One summer afternoon in 2003, when Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was at the peak of his political power, I got a call from a worried Tavleen Singh, the author of Fifth Column in our paper. She was somewhere in Agra to record a show for NDTV. She had tried to take a closer look at what the local media said was some “newsy” problem in Mulayam’s extended family based near Agra, and was threatened by some local toughs.
Within minutes the phone rang again. This time it was Mulayam. And if Tavleen sounded worried, he was livid. Your journalist, he said, was poking her nose in his family’s affairs, and if she didn’t desist, he should not be held responsible for the consequences. An argument followed, short and sharp and unpleasant. I said to him a journalist had the right to look into a story and, since law and order was a state subject, he, as chief minister, was responsible for Tavleen’s safety in his state. I put the phone down, took a deep breath to calm myself.
Mulayam called again, within half an hour, directly, mobile to mobile, and said he was sorry he had lost his cool. He said he was emotionally disturbed because there had been a death in just that branch of the family that Tavleen was trying to speak to. But he did not offer that as an excuse. There was no effort to qualify that apology. I offered my own counter-apology for having lost it myself, and in a funny sort of way, we got “even”.
That, for me, was a new insight into the mind, politics and style of Mulayam Singh Yadav. But, as I got to know him better, he continued to surprise me. He did not allow this little exchange to rankle with him. But he did not forget it either. Much later, speaking at the inauguration of the Indian Express printing unit in Lucknow, he recalled that incident, in his speech, and recounted it accurately. Instead of bitterness or rancour, he spoke with appreciation and warmth. And it is not as if then — as now — this paper was being particularly kind to him, his party or his politics. What he was underlining, however, were values so essential in our old-style politics. That you never stop talking to somebody you are at odds with, that in public life you should...
