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V Gangadhar

Pray, who are Shees Ram Ola and Bola Buli Ramaiah?

Till recently, I could remember and produce at will, the names of the Cabinet ministers, their portfolios as well as names of the state governors and so on. This habit began, I think, when I used to swot up pages from various general knowledge books while preparing for the Union Public Services Commission exam, seeking admission to institutions like the National Defence Academy, Indian Military Academy and so on.

Fortunately, though I passed the exams, I never got into any of these institutions. Imagine becoming a brigadier or an air commodore and then depending for your promotion on the whims of a defence minister like Mulayam Singh Yadav. Surviving as a hack writer is better! And then, having to work as a journalist, I was forced to remember the names of the federal and various state ministers and their portfolios.

Initially, this was not very difficult. Elections were held every five years, the same party formed Cabinets both at the Centre and the states and they enjoyed full five-year terms. The problems began from the mid-1970s. The Congress had already split and, almost everyday, there were new avatars of the party - Congress (I), Congress (O), Congress (C), and so on. Politicians defected, counter-defected and ministries began to fall like nine pins. This was more common in the states.

The Centre, since Independence, had three non-Congress governments including the present one. When the first Janata government was formed after the termination of the Emergency, it was initially difficult to remember the names of ministers who till then had been fighting among themselves. Morarji Desai and Jagjivan Ram who were, for so long, associated with the Congress were in the same ministry as the Jana Sangh leader Atal Behari Vajpayee and the fiery socialist leader, George Fernandes. Still, it was easy to remember their names because they had been in public life for long.

In the earlier days, it was not difficult to remember the names of the Congress ministers at the Centre and their portfolios. This, despite the fact, that not all of them were competent or strong personalities. Sardar Baldev Singh, the defence minister in the first-ever Cabinet, was the victim of dozens of Sardarji jokes. Before seeing her pictures, I had imagined Rajkumari Amrit Kaur to look like Madhuri Dixit in Rajkumar. Instead, she turned out to be a shrivelled-up, unattractive women.

On the side of competence, I&B Minister B V Keskar hated film music so much that he banned the playing of it on All India Radio. Most Indians naturally switched over to the commercial service of Radio Ceylon. Thanks to Keskar's stupidity, Binaca Geetmala and Amin Sayani became household words in India.

K M Munshi from Gujarat was an extreme right-winger who made India dependent on the US's PL 480 food programme. He also started the annual van mahotsav tamasha where trees were planted on a particular day amidst much fanfare and were allowed to be destroyed the next day.

Yet, most of the ministers in the earlier days were men of substance. Munshi was a successful lawyer as well as a popular writer of Gujarati fiction. Despite his eccentricities, no one could question Keskar's knowledge of classical music. I could remember their names easily because they tried their best to serve the nation and did not hold out threats to the party bosses.

Ministers did resign on matters of principle and not because they were only made a minister of state or deputy ministers. Chintaman Deshmukh did not agree with Prime Minister Nehru's policy on state reorganisation, particularly the creation of the state of Maharashtra, and resigned. T T Krishnamachari quit because he took ultimate responsibility for the Mundra scandal exposed by Nehru's son-in-law Feroze Gandhi, who was associated with the Hindustan Times.

The governors were equally prominent men. Of course, some of the appointments were guided by political interests and such men did appear to toe the Centre's line more than what was necessary. Yet Raja Maharaj Singh of Maharashtra, Dharam Vira in West Bengal and K Viswanathan in Gujarat were more competent and less manipulative than most present day governors.

Whenever President's rule was imposed in their states, they governed wisely and well. Viswanathan was not a well-known Congress leader. But he distinguished himself while ruling Gujarat during and after the turbulent days of the Nav Nirman agitation.

Failing memory is not the only reason for my inability to remember the names of present day ministers. For instance, some of those in power now were not known even to other fellow politicians! When the first batch for ministers was sworn in, senior bureaucrats and politicians alike puzzled over names like Kanti Singh. And who exactly were Cabinet ministers T G Venkatraman and Yarra Naidu?

The mystery deepened as more ministers were sworn in. Yogendra Alagh was a pleasant surprise. I had known him in Ahmedabad, where he headed the Sardar Patel Institute of Economic Research. But who was this Jalappa character and why did he think he should have been given a Cabinet rank? The same question bothered me as politicians like Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Chandradeo Prasad Verma demanded a bigger slice of the Cabinet cake.

Reading and watching the antics of our present ministers on television, I am not even sure if I want to remember their names and portfolios. How is Shees Ram Ola going to manage the ministry of fertilisers and chemicals now reeling under the urea scandal? And pray, who is Shees Ram Ola? I have my own doubts if Bola Buli Ramaiah will prove to be a success in the important commerce ministry.

Ministers, these days, are appointed on the recommendations of characters like Laloo Prasad Yadav and Biju Patnaik. Patnaik initially stonewalled the appointment of fellow JD leader Srikant Jena and then suggested the portfolios that the prime minister should offer to the ministers from the state. Would a Nehru or an Indira Gandhi put up with all this?

Arun Shourie wrote more than 7,000 words listing the criminal activities of Minister Mohammad Taslimuddin. Shourie is known for his bias, but even he could not have invented all that he wrote about the minister. In the days to come, Taslimuddin will be very much in the news for all the wrong reasons.