The Hindu Business Line : A politician with wit and integrity

DRESSED in loose khadi-kurta and pants and wearing spectacles with an old-fashioned frame, he was a familiar sight on Parliament Street till ill-health confined him to the hospital bed.

Walking around the Jantar Mantar area, close to the Janata Party (and later the Janata Dal) offices, the corridors of the Constitution Club or the nearby Parliament House, Madhu Dandavate hardly came across as a former Finance Minister or Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.

Dandavate, the veteran socialist, passed away on November 12. He was 81.

In his death, the nation has lost one of the few surviving members of a rare breed of honest politicians.

Dandavate was a politician without wiles and guiles, simple to the point of being naïve at times.

In Parliament, replying to difficult questions, he would go out of his way to offer additional information, which sometimes landed him in trouble and even annoyed the Government he was representing during 1989-91. He was Finance Minister in Mr V. P. Singh's Cabinet.

Dandavate was a man with a deep sense of history. Once, during a discussion in Parliament on the Budget for the then Centrally-ruled Punjab, he spoke of the plight of the Sikhs, victims of the November 1984 riots in Delhi and other parts of the country after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

He was an eyewitness to the brutal killings in the coach of a train he was travelling in.

The Sikh passengers were dragged out and hacked or burnt to death. His frantic appeals to stop the madness went in vain.

He was jailed during the Emergency along with BJP leader L. K. Advani, who later wrote about Dandavate's sense of humour in his Prison Diary.

His wit often came to the fore during debates in Parliament.

Once, as an Opposition member, he was taking the government to task on certain policies. An old member from the ruling benches constantly interrupted Dandavate.

Annoyed after a point, Dandavate addressed the Chair thus, "Sir, my old friend has a habit of popping up suddenly from slumber and says something that does not make sense. Slumber is the only sensible thing he seems to be capable of at the moment." The entire House, including the old minister, burst into laughter!

Dandavate was a cricket buff and played in the Journalists versus Parliamentarians matches during the 1970s and 1980s. He bowled gentle left-arm slow spin.

A professor of physics, he taught former Indian cricket team captain Ajit Wadekar.

In his ministerial innings, Dandavate will be remembered as the Railway Minister who gave a surplus budget (in 1977) and a man of physics who presented a good Union Budget as Finance Minister in 1990.

(The author, a former deputy editor, PTI, is a NewDelhi-based freelance writer. Feedback can be sent to rajamani_rc@yahoo.co.uk)

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