As Defence Minister, he attempted to streamline procurement processes and inject urgency into long-pending decisions, becoming famous for his hands-on approach
October holds great significance in the life of Manohar Parrikar. On October 24, 2000, he was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Goa for the first time, going on to serve as Goa’s Chief Minister for four terms and as India’s Union Minister of Defence from November 2014 to March 2017. He passed away on March 17, 2019, after battling pancreatic cancer. He stood tall not only because of his electoral stature but also because he brought quick decision-making, clean governance and human dignity to public life.
Public memory has a tendency to smoothen out the edges when it comes to leaders who are no more. Parrikar is remembered as the simple, accessible, no-nonsense leader who brought efficiency into governance. While this reputation is well deserved, my own interactions with Parrikar, separated by decades, reveal both continuity and change. In 1993-94, when Parrikar was still a grassroots political worker, I met him in a context that had nothing to do with high office or authority. He approached me with a request to volunteer to help clean Miramar Beach. He had an aura about him even then, and we volunteers were well aware of his IIT background. There was no visible attempt at publicity, simply a straightforward civic concern expressed with sincerity. That moment captured a man deeply invested in public good, unburdened by power. Years later, I met him again when he was India’s Defence Minister and I was with a Ministry of Defence PSU. When I reminded him of Miramar, he was courteous and attentive, nothing more. There was a perceptible difference, a certain weight of office. The informality of the earlier years had given way to a more guarded, structured persona.
Parrikar built a reputation for administrative decisiveness. As Chief Minister of Goa, he brought discipline into governance and pushed for infrastructure development, earning a reputation for decisiveness. Known for his focus on infrastructure development in Goa, he pushed for a state-of-the-art cable-stayed bridge over the Mandovi, linking Panaji to Porvorim to ease city traffic. He envisaged a new six-lane cable-stayed Zuari bridge, commonly called the Manohar Setu. He created an education hub outside Panaji to reduce congestion in the city. He played an important role in pushing forward the long-delayed greenfield airport at Mopa, which now handles several million passengers per annum. What distinguished him was his ability to translate ideas into action, overcoming bureaucratic delays that had held up projects for years. He believed infrastructure was not just about constructing bridges, roads or buildings, but about improving the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. His engineering background helped him appreciate technical challenges, while his administrative experience enabled him to push officials towards practical solutions.
As Defence Minister, he attempted to streamline procurement processes and inject urgency into long-pending decisions, becoming famous for his hands-on approach. He expedited the procurement of aircraft, artillery and ammunition, promoting the “Make in India” concept in defence manufacturing. During his frequent visits to defence PSUs, he would personally try to understand the status of projects, discussing and questioning every issue. His engineering background undoubtedly made it easier for him to grasp the concepts as we explained the situation to him. He was not content with merely receiving presentations or reading reports prepared by officials but wanted to understand the ground realities, identify bottlenecks and know why decisions were delayed. His direct interactions with officers and engineers brought a sense of urgency to discussions and conveyed that accountability mattered. For those of us working in the defence manufacturing sector, these visits provided an opportunity to explain our challenges directly to the highest decision-making authority.
Alongside these strengths came certain traits, such as a combative stance towards critics, showing a leader open to dialogue yet appearing dismissive of dissent. His government’s decision to hand over government primary schools to an education organisation associated with ideological groups attracted criticism from educationists, marking a departure from an image of purely technocratic governance with which he was once associated. Even at the national level, Parrikar’s tenure as Defence Minister did invite controversy. His style, once valued for bluntness, occasionally became a source of controversy. This does not diminish his contributions; rather, it humanises him. What made Parrikar interesting was not that he was flawless, but that his strengths and contradictions existed side by side. He was not a conventional politician nor a detached technocrat, but emerged as a pragmatic, driven and politically sharp personality.
Looking back, the contrast between the Parrikar of Miramar Beach and the Parrikar of Delhi represents a continuum. At the core were his intelligence, administrative clarity and ability to get things done, but with the passage of time came the unmistakable imprint of power, greater defensiveness and decisions shaped by politics as much as policy. This duality will perhaps define his legacy. He was both the approachable problem-solver and the hardened political leader, inspiring trust but also inviting criticism. He simplified governance, yet occasionally complicated public discourse. My brief interactions with him, one as a party worker seeking to clean a beach, the other as a Union Minister carrying the weight of national security, capture this journey in miniature.
Perhaps that is why Miramar seems an appropriate place to remember him through the memorial built on the very beach he sought so passionately to clean — a fitting reminder of the man he was and the leader he became.
(Priyan R Naik is a columnist and independent journalist living in Bengaluru.)
