A Mani-Splendoured Maverick

 Book review

Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century – politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon. Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Prime Minister.

The one thing you can never accuse inveterate ex-diplomat and Congressman Mani Shankar Aiyar of is being parsimonious with words. To put it pithily, the man is never short of a word. Never short of about 500,000 words (give or take), if you count his troika of autobiographical tomes released over the past couple of years. This review, if one can so characterise it, has to do with his latest, and possibly last, of a series of navel-gazing contemplations that he does with such aplomb and panache. However, if the context so demands, I shall freely cherry-pick references from his earlier works. This newly-minted volume titled A Maverick in Politics – 1991-2024, published by Juggernaut Books, is refulgent with dense and detailed descriptions of his colourful journey through the simmering cauldron of political corridors through which he has navigated, at times with consummate skill and at other times with surprising maladroitness, often by his own admission. It comes hot on the heels of his other recent publications, Memoirs of a Maverick, The First Fifty Years (1941-1991) and The Rajiv I Knew.

Given Aiyar’s stature as an eloquent raconteur, prolific writer, occasional disruptor and a willing dispenser of opinion, whether asked for or not, A Maverick in Politics is a must-read for those who simply love the English language, particularly when it is put to use in a unique and often acerbic manner that brooks no argument. His native wit brings home the bacon, a non-vegetarian aphorism his eclectic tastes will not cavil at. He might have considered calling one of his autobiographies The Argumentative Indian, but that title was already taken by the noble Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen. But Maverick is apposite for a title, the mot juste as the author himself might have put it. As the Bard had it in an entirely different context, “‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.” Indeed, it will serve. Not for nothing has he been so frequently described as a maverick that he chose to anoint himself with the monicker.

Having read the book and trawled through several reviews of the same (and more on the anvil), I arrived at the conclusion that if I must make bold to review something written by the loquaciously (some might even say garrulously) articulate Aiyar, I needed to consider a different tack. Every review of the book I have read thus far, some by very eminent personages, delves deeply into various incidents mentioned in the book. Aiyar at odds with fellow-politicians, Aiyar at odds with the opposition (famously with his own colleagues and even PM Modi) and above all, Aiyar at odds with himself. Honestly, I did not even feel I had the heft or the bandwidth to write a review of this veteran’s memoirs. My dilemma lay in the fact that he invited me to do so. How could I possibly refuse, particularly when he had so readily and handsomely responded to my request by penning an effusive foreword to my latest collection of light-hearted columns published in book form. Noblesse oblige, which called for me to reciprocate. I acquiesced to scratch his back, full of foreboding that I might not be up to the challenge. Happily, I warmed to the task as I went along. Unlike Macbeth, I did not allow ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would.’

As you would expect, the book is full of characters ranging from the high and mighty as well as the down and dirty in politics and bureaucracy. He deals with these individuals and incidents with pitiless candour and a rapier-like satire. He studied in Cambridge after all, where satire was honed to a fine art during the 50s and 60s. However, where Aiyar displays a soft and human side to his personality is when he talks about his family in his first volume, Memoirs of a Maverick. His mother, Bhagyalakshmi takes pride of place for all the trials and tribulations she went through in raising her sons to become men of the world. The untimely and tragic loss of his father and youngest brother is dealt with understatedly. Naturally, his wife, daughters and grandchildren are collectively the apple of his eye and one can almost see his eyes turning moist as he ‘talks family.’ I suppose even the most hard-boiled politician who must needs develop a skin as thick as an elephant’s, will get emotional when he turns to his family. Not that Aiyar is ever capable of getting mawkish or sentimental. Clearly, he is a product of the school of hard knocks, but he gets as close to it as he is likely to where his kith and kin are concerned.

I have deliberately eschewed quoting chapter and verse from the latest volume as many reviewers have done – many of them éminences grises from Aiyar’s rarefied bureaucratic and political world. I would have gone down that path had I not read those reviews. In a strange way, this apparent handicap provided me with an opportunity to talk about what an undiluted joy it was to read the book without the albatross around my neck of pre-conceived notions of political chicanery and skullduggery that was an integral part of his professional life. Furthermore, I had no extended contact with the man to hold strong biases, for or against. I read Mani Shankar Aiyar, never mind what sound or harebrained opinions he might have held on a given subject, for the sheer love of reveling in his ready wit, humour and the ability to not take himself seriously; a trait as rare as hen’s teeth. He will take potshots at anyone with impunity, including himself, and the devil take the hindmost. This review is specially directed towards apolitical youngsters who might never have heard of Waugh or Wodehouse, but in Mani Shankar Aiyar, they might just get a whiff of what it is to write the perfect sentence, sit back and admire it for its own sake. To clumsily paraphrase Oscar Wilde, ‘To write one autobiography might be regarded a blessing. To write three seems like carelessness.’ In Aiyar’s case, his carelessness is our good fortune.

That said, if you are looking for the spicy stuff like how the author was subsequently humiliated by the Gandhis, how he fell foul of his political colleagues, his initial enthusiasm unravelling into a Walter Mitty experience with the Panchayati Raj scheme, how he dared to describe India’s current Prime Minister in less than flattering terms causing an almighty furore and much, much more, you will happily wallow in this tour de force; aided by his sardonic pen (or keypad), masquerading as a poisoned chalice. For a career diplomat and politician, Mani Shankar Aiyar was often undiplomatic and impolitic. His critics averred that his peremptory verbiage caused him to be loved and reviled in equal measure. Therein lies his book’s (or books’) ineffable charm.