Mani Shankar Aiyar (born 10 April 1941) is an Indian politician and former career civil servant diplomat. He is a member of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

Party. He represented the

Mayiladuthurai Mayiladuthurai (formerly known as Mayavaram or Mayuram) is a :ta:சிறப்பு நிலை நகராட்சிகள், Special Grade Municipality and district headquarters of Mayiladuthurai district in Tamil Nadu, India. The town ...

constituency of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

in the 10th Lok Sabha, 13th Lok Sabha, and

14th Lok Sabha The 14th Lok Sabha (2 June 2004 – 18 May 2009) was convened after the 2004 Indian general election held in four phases during 20 April – 10 May 2004, which led to the formation of first Manmohan Singh ministry (2004–2009). Indian National ...

. He was a nominated member of parliament from

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

Early life and education

Mani Shankar Aiyar is the son of Vaidyanatha Shankar Aiyar, a chartered accountant, and Bhagyalakshmi Shankar Aiyar. He was born in Laxmi Mansions, Lahore in British India, which as post-Partition refugee property, became house for the family of Saadat Hassan Manto. His older brother is the journalist, Swaminathan Aiyar. He lost his father at age 12 in an air crash. He attended Welham Boys' School,

The Doon School The Doon School (informally Doon School or Doon) is a Selective school, selective all-boys Private school, private boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, which was established in 1935. It was envisioned by Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer ...

and obtained B.A. in economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi,

University of Delhi The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

. While at Doon, he was an editor of '' The Doon School Weekly''. After the loss of his father, Aiyar's mother had to negotiate with Doon to allow him to continue his studies with reduced fees and in return she taught at the school. He graduated in economics from Delhi University, and then did a two-year B.A. in Tripos in economics at

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge, colloquially "Tit Hall" ) is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1350, it is th ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

which, in the Oxbridge tradition, became an M.A. with the passage of time. He was a member of Trinity Hall. He was also an active member of the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

Society in Cambridge. At Cambridge, Aiyar joined student politics and once even tried to win a presidential contest.

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian statesman and pilot who served as the prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the Assassination of Indira Gandhi, assassination of his mother, then–prime ...

, who was his junior both at Doon and Cambridge, supported him in his campaign.

Positions Held

Career

He joined the

Indian Foreign Service The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is a diplomatic service and a Central Civil Services, central civil service of the Government of India, Government of the Republic of India under the Ministry of External Affairs (India), Ministry of External A ...

in 1963 and served as

Joint Secretary to Government of India Joint Secretary to the Government of India (often abbreviated as JS, GoI or Union Joint Secretary or Joint Secretary to Union of India) is a post under the Central Staffing Scheme and the third highest non-political executive rank in the Govern ...

from 1982 to 1983 in Ministry of External Affairs and later as Joint Secretary at Prime Minister's Office from 1985 to 1989. He resigned from service in 1989 to take up a career in politics and media, entering the

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

as a Congress MP from

in 1991, 1999 and 2004 but was defeated in 1996, 1998, 2009 and 2014. He spent some time in

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

posted as a diplomat, serving as India's first consul-general in

Karachi Karachi is the capital city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Sindh, Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, largest city in Pakistan and 12th List of largest cities, largest in the world, with a popul ...

from 1978 to 1982. He is a special invitee to the

Congress Working Committee The Congress Working Committee (CWC) is the executive committee of the Indian National Congress. It was formed in December 1920 at Nagpur session of INC which was headed by C. Vijayaraghavachariar. It is composed of senior party leaders and is r ...

and was a chairman of both the party's political training department and the department of policy planning and coordination. He is also a well-known political columnist and has written several books, including ''Pakistan Papers'' and ''Remembering Rajiv'', and has edited a four-volume publication, ''Rajiv Gandhi's India''. His special interests include

grassroots democracy Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes that shift as much decision-making authority as practical to the organization's lowest geographic or social level of organization. Grassroots A grassroots movement i ...

, Indian foreign policy particularly with India's neighbouring countries, and

West Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

and

nuclear disarmament Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term ''denuclearization'' is also used to describe the pro ...

Personal life

He was married on 4 January 1973 to Suneet Vir Singh, a

Sikh Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...

woman. They have 3 daughters – the eldest, Suranya Aiyar is a lawyer; the second, Yamini Aiyar is a senior research fellow and director of the Accountability Initiative. Aiyar is the uncle of Vidya Shankar Aiyar, former anchor on Channelnews asia and CNN- IBN.

Controversies

While on a tour of the Andamans as the Cabinet Minister in the later part of 2004, Aiyar was quoted as saying at the Cellular Jail there that there was no difference between Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Savarkar and Pakistan's founder

Mohammed Ali Jinnah Muhammad Ali Jinnah (born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 187611 September 1948) was a barrister, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the inception of Pa ...

as they shared a 'divisive' philosophy. He also ordered that a plaque with a poem commemorating Savarkar be replaced with a plaque with quotes from

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

. Reports of the incident paralysed

and led to agitations by the

Shiv Sena Shiv Sena (1966–2022) (; ; SS) was a right-wing Marathi regionalist Hindutva-based political party in India founded in 1966 by Bal Thackeray, who was later succeeded by Uddhav Thackeray. The party is split into two parties: the Uddha ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

. Aiyar's remarks created confusion as well in the ruling party; the official spokesman, Anand Sharma, noted that the Congress Party did not consider Savarkar either a freedom fighter or a patriot. A few days later, the Prime Minister dissociated himself and the cabinet from that view. In September 2011, Aiyar visited his alma mater— St. Stephen's College—to speak about 'Governance and Corruption: Is Panchayati Raj A Solution?'. However, he began to mock the Hansraj College and its former student

Ajay Maken Ajay Maken (born 12 January 1964) is a politician from the Indian National Congress party. He is the treasurer of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC). A three time member of the Parliament ...

. He also belittled the Kirori Mal College and the BA (Programme) Degree, a course in the University of Delhi. This led to an agitation by the students of Hansraj College. When the agitated students approached him, he mocked them even further. When later questioned by the media, Aiyar refused to apologise and rather ridiculed the institutions even further. Baffled by his remarks, Stephen's College and its students went on to apologise to Hansraj College and extended a hand of friendship. He in an interview days before the run up to the 2014 Parliament elections in India, said that a tea seller (The Prime Ministerial candidate

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

of the BJP) can never become the Prime Minister of India, but can sell tea in

AICC The Akaike information criterion (AIC) is an estimator of prediction error and thereby relative quality of statistical models for a given set of data. Given a collection of models for the data, AIC estimates the quality of each model, relative to e ...

meetings. His comment was disowned by the Congress saying it's his personal view and not the party's view.

Rahul Gandhi Rahul Rajiv Gandhi (; born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician. A member of the Indian National Congress (INC), he is currently serving as the 12th leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and as the member of the Lok Sabha for Rae Bareli Lok ...

asked him not to make personal attacks. Mani Shankar Aiyer justified the

November 2015 Paris attacks A series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:16, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France in Saint-De ...

as a response to France banning hijab. He also justified the

Charlie Hebdo shooting On 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 a.m. in Paris, Paris, France, the employees of the French satirical weekly magazine ''Charlie Hebdo'' were targeted in a terrorist shooting attack by two French-born Islam in Algeria, Algerian Muslim bro ...

as a backlash for the death of Muslims. His comments were disapproved by his own party members. He sparked a political firestorm when he called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "''neech aadmi''", which PM Modi interpreted as ''nichli jaati'' ( lower caste). Subsequently, he was temporarily suspended from the party's primary membership. Aiyar said the comments by the PM showed his "low-level mindset and one bereft of any manners". He further justified his remarks on Modi by adding "Yes, I called Modi 'neech' but did not mean it as a low-born; I meant it as low".

Publications

Aiyar has written ten books: *The Rajiv I Knew: And why He was India's Most Misunderstood Prime Minister, 2024 * ''How To Be A Sycophant'', NBS, New Delhi, 1990. * ''Rajiv Gandhi: The Great Computer Scientist of India'', Mughal Publishers, New Delhi, 1991. * ''Remembering Rajiv'', Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 1992. * ''One Year in Parliament'', Konark, New Delhi, 1993. * ''Pakistan Papers'', UBSPD, New Delhi, 1994. * ''Knickerwallahs, Silly-Billies and Other Curious Creatures'', UBS Publishers, 1995. * ''Rajiv Gandhi's India'', 4 vols. (General Editor), UBSPD New Delhi, 1997. * ''Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist'',

Penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

, 2004. * ''A Time of Transition: Rajiv Gandhi to the 21st Century'',

, 2009.

References

External links

Biography at Indian Sports Ministry websiteArticle
in

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. Owned by The Times Group, ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961 and it is sold in all major cities in India. As of 2012, it is the world's secon ...

about him dated 23 May 2004.
Information as a member of 14th Lok Sabha on website of Lok SabhaMani Shankar Aiyer Statement Regarding Terrorism Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aiyar, Mani Shankar 1941 births Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Cambridge Living people Indian atheists Indian expatriates in Pakistan The Doon School alumni India MPs 1999–2004 India MPs 2004–2009 Union ministers from Tamil Nadu Politicians from Lahore Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha India MPs 1991–1996 Lok Sabha members from Tamil Nadu United Progressive Alliance candidates in the 2014 Indian general election Indian civil servants Indian government officials Indian Foreign Service officers People from Mayiladuthurai district Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministers of India Members of the Cabinet of India