Pramod Mahajan: A Leader Ahead of his Time

It was Pramod Mahajan's passion for making India a global
telecommunications and IT hub that helped the country reap the benefits of
globalization. In keeping with his spirit of spreading IT to the masses, he was
more than instrumental in tabling the IT Act 2000.

In addition to this, it was Mahajan who pushed for a three
percent government budgetary allocation in the arena of e-governance projects.
Wanting to realize the full potential of the telecom sector, he lobbied for a 74
percent FDI in telecom, in the place of 24 percent.

Pramod Mahajan receiving the DataQuest IT Man of the Year 2001 award from Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman of NIIT

Recognizing his overall contribution to the IT industry,
Mahajan was named the DataQuest Man of the Year 2001. But he was not always a
high-flying politician. Instead Mahajan started his professional life as a
teacher in a small town in Maharashtra.

But his personal charisma and determination made him scale
the pinnacles of politics. In fact there were rumors that the Bhartiya Janata
Party (BJP) had hopes of nominating him for the prime ministerial post. But this
promising future was crushed when his own sibling, Pravin, shot him three times
at point blank range. Mahajan's life took a sudden and fatal change with this
incident.

56-year-old Mahajan was battling for life since April 22 when
Pravin shot him over what the latter perceived as a slight from his elder
brother. Mahajan's liver, pancreas and intestine were damaged in the attack
and the multiple failure of these organs subsequently resulted in his death.

Remembrances from the industry

Mahajan was considered very close to the late Dewang Mehta, founder president of
National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) as both of them
shared a common vision to make India a global IT superpower. According to NK
Goyal, Chairman of Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Association (TEMA) Mahajan
was an extraordinary leader who pushed India into the global league of
telecommunications. "Today, if we look at India's telecom map, there is
tremendous growth. A lot of this is because of Mahajan's efforts to liberalize
and utilize technology in a better way," he added.

FACT SHEET

Parents: Prabhavati and Venkatesh Devidas Mahajan Birthplace: Mehboobnagar, Andhra Pradesh Birth date: October 30, 1949 Education: Science graduate in Physics, Master of Arts in Political Science and Bachelor of Arts in Journalism Alumni: Yogeshwari Mahavidyala at Beed, University of Pune and University of Aurangabad Spouse: Rekha Pramod Mahajan, married on March 11, 1972 Children: Son, Rahul and daughter, Poonam Political party: Bharatiya Janta Party Political graph: President of All India BJYM, 1986 Chairman, Committee on Transport and Tourism, 1994-96 General Secretary of BJP's state unit of Maharashtra from 1978-83 and All India BJP Member of Lok Sabha from 1996-97 Defense Minister in 1996 Political Advisor to the PM of India in 1998 Elected to the Rajya Sabha in July, 1986, re-elected in July, 1992 and again in July, 1998

Remembering his interactions with Mahajan, Goyal said that it
was a trip to Russia that gave him a chance to get acquainted with the
politician. "I still remember the time when we went to Russia as part of a
delegation and Mahajan was with us. He never behaved as a well-known politician
and was more than comfortable as a team leader to us. We even met up with the
Russian PM. He was full of confidence and energy," Goyal recalls.

According to Bipin Batra, President, Cellular Phone Users
Association of India, Mahajan will always be remembered as a leader who
understood the telecom industry very well. "Usually, politicians do not
devote much time understanding the technological nuances of the portfolio they
are handling. But Mahajan differed from them and took the pains to learn as much
as he could about this segment. He did all that in order to revolutionize the
telecom sector. Personally, I will always remember him as a great statesman and
someone who understood what the-end customer wanted," Batra added.

 Many of Mahajan's contemporaries consider him to be a
person who always looked ahead. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI)
Advisor for Converged Networks, Satya Gupta remembers Mahajan as a
forward-looking politician who knew what he was doing. "He was a true
champion of liberalizing new cutting edge technologies like VoIP. He was the one
who opened the telecom sector in its truest sense. Whether it is the opening of
VoIP or the international long distance. It is all a result of his liberal
policies. As India is a democracy, there were people who stood against him and
he had to face a lot of opposition as well, but it never deterred him to any
extent," Gupta eulogizes.

Brickbats galore

However, his political tenure was not too smooth. Whether it is the issue of
taking telecom services to the rural parts of the country, interconnect charges
imbroglio or the reconstitution of TRAI itself, Mahajan was at the helm of
controversies.

Later on, there was yet another controversy when his name
cropped up in the murder investigation of a female journalist in Delhi. There
were also rumors of some back-handed dealings with Reliance Infocomm, when the
company had started its operations.

But Mahajan managed to sail through these accusations and
finger pointing with a smile on his face. Instead he threw himself in trying to
get BJP to win the last elections. In fact, he started the trend of canvassing
for votes using his bete noire, the cellphone. Later on this trend caught on and
other political parties too started networking with voters through SMS and tele-calling.

Today, the Indian IT and telecom recalls this smiling and
charismatic political fondly. His death at the hands of his own brother put a
sad twist to his tale and brought an end to what surely looked like a promising
political career.

ZIA ASKARI and VINITA BHATIA