MANI Shankar Aiyar is the last Pakistani left in India. It is his ‘second favourite country’. It was once an option available to millions of Indian Muslims. Since 1947, Indian Muslims have witnessed with disappointment Pakistan’s descent into democratic dementia and irresponsible insolvency. They would prefer (like the Buddhists in medieval times) to quit the subcontinent and migrate to more hospitable shores.
Two periods in Mani’s long life (he is 83 years old) have conditioned his personality, his career, and his literary output. The first was the stint he spent as India’s consul general in Karachi (1978-82). It provided a seemingly bottomless reservoir of material which he has used in various books. His Memoirs of a Maverick: The First Fifty Years (1941-1991) — was released last year.
He intended his next book to be an autobiographical sequel. His publisher, though, felt it was dominated by the second Himalaya in his life — the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. They suggested a biography of Rajiv instead. Hence, Mani’s fresh book The Rajiv I Knew And Why He Was India’s Most Misunderstood Prime Minister (2024).
Ever since 1992, when Mani wrote his affectionate memoir Remembering Rajiv within a year of Rajiv’s assassination, Mani has been more loyal to the memory of Rajiv Gandhi than Rajiv’s widow Sonia and........