Mani Shankar Aiyar

Mani Shankar Aiyar
Mani Shankar Aiyar on a visit to Itanagar
Former MP
Constituency	Mayiladuthurai
Personal details
Born	10 April 1941 (1941-04-10) (age 70) Lahore, British India
Nationality	Indian
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse(s)	Suneet Mani Aiyar
Relations	Swaminathan Aiyar (brother)
Children	3 daughters
Residence	Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu
Alma mater	St. Stephen's College, Delhi Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Occupation	Diplomat, Journalist/Writer, Political and Social Worker
Religion	Hinduism
Website	Mani Shankar Aiyar

Mani Shankar Aiyar (Tamil: மணிசங்கர் அய்யர்; born 10 April 1941) is a former Indian diplomat who resigned from foreign service and became a politician working for Rajiv Gandhi in 1989-1991. He is a member of the Indian National Congress party and was the Minister of Panchayati Raj until he lost his seat in the 2009 Election. He served as the Union Cabinet Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas from May 2004 through January 2006 and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports till 2009.

He represented the Mayiladuthurai constituency of Tamil Nadu in the 14th Lok Sabha.

Early life

Mani Shankar Aiyar, Second from left, Dorjee Khandu, the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, and Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India

Mani Shankar Aiyer is the son of V. Sankar Aiyar, a chartered accountant, and Bhagyalakshmi Sankar Aiyar. His younger brother is the well known journalist, Swaminathan Aiyar. He lost his father at age 12 in an air crash.

He attended Welham Boys' School, The Doon School and obtained B.A. from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, University of Delhi. After the loss of his father, Aiyar's mother had to negotiate with Doon to allow him to continue his studies with reduced fees and in return she taught at the school.^[1]

He graduated in economics from Delhi University, and then did a two-year B.A. in Tripos in Economics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge at the University of Cambridge which, in the Oxbridge tradition, became an M.A with the passage of time. He was a member of Trinity Hall. He was also an active member of the Marxist Society in Cambridge. At Cambridge, Aiyar joined student politics and once even tried to win a presidential contest. He was supported by Rajiv Gandhi in his campaign who was his junior both at Doon and Cambridge.

Until very recently, he was living in Sainik Farm, a construction declared illegal by the Delhi High Court (as the last Lok Sabha Members' Yearbook 2006 shows).

Career

Mani Shankar Aiyar flanked by party workers

He served 26 years in the IFS, the last five of which were on deputation to the Prime Minister's Office under Rajiv Gandhi (1985-1989). He resigned from service in 1989 to take up a career in politics and media, entering the Parliament as a Congress M.P from Mayiladuthurai in 1991, 1999 and 2004 but was badly mauled in 1996, 1998 and 2009.

He is a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee and a chairman of both the party's political training department and the department of policy planning and coordination. He is also a well-known political columnist and has written several books, including Pakistan Papers and Remembering Rajiv, and has edited a four-volume publication, Rajiv Gandhi's India.

His special interests include, grassroots democracy, Indian foreign policy particularly with India's neighboring countries and West Asia and nuclear disarmament.

Personal life

He was married on January 4, 1973 to Suneet Mani Aiyar. They have 3 daughters - the eldest, a lawyer, the second, a development consultant, and the youngest, an assistant professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison in Department of History ^[2].

Notable quotes

• "Sir, my secular answer to the honorable member is that where it is in the hands of Allah, we turn to Allah, where it is in the hands of man, we turn to man."^[3]

• "Every five years, it is the masses who determine who will form the government. And in between those five years the classes determine what that government will do." ^[4]

Controversies

While on a tour of the Andamans as the Cabinet Minister in the latter part of 2004, Aiyar was quoted as saying at the Cellular Jail there that there was no difference between the radical right-wing revolutionary Veer Savarkar, a famous inmate of the prison, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, as they shared a 'divisive' philosophy. He also ordered that a plaque with a poem commemorating Savarkar be replaced with a plaque with quotes from Mahatma Gandhi. Savarkar had been tried and acquitted for conspiring in Gandhi's assassination. Reports of the incident paralysed Parliament and led to agitations by the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Aiyar's remarks created confusion as well in the ruling party; the official spokesman, Anand Sharma, noted that the Congress Party did not consider Savarkar either a freedom fighter or a patriot. A few days later, the Prime Minister dissociated himself and the cabinet from that view.[1]

Aiyar was also involved in a public brawl with politician Amar Singh.[2]

Publications

Aiyar has written seven books -

• "Remembering Rajiv", Rupa, New Delhi, 1992
• "One Year in Parliament", Konark, New Delhi, 1993
• "Pakistan Papers", UBSPD, New Delhi, 1994
• "Knickerwallahs, Silly-Billies and Other Curious Creatures", UBS Publishers, 1995
• "Rajiv Gandhi's India", 4 vols. (General Editor), UBSPD New Delhi, 1997
• "Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist", Penguin, 2004.
• "A Time of Transition: Rajiv Gandhi to the 21st Century", Penguin, 2009.

References

1. ^ "‘The IB ultimately came to the conclusion that I was indeed a Marxist, but of the Groucho variety’". Tete-a-tete (The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata)). May 18, 2008. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080518/jsp/7days/story_9285975.jsp. 
2. ^ Aiyar, Sana. "Assistant Professor". Assistant Professor. http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/aiyar.htm. 
3. ^ The Pioneer > Columnists^{[dead link]}
4. ^ Mani Shankar Aiyar (October 16, 1998). "Stop the review!". Rediff On The NeT. http://in.rediff.com/news/1998/oct/16mani.htm. 

External links

• Biography at Indian Sports Ministry website
• Article in The Economic Times about him dated May 23, 2004.
• Information as a member of 14th Lok Sabha on website of Lok Sabha
• Quote on cnn.com
• Speech to business leaders on poverty and growth

Political offices
New title	Minister of Panchayati Raj 2004 – 2009	Succeeded by C. P. Joshi

Persondata
Name	Mani Shankar, Aiyar
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	April 10, 1941
Place of birth	Lahore, British India
Date of death
Place of death