Both the sulking Congress and the gloating RSS should know that Pranab Mukherjee might seem harmless and easy to digest, but if he chooses, he can get stuck in the throat like a sharp bone from the katla fish he so dearly loves.
Hats off to Pranab Mukherjee.
The former president has shown that old presidents do not have to just fade away. Traditionally, after becoming a Rashtrapati, there’s little to do except write memoirs, cut ribbons, and inspire schoolchildren.
But Pranab-babu, a year after leaving the Rashtrapati Bhavan, has managed to make it to the front page of newspapers by accepting an invitation to speak to RSS trainees. As anonymous sources on all sides of the political divide weigh in with excited conjecture about what this might mean, it is certainly a publicity masterstroke that should leave the PR handlers of many political heavyweights envious.
This much ado, let’s not forget, is about a speech that he has not even given yet. And Pranab Mukherjee is no legendary orator. But suddenly, his RSS address scheduled for 7 June has become the speech everyone is waiting for.
Pranab-babu has shown that even at the age of 80-plus, the bhadralok can strike back.
In Anand, they famously said Babumoshai, zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahin. Pranab Mukherjee, the quintessential babumoshai has demonstrated it can be both.
Bengali mother’s three lessons
While the Congress is squirming about its elder statesman going into the saffron heart of the enemy camp, and the RSS is gloating about its casting coup, Pranab babu is merely demonstrating the survival skill that has served him well all his life.
Ever since Netaji disappeared in that fiery plane crash in 1945, every Bengali mother has impressed three lessons on their darling sons, three lessons to steer them clear from too much dangerous derring-do.
Do not rock the boat. Do not burn the bridge. Eat your fish.
Pranab babu’s life is a textbook example of how to succeed by living by those commandments.
For the Congress, Pranab-babu has been the loyal company man, Mr Reliable all his life. Almost. There was that moment when the party elevated the inexperienced Rajiv Gandhi to the prime minister’s office after his mother’s assassination and left him out in the cold, an act Mukherjee admitted left him “shell shocked and flabbergasted”. The Old Faithful erupted and launched in his own party in a fit of Bengali abhimaan but ultimately came back to the family firm. After all, he knew that he was a company man, not an entrepreneur like a Mamata Banerjee. He was not meant to lead insurrections and rebellions. His greatest assets were his babu network and his prodigious memory.
Mukherjee has been the keeper of the government’s secrets for decades, and he said in his memoir that “some secrets will be buried with me”. He cannot rock the boat because his career has always been about being the steady hand in stormy seas. And true to form, his tenure as president, which included the arrival of Narendra Modi and the decimation of the Congress in 2014, saw no big storms.
The good boy
While Mukherjee is commonly thought of as a Congress loyalist, it’s also clear that he has hit the party’s glass ceiling more than once. The second time was when Sonia Gandhi refused to become PM, and he could have been the party’s choice. But she chose the more apolitical Manmohan Singh, a man whose boss Pranab-babu had once been. He went along stoically like a bhalo chhele without a public fuss. Ultimately, he got his golden handshake when he became the UPA candidate to be the President of India.
There is chatter that he is not impressed by the way Rahul Gandhi is running the party, but he has said nothing unlike some of the BJP’s margdarshaks who have been shown the marg. But if the Gandhis are upset about his fraternising with the enemy these days, well there’s precious little they can do about it anymore. This is a man who finally feels free to have the last word.
Bridge over troubled waters
That brings us to Part II of the Bengali mother’s survival guide – about not burning bridges. Pranab-babu has never let his Congress roots get in the way of keeping his channels open. It was Jyoti Basu of the CPM who helped him win a Rajya Sabha seat in 1993. After Mamata Banerjee came out against him when he was the UPA candidate, it was another across-the-party-lines move that helped his bid. He called fellow bhadralok, CPM’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, who persuaded the Politburo to support Mukherjee. And that wily old politician Mulayam Singh Yadav did a volte face on Mamata and helped push Pranab Mukherjee over the top.
When he left office, Narendra Modi bid him fulsome farewell with a goodbye letter where he called him a “father figure and mentor” and said his “wisdom, guidance and warmth” have given him “greater personal confidence and strength”. Mukherjee has called Modi a “very good learner” and a man driving “transformational change” with “passion and energy”.The Times of India has reported that since leaving Rashtrapati Bhavan, he has met with not just Sonia and Rahul Gandhi but also Arun Jaitley and Mohan Bhagwat and Narendra Modi. The Congress might bring up his past views on the RSS but Mukherjee knows the RSS now holds the levers of power in India, no matter what he once said about them. All that is water under the bridge and he likes being the bridge over troubled waters.
Not just a diminutive man
But all of this equanimity does not mean he’s a walkover. That meekness and mildness is deceptive. That’s just a diminutive Bengali man’s all-season defence mechanism against the world. As Rajdeep Sardesai discovered to his chagrin when he had him on his show and tried to interrupt him – hell hath no fury like an elderly Bengali talked over by anyone. Mukherjee said: “Let me complete. Don’t have this habit. I am sorry to remind you that you are interfering with the former President. Please have the necessary courtesy. Don’t interrupt.” But then graciously at the end, he also told Sardesai that he was sorry for being a “little rude.”
And that is quintessentially the image Pranab-babu has projected throughout his long public life. He can put you firmly in place and then be gracious about it.
Both the sulking Congress and the gloating RSS should keep that in mind. Pranab Mukherjee might seem harmless and easy to digest, but if he chooses he can get stuck in the throat like a sharp bone from the katla fish he so dearly loves.
Sandip Roy is a journalist, commentator and author.