In retrospect, it appears reasonably certain that Devi Lal’s fate was virtually sealed the day he used a forged letter, allegedly written by VP Singh as an MP to President Venkataraman, to lend ‘substance’ to his earlier charge of corruption against Arun Nehru.
The issue for VP Singh was no longer just the honour of Cabinet colleagues – Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan – which Devi Lal had brazenly called into question during the Chautala upheaval in the middle of last month. The issue for him now was Devi Lal’s involvement with the Rajiv set-up which had sought to finish his political career since around the middle of 1987, at least partly on the strength of a series of forged documents, culminating in the St. Kitts affair. The Rajiv-Devi ‘collage’ was too much for him to ‘live with’.
Devi Lal’s second letter, along with a copy of the forged letter, was delivered to VP Singh on the eve of the latter’s departure for Moscow on July 23. I think that the Prime Minister would have more or less made up his mind to sack Devi Lal by the time he left for the Soviet Union.
The Izvestia editorial openly hinting at a possibility of a change of Prime Minister in Delhi could have reinforced him in his view that he could avoid a decision on Devi Lal only at the risk of loss of credibility abroad as well, with dangerous consequences for the country. In any event, publication of Devi Lal’s interview in The Illustrated Weekly calling several ministers names and VP Singh himself ‘spineless’ must have clinched the issue for the Prime Minister.
There had been no dearth of evidence of a possible link-up between the Rajiv set-up and Devi Lal since last January when the former Prime Minister showed a sudden concern for the ‘honour’ of ‘our Deputy Prime Minister’ during the all-party committee’s visit to Srinagar. But this evidence was indirect. The use of the forged letter spoke of close cooperation.
In the circumstances, only one exit was available to Devi Lal. Which was to disclose the name of the individual who had given him a copy of the forged letter. This was specially so after the publication in the Indian Express on July 28 of Arun Shourie’s piece disclosing that Devi Lal had used a forged letter, involving not only the Prime Minister but also the President of the Republic, and establishing beyond reasonable doubt the fact of the forgery. Devi Lal, however, refused to take this exit.
Devi Lal must know well the man who supplied the forged letter. His refusal to identify the individual would in fact suggest that the connection is neither new nor casual. Beyond this, however, we are in the land of the unknown. Question after question leap out to which it is not yet possible even to attempt possible answers.
Was Devi Lal not aware that the letter was a forgery? Did even the suspicion not cross his mind? Was he totally oblivious to the fact of other forgeries? If he has been manipulated, why is he not willing to spill the beans? If he was a willing partner in the affair, how could he be so stupid as to think that he could fool the very VP Singh who is alleged to have written the letter but who, in fact, never wrote it? The whole thing is bizarre beyond words.
I can, though, think of two possible explanations. First, that Devi Lal had been feeling so frustrated and desperate that he just did not care if the attempt to corner his opponents, including the Prime Minister, involved the risk of his own dismissal. If it is indeed true, as reported, that he has expressed relief over his dismissal, this would appear to have been the case.
Secondly, that he has worked out a plan of action, in collaboration with the Rajiv set-up or independently of it, which required that if he failed to topple VP Singh, he would force the Prime Minister to sack him. Devi Lal’s persistent attacks on the former Jan Morcha members and his selection of Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan as special target have clearly been intended to embarrass and isolate VP Singh. It is not inconceivable that these have also been intended to provoke him into taking action against him.
My explanation for VP Singh’s decision finally to act is more psychological than political. I have for long believed that personal honour is most important for VP Singh. His latest decision has only confirmed me in my assessment. This is not to say that he had been left with much choice in the matter but to express serious doubt that VP Singh has made a cool and careful calculation of the possible consequences of his action.
No one can possibly expect Devi Lal to sit back and ruminate over his ‘follies’. He is not given to self-introspection. He is bound to swing into action without much loss of time. But we have to wait and see what course of action he embarks on. Meanwhile a broad schism in the Janata Dal is obvious enough.
While the Cabinet virtually demanded Devi Lal’s head last Sunday, the Chief Ministers of UP, Bihar, Orissa and Gujarat refused to fall in line with that approach. The acting party chief, SR Bommai, has apparently been won over by VP Singh. But Bommai does not count for much. So the future of the Janata Dal remains uncertain. The crisis in it has not been resolved; it has only taken a new shape, the contours of which are at present barely visible.
It was this obvious division between the Cabinet and the Chief Ministers which, above all else, made it difficult for analysts to anticipate VP Singh’s decision. We have all been taken by surprise. If there is an exception, it can only be Arun Shourie whose ‘privileged sources’ could have let him into the secret. His piece on July 28 certainly bore visible marks of access to those sources. This brings me to the question of responsibility for the denouement.
In a basic sense, it is pointless to blame either VP Singh or Devi Lal for it. Both, to begin with, were highly unlikely candidates for the roles in which distortions in our public life under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi cast them. One had to be an innocent abroad to believe that they could work together.
If, however, we have to engage in blame apportionment, it will be patently dishonest to hold Devi Lal solely responsible for bringing the Janata government into disrepute and trouble. VP Singh cannot avoid his share of the blame.
Devi Lal is not just a country cousin who has not been able to make himself acceptable to New Delhi’s elite. This is his own self-description and possibly self-perception; such men are capable of enormous self-deception and self-pity. He is a bully and he tells lies from both sides of his mouth. Above all, as Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, Chief Minister of post-partition United Punjab, said of him after bitter experience as his political boss, Devi Lal is a wrecker.
His passionate attachment to his son, Om Prakash Chautala, has provided him the necessary incentive to play havoc with the Janata Dal government; but he could have discovered or invented another pretext just as well; he had to do the deed.
But one thing has to be said in favour of the Jat patriarch from Haryana. He shoots straight from the hip, his own; he does not either rest his gun on someone else’s shoulder or hide behind a Shikhandi (of Mahabharat fame). The same cannot be said about VP Singh. If anything, the reverse is true of him.
If someone thinks I am biased or guilty of exaggeration, let me hasten to produce evidence. In the midst of the upheaval in the Janata Dal over the ‘re-election’ of Chautala as Chief Minister of Haryana on July 12, Devi Lal wrote a letter to VP Singh on July 16 to accuse Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan of corruption. The text was quickly leaked.
I for one am persuaded that the leak came from VP Singh’s side and the purpose was to give the press, understandably hostile to Devi Lal in large measure, another stick to beat him with. Which is precisely what it did.
Even so it is plausible to argue that the leak could have come from Devi Lal’s side as well because he needed to impress his own supporters. But what about Devi Lal’s second letter to VP Singh which has led to his dismissal?
This time the evidence is foolproof. This time only the Indian Express, openly hostile to Devi Lal, got hold of the text of the letter. It alone knew not only that Devi Lal had attached a copy of a forged letter, allegedly by VP Singh himself, but also that it had been attested by a woman notary in Bangalore. So it alone could marshal the necessary evidence to show that VP Singh’s ‘letter’ was a forgery and a pretty crude one at that. Surely this was a clear case of ‘war by proxy’. Indeed, so it was last May when Chautala was forced to resign following a front-page denunciation by Arun Shourie.
If VP Singh did not believe in war by proxy, he would have engaged in a free and frank discussion with Devi Lal last February itself when the Chautala bomb first exploded in the shape of outrageous rigging in the Meham constituency and tried to convince him that it was in everyone’s best interest that Chautala owned ‘moral responsibility’ and stepped down. He may not have succeeded. Even so, the basis of a new relationship might have been established.
VP Singh did not even try; in the process, he allowed an anti-Devi Lal campaign to build up. This would have been an appropriate strategy if he was planning to get rid of Devi Lal and had reason to believe not only that he could mobilize the necessary support in the Janata Dal and among the supporting allies but also that he could cope with the consequences. He had no good reason to so believe.
A second opportunity presented itself to VP Singh to try to thrash out a proper equation with Devi Lal three months later in May when once again the by-election in Meham had to be countermanded, this time on account of the murder of an independent candidate in highly suspicious circumstances. Again, he missed the opportunity for a frank one-to-one discussion with Devi Lal and allowed himself to be led, as it were, by the press.
VP Singh’s tendency towards escapism was again in evidence during the third crisis in the Janata Dal last month, provoked by the return of Chautala as Haryana’s Chief Minister. He first resigned in preference to a confrontation with Devi Lal; he then withdrew his resignation and pretended that the crisis had blown over just because Devi Lal had agreed to acquiesce in Chautala’s resignation. Indeed, he said that the Janata Dal had emerged stronger as a result.
He should have known that it was equally important to ask Devi Lal to withdraw his charges of corruption against Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan; alternatively he should have declared that he was satisfied that there was no substance in them. Instead he asked Devi Lal to produce the necessary evidence and thus prepared, unwittingly in my view, the ground for the latest blow-up.
But as it happened, this produced an excellent opportunity for VP Singh to deal effectively with Devi Lal without provoking an open confrontation. A shrewd leader in his place would not have allowed Devi Lal’s letter, along with the piece of forgery, to leak to the press; he would have used it to convince Devi Lal that he had been taken for a ride by those who had provided him the forged letter and that those people had been manipulating him in order to destroy the Janata Dal government and him with it. Instead VP Singh either chose a confrontationist approach or allowed himself to be pushed in that direction.
It is not my case that VP-Devi partnership could have congealed if VP Singh was more straightforward and skilful. My case is that VP Singh has not been straight forward, skilful and daring and that his approach has complicated an inherently difficult relationship. Devi Lal is too self-centred, undependable and too indifferent to considerations of public morality to be a stable partner. But that only emphasised the need for a temperament and skills on the part of VP Singh which he has not demonstrated. The consequences can be serious.
Sunday Mail, 5 August 1990