Chapter 5

HARYANA: THE PIONEER OF DEFECTION POLITICS

While the 1969–78 phase was marked by the beginning of the protracted tussle for power between the Congress and the Akali Dal in Punjab, this period saw the newly born Haryana and its third chief minister, Bansi Lal, playing a crucial role in the state and in national politics.

Bansi Lal was a confidant of Indira’s Gandhi’s younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, and was also widely perceived to be one of the masterminds behind the decision to impose Emergency in June 1975. It is in this context that the happenings in Haryana since its birth on 1 November 1966 need to be highlighted.

Haryana has been a region known for its contradictions. Within four decades of being carved out as a result of the linguistic reorganization of the composite Punjab, it has been transformed from the one of the most backward states of the country into one of the front-ranking developed states. However, during the very first two years after its birth, before Bansi Lal took over as chief minister after the 1968 mid-term elections, the state earned the stigma of being the pioneer of defection politics in India. It was plagued by political instability. Frequent changing of parties by the MLAs led to the quick fall of governments and the imposition of president’s rule (on 2 November 1967).

After he took over as chief minister on 22 May 1968, Bansi Lal faced one of the biggest challenges of his life: bringing about political stability in the state. It was truly a Herculean task. In the then 81-member Assembly, 44 per cent of the MLAs had defected – one five times, two four times, three thrice, four twice and 34 once within the politically turbulent 1966–68 period. Of them, particular mention must be made of Gaya Lal, who defected twice in a single day, taking the number of times he defected in two weeks to three. Haryana gave the country’s political lexicon the term ‘Aya Ram Gaya Ram’.

However, Bansi Lal’s man-management skills were able to restore political stability within a year of his assuming chief ministership. His selection as chief minister in 1968 can be described as accidental. Once, in a reminiscent mood, he narrated to me how he was chosen to head the government: ‘Bhagwat Dayal Sharma occupied the coveted office of chief minister from 1 November 1966 [when Haryana was formed] to 23 March 1967. Because of the frequent changes of political loyalties by the MLAs, the State Assembly was dissolved and president’s rule imposed on 2 November 1967 [during the term of the second chief minister Rao Birender Singh, which had begun on 24 March 1967]. Mid-term elections which were held in May 1968 brought the Congress back into power. Because of her dislike for Sharma, Indira Gandhi [the prime minister of India] did not want him to again take over as chief minister. She urged [Union] Home Minister Gulzari Lal Nanda to find Sharma’s substitute to lead the Congress Legislative Party. As Nanda was against the change, Mrs Gandhi asked her minister of state for information and broadcasting, Inder Kumar Gujral,1 to talk to Nanda. But Nanda said there was no other suitable leader to replace Sharma. However, he later had second thoughts and asked Gujral to suggest some name.

‘I had gone to [see] Nanda and was waiting to meet him in the courtyard of his house [in New Delhi]. Gujral noticed me and told Nanda that I could be Sharma’s replacement. Gujral knew me well but not so intimately. He just wanted that Indira Gandhi’s wish should be fulfilled. Consequently, the party high command chose me to head the party’s government in Haryana.’

This episode has also been recounted by I. K. Gujral (though slightly differently) in his autobiography Matters of Discretion.² Bansi Lal became a lifelong admirer as well as a loyalist of both Gujral and Nanda.

Bansi Lal later helped Gujral’s re-election to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab after his term had come to an end in 1970. The Congress in Punjab was short by a few votes for getting its nominee elected but hoped to secure some non-Akali votes to ensure Gujral’s victory. Bansi Lal came to know from his intelligence agencies that some of the Congress MLAs would be ‘abducted’ by the Akalis before the polling day. He shifted all the Congress MLAs to Haryana Bhavan. On the day of polling the MLAs were taken in a bus to the Assembly to cast their votes in favour of Gujral who was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha.

***

Within a few months of my taking over as staff correspondent of National Herald, a rapport was established between Bansi Lal and me, which proved to be professionally rewarding in subsequent years. Such a rapport provided me opportunities to gain an insight into the working of the mind and the style of functioning of Haryana’s strongman who later played a key role in national politics too as India’s defence minister.

The media, as the watchdog of public interest, has to be basically anti-establishment. But while performing his/her role, a reporter has also to ensure that, without compromising his/her professional ethics, he/she does not lose his/her valuable sources of news. This dichotomy acted as a serious constraint in my relations with Bansi Lal.

One of the biggest follies I committed during my long journalistic career was to allow my professional ego to disconnect my long-time equation with Bansi Lal twice, primarily because of my differences with him on important issues. Later, however, I realized my folly and reconnected with him a day after the Emergency was imposed on 25-26 June 1975 night.

My professional ego also cost me my rapport with another valuable news source, Bhajan Lal (another chief minister of Haryana), in the 1980s. I, however, could never reconnect with him even when he, after a long time, apologized for having made baseless and motivated complaints against me to the Indian Express proprietor Ramnath Goenka.

My first disconnect with Bansi Lal took place sometime in 1973-74 when a group of reporters came into his Secretariat office in Chandigarh as I was interviewing him. Those days, when security checks were almost nonexistent, gatecrashing was a common practice among Chandigarh-based reporters hunting for news in the corridors of power in the Punjab and Haryana Civil Secretariat. Whenever they found a reporter sitting in the room of, say, the Punjab or Haryana chief minister or a minister or a senior officer, they would just barge in hoping to get an inkling of the stories that their fellow journalist might be covering. Some of my colleagues were not happy with my not joining them when, led by a senior journalist of the Tribune’s News Bureau, they would roam around the Secretariat’s corridors meeting ministers and officials and for covering routine press conferences. I used to plough my lonely furrow for doing exclusive stories.

This is what happened when a bunch of journalists entered Bansi Lal’s room (sometime in 1973-74). He looked at them and asked ‘Yes?’

‘We also want to meet you,’ they replied.

Responding rudely, an angry Bansi Lal virtually yelled: ‘Did I invite you? Kya main gur hoon ki makhiyan aayen? [Am I jaggery to attract flies?]. Get out!’

When I too stood up to accompany my colleagues out of the room, Bansi Lal gestured to me to keep sitting as he said it was on my request that he was meeting me. Realizing the sensitivity of the situation, I relented and continued interviewing him. Bansi Lal called the peon and admonished him for allowing the journalists to come into the room without his permission. The peon pointed out he had tried his best to stop them but they ignored his pleas by insisting that they were reporters and forced their entry into the room.

After leaving the chief minister’s room, the reporters held a meeting in the Secretariat’s press room to pass a resolution against Bansi Lal’s attitude. Later, upon entering the press room, I too had to face a great deal of embarrassment for not joining the members of my fraternity when they had left the chief minister’s room, although I explained to them that it was after waiting for two days that I had managed to get an appointment with Bansi Lal and that it was professionally unethical for them to encroach upon my right to conduct an exclusive interview with a chief minister. However, the incident led to a disruption in my relations with Bansi Lal. Although I would attend his press conferences, I stopped having one-on-one meetings with him, which I used to in the past.

The relations between Bansi Lal and most media persons were not cordial during a major part of the period when he was in power. He considered India’s media an agent of the big capitalists, while journalists viewed him as an intolerant, authoritarian and rude chief minister.

After several months of disconnect, my contacts with him were revived the day after Emergency was proclaimed. I sought a meeting with him on 27 June I975 evening to find out what measures the state government planned to adopt after the imposition of Emergency. He asked me to meet him at his residence the same night. (See also Chapter 7.)

My second disconnect with Bansi Lal was also with regard to professional issues. A confidant of his told me in 1999 that he (Bansi Lal), who had again become chief minister of Haryana (on 11 May 1996), was unhappy with me because, in my political column (titled Currents and Undercurrents published in February 1999 in the Punjab Kesari group of newspapers), I had written that ‘the Bansi Lal Government was on its way out’. I brought to the attention of Bansi Lal’s confidant that while analysing Haryana’s political situation, I had commented that but for Bansi Lal’s winning over one of the dissident MLAs, his Haryana Vikas Party—Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government would have been ousted from power. (Bansi Lal had formed the HVP after his exit from the Congress.) As I had written in my column, the Bansi Lal Government did not last long; it fell on 23 July 1999.

That Bansi Lal’s attitude towards me had changed was also indicated by his reaction to some of my write-ups. In May 1999 the Haryana Government’s Public Relations Department hosted a dinner for media persons, where Bansi Lal was also present. After the dinner, I rang him up to request him to preside over the concluding function of the All India Progressive Writers’ Association being held in Chandigarh. (I used to be associated with the AIPWA in the 1950s as general secretary of its Punjab unit.) His curt reply that he did not have anything to do with cultural activities came as a surprise to me as earlier he had never talked to me in such a tone. He added that, when a couple of months ago, the Haryana Urdu Academy had invited him to preside over its function he had asked them: ‘Why do you want me to speak at the function? I am Aurangzeb.’ What he meant that he was a persona non grata. (According to some historians, Aurangzeb had banned music and painting and artistes and artists were forced to flee from his durbar in Delhi and take refuge with some of Rajasthan’s friendly maharajahs.)

My professional ego again prevented me from seeking one-on-one meetings with him though I would attend his press conferences whenever invited. My contacts with him were, however, revived when, on 23 July 1999, his HVP—BJP coalition was toppled by Om Prakash Chautala3 (Janata Dal). This happened after the BJP parted ways with Bansi Lal and joined hands with Chautala, who became chief minister on 24 July 1999.

Notwithstanding my two disconnects with him, it went to Bansi Lal’s credit that during my long relationship with him, he had never asked me to report in his or his government’s favour; nor had he ever personally complained to me for finding fault with his government’s functioning. He never even mentioned to me my critical ‘judgment’ delivered as the ‘judge’ in Zee TV channel’s popular programme Aap Ki Adalat (in early 1999, I think), wherein I had criticized his hostile attitude towards the media and ‘advised’ him to change his attitude towards journalists.

***

It is axiomatic that every person’s personality has both positive and negative characteristics. Bansi Lal was no exception. An incorruptible and a visionary leader who changed the destiny of Haryana, Bansi Lal has been acknowledged as the ‘strongest administrator’ Haryana has ever had so far. He was a go-getter more concerned with performance and results than being dependent on the assurances and excuses given by bureaucrats. Once when Indira Gandhi paid him an indirect compliment at a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in the early 1970s by saying that the ‘working of the bureaucracy depends on the person who could get work from it’, Bansi Lal responded: ‘Bureaucracy is a mare which can safely take you across swollen rivers if the rider holds its reins tightly. But it will drown you midstream if you hold its reins loosely.’ Indira Gandhi smiled at his rustic observation.

On 6 January 1973, Bansi Lal was in a reminiscent mood after his return from Calcutta where he had gone to attend a high-level Congress meeting. He said that a politician had to keep himself busy on three fronts: How to form development plans and implement them; how to plan political manoeuvrings; and how to victimize his/her political opponents who were trying to topple the government. ‘But these things always disturb the peace of mind of a conservative politician,’ he admitted.

He was a hard task master. During 1970–72, when he was the chief minister, I had several opportunities to watch him operating from his bedroom late into the night. He would ring up all deputy commissioners and district police chiefs in the state to find out the latest happenings and the progress of development schemes in their respective districts. He would give them the necessary instructions on administrative and developmental matters. He was a disciplinarian who had the courage to say ‘no’ to what he considered wrong, a habit that invariably makes politicians unpopular.

During his tenure as chief minister (1968–75), he laid the foundation for a sound infrastructure in Haryana. Much of the state’s industrial and agricultural development, especially creation of infrastructure like 100 per cent rural electrification (an idea that no chief minister had even thought of in the early 1970s), lift irrigation schemes to take water to the state’s most backward and parched southern parts and building of road networks linking even the remotest parts of the state, took place from 1968 to 1975. He was also the pioneer of highway tourism in the state – a model later adopted by a number of other states.

However, it was his autocratic style of functioning and his anti-media attitude that lengthened the list of his opponents, earning him the ire of various sections of the political class and also that of the fourth estate. But in 1981, when he was out of power, there was a change in his attitude towards journalists. The person who once detested the media was now cultivating it. He saw to it that personal problems of many Chandigarh-based journalists relating to government departments were solved with the help of those bureaucrats who were his loyalists.

In sharp contrast to Bansi Lal’s changed attitude, the then chief minister, Bhajan Lal, who had a media-friendly image was alienating journalists.

***

Born in a middle-class farming family of Golagarh village in Bhiwani district of Haryana, Bansi Lal (26 August 1927 to 28 March 2006) graduated from Panjab University’s law college at Jalandhar. As a freedom fighter, he was secretary of the Praja Mandal in the Loharu state (in Bhiwani) from 1943 to 1944.

His lifestyle was simple and, being a staunch Arya Samajist, he was opposed to idol worship and ostentatious marriages. Although he was opposed to religious obscurantism, as well as to rituals and superstitions, later, when he was suffering from his multiple ailments and had to face adversities in the political arena, there was a perceptible change in him.

In February 1980, he confessed to me that he was not in his old form and did not have the old zest. He observed: ‘The three years after 1977 [i.e., after the Emergency was lifted in end March 1977] have made me a firm believer in God. I now pray and before going to sleep I recite the Gayatri Mantra using my mala [garland] of beads. I have suffered unforgettable [mental] torture during these three years. One-and-a-half years ago, I had exhausted all my money in fighting cases launched against me by the Janata Government.4 One day I had no money even to pay my lawyer. I sent my son Surinder Singh to the lawyer to ask if he could fight my cases without charging [any] fee. There was no immediate response. The next day the lawyer told my son that he would fight the cases without charging any fee. Now I will try to pay the lawyer’s dues.’

***

Bansi Lal had strong likes and dislikes. Not many knew that under his stern exterior was a soft interior. Contrary to his public image, he used to get emotional, with tears flowing down his cheeks, particularly when he found his close political friends and associates betraying him. Two incidents would illustrate this trait of his personality.

Initially, he used to eulogize L. K. Advani, Union home minister (and later deputy prime minister) in the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led coalition government (March 1998 to May 2004), describing him as an ‘iron man’ and India’s ‘second Sardar Patel’. But later, two events made him take a hard-boiled, anti-Advani stand.

First, in 2002–03 when he was out of power, Bansi Lal requested Advani (who was then deputy prime minister) to help solve a problem faced by one of his supporters. He wrote to Advani inquiring about the fate of his supporter’s request. But Advani asked him to send the representation again. This happened thrice. When Bansi Lal was asked to send the representation for the fourth time, he distanced himself from Advani.

The second incident took place in 2004 when Bansi Lal was undergoing treatment in a Delhi hospital. His son Surinder Singh got him to agree for forming an alliance between the Haryana Vikas Party (which, as already mentioned, he had formed after his exit from the Congress) and the BJP for fighting the 2005 Haryana Assembly elections. Surinder met Advani who also agreed to the proposal and suggested Jaswant Singh’s5 name for deciding modalities for the alliance. Surinder instead put forward Sushma Swaraj’s⁶ name, to which Advani agreed. But, ultimately, Advani did not fulfil his commitment for setting up the alliance.

Later, while referring to Advani’s ‘betrayal’, a disillusioned Bansi Lal described him as ‘untrustworthy and jhoota’ (liar) who was not honest in his dealings.

What made Bansi Lal controversial was his image as a ruthless politician who was a leading member of Sanjay Gandhi’s caucus, which was behind the excesses committed during the Emergency (but more on this topic later).

__________________

¹ Gujral went on to become the prime minister of India on 21 April 1997.

² Hay House Publishers India, New Delhi, 2011, pp. 46-47.

³ Om Prakash Chautala is the son of Devi Lal, a former chief minister of Haryana, who went on to become the deputy prime minister of India in December 1989. Chautala himself had been the chief minister of Haryana from December 1989 to May 1990 (details given in later chapters).

⁴ The Janata Party Government, with Morarji Desai as prime minister, came to power in March 1977 after the general elections. It set up the Shah Commission (headed by J. C. Shah, a former judge of the Supreme Court of India) in May 1977 to probe the excesses committed during the Emergency.

⁵ Jaswant Singh, a senior and respected politician belonging to the BJP, has held several important portfolios in the Union cabinet such as finance minister, external affairs minister and defence minister during the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance regime (from 1998 to 2004). He was also the leader of the opposition from 2004 to 2009 in the Rajya Sabha.

⁶ Sushma Swaraj, also from the BJP, is a former Union minister and a former chief minister of Delhi. She later became the leader of the opposition in the fifteenth Lok Sabha, whose term began in May 2009.