Vinod Sharma, Political Editor, picks his favourite read of 2021

There can be disagreement over many things about VP Singh, but not the “disruptor” moniker Debashish Mukerji has chosen for him. Indian politics changed forever after VP culled out the 1980 Mandal Commission report to enforce 27 percent reservation for backward classes

Having known Debashish Mukerji and the subject of his work, former Prime Minister VP Singh rather well, I couldn’t have not read The Disruptor: How Vishwanath Pratap Singh Shook India. As a journalist with a ringside view of VP’s emergence as India’s Mr Clean who quit the Congress to become the PM, I went through the book not as much out of curiosity as out of an urge to recall the man who’d often say: “Mandal (affirmative action) can’t be contained, it’ll break free of kamandal (the BJP’s Hindutva).” His words resonate still with every effort of the then sceptical religious Right to now reach out to backward class identities he’d sought to empower, albeit as a shoddily executed gambit to ward off threats to the non-denominational secular state bequeathed by the makers of our constitution.

Debashish Mukerji’s book is noteworthy for its meticulous research. (HT Team)

Over three decades since, Mandal remains a factor in our polity embodying a see-saw between faith and caste (class). There can be disagreement over many things about VP, but not the “disruptor” moniker Mukerji has chosen for him. Indian politics changed forever after he culled out the 1980 Mandal Commission report to enforce 27 percent reservation for backward classes.

Vinod Sharma (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO)

There are passages in the book which, one must confess, could be a revelation for many raconteurs of that period in our history. Quite startling and unknown to me were the differences within the family over VP’s will that agonised him no end in his twilight years. His demise on November 27, 2008 -- a day after the terror attack on Mumbai -- was but an extension of the forlorn life he led in isolation from his own forward caste clansmen angered by his OBC pitch which has since become the mantra of all parties -- ranging from the BJP which opposed it initially and the Congress whose social base it obliterated in the Hindi heartland. My own remembrance piece on VP that night was a rushed job buried on inside pages of this newspaper, the country overwhelmed by the gravity of the 26/11 stab in the heart of our financial capital.

The book is noteworthy for the meticulous research that has gone into its making. A chapter that stood out in my reading is on the abduction and release of then-home minister Mufti Sayeed’s daughter in exchange for five jailed terrorists. What a disastrous start it was of VP’s short tenure as PM.