By George!

One of the notable news lines of today was yet another episode of the ugly saga of the ongoing tussle between George Fernandes’ immediate family and his close associates.
Why’ve Leila Kabir, his wife and their son come now to protect George, after so many years of staying away from him? And belated though, why did Jaya Jaitley and his other close associates make him a pathetic spectacle during the last general elections to the Lok Sabha? These questions defy logic but it’s amply clear that both the parties are jostling not for his wealth, as the media makes us believe, but to take control of his political space.
I was his liaison officer for two days, during his visit to Kochi, way back during the latter half of 1998, when he was the defence minister. As a politician, I must confess that he’d never impressed me because his rise in politics was mainly because of his theatrics- he was a vitriolic ‘anti-Indira Gandhi’ man as she had him incarcerated in jail during the ‘emergency’ thanks to his involvement in the infamous ‘Baroda dynamite case’. (As the railways’ trade union leader, he was accused to have masterminded a plot to blow up the main rail track near that city to show Mrs. Gandhi’s government in poor light). But through bits and pieces of my conversations with him, I gleaned that he had tremendous respect for the firebrand socialist of the ‘50s and the ‘60s, Ram Manohar Lohia, whom he claimed to be his guru. And seeing my inquisitiveness, he passed on one of Lohia’s gems to me viz, ‘for any man to be successful in politics, he must respect it like he does his religion but, also, must understand that religion is long term politics.’
During those two days of my association with him, I’d seen him interact with the naval dockyard and Cochin shipyard workers, the senior clergymen of the Christian diocese besides of course, attending the naval functions. He relished the pomp and show of our ceremonials and I wondered, then, as to whether he ever thought that he’d be a minister in his wildest of dreams, twenty years earlier! I must admit that he was not a demanding guy to be liaison officer with and the IAS officer, his PS ensured that he sent me a thank you letter on his return to Delhi. And, in retrospect, I suppose this country shall always remember him for making the Konkan rail a reality and for sacking Adm Vishnu Bhagwat, the naval chief!!
The once fiery and vociferous politician is now in this world without knowing the purpose of his life, thanks to the deadly Alzheimer’s illness and it’s pathetic to see his close relatives and friends trying to take advantage of his helplessness. Sad!