Indira Nehru Gandhi
When I read about her lonely childhood, nomadic
education due to her family’s involvement in Nationalist movements, I felt
sorry for her. When I read about her boldness, her decision to marry an
outstanding personality from a common place family, her first public meeting in
India in UP on a chilly early morning, her left without a house soon after her
reversal from power, I was all for her. But I could in no way tolerate her declaring
emergency, playing communal cards in politics, puppetting to the tunes of
Sanjay Gandhi and other numerous
sycophants and the like. Now, setting aside my likes and dislikes which
are totally irrelevant, let me quote the relevant points of the book.
-Indira’s childhood
was coloured by her never-ending visits to prison to see her father and
grandfather, then her mother and she had finally spent some time inside
herself.
Indira had a nomadic existence due to her circumstances,
about which her father was really concerned. It’s his guilty feeling which
turned out to be the fantastic 200 letters to his daughter on World history.
-Indira’s attitude to her own education was somewhat
cavalier. The constant moves from one place to another had, with the exception
of Geneva and Santhiniketan, made her feel that it was a waste of time. She
genuinely believed that she had learned more about the real world from her father’s
letters than at t Somerville College Oxford.
Her first public appearance was made at London under
the insistence of V.K.Krishna Menon, who was a Labour party activist there. She
too was a member of Labour Party for a time. She was too terrified to speak
out; And a drunk from the audience remarked “She does not speak, she squeaks.”
The audience were in fits of laughter”, as she remembered it in a BBC
interview.
-“I just felt hungry and asked for a piece of toast. As
I was eating, Rajiv came out!I was so sorry I couldn’t finish my toast!“ said Indira
to her colleague about her first delivery.
Motilal and Jawaharlal were very short tempered, but
Indira was much controlled but. According to the author,she harboured grudges
for longer than the men.
Indira was a very bold lady as everybody knows. But
here is an incident as remembered by her son Rajiv. Indira and the two children
happened to make a train journey from Mussoorie to Delhi by train during the
communal riots of 1947.
-At a Delhi suburb, Shahdra, communal mobs were
preparing to lynch a Muslim on the platform. Indira was outraged. Her Nehru
temper became uncontrollable. Leaving her petrified sons in the train, she
jumped out of the compartment and silenced the crowd by an effective display of
oratory. The victim was saved and the train moved on.
Indira’s
grooming into a political leader must have taken shape with her triple
fold duties while at Teen Murthi Bhavan, viz playing the mistress, accompanying
PM during his foreign travels, protecting Nehru from the constant demand for
interviews.
-In 1946, Pandit Govind Vallabh Pant, a senior Congress
leader, recognizing her political capacities, suggested that she should stand
for Paliament, but she turned the offer down... Later, she told everyone that
the she saw her main political task as ensuring an easy life for her father at
home. Nonetheless, she was asked to stand in for Jawaharlal at some meetings
and she did.
Such experiences gave her confidence and she accepted
pleas of Congress president U.N.Dhebar and Lal Bahadur Sasthri to contest and
thus got elected to Congress Working Committee. But she refused to be typecast
as from the Women’s department.
-All India’s leading political parties had special
sections for women, but these were in reality designed to hive women off and
keep them busy elsewhere, while men ran the ‘real thing‘. This situation
remains unaltered to this day.” 30 years have passed after T.Ali’s observation
and it is still the same, I feel!
Indira was instrumental in bringing communal forces in
Kerala into political fray to overthrow the elected Communist Govt in Kerala. Ie
Just as like Muhammadali Jinnah, she too played the Muslim card and thus the
congress made alliances with Muslim league to defeat Communists. Thus
Communists failed and Communalism won. The model was followed in other States
too making unholy alliances with communal parties and the practise follows tiil
day.
-This was a classic case of pragmatism before
principles. Once it is accepted that power is to be held at all costs, then it
becomes impossible to defend any basic principle. Secularism remains a paper pledge and communalism walks
in through a backdoor deliberately left unlocked.
Yes, it so
happened that the daughter herself overthrew her father’s secular approach.
-Indira was forty seven when she became a minister in
LB Sastri’s cabinet. At her age Nehru was in prison.
Subsequent to Sastri’s death, she became the PM of
India. It, of course, had not been an easy walk over. She had to face umpteen
manipulations, criticisms and opposition from the groups which were waiting to
stab her in the back, even after becoming the PM. She was well aware of the
situation and reacted to Times of India on Christmas day 1966 thus-
“There is a question of whom the party wants and whom
the people want.“
Congress of 1972-In a number of towns, politics became
a business, business became politics and Gangsterism overwhelmed both big
business and big politics. Political, business and criminal mafias began to
amalgamate.
-Soon after her reversal, Indira Gandhi had to vacate
1, Safdarjung Road. Anand Bhavan in Allahabad had been donated to the nation,
and she found herself without a house for the first time in her life. An old
family friend, Mohammed Yunus, a veteran Pathan Congressman from the frontier
province, now in Pakistan, immediately vacated his house in Willingdon Crescent
in New Delhi. Yunus was one of the few Muslims(If not the only one) who had
actually forsaken his home and moved to India in protest against the partition
of the subcontinent in 1947.
-“No, those for whom something was done, are nowhere
to be seen.”Indira to an American couple
during her Willingdon Crescent exile
-The constant fear of Indira Gandhi had become a
hallmark of Janata years.It was the threat of Mrs.Gandhi’s return that had kept
the motley collection together.
-“They(The Janata Party) had their chance and what did
they do?They made a big mess.The people voted us back into power with big
majority.” Indira to the author. But the fact is that people were left with no
choice.
If Nehru was not in favour of dynastical rule, Indira
very much wanted to make Sanjay her “crown prince." This is precisely the reason why she insisted
Rajiv to take the place of Sanjay. And why did Sanjay become important to her?
Rajiv was away as a pilot. There was no one in her team other than Narasimha
Rao, whom she could trust.
-Rajiv was needed for strictly dynastic purposes. She
felt that she needed a Nehru-Gandhi by her side.
There are still many interesting anecdotes and other
unknown facts in the book left unsaid in this scribbling of mine; I have developed a keen interest in Sikhism from what I read in the book; Just like Nehru, we will also be taken aback when we come to know that Mao Tsedung, who burnt all old books for 'ideological unity' had an obsession with the old emperors of China! I also joined Delhi school children in their affectionate recital of "A,B,C,D,E,F,G, Ismein nikhalay Panditji (Out of this came Panditji) on Nehru's obsession to English language!
I
assure that whoever decides to read the book, she/he will not have to close it
halfway!
