The launch of a book by former MP Mohsina Kidwai just 24 hours after the historic Congress party election had to be all about Shashi Tharoor. And the ‘man of the moment’, one of the panelists, easily became the toast of the evening. There was more curiosity about a contender who was defeated at the event.
The book, My Life in Politics, was just a fun backdrop for excited conversations about the elections, Congress, and continuity and coterie politics. But the main takeaway was that everybody agreed on one thing – Tharoor fought ‘the good fight’.
Editors, journalists, and politicians came together before a panel of Congress leaders fresh out of party elections, and everyone had hot, grilling questions ready at the tip of their tongues. Is Congress MP Shashi Tharoor disheartened after his recent defeat in the party elections? What was the ringside view of his dynamic with new party president Mallikarjun Kharge? How are they seeing the changing political landscape?
These questions, and a lot more, were shot at Tharoor, former Lok Sabha speaker Shivraj Patil, former J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, former Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, and Mani Shankar Aiyar at India International Centre on Thursday. But these Congressmen didn’t gather to talk about what a new non-Gandhi president will bring to the table.
It was the launch of former Rajya Sabha MP Mohsina Kidwai’s autobiography My Life in Indian Politics as told to journalist Rasheed Kidwai. Attended by veteran Congress loyalists, bureaucrats, and friends-of-friends, who had more in common than just receding hairlines, the event had the cosy — and stale — air of reminiscing past glories.
There was nostalgia, lots of Indira Gandhi and 1975 Emergency apologetics, and bouts of revivalist fervour that Congress leaders would occasionally awaken to. But that didn’t stop Hindustan Times’ political editor Sunetra Choudhary, the moderator for the event, from asking uncomfortable questions and making the panellists squirm in their seats.
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Eyebrow-raising politics
The 90-year-old Mohsina sat in the centre of the stage and said, “The book is an honest recollection of my political life. I wrote what I saw and never said anything controversial against anybody.” However, the discussion began with, and quickly escalated to, the ‘man of the moment’ — Shashi Tharoor. When Choudhary asked him if his recent defeat disheartened him, the Congress MP stated that neither he nor Sonia Gandhi were surprised that “people would back one of their own”. For the ruling establishment saying that the Congress ‘mistreated’ him, Tharoor could spare a few words: “We can fight our internal battles, thank you.”
Shivraj Patil got Kharge’s name wrong and referred to him as Khandelwal, despite the fact that he claimed to have voted for him. And Tharoor, too, didn’t care much to correct him. Patil gave a more levelling answer to Choudhary’s questions — the election was fought “not between adversaries but candidates with varied ideologies”. For Mani Shankar Aiyar, it was no ‘battle’: “If Tharoor is the champion of change, Kharge is the champion of continuity. Both can work together.”
However, it didn’t end there.
Patil made a controversial statement that caused much eyebrow-raising when he likened Krishna’s sermon in the Bhagwat Gita to jihad: “We talk about jihad when, even if one has good intentions, the other doesn’t understand, force is used. It’s not just there in the Quran Sharif. Krishna gave lessons on jihad to Arjuna in the Mahabharata.” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Shehzad Jai Hind has now reacted sharply, accusing the Congress of ‘Hindu hatred’.
If that wasn’t enough, Farooq Abdullah didn’t cut corners when talking of “coterie politics”. “Coterie destroys a leader; Allah kare usko jahannum aaye (I wish hell upon coterie politics). I have seen that time and suffered wounds. That’s why I don’t write. Allah knows what will happen. Books don’t sell unless they have ‘masala’,” he said. Mani Shankar Aiyar picked it up and said the Congress leadership is not the coterie, but it is the people around the leadership who plant stories in the media to further their own agenda.
Pointing out the deep crisis that the Congress party has been in for the last decade, he drew the parallel with Mohsina’s My Life in Politics: “Rajiv Gandhi said in Bombay that unless this party falls to the ground, it can never rise again. Now is the time it has fallen to the ground, and it is time for it to rise again.”
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A ‘past’ forward
In Indian politics, the 1970s have a certain allure – the Emergency is one for the BJP to seize control of the Congress. For the latter, it is also the glorious reminder of Indira Gandhi rising from rock bottom after the 1977 Lok Sabha election defeat. Now is the time when the Congress — albeit the circumstantial differences — has its back against the wall like it did in ‘77 and is desperate to rekindle some leadership spirit. It is what Mohsina Kidwai capitalises on in My Life in Indian Politics, and Rasheed Kidwai says forms the crux of the autobiography.
From her election to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council in 1960 at the age of 28 to sharing intimate car rides with Indira Gandhi and feeling “sheer joy” when crowds chanted “Aadhi roti khayenge, Indira ko laayenge” (We will eat half-a-roti but bring back Indira) to being one of the 20 women MPs India has nominated since Independence — Mohsina has detailed her unwavering loyalty to the Congress.
Commendable for its surgical dive into the realities of a woman leader in Indian politics, the book also comfortably glides over some hard facts about Indian politics at the turn of the century: The rise of the Sangh Parivar, Babri Masjid demolition, LTTE bombing, and the 1991 economic reforms.
As a work of journalism, it truly is the first draft of history. But it doesn’t go deep. It doesn’t tell you the circumstances under which Rajiv Gandhi opened the Babri Masjid for Hindu worship, it eludes the Shah Bano case, and India’s ‘Vietnam’ operation in Sri Lanka.
But that’s also the politics of autobiography writing.
“When you write about yourself, you pick and choose what you want to focus on. My Life in Indian Politics is about Mohsina ji’s achievement in Parliament. Twenty women MPs out of 9,000 in Independent India’s history is a dismal number,” says Rasheed Kidwai, who wrote the book based on his conversations with Mohsina.
“There’s nobody who would’ve known Indira Gandhi so well as Mohsina ji. In 1977, though I was young, I remember thinking Indira Gandhi was finished. But that was proved otherwise. Today, the Congress lacks that self-belief and faith it had then,” says Kidwai.
Does the Bharat Jodo Yatra have the potential to restore some of that confidence that like Yogendra Yadav says isn’t just a political ‘tamasha’? “The yatra is really good in the sense that it’s giving a lot of confidence to people. It remains to be seen how this will play out before 2024. It’s a gradual change, and there are still 10 elections to go before 18 months are up,” he adds.
(Edited by Tarannum Khan)