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My novel is an expose: Rao

Former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao says his novel The Insider is an expose of politics and politicians in India, meant to warn the common man of the 'impending crisis staring him in the face' and urge him to bring about a change in the nature of politics in India.

In a television interview, Rao hoped that his book would build up public pressure on the present system, bringing about a change in the nature of politics. ''That is the most important part of it (the book). That's the result I expect from the interaction of the book and the people.''

Speaking about his novel, launched on Wednesday by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rao admitted that his book, which reveals the machinations and manipulations of political life in India, was a deliberate expose.

''The book is an expose. There is no doubt about it. But whom I am exposing is the question. I am exposing not 'X', 'Y' or 'Z' but the whole situation,'' he said.

Rao also revealed that his book has a purpose -- ''to tell people that a systemic crisis is staring them in the face, without them realising it. You are only going on with the outward trappings of democracy but the reality of the feudal era is still persisting, if not openly, at least subterraneously.''

Delving into the reasons for the sorry state of affairs, Rao said, ''You are not able to go to the cause of it or the root of it. Why? Because you are not giving proper attention to the programmes you are undertaking, instead falling into all kinds of other things connected with the chair, connected with power. Questions like 'Who is to occupy the chair?' have become much larger in importance to the exclusion of the programmes of transformation. Politics has become an end in itself.''

Rao, who delves at length on 'certain particularly repulsive power-brokers', shows how they vitiate the system.

''I am afraid their influence, their clout, their number in tending to go up -- that is what really makes me feel afraid for the future. That is what pushed me to write this book. I want them weeded out or controlled,'' he said.

UNI

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