At the very outset, in his already dust-kicking book 'The Accidental Prime Minister', Sanjaya Baru says that he did not share its contents with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh prior to publication. Therefore, he argues, it placed an extra weight of responsibility on him to present an 'honest account' of his times with the most bruised prime minister of the recent times.
It's perhaps good that he did not, as Singh might have frowned upon Baru's upfront charge that post the electoral victory of 2009, Manmohan "chose not to use the confidence and trust reposed in him by the people of India to assert himself" and take control of his prime ministership.
The story began, as Baru writes, in 1999 when he wrote an editorial in the Times of India on May 25, 1999 titled 'Perils of Sonia Gandhi as PM' in which he unequivocally advocated that Manmohan, not Sonia, should be the prime minister if Congress formed a government. Why Manmohan? He was, by his own admission, looking at it from Sonia's point of view - better get a trustworthy, reliable man than a political leader with ambitions. That ultimately happened in 2004 and Baru's appointment as information adviser followed. Soon enough he was no longer seeing things from Sonia's point of view.
'The Accidental Prime Minister' is an account that dwells primarily on Singh, trying to clear the air about a man who has at best been called 'weak' and at worst called a 'stooge'. Baru declares right at the beginning that it was his job and duty as information adviser to highlight the achievements of his boss. But the catch was - the better he tried to do his job, the more he would burn his fingers and earn the "ire of the Gandhi family loyalists".
There are some interesting insights into Manmohan, the person - an entity as unknown as the whereabouts of the missing Malaysian plane. The book reveals that it is only for critics and harsh opponents that the Prime Minister reserves his friendliest smile. Baru was at the receiving end once (no spoiler alert here).
The Prime Minister's habit of listening to BBC very early in the morning had once proved very helpful too. The tsunami of December 2004 had struck, and even before any intelligence or security agency got a whiff of it, Manmohan had got a 'brief' from the British broadcaster and had started making calls.
The Prime Minister's strict devotion to routine and aversion to lighter activities (think Obamas and Hawaii) is also illustrated with an anecdote about how his entourage, during a trip to Goa, had wanted to spend an extra day so as to be able to spend some time on the beach. When Baru quietly sought permission, Manmohan said, "Why? To do what?"
Nevertheless, coming out bang in the middle of an extraordinary election (the timing of publication, the author claims, was decided by the publisher), Baru cannot escape conspiracy theories, lip smacking by the Congress's rivals and the inevitable insinuation: How 'accidental' is the book itself?
In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN, the former editor appeared uncomfortable at the suggestion that the BJP would pick up the threads and say to the voter 'we told you so...' He instead tried to divert the discussion towards Manmohan's achievements and why he thought these should be brought out in the public domain.
This he does in his book effectively, and in the process continues to fulfil his duty even though he had left the corresponding position years ago. And in doing so, he has managed to wake up a sleepy PMO and a battle-scarred Congress to some uncomfortable 'home' truths.
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