New Delhi: The failures of many former people in power need to be revisited and assessed all over again to make sure that such mistakes do not recur, panelists at a discussion emphasised.
At the panel discussion on writer-journalist Bhaskar Roy’s political memoir “Fifty Year Road” here on Thursday, senior journalists, legal experts, and writers called for a serious reexamination of the then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao’s “failure” to discharge his constitutional duty to protect the disputed shrine in Ayodhya.
“He went on confabulating with the demolition squad until they razed the structure,” Roy said, recalling Rao’s remarks that since he believed in destiny, he could not change what had to happen.
Another political figure who came in for scathing criticism from the panelists was Siddhartha Shankar Ray, West Bengal chief minister in the seventies. Ray, the speakers alleged, was singularly responsible for the gruesome killing of thousands of Naxalite activists without trial.
Among the panelists were journalist Satish Padmanabhan, legal expert Usha Ramanathan, writer-activist Ankita Anand and Misha Bhatt from Jaico Publishing House, the book’s publishers.
Such abusers of constitutional safeguards need to be “resurrected” to face trial for their misdeeds, the panelists argued.
Vigilante gangs under Ray’s direction murdered and maimed the radicals, the speakers claimed.
Rao for his part parlayed with the Hindutva hardliners without securing the shrine so long as it stood there, they alleged.
Talking about “Fifty Year Road”, Roy said, “My life in the book is not a stand-alone story; it is presented only in the context of my social milieu.”
The book, he said, offers an account of a series of upheavals that milestoned a long stretch of India’s postcolonial history since the mid-sixties.
The author said he reconstructed the past by mixing memories and research, often substantiating his recollection with interviews with important personalities.
For the chapters on the cultural impact of the Naxalite movement, he interviewed filmmakers Sandip Ray and Shaji Karun.
Among the personalities portrayed in the book are: Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi, Jyoti Basu, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Charu Majumdar, N. T. Rama Rao, G. K. Moopanar, Manmohan Singh, L. K. Advani, Brajesh Mishra, V. P. Singh, Madhavrao Scindia, Sonia Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Narendra Modi.
British novelist and playwright Paul Pickering has written the foreword to the book.
