Venkataraman, Pilot talk on "reinventing" the Mahatma

The Forum was floated last year on Gandhi Jayanti and Pilot said it had managed to form state units in most places, barring the north-east. Others associated with the Forum are Bharat Ratna C Subramaniam, Mohan Dharia, Dr Karan Singh, Kuldip Nayyar,Gobind Narain Singh and others.

The basic idea of the Forum is to bring back transparency in public life including a declaration of assets by all elected representatives including MPs. At the end of a year’s existence, the Forum has declared that one village would be adopted in each district to make it free from hunger, disease, illiteracy and communalism. It will also press for revamping the judicial process so that criminal cases can be disposed off within six months.

Likewise, the Forum has asked the Centre to take steps and halt the increasing uncertainty to life being felt by the public, make population control a priority issue with a request to the media to keep some space, and time on TV, for Gandhian programmes.

“None of us can be Gandhi’s today but at least we can get 60 per cent to what he was,” Pilot hoped as Venkataraman voiced displeasure at the state of politics today. “I haven’t seen any great leader go from village to village like Kamaraj once did. If the electorate is not careful,the House (Parliament), will be full of people with blemishes in character,” the former President said.

He added: “In 1952, the House was full of stalwarts.” But Venkataraman faced one awkward moment when a journalist asked him why he took three plane-loads of luggage with him when he retired from Rashtrapati Bhavan. After a fair bit of debate, involving media ethics, the former President replied: “I came with that much luggage and left with the same amount.”It was one indication of what Pilot called an uphill task of cleansing public life in India.