Indira Gandhi is one of those political leaders about whom people are either most critical or all praises about her. Gandhi, who was the country’s prime minister for a total 17 years, is most remembered for the 18-month long dark period of internal Emergency, the 1971 war with Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh, the Blue Star Operation she ordered to flush out the terrorists holed up in the holy Golden Temple in Amritsar, nationalisation of private banks, her triumphant comeback post-Janata Party experiment and her assassination by her own bodyguards. Hers was a long political regime, full of ups and downs in her private and public life, and yet she emerged as a most powerful leader not only in her own Congress Party but in the country and also at the global level.
Indira’s legacy as prime minister and as a person is being reviewed critically during her ongoing birth centenary celebrations this year.
Indira Gandhi, ridiculed by the old Congress old guards as a ‘Gungi Gudiya’ in the late 1960s came into her own after she outsmarted her party veterans in the presidential elections when she got her candidate VV Giri elected to the coveted post. The 1971 India-Pakistan war and creation of Bangladesh proved her diplomatic skills at the global level, earning her the nickname ‘Durga’. But the subsequent developments in the country led to the waning of her popularity. Indira imposed emergency in the country, following her disqualification by the Allahabad High Court and subsequent turmoil in the country. Eighteen months later, she relaxed Emergency conditions, released most political leaders from prisons and called for general elections.
The 1977 general elections which saw the defeat of Gandhi in her Rae Bareli seat and her party’s rout is often touted as the electorates’ anger towards the imposition of the Emergency. It is often overlooked that while the Congress did not get a single seat in nine states in north India, the party had won comfortable seats in many states in other parts of India including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. In Maharashtra, too, the Congress had won half - 24 - of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats. If the Congress rout in north India was a repudiation of the Emergency, then does this mean that the electorate in south India had endorsed the Emergency? The alleged excess committed during the family planning operations was a major factor which turned the voters against the Congress in north India.
The leadership qualities of Indira Gandhi were best tested when she was thrown out of power for a brief period of two and half years. The then Union Home Minister, Chaudhary Charan Singh, ordered her arrest on corruption charges on October 3, 1977. This is referred to as the first political blunder of the Janata Party government led by Morarji Desai. Gandhi exploited this blunder to her great advantage and this marked beginning of her journey for her comeback to power.
After Prime Minister Charan Singh quit without facing the trust motion in Parliament, Gandhi worked overtime during the election campaign. She travelled by road for many hours in the day and addressed elections rallies in which she crticised the mismanagement of the short-lived Janata Party government. I had watched her from a close distance when she arrived by road at a three-star hotel in Panaji and later heard her speech at the Campal Ground. The electorate at that time elected her party with seats she had never won in the past, forgiving her for the dark period of Emergency. Assassinated four years later, Gandhi is truly one of the most towering figures the country had in the post-Independence era.
- CAMIL PARKHE
