I didn’t know our Late P.A. Sangma well enough. I wish I had. But whatever little I did know of him left an indelible mark early on as I started my journalism career in Delhi.
There is a very interesting snippet told to me when Sangma had just become the Information and Broadcasting Minister in 1995. The incident was narrated to me by All India Radio veteran newsreader and voice trainer Barun Haldar, as I joined ANI in Delhi as a cub reporter.
He figured out that I shared a Sangma surname. Fondly called ‘Borunda’ by everyone, Barun Haldar was the nicest Bengali gentleman I ever met. God rest his soul. When I say the ‘nicest’ Bengali gentleman, trust me, I know it personally. I am married to a Bengali myself. Gifted with an unmatched diction and deep, soothing baritone voice, Borunda was a rarity in today’s shrill news cacophony.
Here is the story. When Sangma had assumed office, many of the All India Radio and DD newsreaders had a tough time pronouncing his surname. Many would mispronounce Sangma as ‘SANGAMA’.
He tolerated it initially, but when the pronunciation disability continued unabated for weeks, he pulled up the I&B official, a Bengali gentleman, Mr. Bhaumik. Sangma told Bhaumik, “Mr. Bhaumik, if you don’t stop calling me ‘SANGAMA’, I will create a ‘HANGAMA’ (ruckus) in the Parliament.”
The office had to convene an urgent and special meeting for the newsreaders to get their boss’s name correct. Today, many still remember him for controlling the ‘hungama’ created by the Members of Parliament while he was the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. In fact, those live Parliamentary sessions were his so-called ‘viral’ moments which etched him as a maverick yet endearing face of Northeast politics.
In 2001, as I graduated from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, I was looking for a placement with NDTV. I met him and asked whether he could help in putting in a good word. He asked me to drop my CV with his Personal Assistant Rehman at his office. I did and forgot about it.
Back in those days, only the privileged could afford a mobile phone, and I was not a privileged one by any degree, so his office had no way of getting in touch with me even if they wanted to. By then I had shifted to Mumbai and started working with Times Now.
Two years later, when I was back in Delhi, I was told that he was looking for the NDTV placement request I had sought. That is the kind of man he was. No matter how trivial or insignificant it was, he always remembered and went out of his way to help someone who was of no significance.
We Catholics have this concept of a godfather. A godfather is a person generally well-disposed in society, who is the sponsor in the sacrament of Baptism. He is supposed to be responsible for assisting the parents in raising the child in the Catholic faith, serving as a spiritual role model. He perfectly fits the character famously depicted by Mario Puzo’s Godfather and brought to life by Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 Hollywood magnum opus The Godfather.
Don Corleone, the fictional Sicilian Mafia boss, is the good evil mafia boss who would go to any length to do good for people under his protection, even if his means were questionable. If you are a fan of mafia flicks, you would realise Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone role is the template on which every Hollywood mafia film is based.
P.A. Sangma was the godfather not only of the Garos in Delhi but for many people from the Northeast who looked up to him as a voice that echoed their own. He touched so many in ways he could have never imagined. It was not partisan politics; it did not matter what his political decisions were—the community was behind him.
I remember every community occasion, like Christmas or Easter, he would graciously throw open his 30 Aurangzeb Road residence as the venue for the get-together. He was there like an ever-present Smiling Buddha, cracking jokes and interacting with whoever he came across. Like other politicians, he could have stayed inside his cubicle and made himself unavailable and therefore doubly important. But that was not his way.
While he was grounded in many ways, as a politician, I doubt his political life was anything but. I don’t really recall any contemporary Indian politician who had so much rough and tumble like he did, either by choice or circumstance.
From honing his skills in the cutthroat, murky tribal politics of Meghalaya to being the tribal face of the Congress in the corridors of power in Delhi, his political journey was a tale legends are made of. He was a torchbearer. He had gone where no Garo dared to tread and cleared the path only a few of us can aspire to go.
He was a very popular I&B Minister and an even more popular Speaker of the Lok Sabha. In fact, he raised the bar of the office of Lok Sabha Speaker. For most of his life, he was lucky to be at the right moment. He became the Speaker when live television sessions were just booming, and he endeared himself to the rest of the country.
In one of his talks, Shekhar Gupta, a veteran journalist who has his roots in the Northeast, said that Sangma’s ascendancy was meteoric, so much so that he became acceptable as the tribal ambassador in Delhi to the mainstream without any doubts.
Many might call it his political hara-kiri, but he took on the Congress on the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s citizenship at the peak of his career.
While many called it political naivety, I am sure many tribals, especially Garos with a strong Catholic upbringing, can relate to him and why he did what he did. We have this strong and uncanny sense of right and wrong and natural justice, and as individuals, we would be on the side of the right no matter what the consequences were.
Today, I am proud of him for standing up for what he thought was right at the time, and many of us—and particularly politicians—don’t have the courage to stand up for their conviction. Imagine Kiren Rijiju, Himanta Sarma, Pema Khandu, or even Conrad Sangma standing up to today’s Modi or Amit Shah on ideological grounds and forming a political party to oppose the might of the ruling dispensation.
Our P.A. Sangma had the gumption to do that. The incident became a turning point in his political career and the foundational stone of NCP and NPP.
When he fronted himself for the post of President, he knew exactly what he was up against. Odds were against him. Late Pranab Mukherjee was the popular choice, but that did not stop him. He knew exactly that someone had to set the precedent of standing up and being counted as the first tribal candidate for the highest office in the country.
Today, I am convinced this could only come from deep conviction and not any political calculus. In today’s day and age, when politics is about conformity and political stands are about economic transactions, he was an old breed who still valued old-school values.
Some who knew him up close may see his personal and character flaws. I even know a few who had to face the wrath of his vengeance. To all who faced his fury, in Latin it says, “De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est,” meaning, “Of the dead, nothing but good is to be said.” I won’t say further and leave it at that.
In today’s era of right-wing ascendancy, regionalism, tribal affinity, and partisan politics, Meghalaya in general and Garos in particular are in need of a statesman who would rise above our petty squabbles.
Currently, there are too many voices, vested interests, NGOs, and divided party cadres: NPP against Congress, BJP fishing in troubled waters, Trinamool lobbing petrol bombs or Molotov cocktails into already troublesome tribal politics.
I wish all of these vested-interest parties would sit down together and reflect on simple issues such as the GHDC crisis and where we are headed on the future of tribal autonomy under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Otherwise, we are inviting others to meddle in our own tribal affairs.
I believe P.A. Sangma’s shoes are too big to fill, even for Conrad. In legacy enterprises or dynastic politics, there is a theory of generational survival: “The first generation builds it, the second enjoys it, and the third destroys it.”
I hope the lesson is not lost on Conrad, James, and Agatha. I wish and pray that their father’s legacy is carried on through them. Sangma did not need hordes of consultants, manipulative bureaucracy, and Section 8 companies to build his politics. First and foremost, he was just a people’s person with a special ability to connect with even a random person like me seeking his help to get a reporter job. He was just everyone’s godfather.
Perhaps the biggest lesson of his life was his final moments in Delhi. In early March 2016, we were all devastated to hear of his passing at his official residence all alone in the quiet of night. I was one of the first to visit his residence while his family was still in transit from Tura.
His life had been all about life lessons, and this is the most powerful one: “Nothing else matters,” “We all come alone and die alone.” Our name, fame, and wealth do not matter; it is how well we have enriched random lives with the life that has been bestowed to us. That was P.A. Sangma’s greatest legacy.
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