George Fernandes was a rare breed whose actions, even after having scaled the heights of political success, were geared towards selfless motives
Abraham Lincoln’s famous observation, “nearly every man can face adversity, to test a man’s character, give him power,” has stood the test of time and George Fernandes is one of the rare few who passed it with flying colours. My acquaintance with George sahab began with the Tehelka tapes controversy in the earlier part of 2001 (was his lawyer before the case went to the enquiry commission) and given the intensity of the circumstance and its contemporaneous impact, occasioned me to work with him rather closely. Having lived a full life in public glare and limelight and his role being examined, analysed and dissected copiously, my endeavour is to portray the man in terms of his simple human attributes. He was driven by three passions — against corruption, against dynastic politics of the Congress and an unswerving commitment to fight for the rights of the poor and the under-privileged. These are platitudes typically mouthed by leaders but he actually lived upto them.
A fierce loyalty to the poor and deprived was reflected in his instructions to have the gates of his official bungalow being removed when some visitors were turned away. This empathy extended to one and all. Coming back late one night he found his pet dog sleeping on his bed and rather than disturbing her, he simply laid a sheet on the floor and slept there. He believed in doing all his personal chores himself and was stickler for washing his own clothes. After I finished my work, when I went to his residence, we would be discussing issues while he washed his clothes in the bathroom even at 9:30 in the evening.
He always admired the Chinese because they come down heavily on the corrupt and instituted death penalty for this crime and said unless we adopt strict measures ourselves, we would never be able to stamp out this menace. He had a rather dramatic manner of conveying how corruption flourished across parties and leaders in the system and which he described as the “balance of blackmail.” He would say that when two leaders of different parties met, one would say to the other, “this is what I know of you and this is what you know of me, isiliye main bhi chup, tum bhi chup” and dramatically closed his lips, putting his forefinger to them showing silence.
His distaste and dislike for the Nehru-Gandhi family was not borne out of any personal like or dislike; rather it was the harm that he intensely believed that dynastic politics caused to the country. While propping up VP Singh as a prime ministerial candidate in 1998 elections, he famously said: “Even if there were no VP Singh, we would have to create one.” The first successful experiment of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), holding together a disparate coalition is a testimony to the respect he enjoyed among everyone, owing to his selfless commitment to the Opposition unity. In fact, even after losing the confidence vote in March 1999, he was able to persuade Mulayam Singh Yadav not to support a Sonia Gandhi-led Government. It is a natural propensity for any leader, particularly a prominent leader like him, to showcase their altruistic actions.
He never made a song and dance about what he did. Every Christmas, sponsored by his brother in Canada, all the jawans in Siachen would get a plum cake each from Koshy’s bakery in Bengaluru and he himself would be with them. The various quarters adjacent to his bungalow provided refuge to Burmese political refugees and those in need, but again without any publicity.
He shunned publicity as regards his private life to the extent that he never bothered to clarify or share with Press the true facts of the Tehelka sting, for which he was pilloried. The so-called ‘Coffingate scam,’ the procurement of coffins on an emergent basis for transporting dead bodies for the Kargil dead, incurred an expenditure of less than `2 crores, the transaction being cleared by Joint Secretary official level and without any reference to the Minister. But the Opposition lit upon him like a pack of wolves and he never bothered to explain the true facts and on it fell upon his close friend RV Pandit to bring out the facts in a small booklet.
He was a rare breed among leaders who, even after having scaled the heights of political success, was geared towards selfless motives. To quote Marcus Aurelius, “His character challenged me to improve my own.”
(The writer is a Senior Advocate)