Book excerpt | Pranab Mukherjee's daughter shares former President's diary entries, disillusionment with Congress leadership

Pranab Mukherjee (Image via President's Secretariat/Wikimedia Commons)

Barring 1978-85, former Indian President Pranab Mukherjee diligently kept a diary on trends and events in Indian politics and his views on them. In a 386-page biography of Mukherjee releasing today (December 7, 2023), his daughter Sharmistha draws on these diaries. The result is a narrative that is also a history of India from the perspective of someone who had a ring side view to Indian politics for the better part of 50 years. Excerpted below is a section from the book - 'Pranab, My Father'.

CONGRESS-MUKT BHARAT: ONLY A PIPE DREAM?

In his post-retirement days, I frequently asked my father about the revival of the Congress. His consistent response was that the Congress must and will revive. On one occasion, he got irritated with me and said, ‘The task of reviving Congress is not your responsibility. Leave it to Congress president and other senior leaders of the party. You concentrate on the task assigned to you by the party.’

Rupa, 368 pages.

On 24 May 2014, just a few days after the Lok Sabha election results were declared, Pranab noted in his diary:

Blame-game in Congress/UPA is going on as usual. It is not unexpected. A major debacle like this has its impact. But the shameless manner the cronies of Rahul Gandhi are behaving would further damage the party. But all is not lost and if genuine corrective measures are taken, Congress can revive. The restoration of internal democracy in party, decentralization of authority in AICC, PCC, DCC and BCCs are needed. Committees should be constituted as per rules and norms. Membership from booth is to be reintroduced. Even if there be some fake/bogus membership, it would be much better than no membership or ad hocism. Congress leadership must allow grassroot support to grow under the local leaders from Anchal/Block/ Taluka level to DCC and PCC. If this happens, there will be no need to raise slogans like ‘Priyanka Lao-Congress bachao’.

My father never had in-depth discussions with me regarding the prospects of the Congress, apart from a few casual remarks made in unguarded moments. He perhaps thought it was better not to dishearten me, as I was a Congress worker. In his diaries, he never provided a comprehensive analysis at any point in time.

But going over his diaries over the years, especially during the later years, I tried to gauge his thoughts. There’s a telling observation as early as December 1975 in the context of the AICC session in Chandigarh. Pranab noted:

What was noticeable in this session that there was no dissenting voice… Within Congress, there has always been a diversity of opinions due to which a consensus within Congress could broadly be considered as a national consensus on issues. One of the reasons why no national opposition or alternative to Congress could emerge was the ubiquity of Congress… I do not understand the reason for this [lack of dissent/ diversity of opinions] and I don’t know if it’s good for democracy.

It took Pranab more than 40 years to admit to himself that, perhaps, all was not well with his mentor Indira Gandhi. In his post-retirement diaries, there are references to Indira’s ‘feet of clay’. He thought that the two splits in the Congress in 1969 and 1977 had weakened the organization. A personality cult and a cult around the Gandhi–Nehru family started developing during Indira’s time. Perhaps, due to her own insecurities, Indira wanted to be in total control of the organization. In 1974, the party constitution was amended to give more power to the Congress president, even allowing her to remove elected CWC members. She systematically decimated all regional stalwarts and centralized power within the organization to herself. She unabashedly promoted her sons, first Sanjay, then Rajiv after Sanjay’s death. Indira encouraged factionalism within the party and ensured that no one faction/leader became powerful enough to challenge her. The elections within the party were replaced by the ‘nomination’ culture, with the Congress leaders authorizing the Congress president to nominate not only the CWC members but even CLP leaders and CMs in states.

Indira was the main ‘vote-catcher’ for the Congress, and had the charisma and political acumen to carry it through. Her spectacular victory in 1980, after the 1977 electoral debacle, reinforced her own and the Gandhi–Nehru family’s dominance within the party. This concentration of power and the cult around the family within the Congress led to sycophancy and a belief that only a member of the Gandhi–Nehru family could lead the party and lead it to victory. In an entry on 18 December 1998, in the context of a special AICC session held in Talkatora Stadium in Delhi, Pranab noted sarcastically, ‘The whole session was “Sonia-Vandana”. Nobody can beat Congressmen/women in sycophancy. Except me, everyone took her name at least half a dozen times in a speech of five minutes.’

Pranab himself was guilty of this ‘sycophancy’ to the extent that he too came to believe and accept the inevitability of a Gandhi–Nehru family member to lead the Congress. That’s why he chose to play an active role in making Sonia the Congress president, replacing Sitaram Kesri. In his later-day reflections, he thought that Sonia’s desire to form coalition governments with support from regional parties had further weakened the organization. Rather than strengthening the organization, the focus was to form the government, even at the cost of sacrificing the interests of the local state units to the compulsions of a coalition government at the centre. I remember hearing a fleeting conversation between him and Sonia during one of her visits after his retirement. As I entered the room to serve tea, I heard Pranab saying, ‘I still stand by the Pachmarhi resolution.’ At the Pachmarhi session of the Congress in 1998, the party resolved to go on its own and not cede space to regional parties by forming coalitions. It was reversed in 2003 in Shimla, where a resolution was passed making way for collaboration with other parties to form governments.

On 3 February 2016, Pranab wrote:

A large number of people are leaving Congress. They are frustrated and it seems that even in the near future, there is no prospect of its revival. This is haunting a large number of Congress leaders and workers. Coalition politics with a strong desire of Gandhi-Nehru family, to which Congress has mortgaged itself, to keep power to itself has led to this situation (sic).

Excerpted from the chapter "And Silently the Dusk Descends" in Pranab, My Father by Sharmistha Mukherjee, with permission from Rupa Publications India.