S. Nihal Singh

A never-say-die journalist’s life story with an in-depth analysis of crucial historical events, fascinating anecdotes about the high and mighty, revealing behind-the-scenes events and a bouquet of delightful snippets . . .This book traces one man’s journey stretching from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru to the Manmohan Singh era. As a journalist, S. Nihal Singh had a ringside seat in observing and analysing important developments in India and the world: The 1969 split in the Congress, with Indira Gandhi emerging victorious; the Emergency imposed by her in June 1975, her downfall, her phoenix-like rise and her assassination; the game of musical chairs with the Congress as music master as prime ministers came and went in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; the tempestuous relations between India and Pakistan; the 1991 Gulf war; and the litany of scams that have buffeted the Manmohan Singh Government. The scandals facing the government had been long in the making, but they illuminate features like the erosion of the country’s once-famed administrative structure, the rise of corruption in an increasingly consumer-oriented acquisitive society, the democratization of polity by the inclusion of hitherto excluded sections and the decline of the mother Congress Party. The Manmohan Singh–Sonia Gandhi harness in a two-horse tonga became necessary because Sonia’s so-called foreign birth turned into a major political controversy. The scandals, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s desire to milk them, merely accentuated the problems of a prime minister without the politician’s ability to tame events while his co-ruler, the party president, became the recognized power centre. Over the decades, editing two major Indian newspapers (The Statesman and the Indian Express) and Dubai’s Khaleej Times ensured a varied and eventful life with never a dull moment. Outside his home country, Nihal Singh was a witness to dramatic events in South-east Asia, Eastern and Western Europe and the United States. His tour of duty also took him to Moscow, where he rubbed the Soviets the wrong way.