Books offer themselves at interesting junctures. While I was revisiting some commemorative literature on India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, whose 132nd birth anniversary falls today, I was gifted two paperbacks on a bygone parliamentarian who was called “Nehru’s Nemesis”. Barrister Nath Pai (1922-1971), elected from the Rajapur Lok Sabha seat on the Praja Socialist Party (PSP) ticket, was a remarkable orator whose research-backed speeches (undocumented in video form) shook PM Nehru. Despite being on the opposite side of Pai’s electoral politics, Nehru not just heard the former’s dissenting voice on the floor of the House, but sought Pai’s company.

“Democracy does not function only on the majority of numbers, but on the maximum good of the maximum number...” were Pai’s resounding words that attracted Nehru’s attention to the young critic of his policy imperatives. The friendship between the two yesteryear statesmen, who collided in the Parliament over governance and Centre-state dynamic, reveals their common abiding belief in a democratic healthy discourse. A celebration of this discourse, between two tall leaders of varying ages, ideologies and backgrounds, lies at the core of Aditi Pai’s book Nath Pai, available in English and Marathi.