Honest epitaph

A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time by Arjun Singh; Hay House; Price: Rs.599; 379 pp A welcome and historically valuable development in Indian publishing is the practice of industry leaders teaming up with professional journalists and writers to pen their memoirs, giving a diversity of perspectives on the history of our times. Although inevitably such memoirs, autobiographies and authorised biographies are biased narratives which tend to be justifications written by relatively minor players on the national stage with narrow horizons, they nevertheless provide useful material for professional historians even while enabling lay citizens to acquire fresh insights into contemporary history, which doesn’t offer the luxury of contemplation and reflection. Fortunately this new tradition is also being followed by politicians, and it would be in the national interest if more of this hated yet necessary tribe will follow the example of the late Arjun Singh (1930-2011). In his long career spanning over half a century in state and national politics during which he was always in the inner circle of power in the Delhi imperium, Singh found himself in the thick of action, and undoubtedly helped to shape the history of post-independence India, though not necessarily for the better. A Grain of Sand written in straightforward, felicitous prose with Ashok Chopra, a vastly experienced books editor, provides an insightful portrait of post-Nehruvian India and how it was (mis)shaped by his heirs and successors. The plus point of this chronicle is that it recounts stage-by-stage, Singh’s evolution from the second son of a minor raja into an ideology-driven politician who made a smooth transition from state to national politics, and along the way caught the popular imagination. It serves the purpose of a useful primer to aspiring politicians inasmuch as it demonstrates the skill with which Singh developed a patronage network and deftly utilised populist ideology not only to advance but also survive in Indian politics. Thus he was able to survive the Bhopal gas leak tragedy of 1984 which killed thousands, a catastrophe that unfolded under his watch as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. His loyalty to Indira and later to Rajiv Gandhi was legendary. Loyal to the last, Singh implausibly lays the blame for the release of Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson on bail and his subsequent escape to the US, to pressure from the Union home ministry headed by Narasimha Rao.  “… at no point of time did Rajiv talk to me about this matter or intercede on Anderson’s behalf,” asserts Singh. It was as Union cabinet minister in Delhi and as a faithful acolyte of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, that Arjun Singh maximally impacted the polity. He claims credit for coordinating with Sam Pitroda to “bring about the first telecom revolution in the country” in 1987, and for playing a “fairly important role to bringing in peace and normalcy to the strife-torn north-eastern state of Mizoram”. But after the Congress party was ousted from power in 1989 at the Centre and in Madhya Pradesh, and Rajiv assassinated…