Sanjay Gandhi’s rise and the dark days of Indian democracy – Firstpost

In 1969, Sanjay Gandhi was 23 years old. He had been trained at the Rolls Royce factory in Crewe in the UK. Though he did not complete the course, Sanjay was one of several applicants to seek a licence to manufacture a small and cheap car in India. In 1970, he was the lone applicant to be granted the licence. Indira was charged with nepotism. She made little effort to deny the charge. Each time the matter was raised in Parliament, Indira would shrug off the criticism. There was more to follow. The Haryana government, under Bansi Lal, handed over three hundred acres of land for Sanjay’s Maruti factory; some 15,000 farmers were evicted to free the land. P.N. Haksar, who was principal secretary to Indira till 1973, was dropped from his post for opposing the Maruti project.

In 1973, veteran freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan wrote to several MPs seeking to protect individual rights and democratic values. He formed a body called Citizens for Democracy and became a sort of patriarch for all disgruntled elements. His followers multiplied quickly in number. Sanjay Gandhi became a favourite target of many, including those with vested interests.

Some publications hostile to Indira and the Congress published exaggerated stories about Sanjay, dubbing him a ‘monster’. Sanjay and his supporters launched a counteroffensive, which hurt mainstream and independent media. Sanjay kept alleging conspiracy theories against him, saying, “How long can I leave it to Mummy to defend me? I want to answer these charges myself.”

On 23 December 1976, Indira told Congress volunteers at the conclusion of a training camp: “In fact, I think, Sanjay would never have come to politics if there had not been a tremendous attack on him in Parliament even before the Emergency, because he was not basically interested in any of these things. But when there was that attack, he did feel that nobody was speaking for him. This is what urged him to come out. The greater the attack on him, the greater his determination to do what he could. One thing he inherits from me is that when we are under attack, we fight back. I can say this because I know his psychology, his nature and my own nature.”

Family retainer Mohammad Yunus, who had loaned his house to Indira after the 1977 electoral debacle, also felt that Sanjay had been treated unfairly: “He was accused of every conceivable vice and mischief and held responsible for anything and everything going wrong. Once I heard the wife of a leading industrialist telling others about his (Sanjay’s) activities in a Delhi hotel. When I questioned her about the authenticity of the tale, she had the audacity to tell me, ‘I know it for certain. The whole of Delhi knows it. He is always found in Oberoi Intercontinental.’ I told her that the management of that very hotel was keen to see him enter its premises even once for them to brag about his patronage.’ (Yunus, Mohammad, Persons, Passions, Politics, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1980).

Yunus, had been a close associate of Indira’s father, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. And he had maintained his links with Indira and her sons, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi. In fact, Sanjay and Maneka Gandhi were married at 12 Wellingdon Crescent when Yunus was still living there. Yunus’s son Adil Shaharyar was a close friend of Rajiv, Sanjay, Amitabh Bachchan, Amitabh’s brother Ajitabh and actor Kabir Bedi.

When Sanjay and Maneka were married in September 1974, there were some initial hiccups, which Yunus had helped to sort out. At the time of Sanjay and Maneka’s wedding, the bride’s parents were staying at Greater Kailash, New Delhi, and had an old, rickety car. Yunus volunteered to host the wedding at 12 Willingdon Crescent. Due to an austerity drive, the government had abandoned the annual whitewash of all residential accommodation. Yunus decided to get the exteriors of 12 Willingdon Crescent whitewashed for the marriage at his own cost. He also arranged for floodlights, floral decorations and the dinner that was held the following night and paid for it all.

Author-filmmaker Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was also close to the Nehru–Gandhi family. Abbas, a diehard admirer of Nehru and Indira, was, however, deeply disappointed with Sanjay and described him as a spoilt, pampered child who had imbibed some wrong and ‘objectionable’ (free market) ideas. Abbas gives a detailed account of Sanjay in his book, 20th March 1977: A Day Like Any Other Day. March 20 was significant because that was the day Indira and the Congress lost power for the first time ever since Independence.

In a chapter titled ‘The Sanjay Gandhi Story’, Abbas has claimed that during Sanjay’s car manufacturing days, the then finance minister, C. Subramaniam, had advised him to seek advice from a noted industrial house which had ample experience in car manufacturing. The industrialist’s influence on Sanjay became apparent not so much in his car project as in his economic thinking.

In an interview to Surge magazine, Sanjay not only contradicted some key Nehruvian ideas, but even questioned some of Indira’s progressive policies. The voice of big business in Sanjay’s interview is said to have greatly upset Indira.

In one particular response, Sanjay was quoted as saying: “I think the public sector should function only in competition with the private sector… where it cannot function in competition with the private sector, it should be allowed to die a natural death. Most of the private sector people… like Tatas, do not own Tatas and Birlas do not own Birlas. But the units have their names, they get these profits and they are happy, so it’s okay.” (Vasudev, Uma, Two Faces of Indira Gandhi, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi 1977.)

Indira had to work hard to persuade Sanjay to retract another statement in which he had made some wild allegations against the communist leadership. Two months later, the Allahabad High Court held her accountable for electoral malpractices. Her private assistant, the burly Yashpal Kapoor, was caught acting as her electoral agent, even though his resignation from government service was yet to be accepted. Indira refused to step down, which stunned the nation. The prime minister of the country was not a law-abiding citizen, it found.

Indira’s well-wishers, like Abbas, were upset and dismayed by her refusal to step down. Abbas claimed that it was ‘certain elements’ within the Congress, including Sanjay, who had forced Indira to change her mind and ‘fight it out’ in defiance of the law. Indira was told that the ‘adverse’ court ruling had annoyed the poorer sections of society. The prime minister was, however, unaware that her own house was being used to send out posters and propaganda to show that the masses were supporting Indira’s continuation, in spite of the adverse court verdict.

Another Indira supporter, Subhadra Joshi, known for probity in public life, said she was scandalised to know that the prime minister’s residence was being used for self-publicity. Dressed in white khadi, the diminutive Subhadra confronted the young boys busy transporting posters and asked them who had ordered this be done. ‘Sanjayji,’ they replied.

Subhadra, who had the distinction of defeating Atal Bihari Vajpayee electorally in 1962 at Balrampur, was full of moral courage, having worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru. She telephoned Sanjay and told him such activities should not be carried out from the prime minister’s residence. To her horror, on the following day, 13 June 1975, Subhadra learnt that electricity, water and bus services in Delhi had been suspended to express solidarity with Indira. This was in a month when the temperature rises to forty-six degrees Celsius and above in Delhi.

Subhadra did not wait to take an appointment with Indira. But on meeting her she was shocked to find that the prime minister was not unduly upset by the suffering of the people. An argument took place, but to Indira’s credit, she listened patiently and eventually agreed with Subhadra that the proposed form of protest should be withdrawn.

Sanjay’s rise to power had resulted in the rise of a small but powerful clique within the Congress that often worked parallel to the functioning of the prime minister, and directly reported to him. At Indira’s residence, a special telephone line was installed in Sanjay’s room, through which Indira’s additional private secretary, R.K. Dhawan, remained constantly in touch with the chief ministers of the Congress ruled states, the police commissioner and the lieutenant-governor of Delhi, and several influential party and government functionaries. The modus operandi was that calls and instructions were issued for and on behalf of Sanjay.

On many occasions, Indira was not even aware of her son’s growing unconstitutional clout. Apart from Dhawan, Sanjay had gathered several other fair-weather friends around him. These included Haryana’s Bansi Lal, Madhya Pradesh’s Vidya Charan Shukla, Ambika Soni, who was picked by Indira from Rome, and socialite Rukhsana Sultana. While Ambika and Rukhsana were constantly at loggerheads with each other, the others in the group worked as a cohesive team to further their own personal ambitions.

On 20 June 1975, Sonia Gandhi had her first brush with politics when Sanjay convinced the entire family to attend a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Ground and show solidarity with Indira. Even young Rahul and Priyanka were to be in attendance. Dhawan ensured that every Congress chief minister sent as many truckloads of people as he could. Bansi Lal was most enthusiastic and made full use of the resources. Sonia and Rajiv felt awkward, but Sanjay kept asking them to wave their hands and ‘enjoy the moment’. Sanjay’s wife, Maneka, loved the rally and kept telling Indira about the surging crowds and Sanjay’s organizational abilities.

Indira, an astute politician by then, was taken in by the ‘sea of faces’. She saw a mini India admiring and idolizing her. Little did she realize that most of the crowd had been hired and was not even aware of the issue for which they had been brought there. Indira spoke about her family’s contribution and all the good work that the Congress regime was doing.

The rally was not telecast on the state-run Doordarshan. The then information and broadcasting minister, Inder Kumar Gujral, who was schooled in Nehruvian philosophy, had vetoed it on the grounds that the rally was a party event, not a government rally, and did not need coverage. In retaliation, Sanjay and his team convinced Indira to pack Gujral off to Moscow as Indian ambassador. V.C. Shukla was brought in instead.

Disturbed by Sanjay Gandhi’s blatant interference in government matters, civic unrest was increasing every day and, five days later, the entire opposition showed its strength at the same venue. Jai Prakash Narayan appealed to the police and armed forces to ‘disobey’ any illegal orders of which their conscience did not approve.

Promptly, the following morning, a cabinet meeting was called. Instead of the established practice of discussion and consultation, Indira’s colleagues were summarily informed that a state of Emergency was being imposed under Article 352 of the Indian Constitution. The Emergency effectively bestowed upon Indira the power to rule by decree, suspending elections and civil liberties.

Indira’s colleagues kept mum, perhaps recalling that discretion was the better part of valour. Only defence minister Sardar Swaran Singh made a feeble attempt to ask if such a drastic action was necessary. Minutes later, Indira was heard announcing on All India Radio the merits of the Emergency and Swaran Singh found himself replaced by Bansi Lal.

A declaration of Emergency was not unusual in developing countries like India. Even in the UK, the Edward Heath government had called for it five times in the four years of its existence. In Australia, the governor-general had dismissed the prime minister in 1975 and called for fresh polls. In India, too, there had been a declaration of ‘external’ emergency during the 1962 and 1971 wars. But in the summer of 1975, there was nothing urgent enough to necessitate the calling of an Emergency. The political scientists and scholars of that era felt that if individual states such as Bihar had some problems, a presidential decree would have sufficed.

Later, in 1978, the Shah Commission, which was convened to inquire specifically into the Emergency and its excesses, found that there had been no evidence of a threat to the Constitution or law and order in the country that had warranted the declaration of an Emergency.

Freedom fighter and noted industrialist Ramkrishna Bajaj found himself at the receiving end of Sanjay’s ambitions. The Gandhian who loved to describe himself as ‘Gandhi’s coolie’ was constantly harassed throughout the 21-month-long Emergency, during which Sanjay and his team, consisting of Shukla, Om Mehta and Ambika Soni, tried to wrest control of the Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, an apolitical youth training and development centre in the heart of Delhi. Ramkrishna faced massive income tax raids and was forced to prevail upon fellow Gandhian Vinoba Bhave to call off his fast-unto-death fast to prevent cow slaughter.

Ramkrishna, never a man to take quick offence, sought help from Indira, with whom he had enjoyed a childhood friendship, and from Mohammad Yunus, but the harassment did not end. Ramkrishna realised slowly that his harassment was a deliberate policy to browbeat the Bajajs into submission.

On 30 August 1975, Ramkrishna, who was a director of the Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, received a requisitioned order from the Delhi administration seeking to take possession of the Kendra. Ramkrishna checked with his friends in the Congress about why the government was trying to take control of the Kendra. He learnt that Sanjay wanted the Kendra building – which had a well-furnished hostel – for the Youth Congress. A lengthy communication with the then Union home minister Brahmanand Reddy followed, but his plea fell on deaf ears. Shukla advised Ramkrishna to resign as a Kendra trustee and hand over the trust to Sanjay. The Gandhian then took up the matter with Indira, who spent six hours with him while visiting Wardha to see the ailing Vinoba Bhave.

Aboard the plane, Ramkrishna asked her in Hindi, “Aapki mujhse koi naraazgi hai kya (Are you angry with me about something)?” To which she replied, “Haan, shikayatein to hoti hi rehti hain (Yes, there are always some complaints).” The industrialist tried to draw Indira’s attention towards the Kendra, but the prime minister chose not to respond. Later, deposing before the Shah Commission, which had gone into the specifics of the Emergency, Ramkrishna recalled that in a ‘friendly’ way, Mohammad Yunus had pointed out to him that the government of the day had wide powers, which could be used.

Even as the Kendra issue failed to find resolution, on 18 May 1976, income tax officers raided a hundred and fourteen residential and business establishments across the country. Some eleven hundred officers raided factories and residences in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Kanpur, Kolkata and elsewhere. The income tax officers did not spare even Ramkrishna’s eighty-four-year-old mother Jankidevi, who had led a secluded and spartan life, having renounced all her worldly possessions since the demise of her husband Jamunalal in 1942.

Ramkrishna later learnt that his close association with Viren Shah (who later became the governor of West Bengal under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance) and his politician brother Kamalnayan’s move to leave Indira in 1966 were held against him.

By way of extending an olive branch, Ramkrishna was asked to persuade Vinoba Bhave to desist from going on a fast against cow slaughter. Indira was very keen to get the Gandhian’s endorsement of the Emergency, something that the apolitical Bhave had kept avoiding. In the initial days of the Emergency, he was persuaded to describe it as an ‘anushasan parva’ (time for discipline), but most of his supporters and followers had joined the JP movement.

Sanjay’s point man, Om Mehta, who was minister of state for home, but effectively running the entire ministry, conveyed to Ramkrishna that the income tax raids could be halted if pressure was applied on the fasting Vinoba Bhave. Ramkrishna was stunned. He told Mehta, ‘Why don’t you come with me one day to meet Vinobaji? Then only will you know what a great person he is. He is not only my guru, but the guru of my father, too. I am too small a man to question his judgement, leave alone persuade him to do something.’ (Kamath M.V., Gandhi’s Coolie: Life and Times of Ramkrishna Bajaj, Allied Publishers, Ahmedabad, 1988.)

But under duress, Ramkrishna wrote to Vinoba Bhave, expressing his anguish at the prospect of his revered guru undertaking a fast. The letter, written in Hindi, said: ‘As it is, I am a small person. Any disciple naturally feels inhibited in placing his views frankly before his guru. I too feel likewise. You had also told me that revered Kakaji (Jamunalal Bajaj) had taken up goseva (cow service) as his mission during the last few years of his life and now you are fulfilling that unfinished mission to give satisfaction to Jamunalalji’s soul. However, so far as I have been able to understand it, Kakaji’s inclination was to arouse public opinion by ceaseless efforts, to study and understand the entire issue in a scientific manner, to try to protect the cow by establishing appropriate organisational machinery.

“In the present situation, instead of undertaking the fast, I feel, it would be more advantageous to decide on the basis of practical considerations. It would, therefore, be more worthy to intensify the efforts in that direction so that public opinion can be effectively mobilised.” (Kamath MV, Gandhi’s Coolie: Life and Times of Ramkrishna Bajaj, Allied Publishers, Ahmedabad, 1988.)

Vinoba agreed not to undertake the fast.

The author is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ‘24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.