Pranab is reputed to have a politically agile mind

Surrounded by bouquets in various shapes and hues – including one from the Hinduja brothers that was delivered along with a promise to call whenever they are in India – Pranab Mukherjee dissolves into paroxysms of laughter over the telephone. I was a Bengali babu, adjusting my dhoti, he tells his caller between chortles, while these generals were standing here, saluting. I just raised my hand, he says.

Mukherjee is talking of his first interactions with the chiefs of staff of India's defence forces since his induction into the cabinet over the weekend as the new defence minister.

Indeed, Mukherjee is the quintessential politician, more comfortable – for the nonce at least – analysing the challenges of running a coalition than arranging the nation's defence. He acknowledges that the Congress is itself a coalition of socio-political forces and so inherently unsuitable for accommodating other political forces. However, he adds, the Congress consciously adopted the policy of alliances, pre-poll and post-poll, and will try to make it work.

Mukherjee also acknowledges that "the compulsion is there" in both West Bengal and Kerala to walk the tightrope between cooperation in Parliament and confrontation on the ground but adds that "in '96 we supported the Left in the United Front government." A veritable storehouse of political information, Mukherjee also points out that the Congress worked in coalitions even before independence, starting in 1937.

As defence minister, he says, the modernisation of mobility, equipment and technology will be his priority.

Asked about the navy's expansion plans, he points out that it was he who, as finance minister, had initiated cooperation with the Indian Ocean rim countries.

He looks forward to taking advantage of "the peace dividend," he adds, but without "compromising our preparedness." For the moment, he says, the army will continue to do what it has been doing in Jammu and Kashmir.

In keeping with the tenor of this government, Mukherjee's tone is inclusive rather than confrontational.

He says he will look into the merits of each of the corruption and other allegations surrounding his predecessors' terms, examining each case by case, but retribution is not a political agenda.
Mukherjee's political career has been a roller coaster. He points out that, as commerce minister, he presided over the cabinet during Indira Gandhi's absences as early as 1980, when he was just 45 years old. He was left out in the cold, however, during most of Rajiv Gandhi's tenure. Rajiv apparently thought Mukherjee had wanted the job full-time when Indira Gandhi died.

He was rehabilitated at the end of the '80s and given the external affairs portfolio by P.V. Narasimha Rao in the mid-'90s. However, he had to squeeze his ego when Sonia Gandhi appointed him the party's chief whip in the Rajya Sabha. He was forced to work there under a man Mukhejee had, when he was finance minister, appointed as governor of the Reserve Bank of India – Manmohan Singh.

That was good training, though, for that man is now the leader not only of the party in the Rajya Sabha but of the entire Congress parliamentary party.

One reason Singh is prime minister today and Mukherjee remains no more than defence minister is Singh's transparently sincere simplicity. He poses no threat to the power behind the throne. Mukherjee, on the other hand, is reputed to have one of the most politically agile minds.

The second reason is a bigger disadvantage. Mukherjee has never been able to project himself beyond the parochial confines of his Bengali identity. Sharad Pawar too is identified as a Maharashtra leader but then Pawar has a formidable political base in that state, while Mukherjee won a Lok Sabha election for the first time this month.