VP SINGH June 25, 1931

VP Singh was never a leftist. To the end, he was a feudal who liked his colleagues to call him Rajasaab. (He was the Raja of Manda). Yet his legacy is the opposite of feudalism.

A successful chief minister of UP, he rose to national prominence as Rajiv Gandhi’s finance minister, when he ordered taxmen to raid (or even jail) such prominent industrialists of that era as SL Kirloskar, Dhirubai Ambani, LM Thapar and Vijay Mallya. His actions made him a hero in the eyes of the middle class, though critics said that his motives were hardly left-wing and that his actions stemmed from the Raja’s traditional contempt for the bania.

Eventually, Rajiv moved him to defence, saying that the ministry was a mess (which it was; a military exercise had nearly led to war with Pakistan) but VP Singh who saw this as a demotion, launched investigations into defence deals and suggested to the press that fat-cats close to the Congress had benefitted. Then, he resigned, joined up with Rajiv’s estranged cousin Arun Nehru, and formed a new political party. When Rajiv lost his majority in 1989, VP Singh became Prime Minister as head of a minority government backed by both the BJP and the Left.

It couldn’t last, of course and within a few months, VP Singh switched track, abandoned his middle-class base and announced the implementation of reservation for backward castes. Though the middle class was enraged, VP Singh’s action set off a wave of backward class assertion, leading directly to the rise of such politicians as Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad. Sadly VP Singh was toppled soon after and never benefitted from this wave.

But his legacy endures. Arvind Kejriwal borrows his rhetoric and the backward castes have a new voice in Hindi-belt politics