Mani, Mani, Mani....

Mani Shankar Aiyar is one of the handful of ministers in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet who just got down to business with no politicking around. So it came as a great shock when he was dropped from the Petroleum Ministry and was replaced by Murli Deora.

Mani Shankar AiyarI have been following Mani's utterances (writings, I should say - in newspapers and magazines for a few years now), and I should say that he really comes across as a rather intelligent, genuine human being. My serious complaint against him has been his unquestioning loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family - especially to those running the show right now. I wonder what he would have to say about his loyalty, since he couldn't have been dropped from his post - where he was trying to do a great job - without the blessings of Sonia Gandhi. As Rambo said, he is obviously 'expendable'. If all Manmohan Singh wanted to achieve was to make sure that Indians do not irritate George Bush by acting uppity and independent (what gall !), he could have simply asked Aiyar to hold off on his pet projects and to stop making any public utterances until after Bush's visit to India, or simply to go about the job in a quieter manner. But, to drop him altogether? It doesn't make sense, and for the first time I felt my respect for Manmohan Singh go down sharply, with all kinds of suspicions creeping up: is he just being a puppet, keeping the chair warm for the Nehru-Gandhi family heir(s), was he jealous of Aiyar's image (Mani Shankar Aiyar was ranked #1 in terms of performance by India Today-Hindustan Times not too long ago - even ahead of P. Chidambaram!)

Anyway, I feel I should write more on this subject again. It's really sad and a bit outrageous to sack him - here was a Petroleum minister for the first time who was not embroiled in some scandal involving the allocation of petrol pumps, gas agencies, etc. In fact, he offended lots of folks within his Congress party by putting a stop to lots of 'discretionary' allocations which were taken for granted. He seems genuinely concerned about India's energy security. He at least had a vision about an Asian energy network which was considered with great interest by folks in Korea, Japan and China. India and China had jointly acquired equity stake in a foreign (Syrian) oil field. He was talking about a gas pipeline from Iran via Pakistan to India. Obviously a lot of these activities and attempts would irritate the Americans. Is it too early for India to show some spine?

Here are just a couple of articles by Mani Shankar Aiyar:

Here's an article in today's Indian Express. From my past observation, I expect a few jokers to leave nasty comments that would have nothing to do with what Aiyar has written. I'll wait to see if my prediction comes true :)

What lies beneath: getting to all that oil and gas
Mani Shankar Aiyar explains what technology and brisk foreign policy can achieve

And here's a lecture that he gave during his visit to China:

Asia's quest for energy security (in Frontline)
The Asian Resurgence depends on energy cooperation in Asia. The 21st century will indeed be the Asian century only if Asian countries join hands in a continent-wide bid at bringing Asia together and keeping Asia together.

'The Hindu' had this to say on Aiyar's removal from the Petroleum ministry:
Pouring troubled water on oil

Praful Bidwai was more blunt in his article in 'Frontline' - Sacrificing sovereignty"

"Mani Shankar Aiyar's demotion must be seen in the larger context of mounting U.S. pressure on numerous issues, including intellectual property, industrial policy, and negotiations under the World Trade Organisation, as well as the recent aide memoire against India's purchase of a Syrian oilfield jointly with China. Mulford's meddlesome and gratuitous pronouncements in his January 25 interview were public and brazen. They pertained to all kinds of subjects, including the Left parties, retail trade, foreign policy, and separation of civilian nuclear facilities from military ones in ways acceptable to the U.S. Congress and to the Nuclear Suppliers' Group. There have been less public, but nevertheless official, forms of interference and virtual fatwas on other issues too, besides proffering of unsolicited advice. The government should disclose all these if it believes in transparency, as Manmohan Singh avows."

Even a Bangladeshi newspaper, 'The Independent' seems to think that dropping Aiyar was a mistake:
Mani Shankar Aiyar had been named by several of India's leading newspapers as the most able member of the UPA cabinet. Yet he was stripped of his post as Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry and instead given the minor job...

While generally I don't want anything to do with the communists and the socialists (with their blinkered view and who are so predictable), I do agree with their points of view from time to time. Here is one such occasion - the news analysis on The World Socialist Web Site:
With cabinet changes, India’s UPA government tilts still closer to Washington

And here's another from the same site, just three days earlier. Hmm...
China and India manoeuvre to secure energy supplies

While my general admiration for Mani Shankar Aiyar is mainly due to his simplicity and apparent intelligence, I do find some of his other traits interesting. For example, though coming from an orthodox Brahmin family, he declares himself to be an atheist. However, he also calls himself a 'secular fundamentalist' and has even written a book "Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist" . Here's an interesting review of this book. Irrespective of what this review says, this book should demonstrate Aiyar's grasp of history of the subcontinent that is largely free of any limiting ideologies.

And there is at least one inexplicable act of his - though he might have had his own reasons and logic, it definitely appeared unnecessary, and certainly provocative: I'm talking about the removal of a plaque about Vir Savarkar from Andaman's cellular jail.

No wonder that Shiv Sena was really upset.

This is probably why he steps on the toes of some BJP supporters and most Hindutva advocates, since "Secular fundamentalism is an ideological framework that stipulates a particular relationship between church and state, and to its adherents, justifies actions taken to enforce or institute that relationship. Specifically, the framework provides that for secular reasons religion should be excluded from political life." That may be so. But how does he explain his blind loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family? This is one trait in Aiyar that I cannot come to terms with - at least, not yet.

All said and done, it certainly looks like Aiyar was damned serious about his job(s) as Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, and Minister for Panchayati Raj.

Petroleum Ministry gets mandate on oil diplomacy

Central Asia, new focus of India's oil diplomacy

India casts a wide net for energy

I came across this extremely interesting write-up in "Business Standard" about Mani Shankar Aiyar and his early days at his job(s):
The serious side of Mani S Aiyar.

This page also has what is called "The authorised biography" - whatever that means. But it has interesting snippets:
It is easier to understand Aiyar if you know the story of his life. He is the eldest of three sons and a daughter of a chartered accountant who fled Madras in the midst of the anti-Brahmin movement in the 1940s, to Lahore — only to flee religious persecution there and settle in Delhi.

Overnight Aiyar became the poorest boy in the richest school: “This warped my psychology into turning me into the crypto-Communist that I am.”

He is also known to be obnoxious:
About T N Seshan he once wrote: “Don’t you think Seshan’s pathetic attempt to become our Rashtrapatiji proves everything I have always said about the old fraud? First, he describes his IAS colleagues as ‘prostitutes’, forgetting that since he made it to cabinet secretary, that makes him the madam of the cat house! Now after getting the admiration of his fans by saying he will retire to his ‘modest home’ in Chennai immediately on attaining superannuation from the chief election commissionership, he is doing his damnedest to get into the most immodest palace in India.”

Finally, to anyone who might accidentally stumble on to this page: I know there are a whole lot of folks who dislike and detest Mani Shankar Aiyar. If you are one of these, that's fine - you are entitled to your opinion...