A country’s Home Minister is supposed to be the first line of defence who keeps the country’s intelligence, soldiers, and other armed forces on the front foot so that the enemies cannot penetrate the country.
In the off chance they do, it is the duty of the Home Minister to hold the fort and ensure that the country retaliates and gives it back in kind. However, over the years, India has had the disappointment of producing several below-par Home Ministers who have brought shame to the ministry. Here we have compiled a list of the top-5, in no particular order of the worst Home Ministers India ever had.
Shivraj Patil
Shivraj Patil will probably go down in the history books as one of the most incompetent Home Ministers the country has ever had the misfortune of producing. He handled the all-important ministry during the dastardly 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
To this date, it is alleged that NSG (National Security Guard) Commandos were deployed late into the mission, all because they had to wait for Shivraj Patil to board the same aircraft, in addition to the time-consuming logistical constraints.
According to top Congress sources, even after the plane had taken off from Chandigarh to Delhi it got delayed. The NSG commandos quickly took their positions but had to wait for Patil who was going to Mumbai on the same plane.
It is not clear for how long the commandos had to wait in the plane for Patil to turn up, but sources said all this contributed to the NSG team arriving at 7 am on Thursday — almost 10 hours after the attack began at around 9.25 pm on Wednesday.
The terrorists have already planted themselves into the spot they were meant to and were terrorizing and killing people with impunity. Only if NSG had landed a few hours early, the casualty numbers could have been brought down.
Moreover, the NSG and its apathetic condition under the UPA and Shivraj rule has been well documented. Owing to his tardy response during the attacks, Shivraj was soon sacked as the home minister. A feat rather unheard in Congress regimes where corruption and lethargy are awarded.
P Chidambaram
P Chidambaram was an improvement on his weak predecessors but he polarized the Home Ministry to an extent that it became a divisive regional political party, keeping only the interest of the few chosen one’s in mind while leaving the rest to fend off for themselves,
If Congress started the bogus Hindu terrorism conversation in the aftermath of 26/11, P Chidambaram took it to a crescendo and made it his life mission to denigrate the Hindus across the country with false accusations and paint them as the new age terrorists.
In a briefing to top police officials in 2010, Chidambaram held no pretenses and openly enunciated the term ‘Hindu terrorism’.
He said, “There is no let up in the attempts to radicalise young men and women in India. Besides, there is the recently uncovered phenomenon of saffron terrorism that has been implicated in many bomb blasts of the past. My advice to you is that we must remain ever vigilant and continue to build, at the Central and State levels, our capacity in counter-terrorism,”
Swami Aseemanand, a Hindu monk who wears his religion on his sleeve was targeted by the UPA regime incessantly, especially under P Chidambaram’s tenure. Aseemanand had launched a movement against conversion in the tribal belt of Gujarat. Originally from Hooghly district, he made the western state his base in late 1990 for a reconversion drive in Dang district to bring Tribals back into the Hindu fold.
However, as established earlier, UPA and Congress were essentially Islamist apologist parties and minority appeasement was their biggest vote-generating ploy. Thus, Aseemanand was openly made the scapegoat and a means for the UPA and P Chidambaram to raise the bogey of ‘Hindu Terrorism’.
It was during the Congress-led coalition’s tenure that the saffron-clad Swami was falsely dubbed as the mastermind of three different bomb blasts in 2007: the Samjhauta Express explosion of February which took the lives of 68 people; the Mecca Masjid one in May; and the Ajmer Sharif blast in October.
However, on April 16th 2018, a special court judge in Hyderabad delivered the verdict stating that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had failed to prove the charges against Aseemanand. No single charge that the prosecution had levelled against Aseemanand could be proved and the monk was finally acquitted.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed
A Home Minister in the VP Singh cabinet, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is infamously known for the kidnapping saga involving his daughter. In 1989, Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped by the JKLF.
However, Sayeed, instead of keeping his cool and showing respect for the top post he held, panicked and became over-eager to give in to the demands of the kidnappers that five terrorists should be released, in spite of knowing that no harm would come to her.
The father of one of the kidnappers had reassured the then Farooq Abdullah government that no harm would come to the girl and that the kidnappers were ready to let her go.
Despite this categorical assurance, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed went against the diktat. He seemingly made contact with JKLF kidnappers through a judge—Justice Moti Lal Bhatt.
After the contact was established, Sayeed leaked the news that the Central government was ready to give in to the demands of the kidnappers and release the five terrorists that they wanted to be released. The ineptitude of Mufti Mohammed can be gauged from the fact that the five terrorists were released even before his daughter Rubaiya was released.
The kidnapping saga was perhaps the point where Islamist terrorists realized that they could dominate the valley. Ultimately, they succeeded and clocked the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the state and plagued it with terrorism which is still holding the state back.
Former Union Minister Arif Mohammad Khan, who was a part of VP Singh’s Cabinet has made similar observations, “I have absolutely no doubt that the manner in which the Rubaiya Sayeed matter was handled, gave a fillip to terrorism (in the valley),”
Sushil Kumar Shinde
Ahead of the ninth anniversary of the Nirbhaya case, it is imperative that another weak Home Minister of the UPA era, Sushil Kumar Shinde finds a mention in this illustrious list. Under his tenure, the ghastly inhumane gang rape took place. However, instead of tightening up the laws and making sure that criminals are not allowed to go Scot free using the loopholes, Shinde did nothing to change it.
In the aftermath of the gang rape, a three-member team headed by CJI Verma(retd) was formed to examine and suggest changes to the legal framework that would help in clamping down the surging rape incidents. The report was submitted by the committee on January 23, 2013.
However, the former CJI revealed that the then Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who had appointed the committee, didn’t for once interact with the committee. The Congress party was so unconcerned about the committee’s report that neither Sushil Kumar Shinde nor Union Home Secretary R K Singh were present to accept the report. Instead, the report was accepted by the Joint Secretary in the ministry.
Like his predecessors, Shinde also used the Hindu Terrorism card to strengthen the minority vote bank for his party. He has openly targeted RSS for running terror camps. In an interview, the former Home Minister remarked, “We have got an investigation report that be it the RSS or BJP, their training camps are promoting Hindu terrorism. We are keeping a strict vigil on all this.
Yashwantrao Chavhan
Yashwantrao Chavhan was a living example of double standards. If we perceive him with realism, he had all the qualities of an ideal Indian politician. He was infamous for his hypocrisy and double standards. Yashwantrao served as a home minister from 1966 to 1970 and then 1979 to 1980.
Interestingly he was the home minister under Indira Gandhi’s cabinet for the first time and served under Indira Gandhi’s arc nemesis Chaudhary Charan Singh for the second time. He served as a Home minister as well as Vice Prime-Minister under both the political leaders.
If anyone can compete with Yashwantrao in taking U-Turns in making decisions, they would be Arvind Kejriwal and Kanhaiya Kumar.