Whispers in the corridors of power

Baru says Dayanidhi Maran, as the Union telecom minister, began to use his portfolio to favour the media business of his brother, Kalanidhi

Lobbying is a dirty word in India. The world of lobbyists, in popular imagination, comprises underhand deals, shady people and indecent profits. This may be true in some measure. But to ban lobbyists from all government offices would be unwise. After all, there has to be a dialogue between the government and business. Like all others, businessmen have the right to be heard. You just can't shut the doors on them.

Hotelier CP Krishnan Nair, who died last week, once gave me an interesting insight into lobbying in the early days of Independence. At that time, he worked for his father-in-law's handloom business. The All Indian Handloom Board, of which he was a member, wanted help from the central government. The members, including Nair, had come to Delhi to meet Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister. But Nehru was too caught up in capital-intensive projects (the "temples of modern India") and had no time for something as low-tech as handloom. A relative sent Nair to seek help from Govind Ballabh Pant, the home minister and deputy prime minister. Nair met him in the morning when Pant was getting shaved by his barber. Nair told him that he wanted to modernise the industry and for that he wanted the support of the prime minister. Pant called up Nehru right away. The word "modernise" worked like magic. Nehru met the delegation and accepted its plea for a one paisa tax on every yard of mill-made textile. That yielded Rs 300 crore every year. The money was used to upgrade the handloom sector.

Another interesting tale of lobbying can be found in Vinay Bharatram's From the Brink of Bankruptcy: The DCM Story (Penguin, 2011). In the mid-1980s, Swraj Paul, the London-based businessman, attempted a takeover of DCM and Escorts - both blue-chip stocks at that time. The Shriram and Nanda families ran DCM and Escorts, respectively, with low shareholding, safe in the assumption that such hostile raids never happened in India and, given their influence with the government, state-owned banks and financial institutions, which were large shareholders in their companies, could be leaned upon for support. But that didn't happen. For a moment, it looked as if these families were all set to lose their empires. Then Vivek Bharatram, the youngest son of Lala Bharat Ram, swung into action. His schoolmate at Doon School, Dehradun, was none other than Rajiv Gandhi. The levers of influence were worked and the takeover was eventually thwarted.

There are some interesting nuggets tucked away in Sanjaya Baru's recent bestseller, The Accidental Prime Minister (Penguin). During the Kargil war of 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf had kept a line of communication open. Musharraf's trusted aide was Tariq Aziz, a former income tax officer, while RK Mishra of the Observer Research Foundation carried messages from Vajpayee and his advisor, Brajesh Mishra. The two men would often meet secretly and exchange messages. "Mishra (RK) also doubled up as Reliance Industries Chairman Dhirubhai Ambani's aide, seeking assurances from the Pakistanis that they would not bomb Reliance's Jamnagar plant," Baru writes.

Elsewhere in the book, Baru says Dayanidhi Maran as the Union telecom minister (2004 to 2007) began to use his portfolio to favour the media business of his brother, Kalanidhi. Ratan Tata, who was the chairman of Tata Sons at that time, alerted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to this in early 2007. "Dayanidhi had summoned Tata to a meeting in Delhi in the latter's own Taj Mahal Hotel of Mansingh Road, and tried to browbeat him into doing a deal that would favour his brother Kalanidhi's Sun TV," Baru writes. Tata would subsequently admit that he had a "chemistry problem" with the minister.

This is just a snapshot of what goes on in New Delhi's corridors of power.

bhupesh.bhandari@bsmail.in