Of all the Prime Ministers, India has had since it achieved independence in 1947, Mrs. Indira Gandhi stands preeminently as the most infamous one. The single most inglorious event of her 18 years of rule was her attack on Sri Durbar Sahib Amritsar and 38 other historical Sikh Gurdwaras on June 6, 1984. As a result of this Himalayan blunder she committed, India has lost forever the most vibrant community which in spite of its small numerical strength was responsible to a large extent in achieving independence. Sikhs are now fighting for a Separate Sovereign Sikh State where they can practice their religion without India’s security forces at the gates of Gurdwaras.

The following is an article written by a NonSikh who had known Indira personally and from close quarters.

Amarjit Singh Buttar

By M.O, Mathai

When a hen crows, it heralds the end of an Empire Chinese Proverb.

‘When a hen crows, it heralds the end of the world Malayalam Proverb

‘The first impression Indira made on me 31 years ago was that of conceit, about young Disraeli, Queen Victoria said to her Prime Minister Lord Derby, “I have seen some of the notes of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is conceited.” Lord Derby made his submission, “Your Majesty, everyone has a right to be conceited until he is successful.” With Indira, conceit swelled with success.

It was my practice to keep a spare copy of everything Nehru wrote and also copies of important telegrams and documents. With Nehru’s informal permission, I let Indira read all these daily. This helped her to inform her mind and to talk somewhat sensibly to foreign dignitaries who sat on either side of her at social functions. She ‘was extremely good at keeping secrets. I also informally placed at her disposal my personal staff two of them who were in the same grade as the PM’s PAs. This I did because, as the PM’s hostess, she had a good deal of work to do. I myself had the use of the PM’s PAs.

Indira hated small cars. When Hindustan Motors put their first cars on the road, Nehru asked me to get rid of his “chariot” which was a Buick and buy a Hindustan. I promptly carried out his wishes. It was only when she saw the small Hindustan that she realized that the Buick had gone, she was livid with rage and did not talk to me for a week.

Indira had a constant complaint against her father that he always kept quiet at mealtimes, when they were alone, and never gave satisfactory answers to her questions. I advised her against raising heavy stuff at mealtimes but to tell him amusing stories and jokes and make him Laugh. This she could never do. I also asked her to note down whatever she wanted to ask her father and that arrangements could easily be made for her to see him quickly twice a week. But she started passing on to me her questions saying, “Papu never fails to give you clear cut answers.” Once she said to me, with a lump in her throat and moist eyes, that while she was in England ‘and Europe as a young girl she was kept in want and that on a few occasions she had to starve. This was also an indirect complaint ‘against her father.

‘One day, when she was surrounded by her two little kids, she looked at me and said, out of the blue, “I shall not hesitate to dash my children against rock if it is in the interest of the country.” I got angry and told her.

“You are too full of illusions. As a child your dolls fought against British soldiers and defeated them; as a little girl you were the Commander in Chief of the monkey brigade; as a teenage girl you were Joan of ‘Arc; and now you are Lady Macbeth, The interest of the country will be better served if you can catch field rats and dash them against rocks.” Then I walked out.

Indire’s taste in art bordered on the grotesque. When Jacqueline Kennedy came to stay in Nehru’s house, Indira wasted govt money by having a wooden carving made to be placed at the fireplace in the bedroom, it was a real horror. How Mrs Kennedy slept in that room without getting nightmares was a wonder, But Indira was very pleased with that horror. Verily Nikita Khruschey uttered the truth when he said “Modem art is the work of a donkey’s tail.”

 It was on the recommendation of Lal Bahadur that Indira was taken into the Congress Working Committee by U.N. Dhebar. Nehru had nothing to do with it. Her election as interim Congress President early in 1959 at Hyderabad was also not on Nehru’s initiative. It was Kamaraj’s suggestion, Nehru was a silent witness. He neither encouraged it nor discouraged it, On his return from Hyderabad he told me so; but | have no doubt that he was please, The next morning I was looking at three photographs of Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira placed in a row in the corridor leading from the PM’s study to his bedroom, After breakfast the PM and Indira came as I was looking at the photographs. The PM asked me what I was joking at so attentively. I pointed out the three photographs and said, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” He laughed and Indira was much amused.

Nehru spoke critically of Indira to me only twice. The first time was when Indira managed to delay for a long time the surrender, to govt, of the expensive necklace presented to her by the King of Saudi ‘Arabia, Nehru was annoyed, He told, “Like most women, Indu has a highly developed sense of possessions.” I told him, “It is the result of her having had no security right from childhood. I do not know what the future has in store for her, but insecurity will follow her like a shadow all her life and her actions will largely be governed by it.” He listened attentively with a measure of sadness. He loved his daughter dearly. Much later, while Indira was the PM, a question on the necklace, with insinuations was raised in parliament by Ram Manohar Lohia. It was answered by Moranji Desai who was Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. He said that the necklace was kept by Nehru in his custody in a safe. ‘This was totally incorrect. Nehru never kept a safe, His office in the PM’s house had no safe; it had only a small Godrej cashbox in which a necklace could not be accommodated. There was only one safe in the PM’s house. It was a Chub safe which I had put in Indira’s spare bathroom long before, at her request, to keep her jewels and such other valuables as she possessed, both the keys of the safe were with her.

The second time that Nehru showed annoyance towards his daughter was after Indira made an unwise statement in Hong. Kong, on her way to Tokyo, to fly over the North Pole to the United States on a paid lecture tour for which she had collected many ghostwritten speeches, If I remember correctly it was in 1963, Nehru was not well then, and yet she went. Soon after she left, Nehru’s condition worsened. I had to 0 to the PM’s house to take charge of the situation. I rang up Dr B.C. Roy who came the next day. He organized the course of treatment with the help of govt doctors in New Delhi. Once, while the PM and I were alone in his room during that period, he told me with a measure of imitation, about Indira’s statement in Hong Kong that her father had asked her to join his Cabinet as Minister for External Affairs. He added that he did not make any such offer, but vague thought did occur to him in view of his indisposition and he did some loud thinking in her presence for fleeting moment. He further said that, on mature consideration, he was unlikely to take her into his Cabinet.

‘On Nehru’s death Indira flagrantly flouted the wishes expressed in his will that he did not want any religious ceremonies after his death.

It can be said, without fear of any Contradiction, that the Congress Parliamentary Party voted for Indira to succeed Lal Bahadur mainly for one reason that she happened to be Nehru’s daughter. It was indeed a tribute to Nehru, A day before the voting, a minister visited me and said that head advised Morarji Desai not to contest and to give way to youth, He added, “You know her better than any person; what is your advice?” I replied, “Go and vote according to your assessment or conscience and see me afterwards,” Straight from the Central Hall of parliament, immediately after the voting, the minister came to me and asked, “What’s your opinion?” I said I had no doubt that she would be elected because Nehru’ image loomed large in the background.” He asked, “What is your assessment of her, what sort of a PM will. She be?” I said, “She will ruin this country. How long she will take to achieve this, I do not know. There is nothing of the father in her except the noncommunal outlook. She will play a different type of politics the politics of manoeuveres, manipulation and deception. She will have no loyalty to anyone except to herself. Not being overburdened with scruples, she can do almost anything. She will administer unpleasant surprises to Kamaraj and others who supported her. And, what is worse, there is an clement of crankiness in her nature. She will surpass Gladstone in axing people. Perhaps your tum will come soon, she will ‘swear by socialism, in which she does not personally believe and the meaning of which she does not understand. When you find her swearing by socialism, remember a saying of Samuel Johnson’s, “When a butcher says his heart bleeds for his country, rest assured that he is swearing by a sinecure.” In any serious crisis in which her personal interests are gravely threatened, she will not have the capacity to take a bold decision by herself. She will fall into the hands of others; if they are not honest and fearless people, then she has had it. It is ‘enough for the present.” He was flabbergasted and said that he would write down all I had said and keep it for future reference.

Indira’s tenure as PM was marked by some very unhealthy trends: (i) Her absurd advocacy of committed civil servants, committed judiciary, and committed press, (i) the sickeningly vulgar solidarity rallies artificially arranged in Delhi on the slightest provocation at public expense by Delhi state and the adjoining states of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and UP. A tribe of paid rally men were as readily available as instant coffee, and public transport was always there; (iii) reducing the Council of Ministers to a bunch of nonentities; (iv) befriending and making use of the Communist Party of India and excommunicates while she was shaky and discarding them when she felt politically safe; (v) making ghostwriters out of all except chaprasi.

The classic example of a committed civil servant was P.N. Haksar, who had some experience only in the Foreign Service in rather minor positions, and who did not possess a modicum of discipline and detachment so essential in a civil servant. He was allowed to play party politics for which he was singularly unfit.

Even after a lapse of time I cannot understand how Cabinet Ministers and prominent functionaries, with considerable experience in public life, reduced themselves to jesters, buffoons, sycophants and abject flatterers. One make an ass of himself by saying, “Indira is India, and India is Indira,” and felt satisfied with his profundity, while two so called political heavy ‘weights sat on either side and applauded. The same joker hailed Sanjay as Shankaracharya and Vivekananda! Another made a monkey of himself by saying, what happens to India; and what found secondary school stuff! And the ‘opposition Jana Sangh leader, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was swept off his feet at the fall of Bangladesh and blurted out, “She is Durga!” The campaign in Bangladesh was very ordinary military operation, and it needed no Durga or Bhadra Kali. No Prime Minister had any option but to act the way she did in Bangladesh. I do hope, as External Affairs Minister, Vajpayee will not allow himself to become so easily unbalanced. UP Chief Minister Tiwari ‘committed blasphemy by hailing Sanjay as Lord Krishna!

After the Allahabad judgment, S. Mulgoakar and B.G. Verghese wrote powerful editorials in their respective newspapers under the identical title “Time to go.” Tables were turned on them and they were made to realize that it was their time to go. So much for the freedom of the press!

‘To David Frost, the journalist and broad ‘caster, Indira said recently, “I felt utter, utter relief when ousted from power… When I got the news of my personal defeat, I had a surge of relief as if a tremendous rock had been lifted from my shoulders.” don’t think she herself believes in the statement she made to Frost. She could have had the “utter, utter relief” by casting off the tremendous rock’ herself. When the Allahabad High Court judgment came, by resign

There by her would not only have salvaged herself but enhanced her personal image. I believe it was the gravest mistake she committed; all the rest flowed from it; unscrupulous, crude and small men and an immature boy took charge of her and from then on she was no more than a miserable automation piling folly upon folly and strewing faggots around her.

Vision, imagination, boldness, efficiency are the essential qualities which worthwhile minister possesses; but above all is the ‘capacity to resign. If the members of the Union Council of Ministers showed courage and resigned on the question of declaring Emergency without Cabinet approval, as laid down in the Constitution, Emergency would have ended within a few days. These men failed at the moment of the nation’s supreme crisis, they and the vociferous supporters of the Emergency in the Congress Parliamentary Party are a bunch of cowards who have forfeited their right to hold public positions. Until they disappear, there is no hope for the Congress which has a glorious record spread over almost a century. Like the fabulous Phoenix, the Congress should bum itself so that a new generation can rise rejuvenated from its ashes and give the country a new leadership and new hope,

The day after Emergency was declared on 25 June 1975, my minister friend rang up and started talking. I said, “I don’t talk about serious matters over the telephone, and hung up. He came to see me later in the day with his diary and read out what had told him about ten years ago. He said “She has ruined the country all right.” I replied, “This is only the beginning; she is on the high road to ruining her party and herself beyond repair. She will not last long. What Tam worried about is what forces will emerge in place of the Congress.”

With all kinds of inquiry commissions functioning, I do not wish to write more about Indira at present, in a companion volume to this book, I shall write more.

‘After writing what has appeared above, I happened to glance through the book, All the Prime Minister’s Men by Janardan Thakur, a newspaper reporter. This man, who looks like a giant sausage, barged in to see me. I find that his book bristles with untruths. He has exhibited considerable incapacity to sift fact from fiction and great capacity for inventing, twisting and making defamatory comments and observations. I imagine these are inevitable characteristics of “instant history” of which we have had a big crop in recent months. Obviously, Thakur’s book was written in haste to make a quick buck. Here is an extract from the book:

But in those earlier days she could do little but stew with impotent rage, or take it out in dissipation. During the fifties, there were times when Nehru, a noninterfering man, got troubled over the goings on in the house. Indira Gandhi would often return to the house late at night in ‘quite a state’ and though Nehru knew about it he did not know what he could do. He was a man who respected others’ privacy. Nehru once gave some advice to a woman functionary of the house which showed how well he understood his daughter. ‘About Indu’, he advised the person, ‘you must understand one thing you will get by be available, but don’t ‘go near her. Don’t intrude’.

‘These are atrocious and malicious inventions, Indira was the opposite of a socialite. It was with reluctance that she went with her father for protocol functions. She never drank or smoked. She never went out alone at night. The story about Nehru giving some advice to a woman functionary is ridiculous nonsense. Nehru would never talk to any functionary about his daughter.

67 Feared Drowned

NEW DELHI: A boat carrying Sri Lankan refugees capsized of India’s south coast October 7, and 67 people were feared drowned news reports said.

 New Pak envoy

NEW DELHI: Abdul Sattar will take over as Pakistan’s new high commissioner in India here later this month.

Official sources said Sattar, who is currently posted to Moscow as Pakistan’s ambassador, was expected to reach here on October 23.

He replaces Bashir Babar who has been posted as Pakistan’s high commissioner to Australia.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 12, 1990