Opinion Getting along with the Gandhis
When P.C. Alexander headed the PMO,civil servants had to choose political sides. But that couldnt make him president.
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Although P. C. Alexander attracted the limelight only in 1981,when Indira Gandhi handpicked him as her principal secretary after returning to power a year earlier,his record ever since joining the IAS in 1948 had been shining. No matter where he was posted and whatever his job,he drew praise for being upright,efficient and hardworking.
This obviously influenced Indira Gandhis decision. But another factor was also at work. Such was the milieu during Indira Gandhis Emergency,through the Janata rule,and even after her return to power,that members of the higher bureaucracy suspected to be loyal to the other side usually got a raw deal. Against this backdrop,Morarji Desai,as prime minister,had reverted Alexander already a secretary to government of India to his home state,Kerala,something that is usually not done. Alexander accepted,instead,an offer of a suitable job in a Geneva-based world trade organisation. It was there that he got the call to return to Delhi and head the Prime Ministers Office.
His peers in the government and those who worked for him in the PMO still swear by his fair and firm leadership. Some say that next only to P. N. Haksar,he was the most powerful principal secretary to the PM. The difference is that while even Haksar fell from grace after some years,Alexander never did. He enjoyed her fullest confidence,and his loyalty to her was unstinted.
This should explain why after his mothers assassination,Rajiv Gandhi asked Alexander to be his principal secretary as well. Unfortunately,this association was short-lived. In 1985,a spy scandal erupted in the PMO. It turned out that the principal secretarys private secretary and some others were copying secret documents and selling them to a spymaster at New Delhis Hailey Road. Alexander had nothing whatsoever to do with this. But,as a man of honour,he accepted constructive responsibility and resigned. Rajiv appointed him high commissioner to London,and made him governor of Tamil Nadu three years later.
P. V. Narasimha Rao,who became prime minister in 1991,and Alexander were very close to each other. Rao indeed relied on his sage advice. Both of them thought that Alexander should be elected vice-president in 1992,but that was not to be. He went to Raj Bhavan in Mumbai instead,where he stayed from 1993 to 2002. This time around,his ambition was to be president. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was willing to support him. What shocked him was Congress president Sonia Gandhis refusal to do so. Her party was accusing him of going over to the enemy. Alexanders autobiography,one of the three books he wrote,fully reflects his bitterness.
An account of his life cannot be complete,however,without mentioning that Indira Gandhi sometimes liked to direct her impish humour at her favoured civil servant. On one occasion,when Alexander was praising the latest episode in the famous TV series Yes,Minister aired the previous night,she asked him: Did you recognise yourself in it?
The writer is a Delhi-based political commenator
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