Eyewitness to Indira Gandhi in Europe: at home with critics and admirers alike

Indira Gandhi’s most dynamic period as Prime Minister was, arguably, 1969-72. Her political adroitness in adversity, when she skilfully outwitted the powerful old guard and registered two remarkable electoral triumphs at the Centre and in the states, was significant.

As was her diplomatic savviness in tackling the crisis and opportunity triggered by millions of refugees pouring into India from East Pakistan, fleeing persecution by a West Pakistani dominated military dictatorship.

The confidence she reposed in her Chief Of Army Staff General Sam Manekshaw, the patience she showed in adhering to his advice of waiting for conducive winter weather to launch an offensive and above all her courage to do so in the face of blatant threats from the United States, were reflections of calmness, maturity and a killer instinct.

During a charm offensive in 1971, which was an exercise in persuading western powers to India’s point-of-view, while her troops meticulously planned a pincer move into East Pakistan, Peter Snow, a news and current affairs stalwart of the BBC, probingly interviewed her in London.

Snow: “Is there a situation in which you might attack Pakistan?”

Gandhi: “Well, I hope not. India has always tried to be on the side of peace and negotiations. But ofcourse we can’t endanger our security in any way…We are trying everything possible to prevent it (war).”

Snow: “But do you support the Bangladesh guerrillas? Do you support a separate state in East Pakistan?”

Gandhi: “You see it’s not a question of supporting or not. The question is, what is likely to happen. I don’t think we can shut our eyes to the situation in a neighbouring state. I personally think that most of the world believes this - they may not be willing to say it out openly - that Pakistan as it existed can never be the same again.”

Snow: “Don’t you think the situation on your frontiers might be less dangerous if you personally were to meet Yahya Khan, so you understood each other’s positions more clearly.”

Gandhi: “Have you read some of Yahya Khan, the president’s speeches and interviews?”

Snow: “Yes.”

Gandhi: “Well, and do you still think it would serve a useful purpose?…I don’t think that you could point out to me any other Head of Government who in the present circumstances would have been so restrained when the entire country is not restrained. I mean it is with great difficulty we are holding the situation. And then what we get outside is to equate us with a government which has killed more than a million people, which has created conditions of barbarity which the world has very seldom seen, perhaps against the Jews in (Adolf) Hitler’s time, but I don’t think at any other time of history has this sort of thing been witnessed.”

Snow: “Do you see yourself as somehow being drawn into this, being involved in this in some way that you might have to intervene in East Pakistan, out of humanity almost?”

Gandhi: “Well, East Bengal is the affair of leaders of East Bengal. It’s up to them what should happen there.”

After India’s spectacular victory, the liberation of Bangladesh and the surrender of nearly 100,000 officers and men of the Pakistani armed forces, the West grudgingly recognised she was a force to be reckoned with.

But a war, notwithstanding its brevity, was a drain on the economy. Dr P C Alexander, who was her Principal Secretary in 1980-84, before becoming High Commissioner for India in the United Kingdom, confided that economic affairs didn’t excite her. She generally delegated handling of fiscal matters to her aides.

In 1972-75, her inability to combat the challenge resulted in public restlessness and wrath and a recipe for the Jayaprakash Narayan movement. This was capped by a 1975 verdict of the Allahabad high court unseating her as an MP.

Declaring Emergency was in hindsight unwise and unpopular, she acknowledged, for it was widely perceived as having been taken for an unjustified reason. While she could have justified it by pointing out that the opposition had not only organised a crippling Railway Strike and had even called upon the armed forces to revolt, she didn’t. Over and above, the Congress paid a price for excesses during Emergency, thereby paving the way for a post-election constituted (from multiple parties) Janata Party government.

British media, conspicuously The Times, were severely critical of Emergency. Interestingly, while the Indian High Commissioner, BK Nehru, of Indian Civil Service vintage and a relative of Gandhi, was cautious in his defence of it, his deputy, K Natwar Singh, then a career diplomat, was defiant. Between them, they enlisted the support of Labour party luminary Michael Foot to fight their corner. However, Gandhi, having averted the scheduled general election of 1976, called one in 1977. This and the democratic acceptance of her defeat vindicated Foot.

Gandhi returned to the Lok Sabha in a bypoll in Chikmagalur in Karnataka in November 1978. Within a couple of days of this result, she was in London at the prior invitation of the Indian Overseas Congress. A handful of Akalis waving black flags lined the road as her motorcade drove out the airport. In the London suburb of Southall and in the west midland city of Birmingham, where Sikhs reside, she received a mixed welcome. But at a dinner jointly hosted by the India League, founded by V K Krishna Menon, and the Indian Journalists’ Association (Europe), she was extended a warm welcome.

Swraj Paul, a businessman from Kolkata whose family ardently supported Gandhi, put her up at the prestigious Claridge’s Hotel where she would stay as Prime Minister. I came to know she was received by Prime Minister James Callaghan, an unusual gesture since she was now in opposition. She was unwilling to discuss on-record contents of the meeting. But there was a twinkle in her eyes, which suggested that the close relationship between the Congress and Labour was unaffected. My next exposure to Gandhi was in Paris in November 1981. She was back as Prime Minister; and it was an important visit, because the French had been closer to Pakistan than to India. But the country now had a first ever socialist president, Francois Mitterrand. Indeed, it marked a turning point and the commencement of ties which have developed to their high trajectory today. In an informal briefing to Indian journalists, she was surprisingly candid about India’s need to reduce dependence on the Soviet Union and therefore diversify sources of defence supplies.

In 1982, Mrs Gandhi came to London to open the first ever Festival of India in any country. She held talks with her counterpart Margaret Thatcher as well as met her less formally. There was a meeting of minds between the two, regardless of their divergent political persuasions. Thatcher was visibly distraught when the news of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination broke.

The informality of interface between the Nehru-Gandhis and the British royal family was quite unique. At the reception following the concert to inaugurate the Festival, she waved at Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, calling him “Charlie” and inviting him to an impromptu post-performance dinner, which, if I recall correctly, he attended.

Delhi was host to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the winter of 1983. A few months earlier, on her return from a summit at Cancun, she unexpectedly stopped in London. Her purpose was to inspect the Indian High Commissioner’s residence, for a few weeks later he was to host a dinner for British monarch Queen Elizabeth II, as was customary before she went to the country organising a CHOGM. Throwing off her coat, Gandhi personally rearranged the drawing room, pulling sofas, tugging at chairs, and instructing her staff to send new interior decorations for the house.

Her trips to London were also about reconnecting with old friends, taking in the theatre, eating at reputed restaurants without a fuss and, time permitting, indulging herself at a hairdresser.

On October 31, 1984, I was awoken in the wee hours by BBC TV’s breakfast programme to be told that Gandhi had been shot and was fighting for her life. I rushed to the studio for a 6am start of broadcast. Information filtering through implied she was no more; but we couldn’t put out a story of such magnitude without being absolutely certain.

Finally, at 8 o’clock in London or 1.30 pm IST, Mark Tully, BBC’s South Asia bureau chief, confirmed the worst after speaking to doctors treating her at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. My task was to explain the geography of the two bungalows that comprised her residence and the spot where the assassination had taken place, not to mention the political fallout.

I remember explaining that on the two previous occasions when an Indian Prime Minister had died in harness. Home Minister Gulzarilal Nanda was both times sworn in as interim Prime Minister, before Lal Bahadur Shastri and Mrs Gandhi took charge respectively. History was, of course, not to repeat itself.