FLYING IN HIGH WINDS
A Memoir
S K Misra
Rupa
270 pages; Rs 500
Memoirs of retired civil servants are usually an interesting read simply because they offer an insight into the functional style of the governments with which they have been associated during their careers. The inside stories of how ministers or even the prime minister of the day took certain decisions often act as the proverbial icing on the cake.
S K Misra had a long career of close to four decades - from 1956 to 1991. He served as principal secretary to two important government leaders - Bansi Lal when he was chief minister of Haryana and Chandra Shekhar when he was prime minister of India. Expectations of getting rare glimpses of how the two leaders ran their governments are bound to rise as you start reading Mr Misra's account of his career as an Indian Administrative Services officer belonging to the Haryana cadre.
And if you feel a little cheated and disappointed after reading the 270-odd pages in the book, it will be largely because he offers hardly any fresh insight into his stint in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) when Chandra Shekhar-led a minority government at a time India was going through its worst economic crisis on account of growing fiscal indiscipline and a rapidly deteriorating balance of payments situation. Politically, too, the Chandra Shekhar government went through turbulent times. Remember that Mr Misra was the prime minister's principal secretary for the Chandra Shekhar government's entire tenure of seven months.
Many momentous decisions were taken during those months. The government had to pledge gold with a foreign bank to prevent a default on meeting India's international payments obligation. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been initiated to secure for India an emergency loan. Politically also, the Chandra Shekhar government took one of the boldest decisions by calling for elections in strife-torn Punjab and Assam, in addition to allowing US air force planes to refuel in India. The economic crisis facing the country got worse as Chandra Shekhar decided to resign as he came under intense pressure from the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress whose support to the government was crucial for its survival. The Budget had to be postponed just a few weeks before it was due to be presented and elections were called, making the economic challenge even more daunting.
Mr Misra occupied a vantage point in the government during that period. Yet, the narrative of his stint in the PMO in those seven months hardly throws any fresh light on the manner in which the Chandra Shekhar government tackled the economic challenges in particular. The account of all the key developments that took place during that period is faithful. But sadly it is not leavened with the understanding and perspective of a man who as principal secretary to the prime minister had seen from close quarters how all those major decisions were taken.
Naresh Chandra, who the author says is his friend from his days in Allahabad University, was the cabinet secretary then and Manmohan Singh had just returned from his stint in the South Commission to work as an advisor to Chandra Shekhar on economic policy. Yashwant Sinha was the finance minister preparing a Budget that was aimed at ushering in economic reforms in a big way. Subramanian Swamy as the commerce minister took the bold decision of announcing that India would sign the new agreement on General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which later would lead to the formation of the World Trade Organization.
Mr Misra’s account glosses over the many moves that government had initiated during those seven months. Why he chose to avoid dwelling on how the PMO battled the economic challenges, with the help of all those interesting personalities, is difficult to explain. But his failure to do so has made the memoirs devoid of their essential quality and indeed of what would have been useful material for students of India’s contemporary economic history.
The only point where Mr Misra comes close to providing a new perspective is on the fall of the Chandra Shekhar government, where he astutely notes that Rajiv Gandhi was more keen on getting his demands (dismissal of the Haryana government, for instance) met, rather than withdrawing the Congress support to the Union government. Mr Misra’s assessment is that Chandra Shekhar outsmarted Gandhi by refusing to accept those demands and instead resign after a memorable speech that he delivered in the Lok Sabha. He also dispels the impression that the dismissal of the DMK government in Tamil Nadu was ordered at the behest of the Congress and explains how Chandra Shekhar was good at defusing tensions with Pakistan. On learning that four Swedish engineers had been kidnapped in Kashmir, Chandra Shekhar called up Nawaz Sharif, his Pakistani counterpart, and told him that nobody till then knew of the kidnapping. That was enough and the engineers were released four days later.
If Mr Misra's recounting of his days in Chandra Shekhar's PMO appears skimpy particularly on economic policy matters, it could be because he was not considered among the key bureaucrats of that government. Remember that he was seen to be close to Congress leaders and by his own account had to go through a grilling by prosecutors before the Shah Commission in 1977-78, where he had to depose as a witness to establish his credentials as a fair-minded and non-partisan civil servant. That ordeal was not enough. Mr Misra had to remain on forced leave for much of the 21-month long Emergency as Devi Lal, the new chief minister of Haryana, had vowed to arrest him as soon as he returned to the state.
In one of the many narrow escapes in his life, Mr Misra met with a car accident but emerged out of it virtually without a scratch. Sensing that his luck was on his side, Mr Misra decided to meet Devi Lal, who by then had a change of heart and decided to have him as his principal secretary. For Mr Misra, it was like homecoming, returning to a job he had performed some years ago with Devi Lal's arch rival and predecessor, Bansi Lal.
It was his stint with Bansi Lal that saw Mr Misra learn the skills of administration. He clearly enjoyed his days with Bansi Lal and describes him as having traits similar to those of Narendra Modi - decisive and focused on time-bound implementation of projects. Electrification of all villages in Haryana, implementation of lift irrigation schemes across the state, the setting up of the Moti Lal Nehru School of Sports were among the projects that Mr Misra helped Bansi Lal complete.
At the Centre, Mr Misra headed the ministries of culture, tourism and civil aviation (a trained pilot, the author had one more narrow escape when after bring tossed around in a storm he almost landed his Pushpak on an airstrip under repair in Patiala before he took off again to land safely a little later in Hisar). Clearly, he was more at ease organising the Festival of India shows in different cities across the world or negotiating bilateral aviation rights with foreign governments, than the world of economic policy making that he had to oversee in the PMO.
The book has another weakness. It devotes far too many pages to his various relatives and their equations with the author. A civil servant's memoirs are not about whether his children adore him as a caring father. The memoirs are better valued if they help reconstruct the economic and political landscape, capturing the interface between politicians and civil servants. Given his long career in civil service, Mr Misra is likely to regret that he lost an opportunity of leaving behind something that posterity could have relied on for research and assessment of the governments that he served.
