The October, 1962 Sino-Indian war cast an ineffaceable impression on the mind of every Indian. A long series of events including the Chinese perceptions about the Indian designs for Tibet and the bungle over demarcating a common border between China and India triggered China’s decision to go to war, which was little short of a hurricane for India that ravaged the Indian military, eventually forcing Nehru to eat crow.

In September 1962, a different sort of hurricane swirled into being. A 23-year-old Harvard PhD student took Indian politics by storm.His name was Subramanian Swamy, who coincidentally had a significant role to play in the Sino-Indian relations in the years to come. Born into a traditional and a highly educated Tam-Brahm family, he inherited the enviable intellect characteristic of the community. His family having moved to Delhi from Mylapore while he was merely 6-months, Swamy spent a large chunk of his teens in the national capital. Having a father who was a bureaucrat who had friends such as K. Kamaraj, C. Rajagopalachari and S. Satyamurti, Swamy was exposed to the world of politics at an impressionable age. Realizing he had a quantitative aptitude and a phenomenal ability to crunch numbers, he earned his Bachelors Honours degree in Mathematics and later went on to complete his Masters from the prestigious Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Unsurprisingly, the gifted Swamy, on a fully funded scholarship went to Harvard to pursue his PhD in Economics and eventually co-authored a paper titled, “The Theory of Index Numbers” with Nobel Laureate and noted economist Paul Samuelson, before returning to India. Some say his returning to India was a mistake, he had a bright academic career ahead of him in the States, his worth would be recognized in the West as against being deemed a “sore loser”, a “rabble-rouser”, a “loose cannon” or a “muckraker” in India; except he came to India with no intention of returning to the States.

The question that bothers a few people is why Swamy, who has hardly held any consequential position of power, is even relevant; let alone his being a headache for the heavyweights dominating Indian politics for decades. The answer to this question lies in his uncanny personality, firm resolve and sheer grit.

“Swamy is an advocate neither by profession, nor by qualification. He learnt law by reading books belonging to his Wife, a Supreme Court Advocate and by discussing cases and landmark judgements with her. This only goes to show he is extremely effective at what he sets his mind on.”

As they say, you can love him, you can hate him, but you most certainly can’t ignore him.

Come 2016. Subramanian Swamy is known as a man who wears many hats- an economist par excellence, a lawyer, a diplomat, a mathematician, a statistician, an anti-corruption crusader and a Hindutva-propagandist.

So what exactly thrust Swamy into the limelight?

His Emergency Heroics- Indira Gandhi had issued arrest warrants against several right-wing activists including Subramanian Swamy and Narendra Modi. Both , Modi and Swamy, spent several months disguised as Sardars to avoid imprisonment. Eventually, Swamy escaped to the USA while Modi continued his work as a Swayamsevak. Swamy took everybody by surprise when he entered the parliament while the arrest warrant was still issued against him, attended the session to avoid dismissal, and fled back to the States, successfully dodging the police. One may wonder why he had to abandon a comfortable life in the West only to get embroiled in such unnecessary events; but that’s Swamy for you!

A thaw in China-India relations- Swamy is not only a brilliant mind and an authority on the Chinese economy, but also a sagacious statesman.

When the Janata Party government came to power in 1977, Prime Minister Morarji Desai asked him to go to China to explore the situation and see if normalisation of relations would be possible. He was chosen to go first, despite peer jealousies and objections in the party, because Swamy knew Mandarin, had researched and taught courses (at Harvard) on China, and also because, as Morarji told him, he viewed China, “without wearing rose-tinted glasses.”

Swamy is such a quick learner, and considered a prodigy by few, that when challenged to learn Mandarin within a year, he casually accepted it and learnt Mandarin within a brief period of 3 months

This initiative in September 1978 produced enough of a thaw for Morarjibhai to clear the way for External Affairs Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to make a trip in February 1979, the first by any Indian Minister since 1960. But the outcome of the visit was, alas, scuttled by mishandling the fallout of the Sino-Vietnam war that was launched when he was there, and Mr. Vajpayee had to cut short his stay in China.

In 1981, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent External Affairs Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, to request Swamy to visit China again, and in a back-channel format obtain some clarifications about China’s attitude to the re-opening of relations with India, as also its intentions about some extremist leaders of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) who were planning to visit China clandestinely to obtain weapons.

In April 1981, Swamy visited Beijing and was received by Deng Xiaoping. It was during that meeting that he announced that Foreign Minister Huang Hua would go to India, and that China was open to a negotiated settlement on the Sino-Indian border dispute.

Border delineation discussions began thereafter and are still continuing on preliminaries! Deng Xiaoping conceded his demand, then pending for three years, for re-opening the Kailash-Manasarovar route in Tibet but only for Hindu pilgrims (China’s condition). Swamy led the first delegation of 20 pilgrims in the freezing cold weather of September 1981, and since then Hindu pilgrims in batches have continued to go to Kailash-Manasarovar without any hitch till today.

The Brain behind India’s economic reforms- Although not certain, it is considered that the reforms undertaken by Manmohan Singh in 1991 were based on the blueprint drafted by Subramanian Swamya at Narsimha Rao’s behest. Swamy was a proponent of free markets country was heavily invested in populism and was thus, cornered by those loyal to the champion of the “garibi hatao! andolan” Indira Gandhi. He never diluted his stance on free markets despite being cornered by those influential leaders in the political arena suffering from the Nehruvian-socialist hangover.Swamy was one of the first Indian economists to predict India’s potential to grow at 8-10%, while we were characterised by the Hindu growth rates of 3-4%

4. The Hate Affair with the Gandhis- Once a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia’s well-wisher, all hell broke loose when Sonia betrayed Swamy’s trust and he resolved to make life miserable for the ‘Sicilian swindlers’. At Sonia Gandhi’s bidding, Swamy liaised with Jayalalitha to bring down the Vajpayee government. When Sonia backtracked on her committment, Swamy decided to use every possible resource at his disposal (predominantly his intellectual capital) to bring her down. Swamy has levelled several allegations against Gandhi, including her nationality, and has been proven right on most accounts.

It was because of Swamy that Sonia Gandhi couldn’t become Prime Minister in 2004. He wrote a letter to the erstwhile President, A.P.J Abdul Kalam, highlighting a constitutional issue preventing her from taking the office of the Prime Minister. APJ along with his army of bureaucrats investigated the matter and Swamy was vindicated; thus followed the saga of Sonia’s so called “sacrifice” with Congress loyalists shedding tears at the fact that their mistress couldn’t live her lifelong dream.



He also managed to indict A Raja of the DMK by unravelling the 2G scam singehandedly. A 70+ year old taking on the entire insitution seemed too hard to believe.

Swamy has managed to drag Sonia Gandhi and her prodigal son and Gandhi scion, Mr. Rahul Gandhi to court in the National Herald scam- another racket Swamy uncovered unassisted!

Now, a member of the Upper House, Swamy couldn’t resist lambasting Ms. Gandhi in relation to the Agusta Westland scam. What follows would be interesting.

When his relations with Jayalalitha soured, he managed to send her to jail for four years!

In a nutshell, he managed to send just one message across- “If you mess with me, I’ll make life hell for you.”

….which is why despite his bitter relations with the BJP in the last decade of the 20th century, not one BJP leader tries to ruffle his feathers, but on the contrary, at the Sangh’s bidding, welcomed him into the party in August 2013.

“Ruthless pragmatism, vindictiveness, dexterity, a freakish ability to learn any subject under the sun within no time and an unflinching determination to put those culpable behind bars are some of the qualities that describe Subramanian Swamy”

A Man of Controversies- When one hears Swamy suggest that Muslims should be denied the right to vote if they do not acknowledge their Hindu ancestry, he may wonder if Swamy suffers from a split personality where, on one hand, lies a brilliant economist the world reveres, while on the other, lies a “loose cannon” who sparks unnecessary controversies.

Well, one who may not have followed Swamy closely wouldn’t know any better. He is known to be someone who never minces his words, speaks his mind regardless of the possible consequences and never regrets a thing! He supports every argument of his with solid logic which is why he can never be brought to book. He is as much an American trained mind as a fierce nationalist with beliefs firmly entrenched in the Hindu ideology.

And in a world where politicians, no matter how junior, try hard not to provoke the minorities, Swamy despite being seasoned doesn’t think twice before saying what he feels is right, which is why many admire him.

His strategy for the BJP is as clear as a glass of moonshine- The Muslims are never going to vote for the BJP, which is why diluting their stand on Hindutva is futile, rather counterproductive in the sense that they would end up alienating their core voter base. He claims to have clearly segmented and targeted the Indian electorate, and his reasoning starts to make sense when viewed in entirety.

5. Now a member of the Rajya Sabha- Having stayed out of office for nearly two and a half decades, Swamy was rewarded with a seat in the upper house for the work he has been relentlessly been carrying out outside the leadership. The day he swore in, he managed to drive the opposition into a frenzy, a visual treat to those agitated by the Gandhis’ conduct in the parliament since 2014.



Swamy is Amit Shah’s counter to the Congress (in the Rajya Sabha), which has managed to hold the entire house to ransom. After multiple failed attempts of persuasion, he decided it was time to pull out the big guns!!

The decision to bring in Swamy was solely Amit Shah’s as a tactic to silence the opposition that had been taking the Centre too lightly for the past 23 months. BJP is being accused of going soft on the Congress despite their unabated misconduct in the bicameral Parliament. The leadership relied on the reticent Arun Jaitley’s ability to negotiate, only to fall flat on its face.

How the BJP would benefit by having Swamy on the floor of the Parliament-

BJP needs an economist. It has Dr. Swamy, the economist

BJP needs a champion of the Hindutva cause. It has Dr. Swamy, the intellectual

BJP needs a diplomat. It has Dr. Swamy, the diplomat

BJP needs Machiavellianism. It has Dr. Swamy, the Chanakya

Most importantly, BJP needs somebody to take on the Gandhis by hitting them where it hurts most. It has Dr. Swamy, a ruthless pragmatist to the bone

With Swamy pulling no punches, BJP has asserted its dominance in the Parliament yet again. There’s not a single leader in the Congress who can move court against Swamy because they are well aware of his capacity to pin anybody who messes with him against the wall. The most they can do is create a ruckus and disrupt the proceedings of the House.

So with Swamy donning the hat of an MP, what could be expected of him?

He is a man of facts and uses facts to not only defend himself but also attack his opponents by taking them by surprise. He would never let the opposition get the better of him. His sole purpose seems to bulldoze the opposition and as history suggests, he seems to be the only person capable of bringing the entire united opposition to its knees.

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