A model public servant
The image we have of K R Narayanan is shaped by his later
years as diplomat, Vice President and President. But his life was full of
unexpected turns. He might have been a novelist, with his brilliant degree in
English literature; he might have become a newspaper editor, having started
early with stints in The Hindu and The Times of India; he might
even have spent his life as a professor if Sir C P Ramaswami Iyer, the Dewan of
Travancore, had not thought him too well dressed for a Dalit and denied him a
lectureship.
But he happened to be born in the generation that came to
age as India became independent. He finished his B Sc in London School of
Economics in 1948, and returned with a letter from Harold Laski to the new Prime
Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru; Nehru immediately took him into the foreign
service. He served his full term, ending with ambassadorships to Thailand,
Turkey and China.
Such a career would have persuaded most civil servants to
hang up their boots; but after retirement, Narayanan won three general
elections, and became minister of state under Rajiv Gandhi. The two careers,
one in the foreign service and another in politics, led naturally to Vice
Presidency in 1992, and Presidency in 1997.
The Presidency could have been an appropriate stepping
stone to obscurity; but it turned out to be the most eventful and testing time
of Narayanan’s life. For he took over just as India entered a period of
unprecedented instability. Two general elections were held within a year
because Narayanan refused to help or keep anyone in power and insisted on votes
of confidence in Parliament. Finally, the National Democratic Alliance came to
power, devoid of experience and full of ambition. That set the stage for
conflict, in which Narayanan upheld the Constitution, generally with
success. His greatest regret must have
been that he had to watch helplessly as Muslims were hunted in Gujarat after
Godhra; the Vajpayee government ignored his urgent advice to act.
Although Narayanan invariably gave a public explanation of
his decisions as President, the Gujarat riots were one issue on which he was
discreet. His memoirs were looked forward to, not least because they might have
shed more light on it. I hope that they will still be published, for they would
be a crucial input into this country’s history of modern times.
