Shanti Bhushan Pic: Prem Singh

The year was 1978. The Morarji government was in its second year. Charan Singh was the home minister and Jagjivan Ram the defence minister. In March 1977 when the Janata Party won a resounding victory in the elections both Choudhary Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram had been serious contenders for the office of prime minister, along with Morarji Desai. The decision was finally left to Jayapraksah Narayan and Acharya J.B. Kriplani. Both of them decided in favour of Morarji Desai on account of his vast political and administrative experience and also because he had already held the post of deputy prime minister earlier.

Towards the end of 1978 rumours were afloat that Charan Singh wanted to stage a coup and become prime minister. There was a cabinet committee on electoral reforms consisting of four cabinet ministers — Charan Singh, L. K. Advani, Dr P.C. Chunder and me. The committee used to meet from time to time and was deliberating on the various suggestions relating to electoral reforms to strengthen democracy in the country. Since the subject of electoral reforms pertained to my ministry, I continue to regret the fact that the committee was unable to complete its task and the Morarji government fell abruptly in July 1979. Much work had already been done by the committee and if it had been able to complete its work and introduce the necessary bill perhaps the political history of this country might have been somewhat different.

The meetings of this committee used to be held punctually at 11 a.m. Apart from the four cabinet ministers and their department secretaries, the cabinet secretary also attended these meetings. Charan Singh did not reach on time for one particular meeting though all the other members were there. We kept waiting for him for about 15 minutes. When he arrived he was embarrassed to find all of us waiting for him. He stood behind his chair and refused to sit down. He said that he was very sorry that he came late and would take his seat only after he had been pardoned by all of us. We pleaded with him to take his seat but he refused to do so. He explained that he was late because when he was about to get into his car a journalist accosted him and asked whether he was very keen to become prime minister. Charan Singh lost his temper and told the journalist that there was nothing wrong in his ambition to become prime minister. He asked the journalist whether he did not want to become the editor of a top newspaper and told him that if he did not have such an ambition he must be a worthless fellow. Choudhary sahib further explained that even though he did possess the ambition to become the prime minister of the country one day, he was not plotting to remove Morarji from that position. He added that someday Morarji would die and there was nothing wrong in his ambition to succeed as prime minister.

One does not talk about the death of a living person. It is in poor taste to do so. We were appalled at Choudhary sahib speaking about Morarji’s death in such a casual manner. However, we finally persuaded him to resume his seat and the deliberations of the cabinet committee started.

That very afternoon I had a meeting with the prime minister. I wanted to remove the impression from Morarji’s mind that Charan Singh was plotting his ouster. So I decided to narrate the incident at the meeting of the cabinet committee to him. It was in a totally different language that I narrated to Morarji Desai that Choudhary sahib had told the cabinet committee about his ambition to become the prime minister if and when there was a vacancy. Even though I thought that I had sufficiently sugar-coated what Charan Singh had said, shrewd as Morarji was, he guessed what Charan Singh must have actually said. He immediately asked how Charan Singh could be sure that he would not predecease him, that is, Morarji. It dawned on me then that even though Morarji was much older than Charan Singh, he was in much better health. It was possibly for this reason that Morarji was confident that he would outlive Charan Singh.

I said to Morarji bhai that I found a lot of force in his observation and that it occurred to me that Choudhary sahib was close to 76. I added that this age was very dangerous because both my father and my father-in-law had died at 76. Morarji then said that I was quite right and he reeled off half a dozen names of important political leaders who had died at 75 or 76. Morarji then lowered his voice and almost whispered to me that in fact an astrologer had told him that he was going to lose two of his cabinet ministers within one year. When I commented, a tad anxiously, that I hoped that I would not be one of them, he assured me that I was not. The two were supposed to be Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram.

On hearing this I had no doubt left in my mind that the government could not survive for long. I was convinced that if the prime minister was waiting for the death of his two senior-most colleagues and one of them in turn was waiting for the death of the prime minister, it was impossible for such a government to last. The government of Morarji survived only for a few months thereafter. Incidentally, Morarji Desai lived till 1995. Babu Jagjivan Ram and Choudhary Charan Singh both predeceased him in 1986 and 1987, respectively.

Overweening ambition is a person’s worst enemy. While Charan Singh possessed many good qualities as a politician, his ambition often came in the way. It was his ambition to become the prime minister as quickly as possible which led to his downfall. This was cleverly exploited by Sanjay Gandhi who was able to persuade Chaudhary sahib to believe that if he defected from the Janata Party with his group and brought about the downfall of the Morarji government the Congress would make him prime minister and he would continue in that office for the rest of the term of the Lok Sabha which was two years and eight months. Any other person would have seen through the game but Charan Singh’s desire had effectively blinded him so that he fell into the trap. Within a couple of weeks after Charan Singh had been sworn in, the Congress withdrew its support and the Lok Sabha had to be dissolved. Charan Singh remained only a caretaker prime minister for a few months and never entered parliament as prime minister even for a single day.

In any case, as soon as Charan Singh’s government was sworn in formally, the Morarji Desai government came to an end, and all of us formally ceased to be ministers. I resumed my practice the very next day and started attending the Supreme Court. Advocates on Record started approaching me with their briefs. Morarji Desai had decided to call it a day. He had realised his ambition of becoming prime minister of India, and that was enough for him.