Pranab Mukherjee has accepted the invitation to visit the RSS headquarters at Nagpur to address the cadre. To quote RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, “Mukherjee was graceful enough to accept the invitation.” Mukherjee accepting the invite is a surprise because the place never put up the picture of Mahatma Gandhi because he represented an ideology of pluralism and egalitarianism, which are not conducive to the RSS philosophy of establishing a Hindu Rastra.
Actually, Pranab Mukherjee is a man of all-political affiliations. He has occupied the highest position as a Congressman and has also floated a political party with a few of his associates in the Congress. But one can call him a self-made man in the political arena.
I recall Pranab Mukherjee as a man of humility who invited me to his house to hear the recital of his wife, a vocalist. Then he was struggling to make his mark as a politician. His residence gave a modest look with minimum furniture. He was known as a man of simple habits. But everything changed over the years as he gradually established himself as an affluent politician with authority.
During the emergency I happened to visit him at his residence and to my surprise I found a well-furnished sitting room. He was then the Commerce Minister in the Indira Gandhi cabinet and very close to Sanjay Gandhi, who was an extra-constitutional authority and practically held the reins of power. To say candidly, Pranab Mukherjee was his Man Friday who carried out his orders.
The latter virtually ruled the country with Pranab Mukherjee on one side and Bansi Lal, then Defence Minister, on the other. It was during this period that Pranab Mukherjee granted or stopped licences at the bidding of Sanjay. Raids on shops and residences of critics were carried out throughout the country. People rightly defeated him and Indira Gandhi when elections were held after the lifting of the emergency in 1977.
Pranab Mukherjee was a contender for prime ministership, but Sonia Gandhi’s compulsion and determination to make her son Rahul Gandhi the prime minister came in the way of Mukherjee’s political ambitions. Realising the mood, he announced that he would not contest the 2014 elections.
It was because he had served the dynasty faithfully that Pranab Mukherjee appointed the President by Sonia Gandhi. It was a gift to a loyal person who was even willing to say that the sun rose from the west if she said so. He was another Giani Zail Singh, whom Mrs Indira Gandhi had got appointed as President out of the blue.
The rule of Pranab Mukherjee was an insult to the democratic ethos of the nation. If he had been a sensitive person, he would have felt the wrongs done during the 17 months of emergency. If nothing else, he could have at least regretted the imposition of the emergency when more than one lakh people were detained without trial, the press was ‘disciplined’ and civil servants lost the distinction between right and wrong, moral and immoral.
I have followed the period when he was at Rashtrapati Bhavan and I found to my horror that it was a rule which had a negative impact. I cannot spot one instance when he upheld democracy and pluralism. It did not behove the President to release his memoirs during his tenure. Seldom have people felt as let down as they did during his presidency.
Had there been a Lokpal, he would have pointed out where Mukherjee failed as President. Alas, there is no such institution to assess a President’s tenure. Heads of institutions are not generally assailed. The idea behind such thinking is that criticism may harm the institutions, which are essential for the sustenance of democratic polity. Among the most important of the institutions is that of the President. Therefore, the President is spared even when he or she crosses the line that the office delineates. Maybe it because of this consideration that Pranab Mukherjee has escaped censure.
Wittingly or unwittingly, Pranab Mukherjee has weakened the struggle against communal forces. The RSS or, for that matter, the Bhartiya Janata Party can tell the nation that Nagpur does not represent communal forces because Mukherjee has chosen to address the RSS cadre. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has defended the former President’s decision to address the RSS cadre by saying that he was not visiting an ISI camp.
Surprisingly, the Congress has not uttered a word to condemn Mukherjee’s step. The silence is a sort of endorsement of what he is doing. Only one former Congress minister has urged him to reconsider his decision in the interests of secularism.
Some Congressmen believe that the former President, who has been a Congressman all his life, would deliver a strong message on pluralism from the RSS platform. In fact, veteran leader Salman Khurshid defended him saying that the party must have faith in Pranab Mukherjee and “trust him not just for his true allegiance to the idea of India, but also for being sagacious and wiser than us.”
This is a weak argument. The very presence of Mukherjee at Nagpur would confuse the nation because they have heard from every Congress leader that the RSS is an antithesis of pluralism. Sonia Gandhi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi should have criticised Mukherjee for his visit. Had they done so, Congress would have gained much respect among those who wish to stand up for secularism and pluralism in the country.
