of a dinner together to celebrate the breakthrough. But as I have said, any decision of that kind is multilayered, with many factors at play… But yes, Rajiv out of power was not the Rajiv of the first term.

Neerja Chowdhury, author of of How Prime Ministers Decide says, “In some way, every prime minister was fascinating. Manmohan Singh, the so-called weak prime minister, had such a killer political instinct that he got the nuclear deal through.” (Express photo by Renuka Puri)

Except for VP Singh, all the prime ministers that you have written about had completed one or more tenures. Then why VP Singh?

VP Singh changed the political landscape of India for all time to come. And it was an irreversible change. The timing of the Mandal (commission) may have been determined by his desire to survive — his government was beleaguered, the BJP was planning its own strategy and Rajiv was out to dethrone him. But, suppose Mandal had not taken place, the BJP today might have been a baniya Brahmin party only. This process of OBC empowerment, no prime minister reversed. VP also gave regional parties a stake in national politics. He also did what no other leader who went out of the Congress had been able to do — create a national alternative to the Congress by bringing Left, Right and Centrist forces on one platform. And the Congress never got a majority, on its own, after that.

You have written that Sonia Gandhi decided not to take up the PM post in 2004 after Rahul Gandhi threatened to take an extreme step. But in her heart, did Sonia want to become PM?

I think it was Rahul’s view which was decisive. Sonia was all set to become PM. The Congress Parliamentary Party had elected her. Then that meeting happened where Rahul put his foot down. The mother in her overpowered the politician. And that one act kept her as the Congress president for two decades and, even today, she is the tallest leader in the party. Had she not given it up, she would have been viewed very differently.

Among the prime ministers, who fascinated you the most?

In some way, every prime minister was fascinating. Manmohan Singh, the so-called weak prime minister, had such a killer political instinct that he got the nuclear deal through. He won over the support of the Samajwadi Party, when the Left withdrew support to his government. Singh showed a side which nobody thought existed. Rao was also fascinating; he ruled not letting his left hand know what his right hand was doing. VP Singh started off as a loyalist of the Gandhi family, became its biggest critic and triggered the downfall of the Rajiv government… such a fascinating journey. When I travel, one of the questions I often ask people is who is your favourite PM. Recently, I went to one of the villages in Satara district in Maharashtra, where I met a group of 17-18-year-old women: I asked them who is your favourite PM and they immediately said in unison, Indira Gandhi. Almost four decades later, people are still fascinated by her. If you ask me to mark the prime ministers, how can I? One realises the complex situations a prime minister has to deal with, but yes, Indira Gandhi fascinates me, too.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in the ninth year of his office. Why isn’t he in your book? How do you see him in relation to his predecessors who you write about?

I did consider writing about Modi and did some work on it too. But I decided against it for three reasons. It is still work in progress even though Modi looms large in the country’s political consciousness. I did not have the benefit of hindsight to assist me, as with other prime ministers. More importantly, I soon realised that people around an incumbent Prime Minister would not talk freely. Those who talked to me openly about the other prime ministers mostly did so after they had demitted office. Modi took a leaf out of the books of many PMs — like OBC empowerment from VP Singh, economic reforms from Rao, strengthening the strategic relationship with the US which was started by Vajpayee and taken forward by Singh. And yet, he also represents something very different — a move towards a civilisational project. There’s Hindutva, nationalism, social welfarism, the growing aspirations of the OBCs (a group to which he belongs), representing what I have called the ‘subalternatisation of Indian politics’, which has been dominated by elites. Yet, I sometimes feel we have not yet fully understood the Modi phenomenon, which is essentially a response to an India changing at the ground level, with spiralling aspirations, even as there is economic hardship. Dr Karan Singh, who has worked with all the PMs and who I have quoted in my book, says that even as the BJP/RSS criticise Nehru, Modi would like to be another Nehru, and to surpass him.

How Prime Ministers Decide is published by Aleph Book Company