Gandhian, but canny politician as well

Seventy-year-old Krishna Kant's imminent elevation to the vice-president's office comes after a long and chequered career.

Born in a family of freedom fighters on February 26, 1927 at Kot Mohammed Khan village in Amritsar, Krishna Kant took an active part in the Bhoodan movement in Punjab.

After completing his M Sc (Technology) from the Banaras Hindu University, he worked as a scientist with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in Delhi. He took an active part in the Quit India movement and he was arrested with the other members of the family. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1966 to 1977 and, thereafter, a member of the Lok Sabha till 1980.

He was associated with radical politics and the Socialist Forum because he sought to rid politics and the Congress of the influence of big money. At the All-India Congress Committee session in Ahmedabad in 1971, Krishan Kant made a strong plea for linking political parties with the people and their basic problems. All this, in turn, led to the espousal of the cause of land reforms and support to the Naxalite demand for land restructuring. But he was against their violent methods.

A fine orator, Krishna Kant was one of the Young Turks, along with Chandra Shekhar and Mohan Dharia during the early years of Indira Gandhi's rule.

As a member of Parliament, he made a significant contribution in the fields of foreign and defence policies, fought for effective implementation of land reforms, advocated freedom of the press and moved to bring in electoral reforms.

He left the Congress during the Emergency in 1975, opting to join Jayaprakash Narayan's movement against corruption and need for revolutionising national life.

A strong protagonist of India's nuclear programme, he was a member of the executive council of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis. He also took the initiative in a debate on criminalisation of politics, taking on stalwarts of Indian politics like Kamalapati Tripathi, Chandra Rajeshwar Rao, E M S Namboodiripad and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

A founding general secretary of the People's Union of Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights, Krishna Kant was instrumental in the release of Naxalites after the formation of the Janata Party government in 1977.

The Punjab problem found him moving around the state. To stay in touch with the changing scenario, he organised the Guru Govind Singh Samagam to bring to fore the essential unity of Punjabi culture and how the gurus were an integrating force in Hindu society, rather than a symbol of separation as was being presented by the Khalistan movement.

He met Sikh extremists to understand their point of view, was one of the first people to raise the issue of Pakistani interference in Punjab and the need for a national approach to solve the problem.

In spite of being a cool-head statesman, Krishna Kant, as governor, got entangled in the dirty politics of Andhra Pradesh during the August 1995 crisis in the ruling Telugu Desam party. The then dethroned chief minister N T Rama Rao claimed Krishna Kant forcibly took a cover from his while the latter was lying unconscious on the hospital bed. However, the court dismissed NTR's contention as his then secretary said he had handed over the resignation letter with the knowledge of the ailing chief minister.

That Krishna Kant is a canny politician is evident from the way he took the criticism into his stride when the Nara Chandrababu Naidu government decided to do away with the prohibition policy earlier this year. As a votary of prohibition, his decision to bail out the Naidu government came under severe attack by the Opposition and the general public.

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