(Writer with Naga dancers)
Late comrade Indrajit Gupta was among the few gentlemen breed of communist leaders of old times.
He was firm as an individual and brash, but hardly arrogant. Humility was his inherent quality and he would even call people younger to him by 50 years as ‘Niren babu’ and start the first interaction saying, “a good interview is possible when both can trust each other”.
Once with a TV jouro he lost cool when rather arrogantly she put a mike in front of him and said – “Sir, aap ka naam bata dijiye (Kindly tell us your name)”. Indrajit lost his cool and gave his piece of mind.
He made news politically for his ‘brash frankness’ when he said — “The Congress will be treated with shoes if it withdraws support to the Deve Gowda government”.
While one talks of the Naga peace parleys having started under two UF Prime Ministers H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral, we tend to forget that under both PMs, comrade Indrajit Gupta was the Home Minister.
A hardcore communist, so he did not have the administrative pulse in his grip always. Babus were trusted and given ‘extra powers’.
K Padmanabhaiah as the Home Secretary was a creature of that period. Of course, he became an interlocutor in peace parleys under Vajpayee government and allegedly even declined to visit Nagaland.
His favourite meeting place(s) used to be Bangkok or even Paris and Zurich in Europe – of course at the government’s expense.
Both PMs Deve Gowda and I KGujral must have got their hands in so many other challenges and hence Naga peace talks were left to the Home Ministry and some senior officials.
After all everyone could not be so methodical nor every regime (unlike Modi’s) would be held so accountable !
As the in-charge of Home Ministry (MHA), in retrospect, it is argued that Indrajit Gupta should have done his part well. Or did he go by his Leftist sentiment ?
In 1998-99 when the Vajpayee government was in power, senior officials used to often say one big demerit of the 1997 Naga ceasefire was that it “lacked clear definition”.
One senior official said – “There were no written terms and conditions and it was merely an understanding”.
At one point even L K Advani as Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Home Minister was stunned to note that unlike his predecessor Deve Gowda, I K Gujral never met the NSCN-IM leaders.
The Vajpayee government at the behest of overseas-travel loving interlocutor Padmanabhaiya also indulged in a flip-flop in 2001 when ceasefire was extended to all Naga inhabited areas.
Manipuris protested despite the fact that the state was under a brief spell of President’s Rule.
Eighteen people were killed and the NDA government withdrew. That was a misadventure and a loss of face too for NDA-1.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows for one thing that he is already a punching bag and so hardly any elbow room to commit mistakes. Hence all precautions and go-slow theory even by India’s most decisive and a ‘gutsy’ Prime Minist.
0Pic taken from open source , Internet)
