I cannot imagine that Abid Hussain is no more. Even at 85 he was so full of life, ever smiling and zestful, nattily dressed as always, brimming with ideas and spreading hope and good cheer.
After two fleeting encounters in 1984 and 1985, I first met, in any serious way, Abid Hussain in August 1986. I had just finished my assignment in the ministry of industry and, sensing that I was at a loose end, he asked me to join the Planning Commission. This launched a very intimate personal and professional relationship — a relationship that, in many ways, shaped my subsequent career. I worked very closely with him for a little over three years, and it was he who got me together with Sam Pitroda as well, roughly over the same period. Working with both of them simultaneously was an extraordinary experience and gave me whole new capabilities that were to come in useful later.
Abid Saab was a great mentor and there are not many of that breed left in government. Lovraj Kumar, a contemporary of his, was another such person. And he was a mentor who did not become a tormentor, as quite a few end up becoming. Both spotted youngsters, created openings and gave them opportunities, and protected and projected them without feeling threatened in any way. All the “laterals” then in government – Montek Ahluwalia, Vijay Kelkar, Nitin Desai, Rakesh Mohan, Arvind Virmani and Deepak Nayyar, to name some of them – were part of Abid Saab’s orbit in some way or the other. His room in Yojana Bhavan would be a veritable intellectual adda, embracing people of diverse ideologies. He would be getting ideas from an Isher Ahluwalia in the morning, an S K Goyal in the afternoon and a Mohit Sen in the evening. He was among the most easily accessible people I have ever known, and the younger you were, the greater the attention he lavished on you.
Abid Saab was among the very first to roll the dice on industrial policy reforms that finally reached their apogee in July 1991. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had asked him to coordinate the preparation of a policy paper on this subject for consideration of the full Planning Commission. This paper was approved by the then Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr Manmohan Singh sometime in March/April, 1987. Presumably, subsequent political developments precluded the type of changes recommended in the paper. Between April 1987 and September 1989, he delivered a number of lectures at different forums in which he anticipated much of the reforms that were to come later. I said to him after he had given the final touches to the text of the J N Tata Memorial Lecture at the Indian Institute of Science: “Sir, I have one request. In return for my helping you with the preparation of these speeches, please allow me to be the first one to deliver the Abid Hussain Memorial Lecture.” His reply was quick and vintage Abid Saab. He said: “Babu, tuh pehle jaa sakta hai par jaane ke pehle draft de kar jaana!”
Abid Saab was a legendary Collector of Vishakhapatnam. The love was reciprocal. There is an Abid Nagar in that city and his only daughter was named Vishakha. He was commerce secretary at a time when Indira Gandhi wanted to make changes in trade policy to provide a fillip to exports. The process of simplification began during his tenure. It was this work that led to another great line of his. When V P Singh, as commerce minister, told him that he was thinking of an exhortation, something along the lines of “export or perish”, Abid Saab replied: “Sir, choice mat dijiye. Given a choice, Indian industry would rather perish.”
His contributions were not confined to industry and trade. He authored a landmark report on restructuring of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and on textile policy in the late 1980s, with his role extending to being much more than the titular chairman of the committees.
I saw Abid Saab interact with politicians from across the spectrum. And it was a real lesson. He used to tell me of his interactions with S K Dey, the man Jawaharlal Nehru picked to implement the community development movement in the country. He spoke often about his association with K Brahmananda Reddy, the Andhra politician who did much for that state’s industrial development. Rajiv Gandhi was fond of him, but so was V P Singh. It was the latter who appointed him as our ambassador to the US. When he became prime minister, one of the first things P V Narasimha Rao asked me to do was to speak to him and get his ideas on what needs to be done to deal with the financial crisis of 1991.
I once heard P Shiv Shankar, who became deputy chairman of the Planning Commission after Dr Manmohan Singh had left for the South Commission, describe Abid Saab as a quintessential Hyderabadi, epitomising the best of the city’s secular and cosmopolitan traditions. I recall Abid Saab’s great ability to laugh at himself without taking umbrage. He used to tell me: “Young man, take your work seriously but don’t take yourself too seriously.”
He could never be brief in public speeches and would often meander and lose all sense of time. Once I told him: “Sir, if I was ever chairing one of your speeches, I would begin by saying Abid Hussain needs no introduction but badly needs a conclusion.” He laughed uproariously and would often repeat that line in public, of course, not failing to mention where it came from.
Abid Saab was a liberal in every sense of the term, a wonderful product of the Nehruvian era, a man with a great capacity to listen, a man with an unparalleled capacity to reach out and communicate, a man who never harboured a grudge or a grouse, a man who always thought positive and wanted to bring out the best in people — even in those who did not necessarily share his ideas.
The writer is Union minister for rural development
