https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/thirty-years-down-memory-lane-101625081189954-amp.html
IN the above “down memory lane walk” article penned, it’s not really clear if P. Chidambaram is paying tributes to PVN, MMS, Montek, to the few other Babu-bureaucrats he deigns to name or is simply tooting his own hoot as an architect — or at least perhaps a “fellow architect”— of the great transition in 1991 of India from the License-Raj era to the Crony-Capitalism era that followed.
In his article above PC refers to Narasimha Rao as the “true accidental Prime Minister” — a grand title and crown he unobtrusively removes from the head of Manmohan Singh (on which it has been sitting since Sanjay Baruah wrote a biography in 2014 on Singh) borrows it for a moment and mischievously places it upon the PVN’s wise and slightly even saintlike head . This is very typical of PC … a PhD in the subtle and perverse art of giving Left-footed compliments.
Let me explain myself.
To suggest that PVN was the real “accidental Prime Minister” is nothing but a deliberate, mischievous misreading if not travesty of history. In 1989, after the Congress Party had managed to scramble to power in a ragtag coalition and then following the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, there really was no one around then with the political gravitas, savvy and experience other than PVN to helm the government . There was of course Pranab Mukerjea who had equal experience but not the gravitas and certainly not the “trust of Madam Sonia Gandhi” and her inner circle of devious wheeler-dealers. PVN stepped in and thanks to him really , the Congress is still alive today … well, barely so … but still just about able to be kicking.
PC calls PVN an “accidental prime minister” only to please … perversely praise … his present master now in New Delhi , Sonia Gandhi , who used to be many a time simply ticked off and shown her place by PVN when he was PM of India … quite in stark contrast to the way the other “accidental prime minister” Manmohan Singh used to crawl for her sometimes when Madam had only wanted him to bend in office. But PC being PC knows best what he does best … praise the living queen and compliment the dead “saint” with not even the idiomatic left hand but with the barely concealed left foot … In this case, with one deft juxtaposition of the celebrity title — accidental prime minister — between both Singh and PVN, PC delivers a left-footed kick into the shins of both under the table, as it were, in a perverted sort of way .
If you must walk down your “memory lane”, Mr.PC and seek to pat your own back too in the bargain, please do so … but then please do so without twisting history through sly innuendo or suggestive juxtaposition. For, if as you have hinted, PV Narasimha Rao was indeed the true “accidental prime minister”, what is to be said about Manmohan Singh then ? An “incidental prime minister”? !
Sudarshan Madabushi