The Hindu : National : Brajesh goes after a powerful innings

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 26, 2004

National

National

Brajesh goes after a powerful innings

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, MAY 25. Brajesh Mishra, who has served as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and National Security Adviser (to Atal Bihari Vajpayee) has resigned and the new Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has accepted his resignation with effect from Saturday last.

For six years, Mr. Mishra was the voice and force behind Mr. Vajpayee's prime ministerial leadership. With the possible exception of P.N. Haksar during Indira Gandhi `s first prime ministerial innings (1968-1973), no other "civil servant" has exercised the kind of influence that Mr. Mishra is deemed to have had during the Vajpayee era. As the most trusted aide of Mr. Vajpayee, he gradually emerged as the second most powerful man in the Government; eclipsing both institutional players such as the Cabinet Secretary and the Foreign Secretary as also senior Ministers. Officers and ministers alike vied with one another to be in his good books.

Himself a retired Indian Foreign Service officer, Mr. Mishra wanted to control and shape Mr. Vajpayee's foreign policy. He was very much at home in the world of global diplomacy and is credited to have been a key architect in Mr. Vajpayee's most creative diplomatic move of rapprochement with Pakistan. He had a rather taut relationship with Jaswant Singh, the then Foreign Minister but on the strength of his proximity to the Prime Minister, he won almost every battle over policy nuances with Mr. Singh. Mr. Singh's successor, Yashwant Sinha did not even try to tangle with Mr. Mishra.

At home, Mr. Mishra marshalled the bureaucratic resources behind Mr. Vajpayee's economic reforms initiatives. His success earned him the displeasure of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which wanted to emerge as an extra-constitutional authority; by temperament, training and taste, Mr. Mishra is the complete anti-thesis of the RSS and its sectarian ideology. It was, therefore, natural that when in 2000-2001 the RSS as well as a section of the BJP wanted to wage a war against Mr. Vajpayee and, as the opening gambit, the RSS leadership demanded that the then Prime Minister should get rid of his "economic advisers." The idea was that since the RSS cabal could not get rid of Mr. Vajpayee, the next best thing was to try to take over the Prime Minister's Office. Consequently, N.K. Singh, the influential Secretary in the PMO, was eased out to the Planning Commission. But Mr. Vajpayee stoutly refused to let go of Mr. Mishra.

After "9/11", Mr. Mishra's voice and influence within the Government was quite clearly pronounced. Once Mr. Advani was mollified with a Deputy Prime Ministership, Mr. Mishra, strangely enough, emerged more powerful than before. He quarterbacked the "agencies" — the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau, and the Central Bureau of Investigation — towards Mr. Vajpayee's diplomatic and political ends. But like everyone else in the Vajpayee establishment, Mr. Mishra too became a victim of the BJP's political arrogance and could not provide a corrective alternative input to his principal, the Prime Minister.

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