Tales to tell

A Cabinet Secretary Looks Back: from poona to the prime minister’s office By B.G. Deshmukh, HarperCollins, Rs 500

Bureaucrats in office, as one has learnt from that great TV serial Yes Minister, serve their political masters. In retirement, especially when writing their memoirs, they serve themselves. Memoirs of a bureaucrat are best consumed with some salt. They never admit that they were ever wrong or that they had given the wrong advice or had been complicit in some abuse of power (or worse) by a minister. The classic and recent Indian example of this was the memoir by P.N. Dhar who laboured to exonerate himself from the Emergency even though he held the highest position in the prime minister’s office during the time and was thus privy to all that Indira Gandhi and her younger son were doing. Dhar did not resign. But in his book he claims that he had been against the Emergency and had warned the prime minister about the excesses. We only have his word for this and Dhar, like any other person, is not the best witness for his own deeds.

Much the same thing can be said for this book by B.G. Deshmukh who was the cabinet secretary during a very important and controversial period of India’s contemporary history. He was the cabinet secretary, the highest post in the Indian bureaucracy, when the Bofors scandal broke. This eventually led to Rajiv Gandhi’s defeat in the general elections in 1989. He was later the principal secretary in the prime minister’s office under Rajiv Gandhi and V.P. Singh.

Deshmukh writes with a tone of detachedness that he was aware that “the prime minister’s house (of Rajiv Gandhi) had access to funds from abroad.’’ He also had “an uneasy feeling that the Prime Minister’s Office knew the names of the recipients [of the kickbacks] and had communicated them to the prime minister’’. In other words, what Deshmukh is telling his readers indirectly is that Rajiv Gandhi was aware of the kickbacks in the Bofors deal. He kept quiet about it and even sacrificed his political career by protecting the information he had. But Deshmukh refuses to spell out the implication of this. He is a bureaucrat even in his memoirs, refusing to commit himself. He poses the question of Rajiv’s responsibility for the Bofors deal as prime minister but typically does not answer it. He says Rajiv paid the price. This still does not tell us about Deshmukh’s view on the matter.

There is a larger question of ethics involved here. Deshmukh did not voice his suspicions before this. A bureaucrat is a public servant, his salary is paid from public taxes: is his loyalty first to the public or to his political masters?

Deshmukh’s attitude to politicians is revealed by the fact that despite his suspicions and despite his disapproval of what he calls the Gandhi family’s darbar-like functioning, he is full of praise for Rajiv Gandhi and is happy to quote the compliments he received from him. This makes him overlook obvious contradictions. He writes about Rajiv’s good manners. But this is incompatible with Rajiv Gandhi’s meanness as revealed in his reluctance to sanction pension, medical facilities and residential accommodation to ex-presidents as these would benefit Zail Singh.

Deshmukh goes into details about the transfer of civil servants once V.P. Singh became PM. This seems to be aimed at showing two things. One, the PM’s fairness and the author’s attempts to protect his colleagues against unnecessary vindictiveness. If indeed Singh was fair, why the need for protection?

About ministers there is the pathetic account of Professor M.G.K. Menon who broke down when informed he had to leave the Planning Commission and of Dr Raja Ramanna lobbying to get a minor portfolio. V.P. Singh had a penchant for appointing scientists as ministers. Deshmukh speculates that this was related to Singh being a failed nuclear physicist.

Deshmukh had an extraordinarily successful career in the bureaucracy. In fact, he could not have done better. It is a pity that as an epilogue he has to catalogue the positions he has held once he retired from government. He ends the book naming his present post and then declares, “It is where I am today.’’ From this book, it is always clear where he was or is in terms of posts but alas, not in any other way. Has the mandarin become the man?