Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna was an important political leader of India. He was a union minister and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.  On 25 April will be his 102nd birth anniversary. 

He started his career from Allahabad and would have become the prime minister of India had he not changed parties too often. Some of his critics called him Natwar Lal Bahuguna!

He and my father Jagdish Rajvanshi were very close friends and Bahuguna ji was like an uncle to me. They started their career together as students in Allahabad University and went to jail together in 1942 movement.

Both of them were promising young leaders involved in the Indian independence movement. My father told me that Narayan Dutt Tewari who later on became three-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh used to go on a bicycle in Allahabad with a loudspeaker advertising that Jagdish Rajvanshi and H. N. Bahuguna will give street corner talks.  

Coming out of jail they always remained in touch and later on my father was very actively involved in helping him become chief minister in 1973. He did this by canvassing with some of the most influential people in Delhi (Indira Gandhi’s advisors). Plus his regular editorial articles in Daily Hindustan (Hindi Paper) regarding Bahuguna’s dynamism also helped.

My father also told me that he helped raise money for H. N. Bahuguna’s marriage. In those days Bahuguna was not well off. So my father raised Rs. 5000 for his marriage. In the 1940s that was a very good amount of money. 

I first met H. N. Bahuguna in 1972 when he had come to IIT Kanpur to give a talk or inaugurate something (I don’t remember).  He was the communication minister in the central government. I met him briefly after his talk and am not sure whether he recognized me.

In 1973 Bahuguna was sent by then prime minister Indira Gandhi to become the chief minister of UP. I feel she and her advisors wanted to get rid of him and expected that Bahuguna would easily be defeated in the upcoming 1974 UP Assembly elections. There was a general resentment against Congress in the country (this was just before Jayaprakash Narayan’s "Total Revolution' movement) and so her advisors must have felt that for Bahuguna, UP assembly elections will be a Waterloo and a death blow to his political career.    

My father told me that Bahuguna being a very dynamic leader got into the election with a gusto (my father accompanied him many times in his helicopter for election rallies and meetings) and he said that the response to Bahuguna’s speeches were really amazing.  

Consequently the election result was astounding and Bahuguna got a simple majority and became chief minister in his own right.

This was a major jolt for Mrs. Gandhi and her coterie. So within a week of the election, her henchman Yashpal Kapoor pitched tent in Lucknow and started the dirty tricks department of fomenting trouble among the elected Congress MLAs.

This was politics at its lowest. Every move of Bahuguna was questioned and the UP Government was remotely controlled from PMO in Delhi.

My father told me that after the election the cabinet members list was made in our Lal Bagh house and my father’s name was in it. The cabinet list also had Sunder Lal’s name. However, Mrs. Gandhi overruled most of them since they were all Bahuguna loyalists. It took Bahuguna almost a year before he could induct my father in his cabinet.

When my father was inducted in Bahuguna’s cabinet I had already left for U.S.A. in December 1974. So the Emergency and Janata Party drama all took place in my absence. After the Emergency, my father had joined Bahuguna’s Janata Party and was for a short time spokesperson of the UP Janata Party.

In 1980 I came back from the US to India to see and explore where I would be working. I was interviewed by National Herald and a half-page article on me was published. The focus of the article was that I was leaving a very lucrative career in the US to come to India. Bahuguna  read the article with great interest and wanted to meet me. So I met him for dinner at his house in Delhi and spent a pleasant 3-4 hours with him discussing renewable energy and what can be done in India.  I was impressed by his grasp of energy issues and gave him a list of good books on solar energy to read.

After my permanent return to India in late 1981 from the USA, I met him many times and had many meals in his home in Delhi. He was a fascinating man to be with. He was full of energy and very curious about issues and technological developments in the world.

We used to correspond regularly and I have a thick file of our correspondence. He very graciously replied to all my letters. I would regularly keep him updated about our work in NARI.  He raised many starred questions in parliament about our work.

The last time I met him was in Delhi in December, 1986, at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital where he was admitted for his heart ailment. He was cheerful and as usual we discussed many issues on energy and the books I had sent to him.

I also spoke to him 15 days before he died. My father had taken me to his party office in Lucknow in 1989 and the office had booked a call to the US hospital where he was admitted for heart surgery. I just wished him a speedy recovery, little knowing that within 15 days he would be no more.

Bahuguna ji had a zest for life and used to immensely enjoy non-vegetarian food.  Many a time he came to our house in Lucknow for lunch or dinner.  He ate butter chicken with gusto and would put the bones on my father’s plate!

Later on doctors’ advice, he gave up non-vegetarian food and only ate boiled vegetables.  A number of times he lamented to me: “Look what has come to pass when I have to eat this food and that too without any salt”.

Bahuguna had a sixth sense. Both my father and Bahuguna were wanted by British Police and a reward of Rs. 5000/- was announced for their capture. My father used to tell me that many times in Allahabad they would leave somebody’s house immediately after Bahuguna complained of nose itching! Invariably the police descended on that house after they fled.

Similarly, he told my father that one of his family astrologers had predicted long ago that if he crossed 70 years of age then he will become the prime minister of India. 

Unfortunately, he died one month before he completed 70.

Once during my meeting with him in Delhi he said his long political career has given him some insights into people’s character. So he told me that I will do something wonderful with my life. I jokingly told him “Uncle you become the prime minister of India and I will certainly do something wonderful”. Unfortunately, his soothsaying regarding me has not come to pass.

In his death in 1989 I lost a father figure and India a very dynamic and remarkable leader.  

(The writer is Director and Hon. Secretary, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, Phaltan, Maharashtra. Views are personal. He can be contacted at anilrajvanshi50@gmail.com)