The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh (9 page)

In June 2004, however, Dr Singh not just accepted Subrahmanyam’s advice to separate the posts of principal secretary and the NSA, but went a step further, by dividing up the NSA’s beat, with foreign affairs, defence and nuclear strategy allotted to Mani Dixit and internal security to Narayanan. However, instead of then asking the NSA and SA to sit in Sardar Patel Bhavan, home of the NSCS, he chose to locate them within the premises of the PMO.

For the first few weeks of its existence, the Manmohan Singh PMO just did not get along. The NSA wanted all files relating to the external affairs, home and defence ministries to go through him to the PM. This would, for the first time, seriously abridge the principal secretary’s role in decision-making and, more vitally, appointments pertaining to these ministries. Narayanan, even though he lived in Chennai and flew down to Delhi for a few days every week, then got into the act and demanded that he should be looking at files pertaining to the home ministry and the internal security agencies.

The media got wind of this internal turf war, with a senior journalist being briefed by Brajesh Mishra, who in turn had heard of it from his subordinates who were still in the PMO and were in touch with him. It was then decided that an office order would be issued clarifying the individual responsibilities of Nair, Dixit and Narayanan. This was then made public.

Matters did not rest there. Over the next few weeks, media reports appeared suggesting there was a problem of turf between the PM’s advisers and his senior Cabinet ministers, the ministers for external affairs and home, Natwar Singh and Shivraj Patil. They had sought a clarification from the PM about what role Mani and Narayanan would play and whether they would interfere in the work of the home and external affairs ministries.

One day, Natwar Singh, the foreign minister, called me to his room in South Block and unburdened himself of his grievances against Mani Dixit. As he narrated his long list of complaints, he grew angrier and angrier. Natwar’s major complaint was that Mani was interfering far too much in the affairs of the foreign affairs ministry. Natwar and Mani were both retired diplomats, but with very different views. They were, understandably, in competition with each other to influence foreign policy. Indeed, Mani was an effective buffer between a reform-minded PM and the MEA’s conservative establishment, just as Brajesh Mishra had been similarly used by Vajpayee.

Even as the PM attempted to sort out this conflict, newspaper reports appeared, drawing attention to the developing conflict between Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Narayanan. They even dragged the PM into the controversy by suggesting that these turf issues had come up because of prime ministerial activism, that is, the PM, through his advisers, was trying to encroach on ministerial turf. Dr Singh wanted this denied and asked me to draft a public clarification to clear the air. My draft read:

There have been some speculative and tendentious reports in the media in the recent past suggesting that the Prime Minister has taken direct charge of matters relating to Jammu and Kashmir, the North-Eastern States and the Naxalite-affected regions of the country. These reports are not accurate. All matters pertaining to internal security are directly dealt with by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the Government of India and by the relevant State governments. There is no change in the extant situation.

 

The PM asked me to show this to each of the three concerned—Nair, Mani and Narayanan. All of them agreed that this was an acceptable formulation. I went back to the PM with their three signatures on the draft. He smiled as he read the text and, returning the file to me, asked: ‘So what will you call it? Press release or joint statement?’

 

 

My own position within this structure was formally defined by my rank. I had insisted with Dr Singh that I should be given the rank of secretary to government. Dr Singh had readily agreed, but Nair had baulked at the thought. At fifty he thought I was too young to be secretary to government, having himself been promoted to that rank in his late fifties, like most civil servants. He advised me to accept the rank of additional secretary, a step below, so as to not become a victim of bureaucratic jealousy, as he put it. Dr Singh opted for a compromise, urging me to join as additional secretary and assuring me that I would be promoted within the year. I did get promoted a year later and discovered that the only major perk that I was now entitled to was an executive suite at a hotel while travelling with the PM. However, as the son of a civil servant I knew that rank is all in government. It determines seating at meetings, it decides the car in which you travel in a prime ministerial cavalcade; more importantly, it shapes how you are perceived and how much influence others assume you command. I had pushed for a high rank so that I could be a more effective media adviser. It was no bad thing that apart from the big three, all of whom had the rank of a minister of state, all other officials in the PMO, including Pulok, were below me in official rank. Nair feared this would cause resentment but I rarely felt any from my IAS colleagues. The more protocol-conscious IFS diplomats, however, played their little games.

An amusing early episode featuring some of my protocol- and seniority-obsessed colleagues was played out at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in NewYork in September 2004. Dr Singh had been invited to deliver a lecture at the CFR. When we arrived at the venue both Montek and Mani were whisked into a special room where Dr Singh was to have lunch with the high-profile CFR leadership before delivering his lecture. Since I, along with Montek and Mani, had been closely involved in writing it, I had assumed I would be part of the lunch group. However, I was told that I should sit outside along with other PMO officials. Even before I could protest, the economist Jagdish Bhagwati, a senior CFR fellow and an invitee to the lunch, spotted me and waved. He walked up to me, gave me a warm hug and inquired about my in-laws and Rama, whom he had known for years. He then held my hand and walked me into the room. At the entrance to the room, two foreign service gatekeepers reminded me that I was not on the PMO’s list for the luncheon, upon which Bhagwati told them I was his guest. Protocol had been worsted by family ties.

Ultimately, more than my rank, it was my proximity to Dr Singh that finally defined my access and influence in the PMO. My equations with the three senior officials in the PMO were also affected by the fact that in the process of resolving their differences, Dr Singh had come to assign me the role of a referee.

I had a good equation with Mani from our time together in the NSAB in 1999-2000 and our travels abroad as part of India’s ‘track 2’ diplomacy. He quit the NSAB in 2000, but we remained in touch and met regularly after he drafted me into his effort at writing an alternative foreign policy vision for the Congress party. I enjoyed his company, and we were both fond of good Scotch and cigars.

But within the PMO, Mani’s imperious style inevitably came into conflict with my own more freewheeling and irreverent style of functioning. Our first disagreement was on who could travel with the PM on his official plane. Seeing the name of
Times
of
India
journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, who later served as editor of
The
Hindu,
on the media list, Mani sent me a note informing me that Siddharth was not an Indian national but an American citizen and, as a foreign national, was not entitled to travel on the PM’s plane. I was aware of Siddharth’s citizenship, since this matter had come up when I had hired him as an assistant editor at the
Times
of
India.
I chose not to make an issue of it then and Samir Jain, vice chairman of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd, the publishers of the
Times
of
India,
who took particular interest in the hiring of editorial writers, did not object either. Now the matter had surfaced again.

I wrote on the file that since Siddharth had recently accompanied External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh on a foreign trip in an official aircraft, the PMO need not make an issue of his citizenship. The file went to the PM with my observation and returned with his signature. I was told that in officialese a signature with no instructions meant the PM had approved the recommendation on the file. Mani was miffed. He returned the file to me with a caustic reference to my signature on the file being in red ink, which I had used without thinking. His note said, ‘Only service chiefs are allowed to sign in red ink!’

I won that round but some irritants remained. What really bothered Mani was that I would often brief the media on the PM’s views on foreign affairs. Mani wanted all such briefings routed through and approved by him. One day, he issued an office order stating that all interaction between the media adviser and the media on issues pertaining to foreign affairs and national security, and all press statements on those subjects, should be authorized by the NSA. I was livid.

I drove down to 7 RCR with Mani’s order in my hand, barged into the PM’s room unannounced, showed him the order and asked if it had his approval. Dr Singh was surprised to see the order and said he had not authorized it. I remonstrated that I was as much an ‘adviser’ to the PM as Mani was.

‘He is your national security adviser and I am your media adviser. We are both “your advisers”. I see no reason why I should seek anyone’s approval for what I do, apart from yours.’

After the PM calmed me down, I explained to him that as the only non-civil servant in the PM’s team, I often felt alone and isolated because I had no internal peer group and a gap of more than a decade separated me from my three senior colleagues. The loneliness sometimes got to me and I was not enjoying this job. So if he still wanted me to remain in the PMO, it was important that everyone there understood that I reported only to the PM and to no one else. I told him that I viewed it as my duty to brief the media directly on the PM’s thinking on ongoing events. In the age of 24x7 television, such responses would often have to be immediate. Putting up files and notes and securing approval for a statement to the media was no longer possible. As the PM’s media adviser, I would, I emphasized, also have to function as his ‘spokesman’, offering quotes to the media on his behalf.

I assured him that on important matters I would seek his approval for any statement I was about to make, but I saw no reason why I should seek any other official’s approval. The PM told me my understanding was correct and that he would sort out the matter with Mani. Late that night, Mani called.

‘I say, Sanjaya,’ he said in his usual gruff tone, ‘I am sorry, I made a mistake. PM told me you were upset about some silly note I issued. Tear it up. Come and smoke a cigar with me tomorrow.’

The next day we met over coffee and a cigar in his room. I remarked that I was surprised he smoked in the office since there were instructions that smoking was not permitted in the PMO.

‘I have always smoked in my office. What are all these silly instructions? You and I can afford to ignore such orders,’ he said loftily, puffing away at his cigar. He then gifted me a box of cigars and a copy of a book written by his mother, Ratnamayi Devi, who had had a profound influence on him. I became truly fond of Mani after that.

 

 

While the PM’s core team was in place on the day Parliament opened, 2 June 2004, the government got off to a rough start. Dr Singh was neither allowed to introduce his council of ministers nor make any statement in the House. The BJP had recovered neither from the shock of its defeat nor from the surprising ease with which the Congress had stitched together a coalition and found a credible prime minister to head it. Unhappy with the situation in Parliament, Dr Singh settled down to tying up the loose ends of government formation. On my second day in office, I was summoned by the PM to his room in South Block.

‘I have to name a new Planning Commission,’ he said. ‘Can you draw up a list of names?’

Over the next two days, I prepared a list. One afternoon a meeting was called at which Nair and Pulok were also present. I had my list and Nair arrived with his. As we read out names, Dr Singh would indicate his preference. Nair was asked to secure the consent of those selected, bar one. The one I was asked to sound out was Anu Aga, chairperson of Thermax. Her husband, Rohinton Aga, had been a contemporary of Dr Singh at college in England and she had distinguished herself as a corporate leader when she took charge of the family company after his death. When I called Anu, who was then in London, she asked for a day to consult her family. She called back the next day and accepted Dr Singh’s invitation to join the Planning Commission.