The Rediff Interview/Subramanian Swamy

'Unless politics is cleaned, Indian society cannot be cleaned'

You said the BJP is communal and there are several casteist parties in India now. Where does the Janata Party stand?

The Janata Party is the only party which is still campaigning on the basis of secular issues. We talk about fighting corruption, we talk about economic development, we are talking about alternatives to the present thinking. Certainly, we were the first to talk about the necessity for a market economy. Liberalisation was actually prepared in documentation by me when I was the minister, when Chandra Shekhar was prime minister. We couldn't implement it.

Within ten days of coming to power, Narasimha Rao implemented it. He couldn't have prepared it in ten days. He just adopted our plan. It was actually prepared on months of research that I did. Manmohan Singh was an adviser to our government. Montek Singh (Ahluwalia) was my commerce secretary then.

We, at the Janata Party, are trying to seek public support on these ideas. In the last election, even though I lost, I came second. There is hope in this state. I might be able to re-establish a national thinking in this state.

Why this state alone?

Because India is a very big place. I have to demonstrate in one place. Like Gandhi demonstrated in Champaran and that excited the whole country. In the same way if I am able to establish in Tamil Nadu....

Do you think you will be accepted here?

No leader in Tamil Nadu gets as much crowds as I get without giving them biryani and 25 rupees. See the amount of votes that we got... Our public meetings are widely attended. What else is the way to judge?

Is it not difficult to establish your presence in a state which is dominated by Dravidian parties?

From you journalists, I have heard nothing but this kind of pessimism. When I was fighting Jayalalitha, they said this state deifies cinema actresses and she is very popular in the rural areas. I used to say that she is more unpopular in the rural areas than urban areas. And you journalists mislead Narasimha Rao, and he made his fatal error of his life by teaming up with Jayalalitha.

All through my college days, people used to say that a south Indian can't be prime minister. Today, we have two south Indians in a row... I don't accept these things. You live with these cliches, I don't have to.

Don't you think all Indians, especially the younger generation, have become more and more pessimistic?

I don't think so. Except in politics, Indians are shining in every other field. If they are pessimistic, it is only because there is no inspiration at the political level. But it is your fault.

Is it not the fault of the politicians?

Politicians do not drop from heaven. They have to come from society. When society says, politics is dirty, avoid it, then only third rate people will go into it. I don't want to tell others to come without doing it. That's why I left a Harvard professorship to come into politics.

I have heard that you came into politics because you were denied posts in various Indian universities due to political interference. Is it true?

I was a professor at Harvard, how can I be denied posts in universities? What a stupid thing to say! You must be moving amongst my enemies who are using you as a guinea pig for spreading false propaganda. I am a professor. After fifteen years of politics, I went back again in 1985-86 to teach at the professor's level at Harvard.

I know that, But your entry into politics...

I don't know from where you hear all these things. If I am accepted at Harvard, and if I am denied here, it is a bad commentary on those who have denied it. Okay, it is a fact that I had opposed Mrs Gandhi, her bank nationalisation and her socialism. And I was a full professor at IIT. All the communists ganged up and got me sacked.

To teach them a lesson, I had to fight it in court, a case which I won after twenty years. I felt unless politics is clearned up, nothing can cleaned up. I came into politics, not because I was frustrated but with a sense of mission.

To cleanse the system?

No. To give new hope. To make a sacrifice. I think you journalists, you hard boiled characters may not understand these things. These higher sentiments are beyond you people.

You always claim that you have in your possession various secret documents. How do you get them? Do you have any detectives working for you?

(laughs) I have a network which arises out of the following things: First, I was brought up in Delhi in a bureaucratic family. I went to school in Delhi and most of my classmates are in the IAS or IFS or in the army or the intelligence. Large numbers of my students and colleagues are well placed all over the world.

I am a good friend and I stand by people. If a friend of mine gets into trouble, I won't desert him. I may not participate in his illegalities but I will not desert him. So, people have confidence that I will stand by them and I will not let them down. I don't need to have any detectives working for me. I can pick up the telephone, call somebody in Delhi and find out what is what. I can call up all the banks in Switzerland, London, New York.... there will be somebody who will know somebody. I have that kind of a network.

Generally you are portrayed as a nutty professor.

I don't know who portrays (me like that). I am not portrayed like that by the masses of Tamil Nadu. You just name somebody who portrays me like that, then I will give a reply. I can't accept it. It doesn't show up when I go on tour in the state or any part of the country. I don't know who has brainwashed you, who has used you as a guinea pig. You just tell me who portrays me like that.

Oh no! That's the way people talk, that's all.

I am sure you have made this up or somebody who is against me has brainwashed you. You come with me to the road and ask anyone whether they see me as a nutty professor. I haven't heard anything like that.

Just because I give you an interview, you can't say any garbage that comes to your mind. If you are an intelligent person, you will go out in the real world and find out what people think of me. They think very highly of me, my courage, my ability to fight corruption. There was a lot of propaganda against me when Jayalalitha extended support to my candidate. Then people rose to my defence and said, yes, he is doing the right thing. He is not withdrawing any cases.

The enormous credibility and faith that people have in me is very touching. Instead of sitting around in the cocktail clubs of Madras, you should go out and see what is happening in the rural areas, okay? People are very grateful that I am in politics. They want me to succeed. I am trying to liberate the masses from the clutches of communalism and casteism. The day I succeed, it will be a major revolution in the country.

These days, the Indian people do not have any respect for politicians, and they do not believe them at all. They feel that all politicians are corrupt.

(angry) So?

How do you react to this?

That's precisely why I came into politics. Unless politics is cleaned up, nothing in Indian society can be cleaned up. These people who speak like that are selfish people, they do not want to do anything for society.

I think politics is not dirty, politicians are because you have allowed the dregs of society to come into politics. That is why it is dirty. You need people who are educated, who understand the complexities of life, of society, and the nuances in making decisions.

You talked about liberating people from the clutches of casteism and communalism. Is it not true that we did not talk so much about caste and religion till recently? Now they dominate us. Who is to blame for this?

The principal criminals in this are the BJP and Mr V P Singh. These are the two people who polluted Indian politics in such a way that a Phoolan Devi can get elected, and people with 14 MPs can become prime minister of India.

We call ourselves a secular country. Are we really secular?

I would say that any genuine Hindu is secular. But the BJP Hindu is a negative fundamentalist. He is not a Hindu. I don't consider the BJP a Hindu party at all. People call it a Hindu party. I say it is wrong. They are an anti-Muslim party. They have no programmes for the Hindus. They have only programmes for hatred. Take for example, Kailash and Mansarovar. At least I got them opened so that every Hindu Indian pilgrim can go to Kailash and Mansarovar which is in Tibet. Have the BJP ever spoken about these two places, and done anything?

By doing so, don't people call your party a Hindu party?

My party is certainly a Hindu party without being anti-Muslim. In our party, Muslims can also be proud Muslims without being anti-Hindu. I would like people to take pride in their religion, to evolve it and improve it, and bring about a renaissance in their religion.

What about the Congress?

The Congress is.... it depends on which Congress you mean. Their ideology goes on changing. The ideology of Jawaharlal Nehru? The ideology of Indira Gandhi? The ideology of Rajiv Gandhi?

I mean the present Congress.

The Congress used to criticise me in the Lok Sabha when I used to advocate, 10-15 years ago, that we should have diplomatic relations with Israel. Finally it is the Congress government which established diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Congress used to call me a capitalist. Now, the Congress, having criticised me for nearly twenty years in Parliament for advocating a market economy, has ended up implementing what I have prepared.

Does that mean you are always ahead of your time?

I don't know (chuckles). Anybody with ideas is bound to be ahead because it takes time for people to accept new ideas.

Dr Swamy's photographs by Sanjay Ghosh

Tell us what you think of this interview