Indira Gandhi Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  INDIRA GANDHI

  Nayantara Sahgal has written nine novels and eight works of non-fiction. She is the recipient of the Sinclair Prize for Fiction, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. A member of the Sahitya Akademi’s Advisory Board for English till she resigned during the Emergency, Sahgal served on the jury of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1990 and 1991. She has held fellowships in the United States at the Bunting Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Humanities Center. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature by the University of Leeds in 1997. She is associated with the founding of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and served as its vice-president during the 1980s.

  INDIRA GANDHI

  TRYST WITH POWER

  NAYANTARA SAHGAL

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  To John Kenneth Galbraith in gratitude

  Contents

  As I Saw It

  1. India’s Third Prime Minister Is Chosen

  2. The Person

  3. Emergence—1967–69

  4. The Congress Breaks—1969

  5. The New Congress Reveals Its Style—1970

  6. The Midterm Election

  7. ‘The New Dawn’

  8. Reaping the Whirlwind

  9. Rhetoric and Reality

  10. Jayaprakash Narayan

  11. The Bihar Movement—1974

  12. January to June 1975

  13. The Flowering of a Style

  14. Why Mrs Gandhi Called an Election

  15. Leadership Style

  16. The Janata Government Assists Mrs Gandhi’s Return

  17. The President Confers a Bonus

  18. ‘A Dynamic Manufacturer’

  19. The Face of the Future

  Completing the Picture

  Notes

  Index

  As I Saw It

  This book originated with a paper I was asked to contribute on Indira Gandhi’s political style for a conference on ‘Leadership in South Asia’ at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in March 1974. It was expanded and published in its present form in 1982. It traces the events in the Congress party and the country that represent a break with the style that had been a feature of the historic Congress.

  Congress politics had worked within the framework of democratic institutions, encouraging open and diverse expression and debate both within the party and between the ruling party and the Opposition. Indira Gandhi’s creation of a highly centralized governing apparatus and party machine under her personal command had the effect of reversing this process. Under the authoritarian rule of the Emergency of 1975–77, it ended altogether. Why events should have taken this turn is perhaps the effect of personality on history.

  The book I wrote dealt almost entirely with the developments that transformed the historic Congress party and the Indian polity, and it owes its tone to the intense anxiety I felt at what was happening in the country. It remains relevant as a reminder that democratic institutions and practices, even in a nation established in democracy, need guarding against assault and subversion. The Emergency itself was a watershed in Indian politics. The memory of the terror it established overnight in June 1975—of arrest without warrant and imprisonment without trial, of censorship, surveillance and the abolition of civil liberties, even of the right to life and liberty—has faded with the years but its shadow lingers in the public’s and Parliament’s mind. No one wants to go back there.

  There will always be sections of people who believe dictatorship is the way to make things work but modern India has in fact been founded on a rejection of authoritarianism. Civil rights organizations and activism came up as a result of the Emergency and are here to stay. For the country at large, as the general election of 1977 made clear, and for the young whose political awareness took shape during the repressions of the Emergency, democracy has been reconfirmed as a non-negotiable necessity.

  The Janata Party’s brief two and a half years at the helm of affairs after the momentous election of 1977 also serve as a reminder of the opportunity its quarrelling constituents laid waste when—after restoring civil liberties and undoing the amendments damaging to the Constitution—they betrayed the country’s expectation that those guilty of wrongdoing would be punished. The Janata Party was a loose combine of parties that had come together under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan to combat the authoritarian tide and had no other glue to keep it united once this goal was achieved. What remained of it as fallout was a younger generation of assorted socialists in Indian politics, while at the same time the Hindu-based Jan Sangh was catapulted into national prominence.

  If I were writing this book today, I would say more about two points I did not make enough of. Internally, the country lost a decade of development under Indira Gandhi. The populism that replaced Jawaharlal Nehru’s pragmatism made for rousing political theatre but without sound practical backup it brought no reduction of poverty nor benefit to the economy. Externally, the Cold War’s destructive and divisive effect on the world of its time had its impact on India. On an international scene where the US was locked in a war on Vietnam, and had thrown its military and diplomatic might behind Pakistan in its conflict with East Bengal, India had no option but an alliance with the Soviet Union. If this was a departure from non-alignment, it had its undeniable rationale.

  Writing this book had a symbolic and poignant importance for me at the time as a duty to the voices the Emergency had silenced and as an act of commitment to the values of the free society Jawaharlal Nehru had built during his seventeen years in power. Rereading it, I think that its focus leaves much unsaid about the unusual woman, my cousin, who was the focal point of those tumultuous years. For this edition I have added an epilogue, ‘Completing the Picture’, which includes some personal recollections indicative of the close bond we shared until the tryst with power took over.

  Dehradun

  2012

  ONE

  India’s Third Prime Minister Is Chosen

  Indira Gandhi was forty-six years old when her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, died on May 27, 1964. Since Independence she had been her father’s companion and hostess at New Delhi and had accompanied him on official visits abroad. In 1955 she had been appointed to the Congress Working Committee, the party’s executive, with charge of the women’s and youth wings, and had become a member of its two subsidiaries, the Central Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee, soon afterwards. These responsibilities placed her at the heart of election preparations for the second general election of 1957. Her emergence onto the scene of political and public endeavour took place during a period of marital strain and difficulty, and Nehru welcomed her increasing involvement in the party, both as the natural outcome of her background and as therapy for her troubled domestic life. The Congress party’s and his own championship of women’s rights had been instrumental in creating a climate of pride in women’s opportunities and achievements. It was a special satisfaction to him that his daughter, whose health and unhappy marriage had been a continuing anxiety to him, should now find a way to fulfil herself through national activity. He wrote to his sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who was India’s high commissioner in London, on March 12, 1957, from the family home at Anand Bhawan, Allahabad, where he had gone to cast his vote:

  When voting finished today, large numbers of our Congress workers turned up at Anand Bhawan, including many women. Indu has specially shaken up the women, and even Muslim women came out. Indu has indeed grown and matured very greatly during the last year, and especially during these elections. She worked with effect all over India, but her special field w
as Allahabad City and District which she organized like a general preparing for battle. She is quite a heroine in Allahabad now and particularly with the women. Hardly eating and often carrying on with a handful of peanuts and a banana, she has been constantly on the move, returning at midnight, flushed, slightly gaunt but full of spirit and with flashing eyes.

  In 1959, at the suggestion of its outgoing president, U.N. Dhebar, the Congress party accepted her as his successor. Nehru did not think it was time for this distinction. His reservations were rooted deep in his respect for the process—personal, political, social or economic—that lays sound foundations. Work was the crucible of human personality or political strength, and there were no shortcuts to excellence, a philosophy reflected in seventeen years of power that rejected the dramatic and the extreme and relied on the building of institutions. He was averse to hustle and haste. Part of a generation well and truly tried through the struggle for freedom and the years of nation-building afterwards, he believed in time and trial. He was also concerned about his daughter’s health and the inappropriateness of her holding the party’s highest office while he was prime minister. These considerations had to be balanced against his conviction that he should not stand in her way, a point of view pressed by Govind Ballabh Pant, home minister and close colleague. He decided not to intervene.

  I gave a good deal of thought to this matter and I came to the conclusion that I should firmly keep apart from this business and try not to influence it in any way, except rather generally and broadly to say that it had disadvantages … normally speaking, it is not a good thing for my daughter to come in as Congress President when I am Prime Minister.1

  Mrs Gandhi accepted the office with tears in her eyes, and it was an emotional occasion for many present at the party meeting. Her father and grandfather were among the illustrious names in Congress annals who had held the distinction before her. Her elevation to the party’s most prestigious post was its tribute to her family. After Independence, the Congress president was almost invariably chosen on the basis of his previous experience in government. All party presidents between 1951 and 1969 were chief ministers. Mrs Gandhi was the exception. Her earnestness was looked upon with favour and her inexperience with indulgence.

  She occupied the office, normally a two-year term, for barely a year, though during this period she took two initiatives. She advised the division of Bombay state, convulsed at the time by agitations demanding its separation into Marathi- and Gujarati-speaking states. Bombay was divided, bringing Maharashtra and Gujarat into being on May 1, 1960. She also urged the Union government’s interference in Kerala, where the communist government formed in 1957 was locked in a confrontation with the Roman Catholic and Nair communities over the issue of state control of schools and colleges. President’s rule was established in Kerala, and fresh elections held in 1960, when an alliance of parties led by the Congress won a majority. There is a provision in the Indian Constitution that, if the President of India, on receipt of a report from the Governor of a state, is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which government cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution, he can intervene and bring the state under President’s, that is, the Union government’s, rule. Governors of states are Union appointees and represent the President. Mrs Gandhi believed that such a situation had arisen in Kerala and, when she was president of the Congress, advised the Union government to intervene and declare President’s rule in Kerala. The outcome vindicated Mrs Gandhi’s advice as immediately beneficial to the Congress. It also demonstrated her approach to ‘action’ as the surgical gesture to forestall possible developments. In contrast, Nehru’s temperament made use of the tentative in decision-making as an area of positive value in arriving at action. The overthrow of communist rule took note of the immediate situation, not of the meaning of the communist phenomenon in Kerala. Chief Minister E.M.S. Namboodiripad later remarked on Nehru’s reluctance to declare President’s rule. Nehru had written to his sister, Mrs Pandit, on March 12, 1957:

  In another three or four days’ time we shall have ninety percent of the results, and this will give a clear picture of the States as well as of Parliament … Kerala is heading for a Communist majority. If so, there would presumably be a Communist government there. This will be the first occasion anywhere in the world when a Communist Party wins an election through democratic means… . They have toned down very much, and the programme they have issued is quite moderate. Nevertheless, this is an intriguing development.

  Mrs Gandhi was not, as her father knew, well enough to carry an arduous responsibility and had been under strain for a long time. Writing to his sister in London from New Delhi, on January 11, 1955, Nehru had said, ‘Indira has been unwell for the last three weeks or so and mostly in bed. She has had rather a bad attack of anaemia brought on partly by too much work and rushing about. Behind that, of course, is worry and unhappiness.’ She gave up the Congress presidentship and, without defining her dissatisfaction, made it known she was not being allowed to do as she wished in the party. She was operated on for a kidney stone on February 17, 1960.

  In 1964 she was still comparatively unnoticed in her own right, and not seriously considered a candidate for the succession to Nehru. She had had no training in a profession and no experience in government. Though her presence on the Working Committee indicated high status in the party, she had worked for the organization behind the scenes and of choice remained in the background. A mother, occupied with caring for her two sons, she was devoted and imaginative about their upbringing, always torn between domestic and public responsibilities. She correctly described herself as a ‘private’ person, so private indeed that no one knew her intimately. Her griefs were well sheltered, her joys restrained. There was almost a pathos about her personality for those who tried to break through to it. It was a personality that would not step out. Inevitably involved in politics, she had hung back from the ultimate political trial—an election, declining at her father’s death to stand for the by-election to the Lok Sabha from his constituency, Phulpur, in Uttar Pradesh. It seemed right and proper, an act of rededication to the values he had represented, for a member of the family to contest Nehru’s seat for the Congress in November 1964. Mrs Gandhi’s aunt, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, resigned as Governor of Maharashtra to contest and retain the constituency for her party, though not before she had made certain that her niece did not want the seat.

  A year later, on December 6, 1965, she had occasion to write to her niece, now minister for information and broadcasting in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet:

  I have a feeling that you are not happy about my being in Phulpur. I am conscious of the fact that this seat should have been yours by right. It is yours today should you wish to have it. Nothing would give me greater pleasure now or in 1967 to retire from this particular constituency for you and work elsewhere. You have only to say so and it will be done and, believe me, done willingly. There are rumours that you do not wholly approve of my political views. I have never made any declaration of where I stand because to me it seemed that adherence to Congress implied loyal acceptance of its basic policies and principles. I believe it is better in a country like our own to try and live according to one’s beliefs rather than talk about them. This I try to do. I have during the sixteen years when I had the privilege to serve India abroad tried to explain and implement India’s policies to the best of my ability and understanding. Since my return to public life here I have done what little I could to sustain the ideas and ideals which Bhai* gave to this country. It is true I have not joined any groups but this is because all groups today are founded on expediency and I do not approve of this.

  I am a whole generation older than you are. I am at the end of my career and in the evening of my life. There is no desire in my mind to attempt to compete with the younger generation, least of all with you. Indeed this would be rather ridiculous.

  I had hoped that my presence in the political field would give you strength and support. If
the contrary is the case, then obviously there is something wrong and it must be remedied in the larger interest which both you and I have at heart.

  With love,

  Puphi

  Mrs Gandhi herself had been elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha after her cabinet appointment. Though she had taken part in election campaigns, she had never faced the electorate herself and did not do so until 1967, more than a year after she became prime minister, when the trial could no longer be postponed. She expressed a positive distaste for politics, replying to her aunt’s letter on December 7, 1965:

  I do not know who has been talking to you but there is absolutely no foundation in the remark that I am not happy at your being in Phulpur… . It may seem strange that a person in politics should be wholly without political ambition but I am afraid that I am that sort of a freak … . I did not want to come either to Parliament or to be in Government. However, there were certain compelling reasons at the time for my acceptance of this portfolio. Now there are so many crises one after another that every time seems to be the wrong time for getting out… .

  She had been an observer, albeit close to the fount of power, during her father’s lifetime. The party presidentship, like her earlier appointment to the Working Committee and its subsidiary bodies, had been bestowed on ‘Nehru’s daughter’; these were not positions she had earned through the rough apprenticeship of state politics with its numerous considerations of region, faction and caste. She had not had to work her way up through the vast amorphous organization, or show outstanding talent, in order to be singled out. And she had shown no desire to stand out as a political or public personality. Her predominant image was one of retreat and extreme reserve. The country knew her as her father’s companion and the mother of two boys. If her father was grooming her for prime ministership, there was not enough evidence of it in events or in his own avowed aversion to undemocratic procedure to make his colleagues unduly suspicious or jealous of the possibility, though some believed, nevertheless, that her presidentship of the party indicated he was doing so. Above all, her own personality had given them no cause for alarm.