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The Rediff Interview/George Fernandes

'I cannot be silenced just because I am part of a coalition that governs India'

George Fernandes was once the hero of Bombay's working classes. Star of the city's powerful trade union movement. As George the Giant Killer. A battling socialist. Fierce enemy of the ruling classes. Punished unfairly by Indira Gandhi and jailed in the Baroda Dynamite Case. Today, he is India's defence minister in a Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition. How does he cope with the contradictions of a political career that has swung between two extremes? Pritish Nandy spoke to him last week.

Weren't you surprised to end up as defence minister when you were not keen to enter the government at all?

I had no desire to be in the government. It was not just a matter of not being keen. I was against the idea of being a minister.

But why? Surely you were not forced to accept the post?

No, but my conviction was that there is much more to be done outside of the government at this point of time. Our politics has now become legislative assembly, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha oriented. There is hardly any political activity among the people. Issues are not being taken to the people.

A Parliament member from any constituency anywhere in the country today has to worry about drinking water, sanitation not being available in his village or town for the simple reason that political activity has ceased to be.

There is no party functioning which takes up popular issues. Take, for instance, Delhi. In Delhi, there was dengue fever and the Delhi high court had to take up this issue as a public interest litigation suo moto. That is, on its own. It wanted to know what was being done about the mosquitoes, about the filth, the stink.

This shows that political activity at the municipal ward level, at the assembly constituency level is all gone. I have spent a full life time -- almost 50 years -- in political life and this is not the politics I know. Positions in government are very transient. I would have rather stayed outside and helped towards reconciling the various contradictions in our ranks. Or otherwise, resolving them.

Maybe the BJP found it more convenient to have you in the government, so that you did not stay outside and voice some of these contradictions?

No, I don't think this motivated them. It was my own colleagues who refused to join the government unless I did the same. There was no shadow boxing on this. They were very emphatic. They came with Nitish Kumar and said: If you are not in, we will also not be in this government. We will also stay outside and work along with you. This would have caused problems for everybody, not just the BJP. The issue was simple: Were we prepared to jell into one entity to govern? Or were we still keen to stay in our own respective orbits? The voters would have asked the same question. The whole world would have also asked it.

Everyone put pressure on me to give up this position. The names were to go to the President at 1600 hours that day. The whole procedure got delayed by three hours because, till 1900 hours, I was not prepared to join the government.

How and why did you finally make up your mind?

Many things happened. Some of them very funny. The rest, sad and not so funny. I cannot disclose them right now. All I can say is that I yielded under pressure. That is why, in the morning when I was going for the swearing in, one of the television networks asked me how I felt and I said: Resigned to my fate. But when I was coming out later, after being sworn in, one of the journalists who misunderstood my earlier comment jumped on me and asked: Do you mean you are going to resign now?

That is when I decided that I must stop talking in English now and speak only in Hindi.

You have always held very strong views on issues close to your heart. You are against MNCs, for Tibet, concerned with human rights issues in Burma and Sri Lanka. Many of these issues are not exactly politically correct. Not for a BJP-led coalition. How will you handle this?

Well, I suppose when you are in government you accept the fact that certain policies are rooted in our politics, in our history, in our environment and you cannot but accept them. Yet one can articulate oneself in the hope that sooner or later some of these policies will get modified. In my case, my views on human rights relating to some of these countries do not in any way impinge on the relations between India and those countries where human rights violations take place. Yes, I have very strong views on those but they will not affect our foreign relations.

How do you say that? Your views on Tibet are certainly likely to put China's back up. Just as your views on MNCs had many foreign investors scurrying for cover. Your government is yet to live those views down.

Pritish, I was in Morarji Desai's government for two years. I was in V P Singh's government. I always gave vent to my views openly and honestly.

But as defence minister you are too high up in the hierarchy to be allowed the freedom to hold views opposed to that of your government?

I will make sure that whatever I say does not in any major way impinge on the thrust of our policy towards our neighbours or, for that matter, any nation of the world. As you very rightly pointed, I have very strong views on the multinationals and I have openly voiced them.

Well, those may not be all that worrisome even though your comments drove the stock market deep into the dumps. Your views on Tibet could do far worse. You may land us into a headlong confrontation with the Chinese at a point of time when we can ill afford to take them on?

The government has to take a position on Tibet. It cannot be that the defence minister takes a position on Tibet.

But the defence minister's position on Tibet, if it is at odds with the government's position, can cause a serious crisis?

I know very well that in such matters I will always be in a minority of one. Or, at the most two. I have never been in a position where I have had more support than that inside a government. Outside, yes. But never inside the government.

However, on Tibet, there is a new development. The Dalai Lama has himself given up the demand for freedom. What he is now saying is that he wants to negotiate some autonomy for his people. So that their culture, their language, their religion is protected. He is now prepared to acknowledge that he is a part of China. So things are not as tough as they were in 1977 and 1989.

Well, on human rights, the largest number of violations are recorded in two states. One, in West Bengal. Where your Marxist friends and fellow travellers are. Two, in Maharashtra where your alliance partners are the political bosses. Bengal tops in custody deaths. Maharashtra, in encounter deaths. How will you handle this as a part of the BJP-led government?

On human rights, I make no concessions to anybody. Be it the BJP or the Communist Party of India-Marxist. I cannot be silenced just because I am part of a coalition that governs India. I will speak out my mind, whatever the consequences may be.

The Rediff Interviews