Somnath Chatterjee

Keeping the Faith by Somnath Chatterjee ; Published by  Harper Collins ;Pages 397 ; Price Rs.499/-

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Somnath Chatterjee, who passed away recently was  a parliamentarian with a 11-term record. He was a social democrat, steeped in parliamentary procedures and a diehard upholder of the rights of the legislature. His father was  N.C. Chatterjee  a Hindu Mahasabha leader  who was one of the founders and one-time president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha.

Somnath was educated in Jesus College, Cambridge  post-graduating in  law. He was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in London and took up legal practice as an advocate at the Calcutta High Court before joining active politics.

He became a Member of the Lok Sabha in 1971 and was elected the first time as an independent candidate supported by the CPI(M). Subsequently  he was re-elected nine times, except once when he lost to Mamata Banerjee in the Jadhavpur Lok Sabha constituency in 1984. From 1989 until 2004 he was the leader of his party in the Lok Sabha. He was elected for the tenth time in 2004 as a member of the 14^th Lok Sabha from  the Bolpur Lok Sabha constituency, which is considered to be a CPI(M) stronghold. Following the 2004 election, he was appointed as the pro tem speaker and subsequently on 4 June 2004 he was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha. He  was the Speaker   from 2004 to 2009.

Chatterjee got elected to parliament, first as an independent with the party's backing, and went on to become the party's most erudite face in the Indian parliament. That was until the party czars  decided to boot him out for not resigning as Lok Sabha Speaker after the Left broke with the Congress over the India-US nuclear deal.

According to him,  “July 23, 2008, the day he was expelled, was one of the saddest days of my life".

He writes about how he wanted to get away from the suffocating atmosphere of the Emergency days. As his passport had expired, he had applied for the renewal. His passport was not returned. Chatterjee requested Siddhartha Shankar Ray to help. It was of no use. Ray had apparently spoken to Om Mehta, minister of state for home, and a close aide of Indira Gandhi. Chatterjee writes:

“Mehta met me once in Central Hall and requested me not to press for it as ‘Madam was adamant’. Thus, during the entire period of Emergency, my passport was not returned. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the foreign minister in the Janata government, I told him about the fate of my passport and I must recognise his prompt action.

I received my passport the same evening, duly renewed, and delivered at my residence by an official of the foreign ministry. I realised that we had regained our freedom and I thanked Vajpayee for his decision and action, which I could not but appreciate.”

He is unsparing in his criticism of the Congress under Indira Gandhi, both before and during the Emergency. He writes about Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti factory and the government favours he received:

“At this time, it came to be known that Sanjay was very keen on setting up an automobile factory, though he had no experience or resources. To make his dream come true, he was given over 300 acres of land at a nominal price by Bansi Lal, the Chief Minister of Haryana, a Gandhi loyalist. The heir apparent was allowed to misuse the machinery of government, and most Congress chief ministers and leaders, as well as senior bureaucrats, entered into an unseemly competition to fulfill his wishes. The Maruti factory was a monument to governmental malfeasance and the most talked-about act of nepotism of the era.”

Chatterjee is equally scathing of the BJP. He writes of the surreptitious cabinet approval of “the controversial counter-guarantee to Enron” during the BJP’s 13-day stint in government in May, 1996:

“The government had neither the authority nor any justification to take such a decision, keeping the Parliament totally in the dark, entering into a subterfuge regarding its proposed action of ratifying the counter-guarantee in favour of Enron...”

Chatterjee maintains the juridical position of ‘without fear or favour’ in all the positions he had taken in his parliamentary career but without sacrificing civilities.

 His passing away, at age 89, offers a way to read a whole era in politics.  As Lok Sabha Speaker, he took on the judiciary in the Jharkhand assembly case, asserting that the legislature and its presiding officer was neither subservient nor secondary to any other constitutional wing. His devotion to parliamentary norms, its prestige and its independence, would cost his political life dearly . He cited parliamentary propriety, prestige and the independence of the chair, putting it above party politics.

His speakership was bristling with  events. Office of profit controversy, the cash-for-vote scandal all happened under his watch. Had it not been for him in the chair, it would’ve ended up being a darker day for democracy.

 Chatterjee reveals he was among the minority in the party who wanted Jyoti Basu, his favoured leader in the CPI-M, to become prime minister in 1996 when the Centre-Left United Front coalition offered the post on a platter. But Karat would have none of it. That was a monumental mistake that gave the impression that the CPI-M would always be in the opposition, unwilling to take power even if a chance came by, Chatterjee says, echoing Basu's now famous description of the failure to make him prime minister a "historic blunder".

 The book is Chatterjee's life story, from his birth  to his world of politics - where he amply justified the party's understanding of his abilities. It is a chronology of much of what took place in India, particularly from the time when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, the rise of the Janata Party, the rise and fall of Rajiv Gandhi, the V.P. Singh era and coalition politics, P.V.Narasimha Rao's tumultuous years, the CPI-M's missed chances, the BJP's rise - and its 2004 crash.

While denouncing Karat for the ills of the CPI-M, Chatterjee comes out as an undisguised admirer of Jyoti Basu, the long-time chief minister of West Bengal and for decades the country's best known Marxist.

Chatterjee was the dynamic force behind a resurgent West Bengal as the Chairman of the State Industrial Development Corporation, tirelessly promoting its new Industrial look, etched in gold.

He   had  successfully created  a place in the annals of the country’s history as a distinguished parliamentarian and Speaker.

He epitomised the expectations and aspirations of the people as well as their fervent hope that parliamentary institutions would deliver on their constitutional mandate.

He was the first ‘People’s Speaker’ who went the proverbial extra mile beyond the strict confines of rules, procedures and conventions, to uphold the image and dignity of the world’s largest democracy.

In 1996 he won the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award.In 2013, he received Living Legend Award at the prestigious Bharat Nirman Awards.

 Chatterjee attempted to streamline the functioning of the house and improve the conduct of its members. He  inaugurated limited live telecasts of the chamber’s proceedings, which increased to 24-hour television coverage .

Somnath Chatterjee comes out more as a parliamentarian than a politician bearing affiliation to the Communist Party of India (Marxist). This book is not only a personal journey of one of India’s respected Parliamentarians but also an account that  throws a flood of light on post-Independence history of India.

P.P.Ramachandran.

26/08/2018.