He was always a Young Turk. Despite becoming Prime Minister in the 1990s, Chandra Shekhar remained a "born rebel". He was among the last of the leaders who had that old charm of politics. He was a friend to his friends, and always lived life on his own terms.
He was perhaps the only political leader after Independence who undertook the padyatra of 4,260 km from Kanyakumari to Rajghat, New Delhi (January 6 to June 25, 1983) to establish a rapport with the masses and understand their problems. He was called the "Bharat Yatri".
But the greatness of Chandra Shekhar was that he lived a life of self-respect. When the Congress started to bully him (while he was PM), he walked from the Lok Sabha to Rashtrapati Bhavan to hand over his resignation.
When he was in the Congress, he refused to be a sycophant and had contested elections to the CWC. He refused to succumb to pressures of heavyweights in the Janata Party, which ultimately led to its split and the fall of the first non-Congress government at the Centre.
His uncompromising and defiant nature made him different from other political leaders of his time. This is because he always aspired for the top.
He was fond of Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and used to call him "Gurudev". The latter used to respond with the same affection: "Guru gur raha aur chela shakkar ban gaya." This was heard many times in the Lok Sabha. But he was a different person there. He was a harsh critic of the government, any government, and it was criticism that could not be ignored. When he rose to speak, MPs listened in rapt attention.
He was a multifaceted personality: veteran parliamentarian, a rare breed of politician, a writer, a journalist editing Young India, and a leader who did not bother about the numbers in Parliament.
His active political life lasted for well over half a century. It started in 1951 when he was made Ballia district secretary of the Praja Socialist Party.
Chandra Shekhar stood against the politics of personality and stoutly opposed liberalisation policies, reflecting the socialist ideology that he passionately espoused.
So blunt were his views that he incurred the wrath of his then party leader, late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who jailed him during the Emergency in 1975 along with top Opposition figures like Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Charan Singh, Madhu Limaye, George Fernandes and L.K. Advani.
When the Janata Dal came to power in 1989 after the defeat of the Congress, V.P. Singh and Devi Lal united to keep him out of the top job. When that government fell less than a year later, Chandra Shekhar finally became Prime Minister with the support of Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress.
He wanted to resolve the Babri Masjid issue, which had transformed India’s politics after L.K. Advani’s rathyatra. He had involved then chief ministers Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Pawar and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in talks with both the groups in an effort to find a solution, but before this could get under way his government fell and the Lok Sabha was dissolved.
Born on July 1, 1927 in a farmer’s family at Ibrahimpatti in Ballia, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Chandra Shekhar was attracted to politics from his student days and was known as a firebrand idealist. After his stint at Allahabad University, he joined the socialist movement in the early 1950s. An associate of Acharya Narendra Dev, Chandra Shekhar was with the Praja Socialist Party for long and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1962.
He joined the Congress three years later and was elected general secretary of the Congress Party in Parliament. As a member of Parliament, Chandra Shekhar made a mark opposing policies he thought were harmful and was strongly against the growth of monopolies with state patronage.
He came to be known as a "Young Turk" for his convictions and courage in the fight against vested interests.
The other "Young Turks" who formed a so-called "ginger group" in the Congress at that time included leaders like Mohan Dharia and Ram Dhan, who were also imprisoned during the Emergency. The late Feroze Gandhi, husband of Mrs Indira Gandhi, also used to be a part of this "ginger group" during the days of the undivided Congress.
Immediately after the Emergency ended, Chandra Shekhar was kept out of the governmental power structure and became the first president of the Janata Party, formed in 1977 in the flush of electoral success that heralded the first non-Congress government at the Centre.
After 1977, he was elected to the Lok Sabha in all general elections except in 1984, when the Congress swept the polls after Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
Chandra Shekhar was known for his flawless oratory and a matter-of-fact style in which he held no punches. He would be hard-hitting in his criticism when occasion demanded.
He was Prime Minister for only seven months, and his government could not bring out a full-fledged Budget. The country at that time was passing through a grave economic crisis, with foreign exchange reserves dipping to dangerous levels that forced the government to pledge gold in the international markets.
