16 May 2021  |   06:01am IST

A friend pays tribute

The book is a look at the late CM Manohar Parrikar and his travails administrating the state and later as the Defence Minister of the country. Nitin Gokhale who was a friend of the late CM presents a book after talking to friends, sources and others.
A friend pays tribute

He was the country’s first IIT qualified CM. Manohar Parrikar certainly made his mark on the political landscape of Goa but he was much more than that. He transformed the Ministry of Defence (MoD) from a slow-moving organisation and led changes that resulted in transparent and simpler acquisition procedures. This is presented in detail by Nitin Gokhale in his book Brilliant Mind, Simple Life. Nitin who calls himself a very close friend of the late CM has written in detail about the late CM work as the Defence Minister. 

Nitin developed his relationship with the former CM in Delhi when the PM Narendra Modi called him to take over as defence minister. In his book Nitin say’s the DM not only grasped the intricacies and complexities of the important ministry but also put his own stamp on the day-to-day functioning in the South Block. 

Gokhale says Parrikar took and implemented three big decisions that stood out in his short stint. Gokhale lists solving the complicated One Rank One Pension (OROP) issue 45 years after it had been first raised", the off the shelf purchase of Rafale fighter jets and convincing the Indian Air Force (IAF) to start accepting the indigenously-made Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas for induction. His third and most popular decision was to order in 2016 the surgical strike in the immediate aftermath of the Uri attack in which 18 soldiers of the Indian Army were killed in action.

The book highlights the drama that surrounded the Rafale deal. The aircraft was chosen as the winner of a six-jet completion for an IAF tender for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) after a torturous effort that began in 2007. Of these, 18 were to be purchased in a fly-away condition and the remaining was to be manufactured in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) under a transfer of technology (ToT) agreement with Dassault Aviation. The final negotiations faltered on two counts. Dassault maintained that 31 million man hours would be sufficient to produce 108 aircraft in India, HAL was asking for a mark-up by 2.7 times. The MoD contended this would violate the terms of the lowest bid on the basis of which the aircraft had been selected. 

The book says Parrikar recommended the tender for 126 aircraft be scrapped and India purchase 36 Rafale’s to meet the IAF’s minimum requirements. This Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on April 10, 2015 during a state visit to France at a joint press conference with then President Francois Hollande an announcement that caught everyone in India by surprise.  Gokhale however was not surprised. In the book he says he was alerted by a source about the possibility of India scrapping the original tender and going in for off-the-shelf purchase of Rafale jets. He scooped the story 10 minutes before midnight on 9 April, almost 22 hours before Modi’s announcement of India deciding to buy Rafale jets off-the-shelf was made in Paris. He got the numbers wrong. His report said India would buy 63 Rafale directly from Dassault Aviation.  

The book also looks at URI. The book quotes Lt Gen. Satish Dua, then the 15 Corps Commander in Srinagar who said the DM was listened and then asked pertinent questions about the incident and then gave an instant go ahead. 

The book also points out that despite the deep interest Parrikar took in the MoD’s functioning; his heart was not fully in Delhi because his first love was Goa. This meant he continued to run the state from Delhi the book points out. According to Gokhale the enormous workload eventually took its toll on his health. He was a loner in the manipulative and transactional world of Delhi. 

This book all so looks at him through the eyes of his family, friends and countless admirers; the book dwells deep into his early influences, his journey from a small village in Goa to one of the highest posts in the country.

It is an informative book that anyone interested in knowing more about the man will want to read, written by a man who is one of the better defence analysts in the country.   


IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar