Yashwant Sinha started out in government as a bureaucrat and rose to become India’s finance minister and then foreign minister. He recounts this long, eventful journey in autobiography, Relentless, which was published recently. Sinha sat down with Abhinandan Sekhri of Newslaundry to talk about his book, his life and work. 

He shifted to politics from the civil services, Sinha says, to fulfil a commitment he had made to Jayaprakash Narayan. 

Abhinandan questioned the former Bharatiya Janata Party leader about his stance of segregating personal and political relationships, asking whether this is possible today when basic human values are being challenged. “Politics has to reflect basic human values, the basic character of the society in which we live,” Sinha replies. “There will be deviations but a person like me believes that these deviations can at best be temporary.”

Pointing out that Indians always asserted themselves in the public square, Sinha rues that today’s India has “forgotten to protest”. Does fear has anything to do with this? “Why are we scared?” he responds. “Why are we afraid? It is just that we will not take the next step out of that fear. Take the next step and you will realize that there is no reason to fear.”

Asked whether Narendra Modi’s National Democratic Alliance was different from Atal Behari Vajpayee’s, in which Sinha served as a top minister, he says there is a “world of difference”. “They were not on the offensive as they are now and were apologetic also.”

This is the first part of a two-part interview.