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Journalism of Courage
Suddenly, the road to Raisina Hill is littered with panegyrics. Kocheril Raman Narayanan is coming. A traveller from the polar remoteness of social conscience. The wayfarer is approaching his last station at a time when the guilt of politics is gift-wrapped in self-assuring symbolism. Those encomiums fluttering around the Rashtrapati Bhavan are an unsolicited homage to the hypocrisy of Indian political class. It is as if a desi version of Mandela has been empowered by a people sick of social apartheid. Or, is it like Arundhati Roy8217;s God of Small Things, the untouchable Velutha, stepping out of the novel and posthumously claiming his flag of honour? The frenzied celebration of Narayaneeyam is so politically correct and socially sacrosanct that it can only evoke images more extravagant. Sorry for being less like the reveller.
Perhaps it is the weary predictability of the script that damages the hero. In the fiftieth year of Independence The Life and Times of K.R. Narayanan is an intentional exaggeration 8212; that too without an authorisation certificate from the subject. In this commemorative moment, the crown that is being bequeathed to Narayanan 8212; by consensus, remember 8212; certainly needs an appropriate backdrop. That is why, according to the script, Narayanan8217;s glory is silhouetted against the unrealised dream of the Mahatma, his personal triumph is subordinated to the sociology of his ancestry. Narayanan is a feel-good mascot in this season of nostalgia.
Take Narayanan out of this script, and forget the panegyrist for a while, the story of the next President becomes less magical and more socially realistic. Only a desperate profile writer can turn it into a fairy tale. It began 76 years ago in Uzhavoor, another village in Central Travancore.
Poverty at home, discrimination at school. But the determination of the boy was as granite as the village road to the school. In 1943, armed with a BA Honours degree, Kocheril Raman Vaidyar8217;s son would seek the Diwan8217;s favour for an honourable job. Disappointed, he would then try his luck outside Kerala. As a cub reporter in The Times of India, Bombay, his most memorable assignment was an interview with Gandhi. But the breakthrough was a Tata scholarship for higher studies. Next stopover: the London School of Economics. Next breakthrough: a letter of recommendation from Harold Laski.
Remembering his London days with Narayanan and Raja Ramanna, K N Raj wrote in a Malayalam weekly that whenever he sprayed some salt and pepper on the tasteless dish of potato and fish, Narayanan would poetically recollect the flavour of his mother8217;s fish curry, and the poetry of nostalgia would make the food edible.
Nostalgia didn8217;t take him back to the Uzhavoor hut. He went to Nehru and showed him that Laski letter. Nehru, convinced of Narayanan8217;s credentials, inducted him into the Indian Foreign Service. Rangoon was his first posting. Then ambassador to Thailand, Turkey and China. After retirement from the Foreign Service, Narayanan was appointed vice chancellor of the JNU. When Indira Gandhi came back after the first Janata fiasco, she gave Narayanan a diplomatic second life by appointing him ambassador to Washington. An eventful progression? Work and luck 8212; it was a successful progression. By conventional wisdom, the logical finale to such a career should have been the presidentship of India International Centre.
But here we are talking about the next President of the Republic. A Narayanan Presidency became a possibility the day he was fielded as a 8220;scheduled caste8221; candiate from the Ottappalam Lok Sabha constituency in 1984. It was Minister Narayanan8217;s seat till 1992, when he was extended an invitation to occupy 6, Maulana Azad Road. Narayanan, diplomat, educationist, politician, became a symbol characterised by its social ancestry. Aficionados of Narayaneeyam had even gone to the extent of attributing Marxian virtues to their hero. A leftist in Congress camouflage detractors turned that qualification into a term of abuse. Nobody bothered to salute Narayanan8217;s real worth: ambitious pragmatism untainted by deceit. A very successful man, a very efficient man, a very decent man, has been reduced to a politically correct symbol.
Unravel it, Narayanan comes out as a man constantly aware of the realism of his social self. Novelist O.V. Vijayan remembers. The Vice-President: How are you? The novelist: Getting on precariously, like the Indian state.The Vice-President, smiling: We are finely balanced. Today, Vijayan describes Narayanan as a non-theatrical version of V.K. Krishna Menon. 8220;The consensus on him symbolises a withdrawal from our concealed racism.8221; Perhaps, Vijayan is too magnanimous to the politicians. For, isn8217;t the consensus on Narayanan an attempt to conceal the casteism of politics? On the 50th year of Independence, you are only doing something more symbolically richer than issuing a commemorative stamp on dalit salvation.
What does matter, really, is not this political essay on heartless repentance but President Narayanan8217;s idealism. You can go on exaggerating his moderate scholorship, his Uzhavoor days of deprivation, his modesty.
Narayanan will not be remembered for his scholarship or his humble administrator image. Candidate Narayanan is chosen by political correctness as well as dubious political morality. President Narayanan may return the favour by authoring his own version of moral rejoinder. It need not be politically correct. Let it be 8220;living in truth,8221; to quote the most famous president of morality, Vaclav Havel.
