Remembering Indira Gandhi,who dismantled Pakistan

 

 

Remembering Indira Gandhi,who dismantled Pakistan

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in a way, was more courageous than her illustrious father Pandit Nehru when it came to taking pragmatic bold political decisions. On Nehru’s death in 1964, she was elected to Rajya Sabha  and joined Lal Bahadur Shastri's Cabinet as I&B Minister on persuasion of President Radhakrishnan.  After Shastri’s sudden demise in 1966, she was elected the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, defeating her rival Morarji Desai, succeeding Shastri as the Prime Minister. The Congress President Kamaraj and other Syndicate members thought she, being a woman, could be maneuvered and used as a ‘puppet’, while at the same time benefiting by the Nehru aura that she carried. 

She faced a formidable challenge from the Syndicate.  She was expelled from the Congress party, following her refusal to endorse Sanjiva Reddy as the party’s candidate for Presidency- supporting V.V.Giri. By demonstrating a rare courage and determination, she split the party and formed the Congress(I), receiving the overwhelming support from the rank and file, with Giri getting elected as the President of India and her party emerging as the true inheritor of the Indian National Congress .

In 1969, she relieved Morarji Desai as the Finance Minister, and nationalized 14 commercial banks to make the banking credit system accessible to the poor and the needy, particularly in the countryside. Following the nationalization, the public sector banks deposits rose by 800 percent and advances by 11,000 percent, the number of branches increased from 8,200 to over 62,000.  The nationalization boosted household savings and investments in the informal sector, small- and medium-size enterprises, and agriculture and contributed to regional development and to the expansion of industrial and agricultural base.

She abolished the Privy Purses in 1971 by bringing the 26^th Amendment to the Constitution, derecognizing the princes and their privileges. Many royals who protested and contested the elections were defeated by huge margins. She stood up against the hegemony of America, brought the Green Revolution, making India self-sufficient in food grains, refusing American aid under PL-480. In 1974. India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, code named "Smiling Buddha", claiming the test was for peaceful purposes and part of India's commitment to develop its programme for industrial and scientific use.

Indira Gandhi’s greatest achievement was dismantling Pakistan. She had displayed extraordinary political leadership and rare courage in handing a humiliating defeat to Pakistan in 1971 war. Following the genocide of the Bengalis by Pakistan army, the Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by the Mukti Bahini— the national liberation army formed by Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians. The Provisional Government of Bangladesh formed in April 1971 was moved to Calcutta as a government in exile. India declared war on Pakistan on 3 December 1971, when Pakistan launched preemptive air strikes in North India. The Indian army entered East Pakistan to fight for the liberation of Bangladesh. The war witnessed engagements on two war fronts. Some 10 million Bengalis fled to India, creating an unprecedented refugee crisis for the Indian government.

America and China were supporting Pakistan. The US Seventh Fleet, comprising the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier entered the Bay of Bengal, ready to strike at India.  It was the Soviet Union's veto in the UN Security Council that helped India. The war lasted for 14 days. And on December 16,1971, Lt. Gen Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, Chief Martial Law Administrator of East Pakistan and Commander of Pakistan Army forces signed the Instrument of Surrender in Dakha with Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora. More than 93,000 Pakistani troops had surrendered unconditionally at the Racecourse Maidan, making it the largest surrender since World War II, and the greatest military victory in the Indian history. 

At 5.30 PM, December 16, Indira Gandhi had announced at a special siting of Lok Sabha the surrender of Pakistan Army to the rapturous cheering, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee calling her Goddess Durga. The Cabinet reviewed the surrender and decided to declare ceasefire on the Western Front. Indira Gandi convened a meeting of Opposition leaders in Parliament at which the government's decision to offer a unilateral ceasefire was endorsed. India announced a unilateral ceasefire on the Western Front on December 17. In an impassionate letter to the US President Richard Nixon, she reminded him that Indian jawans had shed their blood to uphold the very values cherished by the people of the US. And in a statement addressed to the UN, she said: "We have repeatedly declared that India has no territorial ambitions. Now that the Pakistan Armed Forces have surrendered in Bangladesh and Bangladesh is free, it is pointless in our view to continue the present conflict. Therefore, in order to stop further bloodshed and unnecessary loss of lives, I have ordered our armed forces to cease fire everywhere on the Western Front."  

A new nation Bangladesh was born, consigning the two nation-theory of Jinnah to the dustbin of history.  President V.V. Giri conferred Indira Gandhi the highest civilian award Bharat Ratna for India’s decisive historical victory. No democratic leader of any country had achieved such remarkable military victory.

The historical achievement of Indira Gandhi is sought to be neutralized by her critics holding the proclamation of emergency in 1975 against her, as if that was the only thing she ever did. Whether the emergency was justified! It is a matter of debate. However, we need to understand the political unrest prevalent at that time. The students’ unrest and the Nav Nirman Movement in Gujarat, supported by Morarji Desai, forced the Centre to dissolve the Chimanbhai Patel government in 1974.  The students’ agitation spread to Bihar. The agitation by the Bihar Chatra Sangharsh Samiti was supported by Jayaprakash Narayan. He gave a call for a "total revolution” and demanded dissolution of the Bihar government. Indira Gandhi refused to give in. The Railway employees' union- the largest union in the country- led by firebrand trade union leader George Fernandes, went on a nation-wide indefinite strike, paralyzing the Indian railways. There was an attempt to assassinate the Railway Minister  L.N.Mishra.

On June 12, 1975, the Allahabad High Court judge, Justice Jagmohan Lal Saxena, declared Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha in 1971 null and void on technical grounds, and granted her three week-stay to enable her to go in appeal to the Supreme Court. The Court held her guilty of  “…using the state police to build a dais, availing the services of a government officer Yashpal Kapoor and using electricity from the state electricity department.” She was absolved of all other charges of bribing the voters and the electoral malpractices. It was the BLD Government of Charan Singh in UP that provided the police and security protection to her, as per the protocol, since she was the Prime Minister.  Yashpal Kapoor, OSD in the PMO, had resigned before acting as her agent. The world media was very critical of the judgment unseating a Prime Minister on such trifle charges. Nevertheless, when Indira Gandhi went in appeal to the Supreme Court, Justice V R Krishna Iyer had granted a stay on the HC judgment on June 24 and allowed her to continue as the Prime Minister. A legal luminary Nani Palkhivala was defending her.

Jayaprakash Narayan played into the hands of a motley, desperate conglomerate of opposition leaders. His call for the ‘total revolution’ was a misadventure. On June 25, at Ram Leela Maidan, when all the prominent opposition leaders- Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Raj Narain, Atal Bihar Vajpayee, L.K.Advani, and Vijaya Raje Scindia - were present, he gave a call for the army, the police and the civil servants to disobey the orders of the “illegal government of Indira Gandhi”. The opposition leaders had declared that they would carry on agitations all over the country till she resigned. It was a ‘wave of horror spread throughout the country.’ The rule of law, which is available even to the man on the street, was denied to the Prime Minister.  And the benefit of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ by the final court of appeal was also denied to her

All these developments had created a chaotic situation in the country. On June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared national emergency under Article 352(1) of the Constitution due to the “internal disturbance”.  In her broadcast to the nation she said the emergency was necessary “to foil the plot to negate the very functioning of democracy.” The opposition political leaders were detained, and censorship was imposed on the Press.

While the history would judge whether her decision to administer ‘bitter medicine’ to the country was right. R.K.Dhawan and Pranab Mukherjee were of the opinion that the emergency was inevitable, given the circumstances. It is unfortunate the ‘Iron Lady’ had been showered with the choicest abuses in political parlance, belittling all her remarkable achievements. What conveniently ignored is that, after all, it was Indira Gandhi who revoked the emergency, released the political detainees on January 18, 1977, lifted the press censorship and ordered fresh elections, restoring the democratic process. She contested and lost her seat Rai Bareli, and accepted the defeat. It is interesting to note Defence Minister Bansi Lal, Sanjay Gandhi and many party leaders were against revoking the emergency. Fali Nariman said that only a Nehru’s daughter could revoke the emergency. Being part of the freedom movement, she was concerned about the judgment of history.

It is imperative to understand the political dimension the post emergency. The people who supported the emergency went against Indira Gandhi. Jagjivan Ram, H N Bahuguna and Nandini Satpathy left the party and formed a splinter group- Congress for Democracy. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, who advised her to declare the emergency, deposed against her before the Inquisitorial Shah Commission.  Swaran Singh and V C Shukla – the I&B Minister responsible for the press censorship and the excesses during the Emergency- turned hostile. She was isolated and betrayed by her colleagues.That explains her distrust of party colleagues the post emergency. 

And her another historical bold decision to allow the army to carry the “Operation Blue Star” to flush out the armed militants hiding in the Golden Temple Complex, had succeeded in stamping out the secessionist Khalistan movement. But it ultimately cost her life- the Sikh bodyguards assassinating her on October 31, 1984.