Indian politician Pranab Mukherjee, who rose to prominence along with India’s longest-serving Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, has died. He was 84 years old.
His death was confirmed on Monday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter.
Before undergoing brain surgery in recent weeks, he announced Twitter That he also tested positive for coronavirus. He was later placed on a ventilator and slipped into a coma, according to doctors at a military hospital.
Although Mr. Mukherjee never became the Prime Minister, despite holding a top position in the Government of India, his ability to reach consensus on controversial issues earned him the title of the inevitable man of Indian coalition era politics. And he played a key role in Mrs. Gandhi’s government and her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi’s political career.
In 2014, the head of the Indian National Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, cleared Mr. Mukherjee’s path to the presidency, mostly a monologue job, when he was offered the chance to become prime minister.
Many Indians see the Congress party as the guardian of the nation’s founding secular values, a sentiment that has become more popular since the rise of Shri Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. But the party is allied with the Gandhians, who are often seen as a symbol of India’s upper class.
Mr. Mukherjee, who was born on December 11, 1935, in the small village of Mirati in the Indian state of West Bengal, is a perfect fit. He was a college college teacher and journalist, and his father, Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee, was a Congress leader himself. His mother, who was Rajalakshmi by name alone, was also involved in politics.
Shri Mukherjee quickly rose from the ranks and became one of the lieutenants closest to Indira Gandhi. He was criticized for playing a small part in the decision to send Mrs. Gandhi’s loyal supporters and dozens of political dissidents to jail.
Decades later, Mr. Mukherjee wrote in his memoirs about his memorable years, admitting that he did not understand “his deep and far-reaching impact” as a junior minister and that the party had finally paid a heavy price.
In 1980, Mrs. Gandhi elected Mr. Mukherjee as her Finance Minister. It will determine his long political career, and cement his position as an important leader of the party for decades to come.
After the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi in 1984, he saw himself as his rightful successor. However, Mrs. Gandhi chose her son Rajiv Gandhi to be the next Prime Minister.
After siding with Shri Gandhi, Shri Mukherjee quit forming the National Socialist Congress Party. But after he formed an alliance with the Congress party in 1989, it failed to garner much support in his home state of West Bengal.
The party welcomed him back, and over the next few years, Mr. Mukherjee became the chief architect who made the effort to bring Sonia Gandhi to power. Since then, he has held several cabinet positions, ranging from foreign affairs and defense to the financial sector, and he has served on numerous key committees. He was routinely summoned to break political logjams or reject controversies.
Under the constitution, the president has some meaningful powers, including the right to give prisoners a clarity. During his five-year tenure from 2012 to 2017, Mr. Mukherjee rejected 42 mercy petitions of prisoners on death row out of a total of 49.
In the year 2019, he was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor for more than five decades of public service.
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Updated August 27, 2020
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In his final address as President, Mr Mukherjee said the country had received “much more” than he had given and that its establishment as a pluralistic society had made it the world’s largest democracy. “The soul of India lives in plurality and tolerance,” he said.
He is survived by his daughter Sharmishtha and two sons Abhijit and Indrajith.
After leaving the presidency, Mr. Mukherjee played an active role in public life, giving speeches mostly to Mohandas Gandhi where he was giving speeches.
“I have no hesitation in saying that Gandhiji’s ideas of truth, openness, dialogue and non-violence provide the best path for a world with intolerance, bigotry, terrorism and xenophobic politics,” he said.
In one of his last speeches in December 2019, he talked about the importance of freedom of the press. “Democracy without a free press is like a blank slate.”
“We must remember that democracy will be lost when and if we stop listening to voices other than our own.”
