Former prime minister and ‘Mandal messiah’ VP Singh’s 75th birthday provided the perfect occasion for a range of political and social activists to shower praises on the ‘‘amazing life of an amazing man’’ today — but the absence of some of his erstwhile colleagues was equally eloquent and a possible pointer to a new realignment of forces.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did attend the dinner hosted by his Cabinet colleague Ram Vilas Paswan in honour of VP Singh but next-door neighbour Sonia Gandhi did not show up. More significant, however, was the no-show of Mulayam Singh Yadav (once a key VP lieutenant) and the BJP brass, who once provided one of the two pillars that supported Singh’s National Front government.The other pillar — the Left — was present in full strength, with both CPI general secretary AB Bardhan and CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury making it clear they would remain fellow travellers on the journey of social justice Singh began in 1990.The ‘Amrit Mahotsav’ held on the lawns of Singh’s residence was also the occasion for the release of a book on his life ‘‘Manzil se Zyada Safar’’ (Travel Beyond Destination). And speaker after speaker underlined that the greatness of VP Singh lay not in the fact that he was once the prime minister of India but for the causes he has consistently championed — rights of slum-dwellers, right to information, ideal of social justice — despite more than a decade of failing health.That the journey was far from over was underlined by Bardhan who recalled that Singh had described the Left as his ‘‘natural allies’’ and remained a close ally over the years. ‘‘His leadership is acceptable to us, he never thrusts his leadership on anyone,’’ said the CPI leader, indicating that Singh would continue to provide moral leadership to the nascent efforts to build a new front.Yechury said there would be time ‘‘to talk about other things another day’’ but stuck to recording Singh’s crucial role in the politics of the last three decades. Describing Singh as the ‘‘rajnitik sutradhar’’ (political narrator) of the post-Emergency era, Yechury said he started the coalition era in national politics, took on the Left as natural allies, and ushered in a realignment of social and political forces.On resigning as Prime Minister in 1990, Yechury recalled, Singh had said the agenda that he had set could never be reversed; the forces of social justice could only go forward — and that prophecy had not been belied by subsequent events.Former PM IK Gujral described Singh as ‘‘a symbol of social renaissance’’, former President R Venkataraman spoke of his rare qualities of integrity and honesty, Janata ideologue Surendra Mohan said he had deepened democracy by giving the poor masses of India a sense of ‘‘atma vishwas’’ while Paswan said ‘‘Prime Ministers come and go, but VP Singh’s name will always be carved in the hearts of India’s poor and marginalised.’’That compliment was echoed by social activist Aruna Roy who gifted Singh a banner imprinted with thousands of signatures of farmers and labourers of Rajasthan thanking him for his unstinted support for their struggle for the right to information before it became law.While Congressman Vasant Sathe also spoke at the function (and ministers Meira Kumar and Santosh Mohan Dev were present on the dais at Paswan’s dinner), no BJP leader — Maneka Gandhi was present at Singh’s residence — was invited to speak. Singh, as several speakers pointed out, was an accomplished poet and painter. But today’s functions also made it clear that politics — without the ostensible trappings of power — remained a passion with him, and there was no place for the BJP or the SP (and little enough for the Congress) in his new scheme of things.
