She was the only man in her govt

As soon as he had walked into the press box of the Sialkot cricket stadium on October 31, 1984, manager Raj Singh Dungapur clapped everybody into attention. “Gentlemen,” he said, pausing dramatically as was his manner, “I have tragic news. Our Prime Minister Mrs Gandhi has been assassinated.” It would not be exaggerating to say that there was a collective gasp in the press box. Every jaw dropped.

Shocking as this news was, I remember that a great deal of the discussion right through the tour, within the Indian press corps and Pakistanis who came into our acquaintance, had centred around Operation Blue Star and its aftermath. What the future held for the Indian government and in particular Indira Gandhi was a favourite after-the-day’s-play subject to dwell on, but no one had anticipated such a development.

Operation Blue Star had been the most contentious decision taken by Indira Gandhi since she had imposed the Emergency almost ten years earlier, and perhaps even less easily explained. The Punjab problem had admittedly assumed monstrous proportions but was, after all, the creation of her politics. Moreover, this was always going to alienate the entire Sikh community. So it seemed a zero sum game, all told and quite out of keeping with the lady I had met a few months earlier.

It was for grim business too. Bombay may have been spared the communal riots that had hit the textile town of Bhiwandi and claimed several lives approaching mid-1984, but the tension could be felt across the length and breadth of the city. When the prime minister, accompanied by son Rajiv Gandhi, decided to make a swift visit to assess the situation first hand, I was assigned to cover her meeting with the chief minister Vasantdada Patil and senior functionaries of the state police and bureaucracy.

At first sight, Indira Gandhi looked petite and demure, hardly intimidating. But that impression was soon dispelled when she got down to work. She spoke to the point, and was unsparing of excuses. Legend had it that her stern gaze could melt iron and her sharp tongue had seen even big and powerful men crumble. In a metaphorical sense, the legend seemed correct.

I wouldn’t say that the most powerful men in the room quaked in their boots, but they fumbled for words to explain why a riot should have taken place, and why there was no security offered to the weak and the helpless. She was firm and direct with everybody, and brusque with the errant. One of the senior ministers present, I learnt, was told that if he couldn't manage his affairs, he had no business being in charge.  

The meeting left me with mixed feelings. I was thoroughly impressed not just with the manner in which tackled the Bhiwandi crisis meeting, but also her arguments for doing the right thing by the people. Yet, she had also imposed the reprehensible Emergency in a nasty combo of insecurity and powerlust, uncaring of what the damage it could cause to Indian democracy.

Twenty-five years after her assassination, my feelings still remain mixed. Her left-of-centre political dispensation was populist, but inclusive. Her personal charisma allowed the Congress to grow phenomenally. Her foreign policy showed indomitable will if not great finesse, and her victory in the 1971 war against Pakistan stymied —  at least for a long while — the immediate external threat.

Yet, it baffles that Indira Gandhi could have thrust so much power into the hands of gofers like RK Dhawan and ML Fotedar while ignoring the merits of several of her own colleagues. And was it just a deep sense of insecurity or maternal love which made her plump for son Sanjay as a possible successor?

The pros and cons of her persona and politics are several, revealing a complex but fascinating human being whose influence over the country will be a subject of unending debate. The one thing on which most people concur on is that at some point in time, Indira Gandhi was the only man in her government. My exposure to her was brief, but I would still go with that.