Newspapers have a special section
for book reviews; but Bishan Tandon’s diary was so revealing about a crucial
period that I wrote this column about it in the Telegraph of 30 September 2003.
When the rot began
The government is a strictly
hierarchical society: room size, number of windows, number of personal staff,
precedence, all are rigidly defined. Serving one’s superior hand and foot,
hanging on his every word, running when he calls – even those at the top of the
service do these things instinctively. Between paying court, attending meetings
and writing notes on file, every officer wishes he had four hands and forty
hours a day. And because they are so rushed, many things are managed for them.
Their diary is in the hands of a full-time assistant, their driver makes sure
they reach the right place at the right time, and all that they do not have to
do themselves is done for them. When they travel, a flunkey comes home and collects
their suitcase, books them into the flight, and is ready with the boarding pass
and stamped passport when they enter the VIP lounge. It is difficult for an
outsider to envision this closed society; the civil servants and politicians
who write about it have spent years in it and take it for granted.
But here at last is a book that
describes it just as it was – Bishan Tandon’s PMO Diary – I: Prelude to the
Emergency (Konark). It is unexpurgated; and although my ex-colleague T C A
Srinivasa Raghavan has edited it, it looks pretty well unedited. If the
author’s papaji is honoured by the Indian Phytopathology Society, your will
find it here. If the author goes to Shankarlal Music Festival, you will not be
allowed to miss it. When the author goes to watch India playing West Indies,
your must go and join him in his admiration of Parthsarathy Sharma (was he a
bowler or a batsman, I wonder)? This is sometimes irritating, and makes for a
huge book – 567 pages priced at Rs 1.41 per page. Its merit is that it does not
mince words; Tandon has not censored unflattering comments about the men and
women of that time.
This volume covers the period
from 1 November 1974 to 15 August 1975. When it opens, Indira Gandhi is already
knee-deep in trouble. Tul Mohan Ram, a Congress MP, was alleged to have sold
import licences; the complicity of Lalit Narayan Mishra, the commerce minister,
was suspected. There were other improprieties, such as giving an import licence
for polyester fibre to a blacklisted firm, for which he was directly
responsible. Parliament was after his blood. The Congress government of chief
minister Abdul Ghafoor in Bihar was one of the first really corrupt governments
in India. Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) had launched his campaign against
corruption, and was attracting an ever larger number of people. It was a year
since the Arab countries had thrown out western oil companies, taken control of
their oil and raised its price fourfold. This unleashed high inflation in
India; as the cost of living rose, workers had begun to strike all over the
country. The most serious strike was that of the railwaymen, led by a young
firebrand called George Fernandes. Supreme Court had given a judgment which
made the Prime Minister very vulnerable to a charge of overspending on her election;
the government passed an ordinance overturning the judgment. Mrs Gandhi had won
a comfortable majority in the 1971 election; but she was in such hot water that
– like one Narendra Modi three decades later – she was contemplating going for
an early poll. Her son Sanjay was trying to make Maruti in a backyard, but had
run out of money, and wanted the government to bale him out. The worries
finally unhinged her, and she declared emergency on 26 June 1975.
The defining event of the period
was the assassination of L N Mishra on 2 January 1975. He had gone to
Samastipur to attend a function of the railways when a bomb was thrown. Mrs
Gandhi had been very protective of Mishra. Tandon does not say why – whether
there was some emotional or sexual relationship, or whether they shared loot.
From I G Patel’s diary I would infer that Mishra was Mrs Gandhi’s principal
collector of illegal money. She could have saved herself much trouble by
forcing him to resign, but something – possibly some possibility of blackmail –
stopped her. His death was quite convenient to her; and as is natural in our
malicious country, there were rumours that she got him killed. Anyway, his
death exacerbated her paranoia. She did not have friends (at least, not in this
book; Sheila Dhar, Romesh and Raj Thapar, Pupul Jayakar, the Bachchans, her
known friends, do not figure much here). But she had a few confidantes; amongst
them, R K Dhawan, P N and D P Dhar, Sharada Prasad and P N Haksar. Bishan
Tandon is an outlier: he was obviously a confidante, but did not like her lack
of moral compass. P N Dhar has written his memoirs; P N Haksar published other
things. But none has written about the emergency or about Mrs Gandhi. Only Raj
Thapar and Sheila Dhar wrote about her, all too briefly; after them, this is
the first and most candid exposé.
Many people passed through
Tandon’s room on their way into and out of the Prime Minister’s office. Some
would sit down and confide things they were too afraid to tell the PM; others
would ask him to get done things they wanted but were too afraid to ask; others
would probe him for information; still others would indulge in gossip and
backbiting.
The big events of that time are
pretty well known, at least to those who lived through those times. What I
found interesting were the trivia. For instance,
·
Inder Gujral, later our Prime Minister, was
minister of information and broadcasting; he was involved in persuading
Bollywood songwriters to write songs praising Indira.
·
In the 1971 census, people had declared their
language to be Gurmukhi (which is a script), Hazarbagia, Madrasi etc; one had
boldly said his language was Swadeshi. The Registrar General wanted to tabulate
these data unedited, but the cabinet committee on political affairs asked him
to sanitize them.
·
The Bodo separatist movement had not yet begun,
but Bodos had their own language. They wanted it to be taught in schools, and
written in the Roman script. The chief minister of Assam was against it. When
the Bodos met PM, she told them she would let them write it in Devanagari.
·
Although Minoo Masani was president of Swatantra
Party, his wife Shakuntala had joined Indira Congress. So Indira gave her a large
sum from Prime Minister’s Fund to finance the Masanis’ son’s education abroad.
·
Indira got two Naxalite murderers off the
scaffold in Hyderabad because the communists, whose support she wanted, asked
her to do so. Another Uttambhai Patel, who had been of use to her, was arrested
for murder in Gujarat. She had a message sent to H C Sarin, whom she had
planted as adviser to the Gujarat government. After a few months, Uttambhai was
released for lack of evidence. Shades of Narendra Modi, I thought. Now he will
write to the President saying if Mrs Gandhi could let off murderers, so could
he.
·
Sanjay took Rs 25 million from prospective
dealers for Maruti, and siphoned off the money into a firm called Maruti
Consultancy. He got a manufacturing licence by putting an imported engine into
a body, but could not be allowed to import engines without a major breach of
policy. When Mrs Gandhi tried to talk to her about it, he would abuse her.
