AKHILESH YADAV
Winds of Change
Sunita Aron
Tranquebar; 562 pages; Rs 695
A common joke in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, goes that the state is governed by not one but four-and-a-half chief ministers. On the top is Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav; then there are his two brothers, Ram Gopal Yadav and Shivpal Yadav; and, finally, there is the Muslim face of the party, Azam Khan. The present chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, makes up the half.
This particular narrative gained credence as the 40-year-old chief minister struggled to handle the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and the criticism his government faced over its decision to suspend the young Indian Administrative Service officer Durga Shakti Nagpal for cracking down on illegal sand mining.
Provincial leaders of post-Independence India have had few biographers. It is hard to find biographies in English of leaders such as C N Annadurai, K Kamaraj and E M S Namboodiripad. In the recent past, however, this trend has changed; several biographies of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Mulayam Singh have been written. Journalist Sunita Aron's Akhilesh Yadav: Winds of Change is part of this growing trend.
Ms Aron's book, however, is likely to leave readers disappointed. The central theme of the book is not Akhilesh Yadav but his father, Mulayam Singh. The first hundred pages had me repeatedly turning to the cover to assure myself that I was reading a biography of Akhilesh Yadav. Also, Ms Aron refers to Akhilesh Yadav in the book as "Tipu", his nickname, but that is unlikely to impress a serious reader.
The other problem is that the primary source of the book is interviews with Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav, and with friends and members of the wider Yadav clan. But there are few independent voices.
After reading more than 500 pages, what emerges from the book is an image of Akhilesh Yadav as a quiet and polite lad. In school and college, he kept his father's credentials hidden, referring to Mulayam Singh as a "farmer". Friends and teachers, who have subsequently been helped by a "generous" Akhilesh Yadav, remember him as a keen sportsman with no interest in politics. Ms Aron says Mulayam Singh, too, was uncomfortable about promoting the young Yadav in politics, but his hand was forced under pressure from a young cadre.
Mulayam Singh then packed off Akhilesh Yadav to a military school in Dholpur. Later, Akhilesh Yadav studied civil environmental engineering at a private college in Mysore. Ms Aron recounts interesting tales around both these developments.
In 1982, Mulayam Singh decided to send Akhilesh Yadav to The Scindia School, Gwalior. On their first visit there, the car in which Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav were travelling broke down. Mulayam Singh then told an associate, "I have only one son and he will often be travelling alone… What if an accident were to occur? I can't take such a risk. Let's go back". However, Akhilesh Yadav told Ms Aron that he discovered he had been denied admission by the school, a fact that Mulayam Singh was reluctant to reveal to his son.
The second anecdote relates to Akhilesh Yadav's admission to an engineering college in Mysore. Ms Aron says Akhilesh Yadav wanted to study in his "dream college", Delhi University's Hindu College, even as Mulayam Singh was in the news for his anti-English rhetoric. As the days of Akhilesh Yadav's admission drew closer, English dailies started questioning Mulayam Singh's doublespeak. Under mounting pressure, the idea of sending Akhilesh Yadav to Delhi University was dropped and he was sent to study engineering in the south. Interestingly, Mulayam Singh asked his principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, to accompany Akhilesh Yadav to complete the admission formalities. Later, Mr Misra chaired the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
But how far can the son of a chief minister of the then undivided Uttar Pradesh remain isolated from his father's influence? Ms Aron, in searching for an answer, finds another dimension to the "self-effacing" Akhilesh Yadav. During a cultural festival in his college, there was a contest in which the girl who got the highest number of roses from the crowd would be crowned the "rose queen". Ms Aron writes, "Tipu, along with his gang of friends, was cheering for a particular girl and wanted her to win and gave her all the roses that they had carried along for the contest. But after a while they found that there was still time for the last leg of the contest but their quota of roses had gotten over. Akhilesh Yadav immediately sent his friends to go around the whole of Mysore to buy out all the roses. Their candidate won the contest and was crowned the 'rose queen'."
According to Ms Aron, Akhilesh Yadav faces four big challenges: one, meeting the expectations of the people; two, managing the deteriorating law-and-order situation in the state; three, checking social violence; and, finally, bridging the generational gap within his party.
The young chief minister faces another challenge. This, however, comes from within the family, which has nine members in politics and its third generation is ready to step in. Ms Aron writes that Shivpal Yadav, who was against Akhilesh Yadav's elevation in 2012, "is still perceived to be a troublemaker and can be the proverbial thorn in his nephew's flesh". Then there is Prateek Yadav, son from Mulayam Singh's second marriage, who has begun showing interest in politics.
So, what should be expected of the "polite" chief minister? Akhilesh Yadav's wife, Dimple, provides a less-than-edifying clue: "Akhilesh can't tolerate to lose a game. First, he ensures that he does not and even if he begins to, he will do everything to convert that into a win. Maybe even cheat!"
Winds of Change
Sunita Aron
Tranquebar; 562 pages; Rs 695
A common joke in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, goes that the state is governed by not one but four-and-a-half chief ministers. On the top is Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav; then there are his two brothers, Ram Gopal Yadav and Shivpal Yadav; and, finally, there is the Muslim face of the party, Azam Khan. The present chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, makes up the half.
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This particular narrative gained credence as the 40-year-old chief minister struggled to handle the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and the criticism his government faced over its decision to suspend the young Indian Administrative Service officer Durga Shakti Nagpal for cracking down on illegal sand mining.
Provincial leaders of post-Independence India have had few biographers. It is hard to find biographies in English of leaders such as C N Annadurai, K Kamaraj and E M S Namboodiripad. In the recent past, however, this trend has changed; several biographies of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Mulayam Singh have been written. Journalist Sunita Aron's Akhilesh Yadav: Winds of Change is part of this growing trend.
Ms Aron's book, however, is likely to leave readers disappointed. The central theme of the book is not Akhilesh Yadav but his father, Mulayam Singh. The first hundred pages had me repeatedly turning to the cover to assure myself that I was reading a biography of Akhilesh Yadav. Also, Ms Aron refers to Akhilesh Yadav in the book as "Tipu", his nickname, but that is unlikely to impress a serious reader.
The other problem is that the primary source of the book is interviews with Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav, and with friends and members of the wider Yadav clan. But there are few independent voices.
After reading more than 500 pages, what emerges from the book is an image of Akhilesh Yadav as a quiet and polite lad. In school and college, he kept his father's credentials hidden, referring to Mulayam Singh as a "farmer". Friends and teachers, who have subsequently been helped by a "generous" Akhilesh Yadav, remember him as a keen sportsman with no interest in politics. Ms Aron says Mulayam Singh, too, was uncomfortable about promoting the young Yadav in politics, but his hand was forced under pressure from a young cadre.
Mulayam Singh then packed off Akhilesh Yadav to a military school in Dholpur. Later, Akhilesh Yadav studied civil environmental engineering at a private college in Mysore. Ms Aron recounts interesting tales around both these developments.
In 1982, Mulayam Singh decided to send Akhilesh Yadav to The Scindia School, Gwalior. On their first visit there, the car in which Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav were travelling broke down. Mulayam Singh then told an associate, "I have only one son and he will often be travelling alone… What if an accident were to occur? I can't take such a risk. Let's go back". However, Akhilesh Yadav told Ms Aron that he discovered he had been denied admission by the school, a fact that Mulayam Singh was reluctant to reveal to his son.
The second anecdote relates to Akhilesh Yadav's admission to an engineering college in Mysore. Ms Aron says Akhilesh Yadav wanted to study in his "dream college", Delhi University's Hindu College, even as Mulayam Singh was in the news for his anti-English rhetoric. As the days of Akhilesh Yadav's admission drew closer, English dailies started questioning Mulayam Singh's doublespeak. Under mounting pressure, the idea of sending Akhilesh Yadav to Delhi University was dropped and he was sent to study engineering in the south. Interestingly, Mulayam Singh asked his principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, to accompany Akhilesh Yadav to complete the admission formalities. Later, Mr Misra chaired the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
But how far can the son of a chief minister of the then undivided Uttar Pradesh remain isolated from his father's influence? Ms Aron, in searching for an answer, finds another dimension to the "self-effacing" Akhilesh Yadav. During a cultural festival in his college, there was a contest in which the girl who got the highest number of roses from the crowd would be crowned the "rose queen". Ms Aron writes, "Tipu, along with his gang of friends, was cheering for a particular girl and wanted her to win and gave her all the roses that they had carried along for the contest. But after a while they found that there was still time for the last leg of the contest but their quota of roses had gotten over. Akhilesh Yadav immediately sent his friends to go around the whole of Mysore to buy out all the roses. Their candidate won the contest and was crowned the 'rose queen'."
According to Ms Aron, Akhilesh Yadav faces four big challenges: one, meeting the expectations of the people; two, managing the deteriorating law-and-order situation in the state; three, checking social violence; and, finally, bridging the generational gap within his party.
The young chief minister faces another challenge. This, however, comes from within the family, which has nine members in politics and its third generation is ready to step in. Ms Aron writes that Shivpal Yadav, who was against Akhilesh Yadav's elevation in 2012, "is still perceived to be a troublemaker and can be the proverbial thorn in his nephew's flesh". Then there is Prateek Yadav, son from Mulayam Singh's second marriage, who has begun showing interest in politics.
So, what should be expected of the "polite" chief minister? Akhilesh Yadav's wife, Dimple, provides a less-than-edifying clue: "Akhilesh can't tolerate to lose a game. First, he ensures that he does not and even if he begins to, he will do everything to convert that into a win. Maybe even cheat!"