‘Mandal Agitation was a creation of the Press’ : VP Singh

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.

My first meeting with VP Singh happened while I was part of the Newstrack team’s ‘torchlight’ mission to highlight and predict the next Prime Minister for the general elections of 1989. The air was thick with Bofors scandal. There were intrigue and dissidence within the Congress and tumultuous jugglery in the opposition parties to cobble together a front to batter down the Congress behemoth.

Vishwanath Pratap Singh—the rebel cabinet minister who had blown the whistle on Bofors scandal midway through Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure—was the challenger and now epicentre of all opposition efforts. During the “Golden Hour” as the 4 pm slot is called in television lingo, for its slanting sunlight when everyone looks good on camera, I made an unannounced sortie to V.P Singh’s house. In those pre-mobile days, it was customary for reporters to either leave a hand-written message with the politician’s staff or visit personally to request for time. I walked in and bumped into Mrs V.P Singh—or Rani Sahiba—as she was called, taking a stroll in her garden. Slender, with greying hair that was worn short,  she had a deep set of thinking eyes and a reserved demeanour. Mrs Singh graciously heard my babble about the urgency to meet VP saheb.

VPS had managed to project an amazingly complex and layered image that swayed the press and people alike. He was the raja, and yet, he was the fakir. He was also the former Finance and Defence Minister, and yet, in the middle of a detonating defence scam that Bofors was, the only incriminating evidence that he revealed was that the accused was codenamed ‘Rajiv Lochan’. On the basis of this single clue, VPS was perceived as the clean, credible voice of conscience in the political landscape of 1989.

Accordingly, he also dressed the part. On that warm spring day, carelessly dressed in a short white kurta, unfashionably broad pyjamas, and leather Baluja chappals, in walked the man who was most likely to be king in the 1989 elections. A soft-spoken man, it was difficult to hear him if you did not pay close attention.

For a man who could soon be in the hot seat—VPS carried his political load lightly and took his interests in poetry, painting, and photography seriously. Talking about newly emerging television journalism, I mentioned an update on some latest photography tools. Suddenly—he was all there. He opened his rack and out came a professional camera kit with accessories and lens. Even as we talked, he kept clicking a few shots sometimes of Rani Sahiba, sometimes of the changing garden scene behind us—and sometimes aimed the camera at me.

Happy that I had bagged an interview slot, I took leave from him and Rani Sahiba. Next morning I received a hand-delivered white envelop at the office; it had a portrait of me clicked by V.P. Singh– the man who did eventually become the king, even if it was for a short while. On the reverse side of the photograph were his doodle-like signatures. Obviously, VPS was a warm and gracious man in his personal interactions.

But how he was as a Prime Minister would soon be revealed. Within a few months into his tenure, V.P.Singh unleashed the ‘Mandal Commission’ to break the momentum of the Ram Janambhoomi movement. Wide-scale student protests spread across the country. It was natural for the Press to give prime time to student immolations and distress. Within no time—for the VPS government—all Newstrack reporters and crew became persona non grata. Every one of our team members would be routinely denied access, refused entry—and sometimes even pointedly asked by name to leave the presser even as all other press members would still be sitting.

The VP Singh regime made it so difficult for Newstrack reporters and crew to work that in one particular story, Newstrack ran an episode of a compiled montage of different reporters being harassed and troubled by the officials and security apparatus. Despite all the pressure that V.P Singh’s government bore on Newstrack, the entire team, including Rahul Srivastava, Minnie Vaid, Amar Sharma, Jitender Ram Prakash, and many others, filed stirring reports on the Mandal Commission which were courageous journalism at its best.

Blow hot-blow cold. That is the way a reporters life is. Politicians and civil servants expect adulatory coverage even if they themselves propose divisive policies like ‘Mandal Commission’ which was launched with a ‘stinky fish’ motive of vote bank management.

With the passage of time, one gains a better perspective. At least that is what I had expected when I met VPS again for the ‘Prime Ministers Speak’ series almost ten years after his tenure was completed. I asked him if he felt remorse for all the youngsters who immolated themselves in 1990—and for all the students who continue to commit suicide due to its impact. VPS looked back at the camera and said: “ The press deified the students immolating themselves …. Mandal agitation was a creation of the press.”  I was stumped by his state of denial and narcissism. “Yes Prime Minister,” I said under my breath, much like Sir Humphrey Appleby would say when he least agreed with the prime minister.

In the last three decades, it would be fair to conclude that if  VP had really meant to create equity, he would have introduced reservation based on economic consideration. This would have created opportunities for those who really need it. Instead, we now have a reservation policy that creates more divisions than cohesion. No one has tabulated the hidden cost in terms of violent riots by different groups and agitations mushrooming across different states. One only has to look at the student suicide rates in towns like Kota, to know that in its present form, the reservation policy has created more strife than peace. Reservation has become the White Elephant that no party wants to talk about. In fact, often, it is an excuse for governments to hide their failures in providing equity.

VP Singh was the man who ended a fifty-year long era of ‘Congress high command’ who held the regional satraps on a tight leash. He was the man who terminated the Nehru-Gandhi family hold over the prime ministerial gaddi. He put the spotlight on corruption in defence deals. But sadly, history will remember him only for his ‘Mandal legacy.’