NEW DELHI: A seminar on “India and the Changing World National and International Perspectives” held behind closed doors in the Parliament House Annex recently, has raised eyebrows in political circles for two reasons: one, the unexpected presence and participation of Arun Nehru, who has kept a very low political profile ever since he parted company with the Janata Dal last year. Too, the presence at the seminar of a sizeable number of Congressmen, some part of the present power structure in the party and others in the wilderness.

Ostensibly, the seminar was a brainstorming session between “friends drawn from diverse back grounds politics, academics, defence, science, technology, administration and the voluntary sectors” and was organized by R.K. Mishra, Chairman of the . “Observer” group of newspapers, and journalist Ganesh Shukla.

The objective, as stated by them in their invitations was: to evolve “the outlines of a new strategic outlook to enable India to grapple with unforeseen challenges in a world in which old structures have crumbled and a new correlation of forces have not yet crystalized fully.”

However, it is being speculated in political circles that at least one of the unstated objectives of the seminar was far more down-to earth to aid, in a modest way, the political rehabilitation of Nehru, who has now begun to venture out of his Chattar pur farmhouse, in the hope, it appears, of a re-entry into the Congress.

Nehru was present at the seminar on both days and spoke strongly in favor of economic liberalization, The seminar was also attended by his close friend, Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Trivedi and former Minister Satyapal Mak,

Speculation that the seminar was partly arranged to provide Nehru with an innocuous seeming forum for making his presence felt among erstwhile colleagues in the Congress has been fueled by the fact that Mishra, apart from being a key man of the Ambanis who owns the “Observer” group of papers, is also an old friend of Nehru’s.

For that matter, two prominent ruling party politicians, who attended the seminar, Jitendra Prasadar, political secretary to the Prime Minister, and Congress Working Committee Member, and AICC General Secretary Nawal Kishore Sharma, have both been close to Nehru in the past.

However, the question of Nehru’s re-entry into the Congress is still up in the air, even though his former associate, Arif Mohammed Khan, seems likely to be accepted back in the fold in August. According to party sources, the major stumbling block for him may well be Sonia Gandhi. who has. by all accounts, not forgiven her cousin-by-marriage for his parting of ways with Rajiv Gandhi.

Apart from the Arun Nehru factor, the seminar also had political overtones of a different kind, One of its chief organizers, behind the scenes, was former AICC General Secretary K.N. Singh, currently head of the party’s disciplinary committee, Singh hails from the old leftists clique in the Congress. R.K. Mishra, whose past avatars include a stint in the 70s as a Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan, had also been part of this group.

Singh, who personally rang up politicians to invite them to the seminar, belongs to the section of Congressmen who are quite disgruntled with the Narasimha Rao government, and was perhaps trying to make his presence felt in the party through this exercise. Among the political invitees he and the Mishra-Shukla duo managed to rustle up were former ministers Natwar

Singh and K.R. Naraynan  Ram Niwas Mirdha, J.N.Gadgil, Sheila Dixit, Prasada and Sharma. The Prime Minister, who was also invited, sent a message instead saying that “such a discussion will be useful in getting a better understanding of the recent policy changes.”

The press was not invited to the seminar in order to “facilate free, uninhibited and productive exchange of views.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 10, 1994