Rahul Gandhi's 'nonsense' ordinance comment undermined PM's dignity: AP Venkateswaran, ex-diplomat

NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi's comments on the controversial ordinance to protect convicted lawmakers on Friday and its purported collateral damage to PM Manmohan Singh has catapulted an episode from more than a quarter century ago into public consciousness - that of a respected diplomat who was unceremoniously sacked by the late Rajiv Gandhi.


The man at the centre of that incident - AP Venkateswaran, now an 84-year-old settled in Bangalore - expressed surprise at the Congress vice-president's behaviour. Venkateswaran, who did not stay on in office even for a day, when asked what Manmohan Singh should do, said the prime minister's position had been undermined. "The PM is a man of dignity. Singh is holding an important constitutional post. It is now up to him to decide his next course of action," he told ET.

Pressed further, he only said that "Singh means lion", pointedly refusing to get drawn into making a direct comment on whether the prime minister should quit.

As for the impact of the incident, he said the "Congress has shot itself in the foot following the episode".

Venkateswaran said while the two situations were not identical, he was surprised by Rahul Gandhi's act. "It cannot happen that the Congress vice-president had no knowledge of the provisions of the ordinance on convicted lawmakers," he said, adding the manner of Gandhi's utterances had undermined the dignity of the prime ministerial chair.

The fate of Venkateswaran is an immortal tale in the annals of Indian diplomacy. A well-regarded diplomat who had risen to the peak of India's foreign policy establishment, he famously resigned forthwith on January 21, 1987, after the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, in response to a question from a Pakistani journalist during a press conference, quipped: "You will be talking to a new foreign secretary soon".

The late prime minister's comments are being likened to his son's utterances on Friday, when he declared the ordinance on convicted politicians as "nonsense" that "should be torn up and thrown away", disregarding the fact that it had been cleared by the Cabinet led by the PM and the party's top leadership.

The remarks triggered talk that Gandhi's utterances had humiliated Manmohan Singh, much like Venkateswaran was insulted by his father 26 years ago, and that Singh should resign.

Asked about the original episode to which parallels are being drawn, Venkateswaran declined to elaborate what happened then, saying: "It is neither pleasant nor necessary at this stage. It will raise unnecessary curiosity."

News reports from that era speak of how Rajiv Gandhi had summarily dismissed Venkateswaran during a press conference in Delhi. Venkateswaran, during a press conference in Islamabad in December 1986, had stated that Rajiv Gandhi would visit different SAARC capitals, including Pakistan's.

But a month later, the then prime minister, during a press conference in New Delhi, said in response to a question from a Pakistani journalist that he would not visit Islamabad in the near future. When the journalist pointed out the inconsistency in his statement and that of his foreign secretary, Rajiv Gandhi uttered the now-immortal sentence: "You will be talking to a new foreign secretary soon".

That comment was made in the presence of Venkateswaran, who was in the audience taking notes. Stung by the humiliation, Venkateswaran resigned immediately and also took premature retirement from the Indian Foreign Service.

It is said that Rajiv Gandhi met Venkateswaran the very next day, apologised and offered him any post he wanted. But the foreign secretary stuck to his decision to resign.

On January 23, the Indian Foreign Service Association, a body of foreign service officers, in an unprecedented move met and adopted a resolution against the late prime minister's action against the foreign secretary. The original draft resolution was later toned down at the advice of senior diplomats present at the meeting.