Obituary: He remained a rebel all through his life

Chandra Shekhar (1927-2007)

He was always a Young Turk. Despite becoming Prime Minister in the 1990s, Chandra Shekhar remained a “born rebel”. He was among the last of the leaders who had that old charm of politics. He was a friend to his friends, and always lived life on his own terms.

He was perhaps the only political leader after Independence who undertook the padyatra of 4,260 km from Kanyakumari to Rajghat, New Delhi (January 6 to June 25, 1983) to establish a rapport with the masses and understand their problems. He was called the “Bharat Yatri”.

But the greatness of Chandra Shekhar was that he lived a life of  self-respect. When the Congress started to bully him (while he was PM), he walked from the Lok Sabha to Rashtrapati Bhavan to hand over his resignation. When he was in the Congress, he refused to be a sycophant and had contested elections to the CWC. He refused to succumb to pressures of heavyweights in the Janata Party, which ultimately led to its split and the fall of the first non-Congress government at the Centre. His uncompromising and defiant nature made him different from other political leaders of his time. This is because he always aspired for the top.

He was fond of Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and used to call him “Gurudev”. The latter used to respond with the same affection: “Guru gur raha aur chela shakkar ban gaya.” This was heard many times in the Lok Sabha. But he was a different person there. He was a harsh critic of the government, any government, and it was criticism that could not be ignored. When he rose to speak, MPs listened in rapt attention.

He was a multifaceted personality: veteran parliamentarian, a rare breed of politician, a writer, a journalist editing Young India, and a leader who did not bother about the numbers in Parliament. His active political life lasted for well over half a century. It started in 1951 when he was made Ballia district secretary of the Praja Socialist Party.

Chandra Shekhar stood against the politics of personality and stoutly opposed liberalisation policies, reflecting the socialist ideology that he passionately espoused.

So blunt were his views that he incurred the wrath of his then party leader, late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who jailed him during the Emergency in 1975 along with top Opposition figures like Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Charan Singh, Madhu Limaye, George Fernandes and L.K. Advani.