THE other day, C.M. Ibrahim was at a meeting of Muslims in Delhi discussing reservations for the minority community. The Union Information and Broadcasting (and Civil Aviation) minister had barely sat down after displaying his gift of the gab when someone pointed out he hadn't broached the issue at hand at all. " Bol deta hoon ," Ibrahim said and, striding up to the mike again, took a swipe at the stereotype of the average Indian Muslim politician. Well, almost.
"Different maladies require different remedies—different doctors and consulting rooms. This patient hasn't been looked at for 49 years. Don't wheel him on to the streets and ask the doctor to take a look. Call the specialists first. Let them decide how serious his condition is," he said to wah, wahs all round. Simply, Ibrahim had made his point: there's no need for processions or rallies to force the issue. Get the politicos to arrive at a consensus.
Yet...Janus-faced Ibrahim, 46, can provoke as well as he can evoke. Nine years ago in Bangalore, walking into an animated discussion on an insensitively-headlined short story in Deccan Herald , Ibrahim took over. Speeches followed, and the garden city was wracked by riots. "Ibrahim has the ability to incite even a nine-year-old," says a top-cop. And yet...last year, Ibrahim was the man who helped solve the seemingly-intractable Idgah Maidan controversy in Dharwad, which was developing into the Ayodhya of the South.
So, who's the real Ibrahim who proposes (but denies) plans for a new defamation bill? The voice of moderation? Or the ' muh mein Ram, Rehman, bagal mein churi ' type? The content Kannadiga? Or, the arrogant wheeler-dealer who—after a quirk of fate propelled his mentor H.D. Deve Gowda into the hot seat and landed himself not one but two plum portfolios—is out to tame the Press? All of the above?
Much as he himself and Gowda deny plans for a defamation bill, Ibrahim wants something to rein in the press because a whippersnapper of a weekly like Hi, Bangalore can allege that he swings both ways, and he can do little to prove his sexual proclivities but sue and pursue (which he hasn't); because The Indian Express can scuttle a feast in store by revealing that 1,000 sheep are to be slaughtered for the benefit of delegates attending a public meeting to felicitate Gowda; because Arun Shourie can remind people that Ibrahim called Indira Gandhi an "international prostitute" not long ago.
"Is it in our (Kannadiga) culture to call a woman that?" he asks. "I'd have loved to file a defamation case but, because I'm I&B minister it'll be misunderstood. And it'll take ages to be sorted out." Ibrahim's planned (and derailed) defamation law ala Rajiv Gandhi placed the burden of proof on the accuser, not the accused; provided for quick damages, not excruciating delays. Rajiv Gandhi had a steamroller majority to rush in the bill. But the 13-party United Front?
Ibrahim's draconian streak was evident soon after the UF came to power the day Prannoy Roy's The News Tonight didn't go on air when Ramakrishna Hegde was expelled. Only, that need is now sought to be couched in the politically correct figleaf called 'secularism'. "There's no move for a defamation law. But there must be a code of conduct. The Press wrote about Antulay. The Press wrote about Taslimuddin. They are now writing about Mulayam. Why are only those who are fighting for secularism being targeted?" he asks. "Why aren't the misdeeds of BJP men tumbling out?"
Given Ibrahim's proximity to Gowda, the logical question is: did he have the Prime Minister's okay before expressing his intent on the defamation law, which even Bal Thackeray approved, saying: "The Press has a right to be bold but without bias. The Press Council has already issued a warning. Ibrahim isn't the first."
Although their recent brothers-in-arms number has surprised many, Ibrahim and Gowda go back a long way. The Bhadravathi tea shop assistant stayed in Gowda's room in the mid-'70s when he first set foot in Bangalore. They got closer when Gowda wanted to checkmate Hegde. Ibrahim, who was imploring Hegde to show him "at least a tenth of the love" he showered on Jeevaraj Alva, was soon wielding Gowda's hatchet, drafting a report that would spell finis to Hegde's JD days. When Hegde's blue-eyed boy sought re-entry from the BJP, the sarcasm dripped: "The Dal's doors are too small for a big man like Alva."
Ibrahim is all Gowda isn't: confident, coherent, savvy. And articulate: in half-a-dozen languages. One day he's translating the PM's speeches into Hindi in UP; into Urdu in Kashmir the next. One day he's breaking bread with Kanshi Ram; with Thackeray the next; one minute he's quoting the Quran, next, he's dipping into the Puranas.
Says analyst Asghar Ali Engineer: "Ibrahim is needed because of the exigencies of Gowda's politics." He canvassed minority votes for Gowda in the Muslim-dominated Ramanagaram constituency in the 1994 assembly elections. With Mufti Mohammed Sayeed out, aides see the teetotaller Ibrahim donning the mantle of an acceptable national JD Muslim leader.
HE has been elected only once, but the Karnataka JD has won every election—zilla parishad, taluka panchayat and civic bodies—with Ibrahim at the helm. There was a flutter when he said this January that Gowda would not stay as chief minister for even one extra day if the JD was thumped in the Lok Sabha polls. When the JD bagged 16 seats, Ibrahim's words sounded prophetic.
He probably knows how long this Government will last too. He's been in Delhi for two months now, but Ibrahim stays at the old Karnataka Bhavan, a ragi-ball's throw away from Gowda's Race Course Road house, sleeping barely three hours a day, being Gowda's eyes and ears, interfacing with the industrialist crowd for him. Total loyalty is why Ibrahim continues to run the state JD. He had announced his own appointment: "I'm the new JD chief". As the PM's pointsman, he has an onerous task: irritate Hegde into oblivion, and keep Gowda's hometurf safe. Elections to nine assembly and one LS seat are due in the state.
Ibrahim's ambitions in the state are curtailed by his past. He was called an "Arabian Spy" when he produced a Rolex watch, which he claimed had been gifted to him by an Arabian king and which he could use as a "visa" to travel in any Arab state. He was charged in a flour mill license scandal. He had to resign when he sheltered his brother C.M. Rehman, involved in a murder case, in his official residence. He had to disown his other brother, C.M. Qadar, implicated in a car theft case soon after the UF came to power.
Ibrahim is enjoying his newfound role. When told that C.K. Jaffer Sharief—the man who snatched Ibrahim's Rajya Sabha ticket, which led Ibra-him to his exit from the Congress, which led to Ibrahim becoming state JD president, which led to Ibrahim becoming arguably the second most powerful man in India today—was thinking of joining the JD, Ibrahim's gleeful reply? "Wow!"
The smalltown guy who made it big (and how) mostly functions out of Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan where, as aviation experts teasingly point out, Air-India and Indian Airlines are about to buy over a dozen aircraft worth over Rs 10,000 crore. Ibrahim knows little about those big machines and makes even less effort to hide it. But he's no babe in the woods. He's brought in his own personal staff, firing those Ghulam Nabi Azad had hired, but retained a Muslim IAS officer. With his attention divided, files are piling up. Says A-I and IA boss Russi Mody: "I've met him only twice, but he's down-to-earth and willing to go places."
The outcry in the Press and in Parliament may have put paid to his plans for a defamation law for the moment. But the intention stays. "This is a question of justice. The Press makes a villain out of a person in a full-page. Shouldn't you give him a chance to reply in at least a quarter-page? If I say this, am I wrong?"
