The problem with biographies is that no one likes to write the truth. The even bigger problem is that no one can quite remember it. Trawling through bookshelves, it would seem all Indians who deserve biographies are boringly unblemished. Ergo, why write a biography or even an autobiography, if it is only to glorify the individual? Naturally, the subjects of biographies would agree with such representation, but how does it help us understand them?

An earlier generation of Indian leaders would not agree. The one person who broke the hagiography tradition completely and remains a biographer’s delight is, of course, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He wrote in such great detail about his often uncomfortable ‘truths’ that he spawned hundreds of books that attempted to analyse everything about him, including his sexual appetite. Nehru’s Autobiography is a delight to read and is frank about his differences with his mentor, the Mahatma. Alas, there are not too many of his kind around.

Today’s leaders commission their ‘hagiographies’ which their sycophants buy in large numbers but which remain unread. If by chance an intrepid biographer were to tell even a smidgen of truth, law suits are threatened much prior to publication, and worse may follow. More dreadful is your fate if you happen to begin your biography when your subject is in power but falls from grace by the time it’s out. If you praise your subject, the new neta is upset. If you criticise, then you may find false friends among his enemies. The best way then, as one leading TV anchor did, is to drop the project. You lose power and you lose visibility.

... contd.