Hero or villain? A question Indira’s life is still posing

Let me take you back 50 years to a February afternoon in 1974 at Shikohabad, Uttar Pradesh. Assembly elections were under way. Indira, then prime minister, was in her heyday. She arrived for the election campaign and the moment she climbed onto the stage she asked a woman candidate, who had been standing behind some senior Congress leaders, to come forward.

Indira playfully admonished the candidate and asked her how she would lead people if she was so diffident. She then put her hand on the young woman’s shoulders and said: “Stand straight, fold your hands, and look at how people are looking at you." The gathering was overwhelmed by this gesture.

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Ten years later, on 31 October 1984, Indira was assassinated. By then a journalist, I received a call from my office about 11 am that day that Indira had been shot. Thirty bullets had been pumped into her body. The official announcement of her death was made after 6pm. But by afternoon the same day, riots had broken out in many parts of the country. I still can’t forget the gory scenes of the time I witnessed in Allahabad (now Prayagraj). What happened after Indira’s death may be termed as a pogrom. But that day I saw even the most level-headed of people turn violent.

I mentioned these two incidents to paint a picture of Indira’s popularity. We have a proclivity to see things in black and white while judging great personalities, without realizing that every significant event is the culmination of a series of incidents.

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Notwithstanding what people may say, Indira’s contribution to India was significant. India was facing a food scarcity when she came to power. We were forced to import wheat from the US, that too of a quality barely good for poultry use in that country. The “green revolution" under Indira’s watch brought the country out of this dire situation.

She spearheaded the creation of Bangladesh breaking Pakistan, and established India’s dominance in the region. Sikkim’s accession to India was another feather in her cap. She had to ward off immense pressures from external and internal forces in these endeavours.

During the tense Indo-Pakistan ties, her cold and less-than-cordial meeting with then US President Richard Nixon, bore testimony of her steely resolve. A woman driven by the love for her country put an arrogant and powerful president in his place. At the same time, she met and entered into a treaty with the leader of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, giving India a permanent friend. Even today Russia supplies the bulk of security equipment and armaments to India.

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Feeding millions of hungry mouths, expanding India’s territory, division of arch-enemy, Pakistan, and establishing India’s status in the comity of nations put her among the greatest of Indian leaders. Ending privy purse for erstwhile Indian royal families signalled her belief in equality in democracy.

These, however, present one facet of her personality.

She was also a tyrant without a shred of doubt. Between 1966 and 1977, she overthrew 39 democratically elected state governments using Article 356. According to the Legal India website, she used Article 356 for a total of 48 times in her tenure as India’s prime minister. The Janata Party that replaced her in the 1977 general elections also dismissed nine Congress-ruled state governments but it wasn’t anywhere near her record.

Biggest mistake

Her decision to impose an Emergency was her biggest mistake. That one act overshadows all her great achievements. The second grave error was Operation Bluestar.

In a democratic country such as India, the use of the army to address an internal issue betrayed the weakness of the government machinery. Since then, every prime minister starting with Rajiv Gandhi has desisted from such an act.

The seeds of the Congress party’s present mess were sown in Indira’s time. The party’s surrender before the family started in her reign. The rot that set in then is visible now in its full glory.

You may be tempted to ask, was Indira a hero or a villain?

I feel the resolve a leader needs to make bold and tough decisions also deludes them into overestimating their abilities. Every leader who dares to tread a new path faces similar criticism. And great leaders who set out on the quest to change the course of history, are also destined to bear history’s curse.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan. Views are personal.