A ‘family man’: The importance of being Azad

Those who get a chance to visit 5-South Avenue residence in Delhi will be pleasantly surprised by the well-maintained garden, where flowers share space with vegetables.

Then it strikes you: the resident of the house - Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad - was not joking when he remarked that he would have been a gardener if he wasn't a politician.

Azad knows which plant needs watering, the amount of fertiliser, or when it needs to be pruned. In the manicured space are on display patience and devotion, two qualities that held Azad in good stead as he nurtured his political career for 50 years, deftly handling palace intrigues of the Congress.

Plucked out of nowhere by Sanjay Gandhi in the late 1970s and catapulted onto the national scene, Azad worked with Indira Gandhi, Rajiv as well as Sonia and owes his career to the munificence of the Gandhi family.

That is why many were surprised to find his name in a letter addressed to Sonia by a group of leaders, which came to be dubbed the G-23, who expressed concern at the state of affairs in the party.

The suspicion grew stronger after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s eyes turned moist on Azad’s farewell in the Rajya Sabha in February 2021, and later when the government conferred Padma Bhushan on him. Then came the recent Congress debacle in the Assembly polls that saw the G-23 leaders sharpening their knives; an upheaval was predicted, with Azad again at the centre of the drama.

There were a few noises (calls for “inclusive leadership”) but it fizzled out. Now, there is talk that the Gandhis have worked out a compromise and Azad will be accommodated suitably. This anti-climax was typical Congress; Azad, the Gandhi family loyalist, was never going to rock the boat.

Rapid rise

In 1973, at the age of 24, Azad stepped into the world with a Master's in Zoology wondering what next.

He didn't have to wait long as his political career took off at a dizzying speed. First, he was appointed Congress’ Block Secretary of Bhalessa, Doda district. In two years, he rose to become the Jammu and Kashmir Youth Congress president and in 1980, he was president of the Indian Youth Congress.

The same year he was asked to contest from Washim in Maharashtra after the Charan Singh government collapsed. Azad won the election and became a Lok Sabha MP.

After Sanjay’s death, Azad won the trust of Indira who inducted him as a deputy minister. In the 1980s, Rajiv Gandhi entrusted Azad with several important organisational tasks along with Sitaram Kesari and Oscar Fernandes.

Despite some defeats in states under him and murmurs of dissent among colleagues, Azad retained his place in Rajiv’s good books.

After Rajiv was assassinated in 1991, Azad was among the Congress leaders who went to Sonia urging her to take over the party reins.

Another important moment in his career, when he displayed his devotion to the party, came in 2005. When the Congress had a chance to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir, Azad reluctantly shifted base to Srinagar as Chief Minister, only to return to national politics after the government fell three years later.

He was again in the Rajya Sabha and Manmohan Singh made him Health Minister in UPA-II during which Azad brought in the ambitious National Rural Health Mission.

In 2014, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Udhampur in his home state but lost by a huge margin due to the Modi wave. He was brought into the Rajya Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir in 2015 and there was no doubt in Sonia’s mind who would be the Leader of Opposition.

But six years down the line, things have changed.

Married to well-known Kashmiri singer Shameem Dev Azad with two kids, Azad over the years became indispensable for the Gandhi family. Being on good terms with the Opposition leaders meant that Azad became one of the party's trusted trouble-shooters whenever Congress misstepped.

So, in July-August 2020, when the Gandhis saw that he was part of the signatories to the G-23 letter, it must have hurt.

The trigger was the “terminal” decline of the party. Health issues had prompted Sonia, a buffer zone for many, to take a back seat. Old hands like Azad had increasingly grown uneasy with the way the new brigade under Rahul Gandhi was running the show, and it exploded with the G-23 letter.

Many in Congress say if Azad’s signature was not there, the letter would not have carried weight.

His detractors say that Azad, who held prominent organisational posts at the national level with charges of states, did not help in the party’s growth but ended up hurting it.

Some put the blame at Azad’s doorsteps for the Congress’ condition in states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu where he was in charge.

For the time being though, Sonia and Rahul have managed to cool tempers and have bought peace. The newest hullaballoo seems to have worked as Azad appears to have got Sonia's ears.

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