OPED | Saturday, October 31, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Indira was her own worst enemy
Subramanian Swamy
There are many myths about Indira Gandhi; the most enduring being her ‘strength’ and ‘courage’. She believed in these and pushed her luck too far, falling eventually to the same design
During her sixteen years’ tenure as Prime Minister, two dominant flaws in Indira Gandhi’s mindset explained most of her controversial political moves. These were a deep insecurity about the loyalty to her from those near and dear to her, and her
authoritarian mentality.
Of course, it would be wrong to infer that Indira Gandhi had no good qualities at all. Indeed, she had many likeable attributes, but these were overshadowed in her political decision making by her insecurity and authoritarianism.
This led her to make many blunders, produce many zig-zags, even somersaults in policy. She was obsessed by the urge to emasculate all those around her, particularly those who had patronised her initially. In retrospect, I hold her as a very erratic leader because of these contradictions. To call her ‘strong’ and ‘decisive’ is, therefore, very superficial. To anybody who understood politics, she was nothing but somebody highly unsure, even frightened, by events. This led her to perform many rash acts.
She was like a cat when cornered, capable of extraordinary counter-attack. But on normal occasions, she wavered between anxiety and lack of self-confidence. The best example of this zig-zag was her actions during the Emergency. I first met Mrs Gandhi in 1965 when she was Information and Broadcasting Minister in the Shastri’s Cabinet. She had come to address a meeting at Brandeis University located in a small town called Waltham near the Harvard campus. At that time I was young professor of economics at Harvard University. Mrs Gandhi, who always fancied the company of intellectuals, sent me word through a common contact to meet her.
My contact with her continued till 1969 when I returned to India and joined the Jana Sangh. For this, she thought I was mad and conveyed the same with much irritation through my father, who was then at a senior level in the civil service, which he had joined after a stint as a Congressman in Tamil Nadu. Following my entry into the Jana Sangh, she became very hostile towards me. This did not change till about 1981.
On March 19, 1970, she took the floor of the Lok Sabha and denounced me by name for my “Swadeshi Plan” which I had submitted to the Jana Sangh. Soon thereafter, I was sacked from my full professorship at IIT Delhi, to which I was re-instated by Court after 22 years in 1991.
In the last three years before her assassination in 1984, after I had done a favour to her government on the China question by meeting Deng Xiaoping in Beijing, cordiality in my relations with her was restored. Thereafter, frequent tit-bit conversations with her took place during official dinners and other engagements which I attended as Deputy Leader of the Janata Party in Parliament. With her encouragement I became a very good friend of Rajiv, and collaborated with him in getting Chandrashekhar installed as PM in 1990.
Mrs Gandhi, in my view, cared a lot about the US and European opinion about her while she seemed, for what shall remain as unexplained reasons, obligated to protect the Soviet Union’s interests in India. In 1959, as Congress President she was the prime mover in getting the first Communist government in Kerala dismissed under Article 356.
Her first move as PM in the 1960s was to adopt the West’s prescriptions for reviving the Indian economy. So she devaluated the Rupee and empowered the well-to-do or ‘kulaks’ through the green revolution package. She got kudos for it in The New York Times. But, just as soon as the Left parties became important for her survival, she somersaulted and embraced harsh licensing, land reforms and nationalisation of banks. All this policy jugglery gave a huge boost to black money generation and corrupted Indian society forever.
She disregarded US interests when the Bangladesh issue arose in 1971, but just before the fall of Dhaka she spared West Pakistan from military devastation by declaring a premature ceasefire. A year later, she signed the Simla Agreement which meant restoration of the pre-1971 status quo and benefited Pakistan’s military capabilities.
Thereafter, she tried to pacify the US, which had fiercely opposed the Bangladesh military operations. She invited Henry Kissinger to visit India and Kissinger flattered her saying she was “a dove with steel claws”. Nothing pleased her more.
She declared the Emergency in 1975 because in her authoritarian wisdom, she could not tolerate the popular opposition which JP generated and represented. JP made her insecure since he had impeccable credentials as a freedom fighter against British colonialism and had a clean image too. The charges of corruption against her bothered her much, judging by her letters to her father’s old-time friend in New York, Dorothy Norman. She tried hard to discredit JP with the likes of Sitaram Kesari, but failed.
Her authoritarian nature was fortified because, with notable exceptions, the Opposition leaders of her time lacked the ability to stand up to her methods. Some of them were in contact with her and had emboldened her with the input that JP did not enjoy their confidence.
This encouraged her to clamp down on democratic freedoms, jail 140, 000 innocent persons without trial, impose Press censorship and extend the term of Parliament postponing the elections by a constitutional amendment passed by a captive Parliament. Many Opposition leaders wrote apology letters and crawled out of jail on parole.
She did a volte face in 1977 and declared elections at a most inappropriate time for her. She lost the majority for the party and her own seat in Parliament too. To this day, many wonder why she called the elections at that time. I think the censure she received from longtime liberal friends of Nehru in the US and the UK, as well as the soothing advice from Jiddu Krishnamurthi, who was highly popular in high society abroad, drove her to take this step.
It is also possible that the election of human rights campaigner Jimmy Carter as the President of the US in late 1976 could have increased her anxiety about her legitimacy. Of course, my dramatic entry and escape from Parliament in August 1976 may have made her anxious as to how strong the RSS-organised underground had grown.
In June 1984, she launched the Operation Bluestar on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. I spoke to her twice in April that year urging her not to contemplate such action. I told her that there were other better ways of dealing with militants inside the temple. Her answers were vague and reflected a great deal of anxiety. It seemed she was pushed to do it.
After Blue Star, I met Mrs Gandhi in August 1984 for the last time in the corridor of Parliament House. She seemed on edge about Sikh anger and asked what could be done. I could only shrug my shoulders.
I feel sad for India when I look back to the Indira years. The country had given her a huge mandate. Yet her unhappy childhood, her agonising marriage, her disappointment with her siblings, friends, relatives, and most of all her inability to trust anybody caused her to fritter it away. She would be remembered by posterity for the ignominy of the Emergency and Operation Blue Star, without balancing for the Green Revolution, the liberation of Bangla Desh, and for daring to test the nuclear bomb.
- The writer is president, Janata Party
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