Making of a mass leader
“I had my first brush with administration when I was barely three days old, cradled in the arms of my mother. Sharadabai Govindrao Pawar had a meeting to attend at the Pune Local Board, of which she was a member, on 15 December 1940. Although she had delivered a baby boy just three days earlier, she was not one to miss her call of duty
These three opening sentences of the book sum up the
entire life of the man. Born to a
woman of tremendous force and fortitude, he grew up in the hustle and
bustle of a highly charged peasant
political family in an out-of-the-way
village. Early experiences of dealing
with all sorts of people and exposure
to ideological crosscurrents drive the
grown-up man at a very early age into
active politics, which becomes his
absorbing destiny.
The title of the book sounds rather
brash, though not for a Maratha,
for the Marathas take pride in the
bluntness of their tongue which they
call plain speaking. The title apart, this
is an engaging and enjoyable account
of a long and hectic life of politics
spanning over 60 eventful years from
1958 till date. It is written at that stage
in life when the performer casts away
his many masks and makes his peace
with himself and the world without any
heartache or heartbreak. It is a frank
and forthright account of the many
vicissitudes of a long political life, of
friendships ending in estrangements,
alliances breaking into feuds and
late night scheming leading to early
morning patch-ups. That is what
politics is about, and all that politics is about is there in fair abundance
in this book. Anyone curious about
the events of the decades with
which the book deals will find many
interesting nuggets of information
and pithy observations throughout
its pages. At places, one wishes that
Pawar had gone a little deeper into
the events or elaborated on the
doings of men and women of his
time. He treats certain key events—
like those of the Emergency years—
in a somewhat hazy way. Sometimes
one gets the feeling as if he has
overlooked the details out of
discretion, if not caution.
However, the central theme of the
book is the making of a mass leader.
This aspect is so well dealt with in the
book that it can very well be made
standard reading for all young men
and women who wish to carve out
a place for themselves in politics.
Leadership is neither taught nor studied in India which is a pity, possibly because it is commonly believed that
leaders are born and not created. This
is far from the truth. The fact is that
even in the past, leaders were not born
but created. Those who chose to work
in public life carefully provisioned
themselves intellectually and culturally for that. They found ways and
means to get close to leaders of their
times, associated themselves with
such leaders, modelled their conduct
and even manners and mannerisms
on those they chose for their models.
Pawar is clearly one such leader.
I must, therefore, recommend his
book to every aspiring leader irrespective of the party one may belong to or
principles one may hold. He is one of
the few living examples of a leader
who has risen from the masses by
sheer determination and dedication
and made himself equally respected
by his contemporaries of diverse ideological persuasions which was amply
proved by the line-up at the release
function of his book. Actually, it is not
just aspiring leaders but even established ones like Narendra Modi and
Nitish Kumar who can all benefit by
reading the book because it is strewn
with commonsensical wisdom that
has become so uncommon in the strident and somewhat malicious public
life of our times.
One aspect of his personality which
those of us from outside Maharashtra
may discover in him for the first time
on reading this book is the interest he
has taken in cultivating his tastes in
music and literature. And, interestingly, he also shows another aspect
of his private face—a sense of ribald
humour. I must say these all make
him more of a complete man than he
would have been otherwise.
Pawar has been a successful
administrator too. Many episodes
from his long stint as chief minister
of his home state and as minister
at the Centre bear that out. Politics
is not just being clever; nor is
administration hard work alone. Both
require astuteness which is different
from merely being clever and both
are more about being creatively
innovative. Pawar describes several
remarkable instances of both in his
book. One such instance relates to
the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts in 12
different city localities. While giving
the figure of blasts, Pawar on the spur
of the moment slipped in the name of
a 13th locality—a Muslim one—in his
Doordarshan broadcast. “The trick
worked. The terrorists’ plan to spark
off Hindu-Muslim riots through
explosions did not fructify.” This
reminded me of a similar extremely
astute decision of Sardar Patel when
Gandhiji was shot by Nathuram
Godse. He too feared that the incident
may cause serious Hindu-Muslim
riots because most Hindus would
speculate that Gandhiji’s killer must
have been a Muslim. He, therefore,
instructed All India Radio to let it be
disclosed in the day’s news broadcast
that the killer was a Hindu!
Another really inspiring
chapter everyone must read is
the one about Pawar’s battle
with his mouth cancer. It must have
been extremely painful, awkward and
depressing but he has battled it successfully by sheer willpower which
he believed he has inherited from his
mother who was incapacitated in the
prime of life by an unruly bull she was
trying to help. I have just sent a copy
of the book to the wife of a journalist
friend of mine hospitalised with lung
cancer so she can read out this particular chapter to him.
The book would have, possibly,
remained incomplete if Pawar had
wound it up without touching on some
of the charges of wrongdoing that have
been hurled at him for many years by
one and all and about which he has
all along maintained a deliberate and
studied silence. These arise from his
alleged closeness to Dawood Ibrahim
and undue favours done to his
business friends like Ajit Gulabchand
in allotment of land for developing
the hill resort of Lavasa. Pawar seems
to have decided to clear the matter
and his conscience at the last. He
has given elaborate explanation on
both counts and a couple of other
counts too. I am not competent to
pass a judgement on these, anyway.
Let the readers of the book judge for
themselves. I can only say that the
explanations are consistent with the
character of the persona portrayed in
the book. If the persona is taken to be
true to life, there is no reason why the
explanation too should not be.
BN Uniyal covered Parliament and
national politics as a newspaper
correspondent for three decades until
the mid-1990s
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