It takes a bit of courage to admit that decades ago you satisfied your craving for sweet delicacies by lurking outside a sweetmeat shop, pouncing on wrappers tossed away by customers and licking them dry. You hoped this unwholesome act would take care of your hunger pangs too.
This is what former Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde did when the death of his father plunged his family into extreme poverty. The shopkeeper, who had seen the family enjoy relative affluence, rebuked him for behaving like a beggar and reminded him that his father used to feed others.
“Had he slapped me, I would have most likely brushed aside the temporary embarrassment and gone back to doing the same thing,” says the octogenarian in a just-released memoir, adding the mention of his father stung him and he gave up the habit.
Written by author Rasheed Kidwai, Shinde’s memoir, Five Decades in Politics (HarperCollins India), is a candid account of his decades-long political life that began on a disappointing note before he eventually reached the pinnacle of power, and again failed towards the fag end.
Soft-spoken to a fault and not known to lose his countenance, Shinde has not tried to ruffle a few feathers deliberately but there could be some unintended consequences.
Humble beginning
He was born into a socially disadvantaged lower caste in rural Maharashtra. The family’s traditional occupation was to cure the skin of dead cattle. The cured skin was then sold for making leather goods. He suffered caste atrocities on several occasions. He had a particularly harrowing time when he bathed in a village well only to see upper-caste men surrounding the house of his married sister later. Bent on violence they accused him of defiling the water.
Stand against reservation
For all the caste discrimination he faced, he had taken a forthright stand against reservation when he became a minister in Maharashtra in the 1970s. He would ask backward castes to reject the crutches of reservation and once appealed to this effect in the legislative council.
Supporter of Savarkar
Unlike most Congressmen, he holds Veer Savarkar in high esteem for his efforts to eliminate untouchability and casteism. Why do we focus so heavily on his ideology of Hindutva? Why don’t we see the philosopher and scientist in him? Shinde’s assertion that Savarkar often suffered because he strove for social equality and the uplift of Dalits is unlikely to win him many friends in the grand old party.
Saffron terror
The most delicate phase in his political career came when he publicly spoke about ‘saffron terror’ as the Union home minister. He had come across the term in confidential papers prepared by his ministry. His predecessor in the high office was the articulate P Chidambaram.
Shinde recalls in the 217-page book that the ministry had received reports that some saffron organisations had conducted training camps to spread terrorism. The book says he was careful to check the veracity of the allegations before going public. He says he never used the term Hindu terrorism and stuck to saffron terror. The veteran says Home Secretary RK Singh had seconded him on saffron terror but later retracted his statement after joining the BJP.
Shinde has played it safe by not revealing too many details about saffron terror, an alleged development the world was keenly watching. He knows well that talking about it at length would be akin to committing political hara-kiri. Yet, he could have spoken about cooperation, or lack of it, from states ruled by the UPA and the NDA. The book doesn’t mention that most alleged saffron terror cases have ended in acquittal.
Hanging of Afzal Guru and Kasab
The book is likely to revive an old controversy about the hanging of Afzal Guru, who was convicted for his role in the 2001 terror attack. Guru’s family could not meet him for one last time. Without naming him, Shinde has blamed the Union home secretary’s (RK Singh) office for being late in informing Afzal’s family. He has dealt with the hanging of Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist caught alive after the 2008 Mumbai attack, briefly.
UPA and surgical strikes
Taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for marketing events like surgical strikes, Shinde claims that similar strikes had been carried out during the UPA years (2014-2019). He claims when he helmed the Union Ministry, terror camps had been brought down from sixty-five to forty without giving any details.
Failed revolt against mentor Pawar
Remembering a revolt against his mentor in 1990, Shinde admits to making a mistake in signing a letter seeking the removal of Maharashtra Chief Minister Sharad Pawar. Shinde was then the Pradesh Congress Committee chief. Pawar survived the campaign but it cost Shinde his job as the PCC chief.
Political misses
Shinde feels he could have become the chief minister more than once but lost out because of circumstances. He even quotes Shiv Sena supremo Balasahab Thackeray to claim that his Dalit caste served to check his ascension. And yet, he quotes a news report to assert that the Congress could have played the ‘Dalit PM card’ in 2014 to seek votes for him. Shinde lost parliamentary elections in 2014 and 2019.
The book has interesting tidbits about how his fair complexion and light eyes convinced him that he was meant to be a Bollywood actor. Having seen him act in school and college plays, his friends egged him on to try his luck. The dream was short-lived as the guard at Mehboob Studio did not even let him in.
Years later, as a minister who held a culture and art portfolio, he got to give the clap for mahurat shots. Dilip Kumar once commented, “Kabhi darban ne inhe roka tha, ab ye hamein rokte hai (once a guard stopped him, now he stops us).” Incidentally, the veteran politician’s original name was Dnyaneshwar which was shortened to Genba for convenience. He wanted an attractive name like Dilip Kumar, Raj Kumar and Rajendra Kumar and took a new name!
Milind Gatwai is a journalist and commentator. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.