Prime Ministers speak through their announcements, their schemes, and their financial reports. They also speak from the ramparts of Red Fort, from podiums of big rallies, and from the inside of plush recording studios. But, more importantly, prime ministers give us a glimpse of their real persona and character through their reactions and unspoken behaviour towards the press and the people.

In this throwback series, Nutan Manmohan recalls some on- and off-camera moments with Indian Prime Ministers that give us a glimpse into their personalities.

“Gaja Nand hai? Ya Gadha Nand hai?” Equipment dada, as Mr Bannerjee was called, tweeted like an angry bird. “Aur shirt pe likha hai Buffalo?” Dada’s rhetorical question was aimed at the neon logo emblazoned on his deputy Gajanand’s sweatshirt. These were times when senior office colleagues could tick you off like elder relatives and get away with it. With his baggy corduroy trousers hung high around his last rib with a schoolboy canvas belt, Dada would get into a flap every time the Newstrack crew was leaving for a remote region.

Gajanand, who actually did all the work, sportingly took sniper fire from dada even as he quietly smouldered each adaptor wire and buff cleaned all the tape heads and lens. The television shoot equipment in the early 90’s was voluminous and preparation for an outstation shoot was almost like shifting a mini-Mughal durbar.

We were off to Ballia—a backward district on the edge of eastern Uttar Pradesh. The only option to reach there was a slow train that stopped at two in the night in the middle of the tracks for passengers to hurriedly disembark within exactly five minutes.

A woman in Ballia had announced that she would perform ‘sati.’ This was soon after the infamous Roop Kanwar sati case in Rajasthan, where the family and villagers cheered on a hypnotised widow to walk into a burning pyre.

We at Newstrack were in Ballia to cover a conflict between villagers who were determined to perform the ‘sati’ tradition, and the administration, who said they would not permit it. Turmoil and even violence was expected. An air of morbid festivity surrounded the site; cheap gold-and-red confetti hung from the trees, growing around a big mould.

I had nausea thinking of what we would witness if the administration is not able to stall this monstrosity. Virtually the entire village had crowded around and the lady was expected to step out of her house at any given moment. Just then, a police escort arrived with great speed and came screeching to a halt. Out stepped a frail young girl—the newly appointed District Magistrate. Speaking at the top of her voice, she made sure that the entire village heard her say that all the accused would be arrested, they will remain in jail for 25 years, and their land and houses would lie abandoned. Before anyone could react, the DM took the proposed ‘sati lady’ in protective custody and drove off with her. Within ten minutes, the entire story was dead—but our whole crew was cheering. Good governance is possible, with common sense and promptness.

With nowhere to go till the next day, we started knocking around Ballia to check for other possible stories. Ballia was Chandra Shekhar’s political cradle. This is where the ‘baghi’ or the rebellious one had started as a student leader. This is where the ‘young turk’ had acquired his socialist Lohia branding.

A searing hot summer wind raised small dust whirls every now and then, with the relentless sun beating down on dilapidated mud huts. A sparse tree cover gave little relief to the men toiling in the millet fields. No one seemed to smile here. We interviewed many people. Everyone knew ‘netaji’ as Chandra Shekhar was called here but there was no warmth or effusive words for their MP. It seemed like Chandra Shekhar gave little affection to his constituents and got little back in return. 

Chandra Shekhar was a leading political light in the making-and-breaking of many coalition governments in the 90s and we in the press would frequently throng to his South Avenue Road residence for inputs. With his deep-set eyes, brooding expression, and caustic counter questions, Chandra Shekhar would rattle most interviewers.

First meetings are always significant. I entered Chandra Shekhars’ residence to see a large crowd milling about. He kept an open house with little privacy; his secretarial staff and family members mingled with all, including the press. In the middle of this bustling place, I saw a curious ornate fountain, one that a Star Tortoise floating around in it. One of Chandra Shekhar’s grandchildren kept picking up the tortoise and putting it in and out of the water. The tortoise seemed miserable. As soon as  I was ushered into CS’s room, I mentioned to him that the star tortoise was an endangered species and best left in the wild. They don’t survive long as domestic pets. CS gave me an unsmiling stare back without saying anything. Environmental concerns are strangely the last priority for most politicians in India.

One issue that dogged Chandra Shekhar throughout his political career was the alleged encroachment of almost 500 acres of the protected green belt within the Aravalli forest around Bhondsi, by a Trust run by him.  All through his career, CS continued to defend this “illegal occupation.” As soon as he became the Prime Minister, he would make sure that he kept enough official appointments, press interviews and weekend stays at his Bhondsi farm, to lend legitimacy to his trusts claim over this forest land.

Prime Ministerial visits by him led to laying of a sparkling four-way lane road, street lighting and creation of infrastructure for accommodation and the movement of Prime Ministers security staff and secretariat. It’s a familiar routine: a dwindling forest cover becomes a ground for pushing for land-use change from “protected forest” to “wasteland”—thereby opening a route to mixed land-use for farming and housing.

In my “Prime Ministers Speak series”  interview with CS, it was natural for me to question if he actually felt that the Bhondsi encroachment issue had taken a toll on his credibility and image. He promptly ticked me off with: “Press only accuses. They do not investigate.” He went on to elaborate that, in fact, it was a wasteland, and that his trust had done massive re-plantation and greening along with welfare activities for local villagers.

None of his explanations would be new to any reporter who has covered issues of land rights being misused. Every politician and bureaucrat involved in “land use change” claims that wasteland was miraculously transformed by their “conscientious” effort. But Chandra Shekhar’s sarcasm about the press “accusing and not investigating” remained in my mind. It’s true—the Indian press does need to investigate better if it wants to make a positive impact on the developmental landscape of India.

Cut to 2018, the case of  “Re-development Plan” in seven government colonies of New Delhi. Planned and executed by Shri Kamal Nath, the former Urban Development Minister, his 2013 ‘redevelopment plan’ led to the conversion of prime government land that provided housing to thousands of government employees in the heart of the capital, into mixed land use through which a few government accommodations would be provided within largely commercial complexes. It also shifted the control of land from government agencies to private builders involved in this development.   

When the tall construction shields of Kidwai Nagar came down, the entire city gasped at the Orwellian urban ghetto with multiple close-set housing towers surrounded by glass-sheathed malls. There may not be any clarity about water, traffic, sunlight or air pollution due to massive densification, but the so-called “press release” assured that all wastewater would be reused for gardening purposes. 

National Building Construction Corporation or NBCC, the executing agency, has thoughtfully dangled some fibreglass birds on a few sparkling green plastic trees in this complex. Is this for reuse of wastewater or as a memorial to thousands of iconic tree exterminated in one of the greenest housing colonies of  Delhi, is still to be confirmed.

When bulldozers started chopping and mowing down hundred-year-old trees in the next batch of colonies for “re-development”—a group of intrepid reporters and environmental experts started investigating this case. Working closely with lawyers, doctors, students, resident welfare associations and concerned independent citizens, they managed to dig out the key documents including the EIA or the Environmental Impact Assessment document that had paved the way for the “redevelopment plan.” This crucial document was found to be “falsified” since it had tested the waters of Tamil Nadu for—brace yourselves—a colony planned in Delhi!

This knocked the bottom out of the permissions of the entire “re-development plan of seven colonies in Delhi,” thereby leading to the Courts to put a stay on all further cutting of trees.

Clearly, things have changed a lot since Chandra Shekhar’s Bhondsi issue. There are people in the press who don’t only accuse—they investigate too—deep and long enough to usher in real change.