The killer instinct & my enemiesI am quite embarrassed when perfect strangers accost me nowadays in air flights to ask me who is my "next target" for political annihilation; or when my friends meet me in the Central Hall of Parliament to inquire if I could set my "gun sights" on someone they do not like, as if I am some kind of Clint Eastwood who single-handedly can destroy someone, or at least his reputation.
I am embarrassed because I was brought up instead to be a soft intellectual, who having secured a Ph.D in Economics at Harvard, became a teacher in the same world famous university for ten years, and who went to do research jointly with two of the world's most famous economists Nobel Laureates Paul A Samuelson and Simon Kuznets. I was so well-regarded that- when I was defeated in my third-term Lok Sabha bid from Bombay- Harvard University , despite my absence from academics for 15 years - promptly re-invited me to come back to teach (which I did for two years, 1985-86).
Now this intellectual attainment does not square up with the Hollywood Clint Eastwood image, nor am I happy to have that image. I am in politics for certain well defined ideology, which ideology happily has been internationalized today by all the major political parties. For the last 25 years I have advocated that the Indian Government adopt a market economy, rectify the pro-USSR tilt and balance out the foreign policy to befriend USA, Israel and China, and to motivate a cultural renaissance especially in the Hindu community.
But media appetite is not for such heavy ideological matters. Thus, for no fault of mine, my quarrels and political blood-spilling have received much more media attention. And ever since I campaigned and was successful in dethroning Jayalalitha, at the heels of demolishing Ramakrishna Hegde, these unwanted enquires about my "next target" have become legion.
I have as a philosophy never 'targeted' anyone. I have only defended myself against harassment, sidelining or attempted political elimination. But my defence has been vigorous, systematic, and effective to the point that the attacker has been either immobilized, or discredited, or politically disabled. In turn, this had tended to create the media impression that I am "making trouble", when in fact as the prey I have not simply taken things lying down. But I have never made the first 'strike' against anyone.
As a further norm of my philosophy, I have never sought to demolish any honest critic; nor it is my duty to expose to destroy any and every corrupt person. It is the duty of the government and of the people to elect such a government, to prosecute all corrupt persons without fear or favour. As a public person, I can effectively fight corruption only with the state apparatus. Without government office, an individual can do only so much. Therefore one has to be selective. Obviously those corrupt persons who seek to harm me are the obvious candidates for selection.
It has been my lot throughout my life to be confronted and to confront the corrupt and powerful. As a student for my Masters degree in the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Calcutta, the then Chairman, P.C.Mahalanobis took a dislike to me because he and my father were rivals in the government statistical organisation. Mahalanobis was a corrupt leftist. I had come to the ISI as an innocent student with a brilliant first class B.A. Honours degree in mathematics. But Mahalanobis' dislike of me filtered down to the professors. For no reason except to please him, they began failing me in every subject. A ruined career stared me in the face. So I decided to retaliate ( a foolish resolve on first thought, since I was then a 19 year old student facing the darling of the Left, USSR and Nehru: P.C.Mahalanobis). But I dropped everything, parked myself in the library, and read whatever Mahalanobis had written as a scholar. I found that his celebrated Second Five Year Plan model, the so-called Mahalanobis model, was actually stolen from M.A.Feldman, an obscure Soviet economist of the 1930s. This discovery I could not use against Mahalanobis however, because neither the USSR nor the then docile Indian press would take notice. But I discovered that Mahalanobis’s magnum opus something called 'Fractile Analysis', had recently been published in a scholarly international journal. That research was, I found worthless when scrutinized under the microscope of modern mathematics. It was, literally, well-known earlier research re-hashed. Mathematics laid bare the plagiarism. Mahalanobis was too big to be challenged by other Indian scholars. But I had nothing to lose.
Naturally when I wrote out my critique and set it to the journal, it was hot stuff. The journal published it, and asked Mahalanobis for a rejoinder. He had none. His reputation abroad was therefore in tatters. He never recovered from it. A 19 year old writing out complex mathematical equations was a novelty for Harvard's Economics Department to whose notice the journal article came. They offered me a scholarship for a Ph.D Course. My ruined career prospects did a 180 turn! I never looked back thereafter. Had I not been cornered like a cat, I would never have ventured to demolish Mahalanobis.
The same problem I faced, years later, with Ramakrishna Hegde. Hegde belonged to that class of politicians who practice bogus humility to impress the middle class, who engage in sham intellectualism by having articles and books ghost written for a price to make society ladies going 'ooh aah' at the India International Centre, and behind it all are mediocre crooks.
From day 1 of the Janata Party formation in 1977, Hegde was consumed by jealousy. I was already a middle class hero then because of my anti-Emergency struggle, and was a former Harvard University Professor to boot, of genuine intellectual credentials. I did not have to be synthetic in anyway for all the things that Hegde had to be. From 1977 to 1984, he harassed me in Indian style par excellence: pin pricking. Finally he managed to put me against Chandrasekhar, who in a fit of rage as he was prone to, expelled me from the Janata Party. Hegde went on to become the Chief Minister of Karnataka on Chandrashekar's political largesse, and then turned against him too. I returned to the Janata Party after patching up with Chandrasekhar. During the period of six years 1983-1988 as Chief Minister, Hegde had lost his head. His media con-tricks made him a middle class hero. But behind the stage, he was committing one corrupt act after another in the mistaken belief that if had Rs.1000 Crores in loot, he could buy his way to the Prime Ministership. By the time I returned to the Janata Party, I had studied and documented three of Hedge’s major cases of corruption or misuse of power which I made public: Telephone Tapping [later proved by a parliamentary probe], Bangalore Land Grab for his son-in-law (1000 acres) [later proved by Justice Kuldip Singh Commission], and Illegal Commission collecting in the sale of torpedoes in the HDW submarine [confirmed by Corp of Detectives (COD) Karnataka Government investigation]. Since 1990, when V.P.Singh asked him to quit his Planning Commission Deputy Chairmanship after the Kuldip Singh Commission Report was submitted, Hegde has remained a political leper. He cannot now get out that rut, because the synthetic moral halo that he contrived to wear has vanished.
The fight with Ms.Jayalalitha was the toughest of my life. It also took the longest (3 - 1/2 years) time. It was the toughest because unlike other 'targets' there was no counter veiling power to ensure some kind of 'level-playing field'. In case of Mahalanobis, it was the international community of scholars, whom I could address. They did not depend on Mahalanobis for research grants. Indian scholars in economics were a castrated lot since they depended on the government for grants and positions. In Hegde's case, Rajiv Gandhi's central government was a buffer. If I came up with queries, they were ready to answer, as in the case of Telephone Tapping or in appointing Kuldip Singh Commission. In Ms.Jayalalitha's case, all the political parties were politically wooing her, or eyeing her booty. That is why practically every party from BJP to CPM filed affidavits in the Supreme Court supporting her stand that a Governor has no locus stand to give sanction to prosecute a Chief Minister after Dr.Chenna Reddy had given me sanction to prosecute Ms.Jayalalitha. Now they are to rue their stand in the Laloo Yadav issue. The Central government headed by Narasimha Rao was most reluctant to be of help, because Mr.Rao's son and confidants were all being effectively 'serviced' by her people. When Mr.Rao appointed me to head a GATT Commission in 1994, even Moopanar and Chidamabaram tried to organize a signature campaign in the Congress Parliamentary Party against my appointment because it would, in Chidambaram's words send a wrong signal to Ms.Jayalalitha, with whom they were at that time as late as February 1996 on best behaviour. Such was the array of forces in favour of Ms.Jayalalitha. That is why it was so tough to fight her. During my struggle against her, Karunanidhi hid in Gopalapuram most of the time.
But the breakthrough in my campaign against Ms.Jayalalitha came by the inexorable law of fermentation: if you keep hammering away, and it is the truth, then the people will sooner or later revolt. Day in and day out, I brought out one fact out after another. My old school boy and teacher-student network fed me with document and data. Press conference and Court writ petitions did the rest, Ms.Jayalalitha's attempt to foist false cases on me only re-affirmed the substance of my campaign against her. When the General Elections came, people spoke.
But Ms.Jayalalitha during her tenure as Chief Minister tried to get me to jail in a number of ridiculous cases. One was under TADA by faking a photograph, another was under the severe Protection of Civil Rights Act [PCRA] for abusing the scheduled castes-- by calling the LTTE as an "international pariah!", and yet another for attempting to murder her!! Each time the Supreme Court came to my rescue.
I had therefore no option but to go after my political predator, and immobilize her. But lacking a developed Party cadre, I could not cash the public popularity I thus got. The political zamindars (and in reality too), Karunanidhi and Moopanar came out of their hibernation, and harvested the wave I generated by my struggle, But they are no better than her. They are trying now to silence me by the same methods, only less skilfully. I am therefore again not without a target. Fortunately, each time my predators make the mistake of underestimating me. And I with each success, have acquired a more experienced killer instinct.
