A loyal PM? - The Free Press Journal

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I have this well-known cartoonist friend who has an amazing capacity to make the
weirdest of forecasts. The other day he came out with one that he himself
acknowledged must rank among the weirdest of the weird. Said he, "You know this
acceptability factor (of I K Gujral as Prime Minister) scares me. It has dangerous
potential." Now, both of us have watched Gujral from close quarters for nearly
four decades and both of us have generally agreed that he is not the kind to take
any risks when it comes to protecting his political career such as it has been. So
much so that the unknowing might even be tempted to imagine that Gujral has never
sought office, that somehow office has always chased him.

And this is where my cartoonist friend comes in again. "It's the acceptability
factor that has always helped him along. Do you remember any occasion when he
offended anyone. Yes, even in the mid and late '50s when he was a regular at
India Coffee House?" "Tell me?" he demanded. His insistence led me to ask him why
was he so obsessed with the acceptability factor. Very simple, he said. In the
present state of political disarray in the country, Gujral, given time, may do an
Indira Gandhi. After all, how many people gave Indira the chance to survive in
the shark-infested (Syndicate and all. that) waters of those early days of the
former Prime Minister's initiation into office. Indira had been accepted as Lal
Bahadur's successor because she was considered to be least harmful to the ruling
elite within the Congress then and was therefore considered to be most acceptable.
Once in power, Indira not only surprised all those who had seen her as an interim
PM but indeed worsted them. She sprang one surprise after another on her
unsuspecting victims/opponents that they hardly had the time to gasp for breath.
Of course, Indira was Nehru's daughter and groomed by her doting father as his
heir apparent without anyone even caring to notice the political grooming

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