Book Excerpt: How HD Deve Gowda Wrestled With Vajpayee And His Mask 

The debate, engagement and sometimes collaboration between H.D. Deve Gowda and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were, arguably, the unlikeliest of it all. The two would not have interacted as much if they had not been prime ministers and former prime ministers, and if one had not preceded and succeeded the other. Gowda succeeded Vajpayee immediately after his first thirteen-day brush with power, and there was the motion of confidence in which the two came face to face for the first time on the floor of the Parliament. The frequency and intensity were never lost till Vajpayee lost power in 2004. Briefly, between 1999 and 2002, there was a hiatus when Gowda was out of Parliament, otherwise, for nearly seven years Gowda never missed an opportunity to engage Vajpayee.

Gowda and Vajpayee were two very different people. Vajpayee was essentially a Hindi person, Gowda used English to communicate, which in reality was notches above Vajpayee’s felicity. If Vajpayee was full of rhetoric, flourish, and pregnant silences, Gowda was always about dry details, documents and a kind of drawl. When Vajpayee shifted his stances and positions even on some of the most visible issues of the day, it was seldom noticed and never remembered. But Gowda’s consistency was always put under the scanner. If Vajpayee invariably got the benefit of the doubt, Gowda was always placed in doubt. Nothing stuck to Vajpayee, no allegation or diatribe, but everything stuck to Gowda and many a times unfairly. Vajpayee was about grandstanding; Gowda was about trench fights. One was a Brahmin and another a Shudra, and the perception about them, their refinements and commitment invariably had undercurrents of caste, traditions, geography, history and plain old prejudice.

When one reads Gowda’s parliamentary speeches and interventions, it is quite revealing as to how many times, both as a sitting and former prime minister, and even earlier as an MP, he resorted to supplication through words like ‘request’, ‘plead’, and ‘beg’ to be ordinarily heard during debates. He often reminded his colleagues that he was from a ‘humble’ background and was not so highly learned. This, despite a reasonably good engineering diploma coupled with solid political and legislative experience of decades. His grasp of the law and its loopholes were legendary in Karnataka. Yet, Gowda never realised his importance, and he continued to beseech attention for his utterances. The weight of his vast experience, and his learning, mostly self-taught, never added a dimension to his otherwise robust image of a refined political wrestler because there was nobody to package it for him. He perhaps did not even know that it could be packaged. He preferred to be in a groove of his own. He was cerebral in his own 
way. 

Vajpayee never had any of this problem ever. When he stood up to speak, people sat down to listen. There were many to add frills, flowers and put on a pedestal what he had uttered or had not uttered. He was always presented as a representative of a great but suppressed philosophical current; of some glorious ideological value system that had been in chains, and of a gentleness and scholarship that had not received its due. Vajpayee even romanced the victimhood that constructed his political persona. When in the Opposition benches, Vajpayee managed a guilt in people that despite his being such a picture of perfection was not on the treasury benches. When he finally moved to the treasury benches, the guilt was still kept alive.

Gowda and Vajpayee’s exchanges in Parliament mostly concerned communalism, the farm economy, water disputes, the economy in general and governance, in the same order of importance. George Fernandes, a minister in Vajpayee’s cabinet and a fellow Kannadiga, was also a cause of conflict between the two many a times. On all the topics, Gowda spoke with his own field reports, assessments of experts, legal inputs, data points and common sense. He made thorough use of the Parliament library, but never brandished his reading, or blended it with panache into his arguments. But if somebody questioned him, he would surprise them with his depth of understanding. In his first-ever session, and first-ever speech in Parliament, in July 1991, when the motion of thanks to the President’s address was being discussed, Gowda started speaking on the Union government’s plan to notify the interim order of the Cauvery Tribunal. Mani Shankar Aiyar, Mayiladuthurai MP, objected: ‘Sir, I am on a point of order. Is it in order for a member to devote, as he threatens to do, his entire speech to a subject which has not been mentioned in the President’s address?’ Gowda responded: ‘The President’s address makes a mention about the development of irrigation . . . Though I am a new member to this house, I know that anything can be discussed during the debate on the residential address, within the ambit of rules framed by this very house. I know my limitations. Though I am a new entrant in this house, being a member in the state legislature for more than twenty years (actually, close to thirty years in 1991), I know my limitations.’

What he meant was that he was experienced enough to know the rules. As Gowda continued, Aiyar intervened again: ‘May I ask the honourable member a question? Does he or does he not accept that the Supreme Court is the final authority on the law of the land?’ Gowda’s instantaneous response put his memory, diligence and the grasp of details on display: ‘I really want to compliment my friend. This is an Inter-State Disputes Act. A tribunal has been constituted under Sections 3 and 4 of this Act, which has been framed by this very same house, though I was not a member in those days. I am just a new entrant, and I would like to draw your attention to Section 11 of the Inter-State Disputes Act, which says: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law neither the Supreme Court nor any other court shall have or exercise jurisdiction in respect of any water dispute which is referred to a tribunal under this Act.”’

Gowda was extremely sharp and well informed as a parliamentarian, and as a prime minister, he was never underprepared. His collection of books, too, was eclectic. He collected all kinds of reports on subjects of interest to him. He personally clipped articles from magazines and newspapers and placed them in files, which only he knew how to access at the most appropriate time. Knowledge meant one thing to Vajpayee, it could be both emotional and unproductive, like the poetry he wrote. But with Gowda, knowledge was about application. It had no other connotation other than information and data, something he could gainfully deploy either for the good of policy, effective action or to fell his opponents. It could be said that knowledge for him was like soil. It had to be felt, had to be fertile, and finally, give a good yield. The only abstraction he perhaps indulged in was his prayer books and the various editions and exegesis of the two Indian epics — Ramayana and Mahabharata. But that too was not abstract for him. They were scaffolds around his soul.

The Gesture

When Gowda as prime minister had lost the support of the Congress party in April 1997, and his own party men and coalition partners were dithering, Vajpayee offered to save his government. Even when the confidence debate was on in the Parliament, he sent a chit to Gowda and reiterated what he had told him in confidence earlier. There were also others like Balasaheb Thackeray, Sahib Singh Verma, George Fernandes and Ram Jethmalani, who urged him not to resign but instead accept BJP’s support and continue as prime minister. However, it was Vajpayee who personally tried to work on Gowda. ‘It may have been a strategic move on the part of Vajpayee to save my government, but I also could feel his sincerity,’ Gowda recalled.

Gowda never forgot this gesture of Vajpayee. Their interpersonal relationship remained cordial at all times, but that did not stop him from countering and cornering Vajpayee on issues of public, communal and constitutional importance. He had made a tangential mention in the Parliament of this Vajpayee offer twice, but ironically while discussing Vajpayee government’s failure to maintain communal peace. In April 2002, when the Godhra riots in Gujarat were being discussed, he had said: ‘On 9 April 1997, some of the NDA friends — I do not want to take their names and hurt their feelings — approached me. They tried to persuade me by saying: “Why are you losing this opportunity? The prime minister’s office is a big office and it is the first time that a farmer has got this opportunity. Why do you want to quit?” I said: “I do not want to be at the mercy of your friends . . .” I have never bothered about continuing in office with this type of humiliation.’ He had mentioned the Vajpayee offer earlier too in December 1998 and had concluded by advising Vajpayee: ‘Some people think that the chair is so important in life. My appeal to them is this: Conduct yourself in a dignified manner.’

In fact, the April 2002 reference was even harsher, when for a second time during the debate, he had told Vajpayee: ‘You can take out those proceedings and go through it. I (had) said: “I do not care whether I will remain for five days or five months. I want to serve my country to the best of my ability.” This was the stand which I took. However, what is going on today? For the sake of continuing in office, you had to compromise with your ideology, your personal ideology, whereas you have been classified as one of the tallest leaders with a moderate, liberal outlook, a man of abundant patience, tolerance, etc.’

(Excerpted from ‘Furrows in a Field: The Unexplored Life of H. D. Deve Gowda’ by Sugata Srinivasaraju, with permission from Penguin Random House India. Sugata Srinivasaraju is a bilingual journalist, author and columnist.)