Minister at large

Defence Minister George Fernandes may seem the obvious choice, seeing that he has given more interviews than Shah Rukh Khan and graced more magazine covers than Madhuri Dixit. Fernandes, I believe, has finally emerged as a great defence minister, almost Churchillian in tone and tenor 8212; even though it8217;s not the country he is defending, but himself; not Beijing he8217;s bombarding, but Bhagwat. So it is with some regret that I pass him by.

Most of Vajpayee8217;s other colleagues are either dull or vacuous; pompous or arrogant. There is, however, one individual who is none of these things. He is a minister, but he8217;s much, much morethan a mere minister. He8217;s a government spokesman, but he8217;s much, much more than a mere spokesman; he sports a new line of bandhgalas, but he8217;s much, much more than a clothes-hanger. His parliamentary colleagues have taken to calling him Shaktimaan8217; and with good reason too. In case you still haven8217;t got it, I8217;m referring to Pramod Mahajan, Union minister for Information and Broadcasting.

Now here is a minister who is worth every paisa of the taxpayer8217;s money. For the price of a minister, you get a whole lot of extras. Now let me count the ways this happens: he is a mathematician great at doing complicated Parliamentary calculations; impresario capable of getting top-notch pop groups and cricket teams to perform for him at a moment8217;s notice; dramatist here is a man with a genuine sense of theatre, can be trusted to make a great song-and-dance of any event; historian talented enough to rewrite Indian history at a moment8217;s notice; and Santa Claus at large known to dish out free air-time todeserving colleagues.

Some say it is Mahajan8217;s cellphones that have got him where he is. In those hectic days in May 1996, when Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s government made its first brief appearance on the national scene, Mahajan arrived impeccably dressed with two cellphones pasted on each ear and a smile on his face. In fact, if the human race was endowed with a third acoustic organ, I half suspect that Mahajan would have sported another cellphone too. A veritable one-man telephone exchange, if ever there was one.

Some say it was Mahajan8217;s strengths as a telephone operator that did the trick. It won for him and his party, friends and financiers in far flung corners of the country and the smile got broader and broader. For some mysterious reason, however, the charm didn8217;t seem to work with the voters of his parliamentary constituency and the lady residing in Poes Garden, Chennai. She had, on one famed occasion, referred to him as a Tom, Dick or Harry8217;. No wonder he didn8217;t serenade her and promise her akalpatharu, or tree of everlasting bounty, as he did Didi in Kolkatta.

I became a serious Mahajan watcher after he took over as the prime minister8217;s official spokesman. Managing the truth is always a difficult job, a job that needs great alertness and sense of purpose, but this man seemed to the manner born. Then an even greater responsibility was placed on his able shoulders. As the minister of information amp; broadcasting minister, he was required to manage even bigger, even greater truths.

But my admiration for him really soared skyward when he came up with a theatrical fantasy called Satyamev Jayate to celebrate one year of BJP rule. A show, if I understood it right, which successfully showcased the cardinal principle that satya, or truth, is a negotiable commodity, like everything else. To stage a Satyamev Jayate you may have to waive rules, fly in hundreds of tonnes of hi-tech laser equipment free of cost, take over a 15th century monument and stage a play on 5,000 years ofIndian civilisation in which the 15th century mysteriously disappears. But that is the price one pays. Sometimes for truth to triumph, for Satyamev Jayate, history books will have to undergo a spot of ethnic cleansing.

Once the truth is suitably sanitised, you can then show it live over primetime television in all its glory, so that the nation can revel in the glory of it all.

Remember, with Mahajan as minister, all this comes at no extra cost. In fact, you don8217;t even have to vote him into Parliament, he can get there without your effort. He is the apogee of his party8217;s politics, the true inheritor of power after all those years of struggle, of riding chariots and what not.