The Rediff Interview / T N Seshan

'Will we reach the commanding heights of the economy by sitting on a banana?'

T N Seshan. The very name used to trigger fear in the minds of politicians and journalists alike till recently. He used to bark at politicians and tease journalists, but he is a changed man now, a "mother cow" as he himself said at a press conference not so long ago.

When Shobha Warrier met him at Gokul Dham, an ashram dedicated to Lord Krishna at Sriperumbudur, he did not appear as intimidating as she had imagined him to be. Yet, his wry sense of humour, sense of pride and confidence were still intact. He appeared to me more like a professor who was ever ready to find fault with his students and tease them. In this exclusive interview to Rediff On The NeT, conducted a few days before he announced his candidature for the Presidency, India's former chief election commissioner discussed the state of India, his days in the civil service, and, of course, politics and politicians.

What do you remember about August 15, 1947?

If you want good copy on the golden jubilee of Indian Independence, you will get terrible copy. Are you ready for that?

Yes.

I am warning you because my concept is: What has happened to India's Independence? Yesterday I said in some meeting: You have to compare what this country has achieved in fifty years to what a monkey does to a garland! If you are ready for that kind of stuff, shoot. After that you should not say that this was not the kind of interview that you wanted. You will get searing stuff.

Yes, I am ready for that.

I can also tell you that it (August 15) was a great day and I was jumping with joy and all that. But it was just another day, one more day. I think it was a holiday. We went to school, and somebody gave us chocolates. Somebody said, this is the tricolour. That's all. I was 14 years then. 1947, wasn't it?

Yes, 1947.

I was 14 plus.

In schools and colleges, we used to have Independence Day functions where teachers and leaders used to talk about how bad the British were, how great India would be without them... Do you remember any such function?

The Independence Day functions in almost all schools are a bloody bore. The children are made to stand in the heat and the sun....

And the teachers used to portray a rosy, bright future for us then.

Does the teacher who say all this believe in it? No, the teacher who says it doesn't believe in it. Then how will anything come through?

When we were young, we were optimistic and we believed them. But today's children do not.

My suspicion is that you were gullible. Not all your classmates would share the view that the class accepted the proposition, and that there was a bunny at the end of the rainbow.

What might have gone wrong for the country? Some freedom fighters whom I have spoken to say they believed they could solve all of India's problems within a decade or so.

Let me give you my analysis. Unfortunately, this is not new. I have spoken about this in a hundred places. Number one: We won Independence as a result of the sacrifice of hundreds of people, big, small, medium. All kinds of sacrifices. The aftermath of Independence was violence and Partition, and millions of people displaced. It was due to lack of wisdom that all that happened. Still we managed to get over that.

As many as 600 states became independent on August 15, 1947. The wisdom of Sardar Patel, his ability stitched us back together. Then along came two things: Potti Sriramulu fasted and died for linguistic provinces. In my very humble view, Panditji yielded wrongly. He shouldn't have yielded at all. Ramulu's death would have been forgotten. Reorganising the states on a linguistic basis was a disaster.

What should they have done then?

They should have divided along latitudes and longitudes. Then give every child the freedom to learn whatever language it wants to. English, yes. Hindi, yes. And then one Indian language. And one classical language. Learn Sanskrit, if you like. Learn Arabic, if you like. Learn Greek or Latin, if you like.

Instead you said, this language is for this state and that language is for that state. The wretched politician divided us on the basis of religion, on the basis of language, on the basis of caste, on the basis of everything. When the two of you become friendly, they try to divide you saying, ''You are a brahmin and you are a non-brahmin.'' He also said, ''You, a wretched brahmin are sitting on his (non-brahmin's) shoulder.'' I never went and sat on his shoulder, did I? But somebody would go and complain that the brahmin has been making his life miserable and that he has been claiming for the last thousand years that he is making private telephone calls to god. So please kick this brahmin, it was said. What did I do? I didn't do anything to make Him do me this favour.

So, was it because we were divided according to language, caste and religion that we have all these problems?

There was no singular reason. Take your economic policy. There is a great deal of truth in the statement that there are certain industries that had to be in the public sector only. Nobody would put money on steel-making, nobody would put money on shipbuilding. There are industries which the private sector would not enter into because the profit was not obvious. Very soon the minister, the civil servant, everybody found great advantage in having one more corporation in the ministry. So, he went and started a banana corporation. Do you know there is a corporation called Hindustan Banana Corporation? There is a Hindustan Latex Corporation, for God's sake.

In 1924, Panditji said, ''We shall have the socialist method of development.'' In 1954, at Avadi, they created the socialistic principles of development. And then Indira Gandhi and her father said, ''We shall occupy the commanding heights of the economy.'' Will we reach the commanding heights of the economy by sitting on a banana?

Is the socialist economic path adopted by Nehru to blame for lack of progress?

Again, to say the socialistic economy is the sole reason why India went to dogs is not true. A combination of a socialistic economy plus absurd concepts of labour welfare is the reason. Here, on the one hand, labour was mishandled and oppressed criminally. And the system looked at it and kept quiet. On the other hand, in some places labour went and sat on top of everybody and the industry itself was killed. That also was ignored. You would see both the examples at the same time in some places. I will give you a classic example. There is fertiliser factory in Calcutta. It existed for 10 years. It did not produce even one gram of fertiliser. It has got about 5,000 workers, and the workers are paid overtime today.

Even now?

Yes, even now, but they haven't produced one gram of fertiliser.

What exactly went wrong?

Misconceived ideas of labour welfare. Misconceived ideas of capital management. Misconceived ideas of socialism.

Political influence?

Yes, political influence. Nobody would allow me to question you even if you are working under me. I can't ask you, ''Why did you not come for work at 10 o' clock?...' That accountability is not there. Then how does the system work?

When you wrote the civil service examination, were you aware that this kind of a situation prevailed?

No, no, no. In 1954, we had not reached this kind of a situation. I wrote the civil service examination in '53 and '54. We were on an upward journey then. Dams were being built, electricity stations were being built and Rourkela and Bhilai were being built. So, we were going upward.

What exactly was in your mind when you wrote the examination? Did you want to serve the country and do something?

Again, everybody from uncles and aunts asked me the same question, ''Why did you write the exam?'' I answered, ''To serve the country.'' The fact was, when I passed out my MA in physics, there was not much of an opening for science students. There were not many research laboratories. So, what do you do? You look around. Today, for a physics student, there are at least two hundred scientific laboratories to choose from. When I passed out, there were only two and a half laboratories. Only 25 people from the whole of India got admission. The rest could not go anywhere. So, even the science students wrote the IAS examination.

So, given a chance you would have gone for research?

I can't say that today, unless you take me back to 1954. Today, if your son comes and asks me, ''Shall I join the IAS?'', I would not exercise the option for him. But I would put the menu card in front of him and say, ''If you join the IAS, this, this and this are the pluses and this, this and this are the minuses. If you want to pursue a scientific career, this, this and this are the pluses and this, this and this are the minuses.'' I will help you make up your mind, I won't make up your mind for you.

I am not exaggerating. In the afternoon, if you come to my house, it will look like a railway platform. At least 20 sets of people are coming every day for advice. But my advice is not like, ''You do this and you do that.'' I tell them the advantages and disadvantages.

To go back, what would I do if today were 1954 or I was 22 years today? It is something about which one can make only a wrong guess. I can't tell you what that guess would be. Today, if an youngster comes and tells me, ''I want to join the IAS'', I still tell him, ''It is great fun. But there is great trouble too.''

Was it great fun for you?

Absolutely.

T N Seshan's photographs by Sanjay Ghosh

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