Kalikho Pul: A Reminiscence

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we only owe the truth, said the French philosopher Voltaire, in his succinct summation of the way posterity needs to understand a human being. This statement brings to sharp relief the alleged suicide of former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pul who took his own life last month in his yoga room at his official residence.

- Rahul Jain

Many theories are doing the rounds as to why one of the finest politicians of Arunachal Pradesh did what he did to himself. Some say he was distraught by the betrayal of men (legislators) he trusted to change the destiny of his state while others say that losing power overnight and becoming a near non-entity took a toll on him.

Grapevine also has it that he was in debt following his dramatic rise to the top post in Arunachal politics where legislators put a heavy price tag on their loyalties to leaders. If this is the case then it is also a reflection of his personality that he valued moral obligations, knowing full well that the monetary transactions he entered into were all without legal implications.

In the face of the police not making public the content of the dairy written by him, it would be difficult to pinpoint the exact reason or a combination of the causes that led to him taking the extreme step.

However, close circle of friends and relatives told this writer that the diary reveals his concern on a number of subjects: the most important of them being corruption. According to sources, Pul was very critical of the prevailing corruption in all the three branches of democracy: legislative, executive and the judiciary, including the higher judiciary.

During his brief tenure as chief minister, he admitted many a times to his friends that he has not been able to make much difference to corruption, and the mentality that breeds the former. It was this desperation that betrayed impatience of the man and may have contributed to the event of July 30.