Free The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh by Sanjaya Baru Page A

in the presence of the PM. On one occasion, Narayanan shouted at Mani: ‘You are a diplomat who knows a lot about the world but knows nothing about India.’ Mani countered by asking Narayanan what he thought he knew about the country, considering he had never done ‘a good police officer’s job’. This was a reference to the fact that Narayanan, while belonging to the IPS, had spent most of his career in the IB and had never done any important ‘field’ job. These outbursts were partly a reflection of a turf war between the two, with Narayanan seeking greater control over the intelligence agencies than Mani wanted him to have.
    Dr Singh would sit through such altercations with a worried look. But on one occasion, it got a bit too much for even a man as patient as him. While Mani and Narayanan were arguing vociferously in his presence, each accusing the other of overstepping his bounds, Dr Singh at first kept quiet, then got up abruptly, looking visibly irritated. That was a signal that the meeting was over and we could all leave. Nair, Mani and MK trooped out, while I walked with the PM to the antechamber where he read his files and letters.
    He seemed disturbed by this sharp exchange in his presence, so I tried to cheer him up. I pointed out that it was good that different points of view were being aired. This would allow the PM to decide which view to take. I also reminded Dr Singh that when there were such differences between Montek and Deepak Nayyar in the ministry of finance, Dr Singh had chosen to ease Deepak out on the grounds that there was no time for intellectual arguments in the ministry in the midst of a balance of payments crisis. But there was no crisis at hand now and a new team was taking charge, so let ‘a thousand ideas bloom and a hundred views contend’, I suggested, paraphrasing Mao Zedong.
    I also reminded him that even Indira Gandhi and Nehru had around them officials and colleagues who disagreed bitterly with one another. After hearing me out, he smiled and said, ‘I am not sure they all shouted at each other!’
     
     
    I had a lesson in the PMO’s internal dynamics on day one in the new job. The first piece of paper that landed in the in-tray on my desk was a newspaper clipping marked for my attention by Nair, with his handwritten comment, ‘Quite interesting indeed!!!’ It was a report in a local tabloid with the headline ‘Musical Chambers at PMO’, and referred to the battle for rooms in South Block.
    The principal secretary’s room was located at the other end of the corridor from the PM’s room. Brajesh Mishra, the room’s occupant during Vajpayee’s term, had doubled up as principal secretary to the PM and India’s first NSA. The Manmohan Singh PMO had a problem. Now that the two posts had been separated, where would Nair, as the new principal secretary, sit and where would Mani Dixit, the new NSA, have his office? To add to the complications, a new special adviser (SA), Narayanan, had also to be accommodated. A third room of equal importance had to be identified for him.
    The news report suggested that Nair, Mani and the new minister of state in the PMO, Prithviraj Chavan, were all eyeing the corner room and that Nair had won the first round. He was now the proud occupant of Brajesh Mishra’s room. I found it amusing that Nair should choose to mark that news item to me with his comment and the three exclamation marks. As it happened, he did inherit Mishra’s room, with Mani seated in what used to be the room of the secretary in the PMO and Narayanan given a room of similar size down the corridor.
    This was not, of course, the kind of problem that some had anticipated when they criticized Dr Singh’s decision to give the jobs of principal secretary and NSA to two different people, and not vest them in a single individual, as Vajpayee had done. Dr Singh had taken this decision on the advice of K. Subrahmanyam, who had championed the creation of the office of the NSA. The