Emergency saga

Sanjay Gandhi favoured private enterprise and did not value socialism that his mother and grandfather followed.

Sanjay usually kept a distance from the press and was suspicious of journalists. But in August 1975 journalist Uma Vasudev, who had written an adulatory biography of Indira Gandhi, managed to get an extensive interview out of the enigmatic Sanjay for her magazine, Surge. Over long sessions, Vasudev put searching questions to Sanjay. She questioned him about his past, especially the stories that had long circulated about Sanjay’s wild youth. The interview gave an insight into the reclusive heir apparent. Some excerpts: 

There are so many stories about your fondness for alcohol. 
I don’t drink at all. Not only alcohol, not even Coca Cola, Fanta, Limca or any of these things. 

How would you really explain the rumours about fast living? 
I don’t know because I hardly ever go even to a hotel. . . . When I first started on Maruti in 1967 I was usually working 16 hours a day, more often 18. 

Has your volatile and high spirited personality brought you into clash with the PM, your mother? 
I’ve never been in clash with my mother. I’ve held some views and she’s held different views . . . That’s a difference of opinion, so what . . . I’ve had lots of arguments because I’m quite argumentative. I’ve never had a heated argument. 

Does she listen to your views or give you a hearing on issues that matter? 
Yes, obviously she listens to my views.

In the interview, Sanjay blamed the Opposition for helping stymie the Maruti project by probing into every aspect of it and frightening off the bureaucracy. He attributed the downslide at Maruti to the fact that the market for motor cars was very weak. Most significantly, Sanjay made clear he was in favour of free enterprise and a greater role for the private sector. In fact, he rubbished the socialist policies followed by the governments of his grandfather and mother. 

It was his remarks about the communists, who were his mother’s electoral allies, which set the cat among the pigeons. ‘The communists may have a small cadre that actually works but if you take all the people in the Communist Party, the bigwigs — even the not so bigwigs — I don’t think you’d find a richer or more corrupt people anywhere,’Sanjay declared.

Vasudev was so excited by her scoop that before it could appear in her magazine she sent a press release of the main points of the interview to the news agencies UNI, PTI and Reuters. Sanjay’s remarks about the communists were carried by the Evening News. 

Mrs Gandhi, who was away in Haryana that day, was appalled. She wrote frantically to her secretary PN Dhar to issue orders to immediately stop further publication.’Sanjay has made extremely stupid remarks about the communists. . . . At a most crucial and delicate time, we have not only grievously hurt those who have helped us and are now supporting us within the country. . . . What do we do? I am terribly worried. It is the first time in years that I am really upset. How do we inform the USSR and others? What excuse do we find or concoct? Should we get Sanjay to say something — he will not I am sure (although I have not spoken to him) wish to put the blame on the interviewer or anyone else.’

Most Indian newspapers did not carry the interview the next day because of the censors’ orders, and Vasudev lost her prized scoop. But extracts of Sanjay’s remarks were printed in publications all over the world. The communists were furious at this open declaration of war by the PM’s son. Sanjay issued a clarification to the Indian Express, which had carried extracts of the interview. He said he did not mean to make such sweeping statements about any party. But the damage had been done. 

To Dhar it seemed the interview was deliberate. Sanjay was impatient to get into the driver’s seat. He thought his mother was a ditherer who acted only when pushed by a person of stronger conviction. He believed he knew the kind of leadership India needed, and he was going to provide it.

(From The Emergency A Personal History By Coomi Kapoor; Published by Penguin)