The four decade relationship of Natwar Singh with the most influential Gandhi family has finally seen the lights of disappointment which is clearly evident from the excerpts of the autobiography written by Natwar Singh. What really went wrong? Why Natwar took so long to break his silence? Was this the right time to strike? Is it just an act to publicize and increase the sales of his book “One Life is not enough" ? Let us find some true answers to the above questions which are pondering in everyone’s mind.
Kunwar Natwar Singh a former senior bureaucrat, an Indian politician, a writer and a former Union cabinet minister one name with a diverse personality. In his first assignment Singh served in the Indian Foreign Service which is touted to be one of the most prestigious government services for 31 years. During his service in IFS worked on various crucial assignments. He was India's representative to Executive Board of UNICEF, In 1966, he was posted to the Prime Minister's Secretariat under Mrs Indira Gandhi. He even accompanied Ms. Indira Gandhi on her State visit to the U.S. in 1982. He also served as the Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs from March 1982 to November 1984. He was awarded with the prestigious Padma Bhushan by the government in the year 1984. His closeness to the Gandhi family increased and in 1984, he resigned from the service to contest elections as a member of the Congress party. He won the election and served as a union minister of state until 1989.He had an erratic political career until being made India's foreign minister in 2004 but had to resign after a short term of 18 months later as he and his party had come under fire after the U.Ns Volcker committee named them as recipient of illegitimate payoffs in the Iraqi oil scam.
Nobody is aware of the contribution of Natwar Singh towards the growth and rise of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Apart from being an ardent admirer of Jawaharlal Nehru he had great loyalty towards Indira. He was also a very close aide of Rajiv Gandhi. From the period May 1991-2005, he switched roles from literary matters to peace-maker to street fighter and acted as an adviser to Sonia. In 2005 as per the Volcker Committee report the then External Affairs minister in Manmohan Singh's UPA1 government Mr. Natwar Singh was named for alleged corruption in the Oil for Food programme in Iraq. It was professed that Natwar Singh misemployed his official power to acquire oil coupons for his son Jagat Singh. Though all the allegations were against the entire Congress party, but the trustworthy Natwar was targeted to save the parties image and singled out. In a short span of his ministership where he was briefly a minister without portfolio was ultimately dropped from the government and the party. What was more humiliating was in the way he was terminated from the party by circulating a notice among the members. This was the fruits that he had received in return for the long nurtured friendship with the Gandhi's. The doors to Janapath 10 which once were always open were now permanently shut for him.
Just when the congress was recovering from the blow they received in the form of the book, “Accidental Prime Minister: Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh” by Sanjaya Baru who was the prime misters former media advisor they have received another blow which seems to be more harder in the form of another book “One life is not enough” by Natwar Singh who spills some unbelievable realties about the party which not going down well with the party chief Sonia and the party itself. It talks about what took place within the government during UPA-I and the equation Manmohan Singh and Sonia shared.
Singh’s book shows an unfavourable image of Congress party chief and even calls her "Machiavellian" leader who has been "coarsened" by politics. In his book he says that Sonia and Rahul are on the top one position in the party and rest all the members in the bottom at the last position. There is no second third or any other position.
"What Sonia Gandhi has achieved is to reduce the Congress, one of the greatest political parties of the world, to a rump of forty-four members in the Lok Sabha," he wrote.
The book might have come at the right time when the congress party which was in power for a decade lost to the BJP in a worst ever defeat which created history in Indian Politics. But Singh defends by saying that he started the book way back in 2011 and working on it since then. It took three years for him to complete the book and has hence published it now. After his confirmation of the second book in making congress has all the reasons to worry.
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