Facilitator Of A Thousand Schemes

AH, the many splendoured relationship between big business and high politics. Or in this case between middle-level business and United Front politics. The irresistible lure of lucre once one is politically legitimate and the equally obsessive craving for a place under the national sun once one is in posession of a sunrise industry. From Ross Perot to K.K. Birla, tycoons have traditionally hankered for a popular mandate. And the many 'scams' integral to our body politic illustrate that the business of our elected classes is bad business.

Amar Singh, businessman-turned-politician is the new general secretary of the Samajwadi Party and the almost classical stereotype of the backroom kingmaker. Impeccable safari suit and bejewelled hands speak of a millionaire puppeteer of the political process. A constantly beeping cellphone screams of an easy accessibility to the upper decks of the ship of State. A gleaming Range Rover points to many miles traversed from a teenage follower of the Chhatra Parishad in Calcutta to confidant of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Madhavrao Scindia. And charming heartiness and anecdotal conversation illustrate an enviable oneness with the Great and the Not-So-Good. As he sits in Yadav's room in the Samajwadi Party office, supplicants knocking every five minutes, the air-conditioner gently ruffling his slicked back hair, the image is perfect: indisputably a big-time dealer in political patronage, one of those invisible managers of the national destiny.

"But I am not a powerbroker!" Singh cries in anguish. " In fact I am very hurt by that phrase. Why has the press judged me before it has even got to know me properly? Tell me, if I were such a big powerbroker would I not have stories planted in the press about me?" Well, not all of us have been invited to ride with the Prime Minister in a special plane to Bangalore, have we? Not all of us get invited to most of Chandra Shekhar's parties where we bump into future prime ministers of United Front governments. Or find that Scindia has suddenly appointed us on the board of the Indian Airlines or that Narasimha Rao has made us a member of the Central Board of the State Bank. "It's true, I do know these people, but I knew them when they were nobodies. And I have never tried to use my connections. Amitabh is a good friend of mine and I am on the board of ABCL, but I never used his friendship to get an introduction to Rajiv Gandhi. And Mulayam Singh has even said on record in the Rub-a-Ru programme that I never sought any favours from him when he was chief minister!"

But come now, how naive can you get? Surely one doesn't go from being an anonymous city politician in Calcutta to a pillar at the court of Gowda, from first generation entrepreneur to a businessman with a Rs 20-crore turnover simply by experiments with truth? There has to be something shady somewhere, some compromise with the forces of Darkness.... "Look, I define myself as just a middle-level businessman whose first love is politics."

Yes, yes, but what about the money, all that money.... "Years ago I got a loan from the IDBI of Rs 15 lakh with a 1 per cent rate of interest payable after 10 years and with that I built up my company. Why don't you investigate it? Sure, I was advised in my business by Shyam Bharatiya, Shobhana's husband and KK's son-in-law, but what's wrong with that?" Singh throws up his hands. "The Birlas are friends of mine. Yet when I was on the Hindustan Times board I never interfered with the functioning of any of the journalists. OK, I'm not the Ramakrishna Mission. I've been a party activist, but I have worked for what I have."

Well, that's what they all say, the financiers of democracy. Why should you have to do anything legitimately if you have former prime ministers rooting for you? If the leader of the Depressed Classes sets out to personally alleviate your own depression about lack of political clout and appoints you general secretary of his party? "When I was 15 or 16 I was inspired by leaders like Subrata Mukherjee and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and their struggle against the Naxalites. I was just a kid then. But since then my friedships with politicians has had less to do with ideology than with personal friendship. Once a Congress warrior, now a Gucci-clad socialist, the rubrics have changed but the friendships have endured.

SINGH first left Calcutta after his father threw him out of the house because he did not join the family business. In Lucknow, staying in his grandmother's house, he became friendly with Congress leader Vir Bahadur Singh. He tried to get a ticket from his home town Azamgarh. But it was denied. Later, Scindia tried to get him a ticket from Bhind but it was refused again, although he did become an AICC member. "So you see, I have been unsuccessful in politics which was my first love but successful in business which I was never really interested in. But God was kind." Singh gazes heavenwards, anxious in his piety.

Not only did God shower divine assistance on Singh's Ester India company, He also ensured that Singh was born into the right community. As Charles chanced into the House of Windsor, so also Amar Singh was given to the thakurs of Uttar Pradesh, amongst whom the pulsating ties of kinship quite override geographical distance. When he was marooned in the East, as member of the district Congress com-mitee from Bowbazar in central Calcutta, he was the only one able to speak in Hindustani with any visiting Hindi heartland leader, putting them instantly at ease and convincing them of his usefulness. Young Madhavrao came when he was just an MP and was struck by Singh. Amitabh Bachchan, then only a dramatically inclined Calcutta boxwallah, also became his friend. Chandra Shekhar of Balia was, of course, a neighbour in Uttar Pradesh—"We have so many common relatives and common friends."

 "Tell me," inquires Singh, "these are all people of integrity. Would they have helped me if they thought I wasn't good enough? Give me a chance. The media trial has already begun without giving me any scope of clarifying my story. I'm a sensitive person." Singh looks forlorn.

Now whoever heard of a sensitive powerbroker? Next we'll have to believe that Hema Malini writes Haiku or something as improbable as that. "When I went to London, with Mulayam Singh, the Hindujas offered us a Rolls Royce. But I refused. I didn't need a car. I wanted to make it clear that neither Mulayam Singh nor I had a price-tag. And as for the 9 MW Rs 40-crore power project in Karnataka, I did not get that from Deve Gowda but from the Veerapa Moily government," Singh sighs.

Singh believes there is a conspiracy against him, a class war is being waged because he does not belong to the landed aristocracy. Here he is, a humble millionaire with a dozen or so important friends who only wants a bit of respectability. Yet vested interests persist in casting him as the moneyed Machiavelli of the new Government. "Look at Kamal Morarka of the Samata Party or Virendra Shah or Rajan Modi—they are all industrialists in politics. But why this tag of untouchability on poor me? Why?" The question rings with self-pity.

Yet seconds later a party worker breezes in and Singh's expression changes like quicksilver. Earnestness vanishes to be replaced by roguish humour. "Don't write anything bad, will you? Remember, I've been totally honest...." After years in anonymity Singh has acquired his long dreamed for political legitimacy. Is he artful and dodgy or simply an apolitical financier of the federal experiment? His new career will show whether Amar Singh the man is any different from Amar Singh the stereotype.