• Dr. Shashi Kumar Singh, Ph.D., D.Litt

Smt. Indira Gandhi was world famous for taking unexpected decisions in the interest of the country. Great decisions like nationalization of banks, abolition of Privy Purse, Green Revolution, White Revolution and their implementation made her extremely popular among the masses. Decisions like leadership of 103 non-aligned countries in foreign policy, declaration of complete disarmament, creation of Bangladesh by dividing Pakistan and recognition of it had such a wide impact on the entire public of the country and politicians of all parties that as a result, on the occasion of Durga Puja that year, the public installed her idols along with Maa Durga’s, while the then leader of the opposition Atal Bihar Vajpayee called her the incarnation of Durga.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was married to Kamala Kaul on Basant Panchami day, February 08, 1916, in Delhi. Their only child Indiraji was born on November 19, 1917, in Anand Bhawan of Allahabad which was an important centre in India's freedom struggle. At the time of Indira Ji's birth, Pandit Motilal Nehru had proudly said, "This daughter of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru will be better than thousands of sons" and indeed the prediction of Pandit Motilal Nehru, grandfather of Smt. Indira Gandhi, came true to the letter.

On January 19, 1966, Smt. Indira Gandhi was elected the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party and the path to become the Prime Minister of India was paved. Smt. Indira Gandhi's address after being elected the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party proved to be a historical document in the politics of modern India. Starting her address, she said, "I express my gratitude to all those who voted in my favour and against me. I will support all of you. I hope that all of you will support me fully and take the country forward. My heart is full today and I do not know how to thank you. While standing in front of you, my thoughts are going towards leaders like Mahatma Gandhi in whose footsteps I have grown up. I am remembering my father Pandit Nehru and Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri. Shastriji and Pandit Pantji brought me into politics after independence and whenever I wanted to leave politics, they inspired and prepared me to remain in it. These leaders have shown us the path of progress of the country and I want to follow the same path."

We want peace because we have to fight another battle and this battle is against poverty, disease and ignorance. We have to fulfil our promises to the people. These are promises of employment, food, clothing, housing and health. Special measures are needed for their social security.

Woman power that heals wounds

When Smt. Indira Gandhi was chosen to lead the government and the nation, she was called the “woman who heals pain”. Wherever there were problems, Indiraji went there to relieve pain and suffering, heal wounds and boost the morale of the people. In Assam and Tamil Nadu, language conflicts were taking the form of violence, the people of Arunachal Pradesh were even more distressed after the Chinese attack and in Kashmir, our soldiers were being attacked by infiltrators. Indiraji went everywhere and participated in everyone's pain, shared it and relieved it. She had learnt this role from Gandhiji. While playing this role, she reached the riot victims and provided them relief, crossing the bullets and blood-soaked roads during communal riots. Political scenario, Congress Party and the growing strength of Smt. Indira Gandhi

Role of Kamaraj

It is believed that she was made the Prime Minister after Lal Bahadur Shastri by some state leaders. Kamaraj was the Congress President at that time. There is no doubt that Kamaraj solved the question of succession very wisely and cleverly on both occasions. He wanted to see the ideals and traditions of the Congress continue. There were two factors behind his work, firstly, a strong foundation of democratic organization had been laid in the country under the leadership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The ground for this foundation was prepared during the Gandhian phase of the history of Congress for about two and a half decades. The report presented by Motilal Nehru in 1928 later became the basis of the Indian Constitution and on this basis the democratic institutions became responsive to the aspirations of the Indian people.

Indira versus the main leaders of the Party:

Only a few reporters used tape recorders in those days. When Indira ji reached Calcutta to go to Durgapur for the Congress Working Committee meeting, a journalist who was considered close to a leading leader of the Party put his mike in front of Smt. Indira Gandhi and asked about the leading leaders of the Party, then without understanding the trickery, Indira Gandhi said very innocently that these people no longer believed in Pandit Nehru's politics. When the Working Committee meeting was held in Durgapur after a few hours, the same tape was in the hands of many big leaders. These leaders accused Indira ji of spreading propaganda against the Party leaders and suggested that Smt. Indira Gandhi should be prohibited from speaking in public. No conclusion was reached on this dispute in this meeting.

But after this, these leaders saw that wherever Indiraji went, a huge crowd of people would accompany her and these leaders would be left alone. In the open session of the convention, other people also gave speeches but during their speeches, people started calling Indiraji to give a speech and were shouting loud slogans for this. Finally, Indiraji was called to speak and as soon as she came in front of the mike, there was absolute silence. People listened to her with great patience and peace. As soon as her speech ended, people started leaving the pandal. After this incident, the talk of taking disciplinary action against Indiraji was dropped.

While supporting the decision to hand over the throne to Indiraji, the top leaders of the state thought that due to Indiraji's immense popularity among the people, she would get votes and as soon as the reins would come into their hands, they would use Indiraji for their own benefit or expel her from the Party.

But in the 1967 elections, people did not vote for or against Indiraji. People gave their public opinion against the frustrated politics of these big leaders. In fact, Indiraji could not get tickets for the people she wanted. Krishna Menon was one of such people. Although for the same reasons for which these people wagged their tails in front of Pandit Nehru, they rejected the election Manifesto prepared by Menon. The truth was that in every state a large number of Congress leaders had left the Party and these people had formed regional parties and joined themselves as the opposition. Everyone knows what was the result of this. Due to this, the strength of the Congress decreased at the centre and Congress had to lose power in Kerala, West Bengal and even Punjab.

1969, split in the Congress Party

It was quite clear that public opinion was against these so-called tall leaders. All these so-called tall leaders in the Party had lost their positions and their stronghold had also collapsed. Even after this, these people did not accept defeat. Their conspiracy continued and they started playing the trick of eliminating Smt. Indira Gandhi. One more thing that happened was that in the Faridabad session, the Congress President herself objected to the fact that the public sector had been nationally accepted. When the opportunity came, the Rashtrapati Bhavan was also made the site of conspiracy against her. Even the post of Prime Minister was tried to belittle with the thought that the vanity of these leaders should remain intact, even though they had lost the elections. After all this, Smt. Indira Gandhi stood up and fought against these reactionary forces. People from every section of the society, from young entrepreneurs to farmers and from the oppressed-backward classes to the urban elite-gentlemen, stood completely in her support. When the Congressmen realised that votes could be garnered only through Indira Ji, they left their masters and followed her. As a result, the Congress split in 1969. But in their arrogance born of power, these leaders found people of their kind and created a common platform. These people exploited the Congress organisational system to the fullest. Those Congressmen who had left the Party just before or after the 1967 elections due to their ambitions and being trapped in the machinations of their masters, returned to the Party. Those people who had left the Party as a protest against Nehru's legacy and had joined the common platform did not join it.

Widespread public opinion

This common platform had to taste the dust in 1971. The Congress organisation had disintegrated as a result of partition, but people from all over the country themselves came in droves to the polling booths and voted in favour of the Congress candidates. Such an atmosphere of public support and enthusiasm for any leader was not seen after independence. There was an atmosphere of enthusiasm in favour of the Congress in every state. In some states, the Indira Congress achieved unexpected victories. Congress won 27 out of 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 out of 14 seats in Assam, 42 out of 45 seats in Maharashtra, 10 out of 13 seats in Punjab and 73 out of 85 seats in Uttar Pradesh. In Delhi, all seven candidates of Indira Congress won.

The same public opinion was seen in the assembly elections as well. Congress regained all the states it had lost except Tamil Nadu. Congress achieved the most success in those states where these tall leaders of the undivided Congress were in power. The public gave its verdict once and for all that the Congress led by Smt. Indira Gandhi is the real Congress and expressed its tremendous faith in Smt. Indira Gandhi and put an end to the future political career of all the leaders who had left Smt. Indira Gandhi after the partition of 1969. Through this public opinion, Indira ji dealt with the country very wisely and cleverly even in the hour of crisis when Pakistan had created a massacre in the eastern part of this continent.

Shock to the Imperialist Plan

Under the leadership of Smt. Indira Gandhi, a new country-Bangladesh was born and the imperialist plan of Pakistan to create a military power equal to India in the entire region suffered a major setback. She slapped the face of the imperialist power supporting Pakistan by sending Mukti Vahini army to Dhaka while the master of the world's most powerful force in the Bay of Bengal stood staring with his 7th Fleet anchored. Needless to say, the entire world was astonished to see this tremendous diplomatic will and unprecedented bold step of Smt. Indira Gandhi and non-imperialist countries all over the world praised her heroic action.

She had to suffer punishment along with other comrades of the 1971 war for destroying the imperialist plans of the world. Sheikh Mujibur was murdered along with his family in Dhaka. Pakistan's first and till then last elected leader Bhutto was hanged after being trapped in the maze of the judicial system. In India, the flag of the so-called total revolution was raised under the same conspiracy. Due to this, the elected government of Gujarat fell and the government of Bihar came to a standstill. An attempt was made to repeat the same drama in Delhi under the conspiracy of the imperialist powers of the world who were furious over the formation of Bangladesh. It was organized in the Vote Club Ground. The offices of the Central Government are located here. The objective was to bring them to a standstill. One can imagine what would have been the result of the government coming to a standstill. At this time, India was making its place in the group of developed nations of the world by developing itself in all aspects. Its entire structure would have collapsed. As a result, Emergency was imposed in the country and in 1977, the hatred spread among the people as part of a well-planned conspiracy against Smt. Indira Gandhi came to the fore.

Unexpected comeback

It is true that in the 1977 elections, Smt. Indira Gandhi lost everywhere in North India, but this public opinion was not against her. The public opinion of 1977 was a reflection of the changed mood of the people, sponsored as part of a conspiracy. After three years, the people again handed over power to her. In the history of democracy, such an example of a politician returning to power so soon is rarely seen. Even the opponents of Smt. Indira Gandhi had to admit that Smt. Indira Gandhi was committed to democracy and India's democracy was strong. She kept fighting for the development of the country, she did all this to make her father's dream of India a reality and to modernize it, so that she could leave behind such a ground for her successors on which her successors could make the next attempt in this direction.

When people talk of ‘Modern India’, Jawaharlal Nehru is remembered as its architect. He is considered the ‘architect of modern India’ in the truest sense of the word. His vision of the future influenced the plan and outline prepared under his leadership for a New India. It was he who laid a strong and deep foundation for a New India. But the credit for building a palace on this foundation goes to Smt. Indira Gandhi. The structure of India that she built on this foundation emerged as a power in front of the world and today no high and big power of the world can ignore India, whether the government in India is of the Congress Party or of any other party. Future generations will remember Smt. Indira Gandhi as the 'maker of modern India'. Also, Smt. Indira Gandhi's life philosophy is exemplary for the Congress Party in this matter that even in adverse circumstances, her dedication for the country, her courage and determination turned adverse circumstances into favourable ones and she defeated her political opponents time and again.

(The author is an AICC member and Chairman of Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee Vichaar Vibhag)