Pranab Mukherjee: A Brilliant Prime Minister We Never Got

To be placed in the same category as Deendayal Upadhyaya, Madhavrao Scindia, and Rajesh Pilot, it is not necessary that you be assassinated; you can also be made President. Yes, we are talking about the man whom the entire country calls 'Dada'. Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee, 'Poltu Da'—a consummate politician. His sister Annapurna had named him Poltu after a character from a comic book.

It is an amusing anomaly that your bloodline also determines your political stature. To win the hearts of Sikhs, Manmohan Singh can be made Prime Minister, and to sway the hearts of Dalits to one's side, Ram Nath Kovind can be made President. As for the three-threaded community to which Pranab Da belongs, it has been assumed that it possesses no heart at all, so the question of winning its heart does not even arise.

Anyway, despite all such anomalies, there is one aspect of Indian politics that I find truly magnificent: to gain acceptability, leaders and parties 'quote' their opponents. For instance, Nehru praised the Sangh, Atal called Indira Durga (a matter of debate), Sonia praised Advani, Atal wrote a deeply moving piece on Nehru's demise, and so on... and just last year, former President Pranab Da was addressing a Sangh event.

Pranab Da was a Congressman "of maximum possibilities" and a statesman in the truest sense.

In a HarperCollins publication titled 'The Chinar Leaves', senior Congress leader and Gandhi family loyalist M. L. Fotedar states that after Indira Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee and P. V. Narasimha Rao were considered the supreme leaders of the Congress party, but everything changed following the decision to bring her son Rajiv Gandhi into politics.

Following the fall of V. P. Singh's government in 1990, Pranab Mukherjee—inspired by the Chinese politician Deng Xiaoping—was the preferred candidate for the Prime Minister's post for then President R. Venkataraman, but not for Rajiv Gandhi. However, Pranab Da—once famous for smoking his special brand of Dunhill pipe—states in the third volume of his autobiography, 'The Coalition Years: 1996-2012', that the biggest reason for his inability to become Prime Minister was his weak Hindi. The former President cited his home state as another reason for not becoming Prime Minister.

'The state I hail from has been ruled by the Left for the last 34 years, and if a leader is to become the PM, shouldn't his state be governed by his own party? There was no such issue with Dr. Singh.'

Pranab Da held MA degrees in two subjects—History and Political Science—along with an LLB degree. His career began as a clerk in the office of the Deputy Accountant General (Telegraph and Post) in Kolkata. After this, he began teaching Political Science as an Assistant Professor at Vidyanagar College. Not only that, before entering politics, he also worked in journalism at Desher Dak (Call of the Motherland).

Near his ancestral village, the sixth-century Gauda ruler Shashanka had built a temple—the famous Japeshwar Mahadev temple. This is the same Shashanka who killed Prabhakar Vardhan, the brother of King Harshavardhana of Kannauj (later, Harshavardhana defeated him to avenge his brother). When the Japeshwar Mahadev temple was reconstructed in 1999, Pranab Mukherjee played a key role in securing government financial assistance of 1 crore rupees for it.

You will be surprised to know that King Shashanka was considered a Hindu ruler who was opposed to Buddhists. Because of this, you have always read him as a villain in history, yet the people of North Bengal, including Pranab Mukherjee, hold him in high regard. It is also quite interesting that the remains of Karna Subarna, the city King Shashanka made his capital, are found in Pranab Mukherjee's parliamentary constituency of Jangipur—that is, the Gangaghati region of Murshidabad district.

Poltu Da, who relished posto (poppy seed dish) and ate fish curry almost every day except Tuesdays, had memorized the Chandi Path (recitation of hymns to Goddess Chandi). He performed the Chandi Path regularly for the past fifty years.

In the Saptashati (seven-hundred versed text venerating the Goddess), the Mother says:- 

" तत्र तत्रार्थ लाभश्च विजयः सर्वकामिकम्
यं यं चिन्त्येति कामं तं तं प्राप्तिनोति निश्चितं "
“In all those places, there is gain of wealth, victory, and fulfillment of every desire; whatever wish one contemplates, one surely attains it.”

Pranab Da, the trusted 'troubleshooter of the UPA' for the Gandhi family, perhaps gradually became neutral. Truth be told, Pranab Da was a magnificent Prime Minister whom we never got. Compared to other former Presidents, Pranab Mukherjee's tenure has been considered superior because he rejected nearly 37 mercy petitions during his term. He also approved the death penalty for terrorists like Kasab and Afzal Guru.

Today, by rising above party politics to confer the Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian honor) upon a genuine person like Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Central Government has set a precedent in Indian politics...

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