Doosra* Sanjay Gandhi?

An alert reader sent me this photograph of a poster put up at the Saharanpur rally (29th March) of Varun Gandhi – his first foray into UP post the elections (Thanks to Vandana S for the image).

The slogan at the top – roughly translated – reads (emphasis added):

He is not Varun (Deity of the Sky and the Oceans) but “Aandhi” (Storm);

He is “Doosra” (i.e. second or another) Sanjay Gandhi.

I guess the BJP’s strategists need to be a bit more careful..

And for the reading pleasure of ~50% of Indians who were perhaps not even born when Sanjay Gandhi died in an airplane crash in 1980, here are some excerpts from (and about those times). Pl read on. I can guarantee you they are thought-provoking:

From Ramachandra Guha‘s A hammerblow to democracy a longish but highly readable extract (emphasis added):

...In Italy and in India, Khushwant Singh’s claims to sainthood shall be challenged not by Sex or Scotch, but by Sanjay. It is that other S that lies like a dark shadow behind his reputation as writer and citizen. I recall a conversation in 1978 with a mutual friend who had had a book dedicated to her by Khushwant Singh. When I reminded her of this, she quickly explained: “It was in his pre-Sanjay days.” But time heals, and ordinary Indians are amnesiac anyway. The Sardar has written a great deal after Sanjay Gandhi’s death, some of it hackwork, but much of it good, wise and generous. His literary reputation stays high. His recent fiction may be ordinary, but his fine early novels and stories and the outstanding History Of The Sikhs remain in print. His reach and readership are greater, by far, than that of any other Indian writer. His weekly column is syndicated to 24 – or perhaps 224 – publications…

But he did once support a half-educated lout named Sanjay Gandhi. Why?

..The back issues of the Illustrated Weekly Of India provide an indispensable window to the events of the time (of Emergency). Let us begin wit the issue of April 6, 1975, and its cover story entitled “Total Revolution”…The editor, whose byline accompanied the piece, made clear his personal admiration for Narayan. Jayaprakash, he wrote, was “a great and good man”, a “man of courage who has often championed unpopular causes”, the “most spectacular figure in the 1942 ‘Quit India’ movement”, who “more than any other person or voluntary organisation staved off death from hunger in the Bihar famine of 1967”. J.P.’s current ideology, of ‘Total Revolution’, was, however, a bundle of contradictions…JP’s current followers were a band of opportunists…Their agitation sought to undermine established procedures and elected governments.

…The balance with which the essay on J.P. was written is not visible in a laudatory article published, a month later, on Sanjay Gandhi. This focussed on his Maruti car project, then under attack for violating established procedures and for being granted government favours out of turn. Khushwant Singh presented a vigorous brief on behalf of an entrepreneur who was yet to enter politics. The project, he wrote, was wholly indigenous. Its cars would cost of Rs. 5,000 – Rs.6,000 less than the other cars in the Indian market and would run 18 kilometres to the litre. The peasants whose land had been acquired, claimed the editor, were paid in excess of market price. Indeed, “far from causing hardship, Maruti has opened up avenues of employment to hundreds of families of unemployed Punjabi refugees who live in and around Gurgaon”. The journalist’s defence of Sanjay Gandhi was unqualified. He made the scarcely credible claim that far from being helped by government officials, Sanjay’s project was “overscrutinised”, with permissions “grudgingly given” because he was the Prime Minister’s son.

(The little Marutis that now run on Indian roads, one needs to state for the benefit of the younger reader, have nothing at all to do with Sanjay Gandhi’s project. After his death, his family, then in power, appropriated the name Maruti and attached it to the Japanese design and production of a standard Suzuki vehicle. Sanjay’s own factory did not produce a single roadworthy car.)

Khushwant Singh’s essay on Maruti marks the beginning of his professional interest in Sanjay Gandhi. .. The issue of January 25, 1976 carried an “exclusive interview” with Sanjay (the interviewer’s name is not mentioned), where he defended censorship…and where in answer to the question. “What has the country gained in the six months of the Emergency? And what has it lost?” he remarked

Sanjay continued:

What has the country lost? Smuggling, blackmarketing, hoarding, bus burning and the habit of coming late to office.

Once more, we must remind ourselves of some too-easily forgotten facts – namely, that Sanjay Gandhi was not a Member of Parliament, or of the civil service, or an office-bearer of the ruling Congress(I) – he was simply the younger son of a Prime Minister who had locked up opposition politicians and concentrated powers in her hands. These powers were taken away from institutions such as Parliament and the Cabinet, and were being shared with Sanjay, who had become an illegitimate second- in-command, more important now than any other minister of the Government of India. The sole concession to form was Sanjay’s membership of the Youth Congress, a veneer of legitimacy to cloak what was so evidently a family affair.

The Weekly’s approval of the impostor was wholehearted. The Independence Day issue of the magazine carried a cover story on “The Man who Gets Things Done”, with its centrepiece, an essay- interview by the editor…A list of leading questions were met by unhelpful answers. Asked of his grandfather’s impact on him, Sanjay answered, “I cannot recall any specific way in which he influenced me“. “What about books?” the editor persisted: “Any book influenced you particularly?” “I cannot think of any,” was the response.

..The interview was accompanied by a long biographical sketch. The editor had talked to Sanjay’s friends, to officials..and to other interested parties. One interviewee remarked that “all my other friends are dull compared to Sanjay“. Another said “Sanjay has a real spirit of adventure“. A third added: “Sanjay does not know the meaning of the word ‘fear’“. Others spoke of his “sense of justice”. Notably, the editor was now on the defensive as regards the Maruti project. ..Sanjay Gandhi could not run a factory but, it appears, he might yet successfully run a country. This is how the article ended:

Sanjay Gandhi has many more critics than his mother. “On whose authority is Sanjay doing what he is doing?” they ask. I would like to put to them a lot of questions in return. ‘Do you agree that what Sanjay is doing is for the good of the common people and therefore of the nation? Didn’t our slums need clearing? Didn’t our population need to be controlled? Didn’t our forests need to be saved? Wasn’t corruption to be rooted out?’ Why cavil about someone who is at long last getting all this done?

Sanjay has taken a heavy load on his young shoulders. He has a long and arduous road ahead of him. Do not strew banana skins on his path. Help him to reach his goal of a prosperous and happy India. We, of the older generation, can only dream dreams. Let our young men see visions and make those visions a reality.

This last paragraph (above) was set in bold black type.

…Three months later, in its issue of October 14, 1976, the Weekly ran two pages of photographs under the overall caption: “Sanjay, Maneka Conquer Maharashtra”. The photos showed Sanjay addressing Congress(I) workers, visiting slums, and having his marriage to the 19-year-old Maneka Anand, freshly solemnised by Sikh rites at the great gurudwara in Nanded. The head-text said: “Sanjay won over Maharashtra with his candour and his forthright and down-to- earth talk. Maneka did so with her quiet charm and pleasing personality”. In this “Editor’s Page”, Khushwant Singh wrote admiringly of the couple’s visit. Sanjay Gandhi had “added an new dimension to political leadership”, he remarked, for he has no truck with shady characters or sycophants; he is a tetotaller, he lives a simple life, he speaks little, he speaks in an honest and forthright manner, his words are not hot air but charged with action. He has done excellent work in Delhi. He has electrified the country’s young people and channelised their energies into constructive work. He has awakened all Congressmen every where and put them into action. His Youth Congress has done more work in these two years than the main Congress (I) could do in the last five years. Above all he is the first Congress leader who had taken on himself the unpleasant task of cleaning and purging the party of its ills. More power to Sanjay!

Soon, the editor could test how widely his sentiments were shared…The January 23 issue of the Illustrated Weekly Of India, meanwhile, carried the news that Sanjay Gandhi had been voted by its readers as the “Indian of the Year ’76”. But as the campaigning got under way, it became clear that the Weekly’s readership was not a reliable cross-section of the people of India…

So long as Sanjay Gandhi was in power, the deference towards him, of millions of people, was unquestioned. Narayan Dutt Tewari, the Chief Minister of India’s most populous state, once carried his slippers.

…Khushwant, who was now editor of The Hindustan Times, wrote an emotional tribute. “The only possible inheritor of the Sanjay cult figure”, he remarked, “is Maneka. She is like her late husband, utterly fearless when aroused, the every reincarnation of Durga astride a tiger”. In light of what Sanjay and Maneka were known to have done during the Emergency, this was both colossally stupid and touchingly loyal.

***

Next, a prescient piece by Katherine Frank (published in 2004) on What If Sanjay Gandhi Had Survived The 1980 Air Crash? (emphasis added):

..It is hard to imagine Sanjay Gandhi as a 57-year-old.

The mind boggles at the idea of Prime Minister Sanjay Gandhi but it was a possibility.

At the time of his death, he personified youth and energy, or ‘go’, as his mother put it. In his late 50s, would he be bald and overweight? Would he have aches and pains and high blood pressure? Or had he inherited his mother’s robust adult health, so that he would have been as vital and handsome in middle age as he was in his youth? Would his marriage have survived; would he have fathered more children? And what of his business activities? Would they have made him a multi-millionaire?

Or—the question on everyone’s mind in 1980—would Sanjay Gandhi by 2004 have become India’s prime minister?

Sanjay Gandhi aroused strong feelings. People either worshipped or demonised him, and this in itself indicated that he was potential prime minister material…Sanjay had boundless energy, a strong following, contacts, charisma, the best name in India, and money—all the requisites for a successful political career. But he also had a strongly authoritarian personality and a disregard for the procedures and norms of parliamentary government. Had he reached the top, the consequences for India could have been devastating. The mind may boggle at the idea of Prime Minister Sanjay Gandhi. But until that June morning in 1980, it was a distinct possibility.

On the other hand, Sanjay Gandhi could just as easily have been the political ruin of himself and his mother, and ended the so-called Nehru-Gandhi dynasty once and for all.

Had Sanjay survived, India would have been very different. Indira and Rajiv could have been alive.

…All trace of Sanjay did not disappear, of course, on July 23, 1980. He left a legacy, and nowhere was it more potent and dangerous than in the Punjab. Sanjay, in fact, was a crucial figure behind the central government’s covert backing of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his army of Sikh militants. In the 1970s, Sanjay had formulated a ‘divide and rule’ tactic to split and weaken the Akali Dal opposition to Congress in the Punjab…

Ironically, had Sanjay lived, he might have proved less dangerous and destructive. But this would have depended on whether Indira Gandhi was able to control, even immobilise, him. In the aftermath of the Emergency, when she began to comprehend Sanjay’s complicity in the huge damage done by it, she showed signs of standing up to her son.

..There was a frenzy of grief after Sanjay Gandhi’s death at just 33 (he would have been 34 had he lived to his next birthday in December). Delhi was gripped by a mass mourning exercise similar to the aftermath of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash in 1997…Sanjay’s death was clearly the greatest tragedy of Indira Gandhi’s life. Sonia Gandhi has described how Indira “for all her courage and composure was broken in spirit“. But was Sanjay’s death a tragedy for India? One of Indira’s closest friends and a seasoned commentator on Indian politics said at the time of Sanjay’s death that “a wave of indefinable relief blew right across the country“. Years later, B.K. Nehru told me that far from being a catastrophe, Sanjay’s end “was the best thing that could have happened in India“.

Today (August 2004), however, Sanjay’s 24-year-old son, Feroze Varun, claims that wherever he goes “people tell me had Sanjay been alive, India would not be in the state it is today. People see (Sanjay) as a visionary with an unfinished dream”. Or was it an “unfinished nightmare”? In the 2004 general elections, Sanjay’s nephew, Rahul Gandhi, running as the Congress candidate, won the Amethi seat to which Sanjay was elected in 1980, and Rajiv Gandhi in 1981. Feroze Varun, who has recently joined the bjp, is at 24 still too young to stand. At the moment, he’s biding his time and writing poetry. But many people believe what Feroze Varun has not ruled out—that when he comes of age, he will enter politics, and then there will be talk of “the return of Sanjay Gandhi”.

This, however, can never be. Whether you loved or loathed Sanjay Gandhi, he was quite simply irreplaceable… The most we can say is that had Sanjay not crashed on that hot June morning, India would have been a very different place today. Indira and Rajiv Gandhi might still be alive. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty might have been consigned to history, but it also could have survived and flourished just as it does under the current generation of Rahul, Priyanka and Feroze Varun Gandhi.

***

Finally, a brief extract from A Samuel Pepys of Emergency India by V. Sundaram (emphasis added):

The facts relating to the sudden rise of Sanjay Gandhi to the position of an overriding, de facto Super Prime Minister are described graphically which bring no credit either to Sanjay Gandhi or to his mother Indira Gandhi.

According to Tandon, Sanjay’s interference in administration and government started with his Maruti project. The manner in which his mother Indira Gandhi allowed him to misuse her office and power has been recorded in the Gupta Commission’s Report.

The most glorious moment in India’s administrative history was reached in 1975 when Sanjay Gandhi clearly told the officers working under the Union Law Minister, H R Gokale, that there was no law above him. He wanted his wishes to be fulfilled immediately and without question. To help him, Indira Gandhi attached one of her assistants to him and Sanjay’s order and wishes were conveyed to different Ministries and officers through this assistant. This took the form of deciding appointments in the Ministries and departments that were of direct concern to Sanjay’s project. Very soon this began to happen throughout the government. Pliable, corrupt, meek and convenient officials were appointed to important positions and gradually it became customary for all important appointees to be interviewed by Sanjay and the assistant. ..Thus arose a coterie of what Tandon calls – Palace Guards. Indira Gandhi used to send her Ministers and senior officials to Sanjay for orders. The result of all this was that a DARBAR was held in the PM’s house in the Prime Minister’s absence where senior officials reported their actions to this coterie of Palace Guards* and sought its orders. Is it not a matter of shame for all of us?

* The present CEC, Sh Navin Chawla may have been one of the Palace Guards

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At least some of you must have noticed a few fleeting parallels running through all the three extracts and the situation today…but what I am most interested in is: “What does Gen X (or is Gen Y) of India think about all this? Or are they simply not concerned – since this is “history”?

For our collective sake, I hope not. Comments and thoughts welcome as always.

P.S. Don’t miss Sandeep’s collection  of excerpts about those dark days: Thoughts on Emergency

P.P.S. As many readers would know, the dark days was also the period when the Constitution was amended by stealth to include the words “socialist” and “secular” in the Preamble