• Capt. Praveen Davar

India’s first woman Prime Minster, and so far the only one, Smt. Indira Gandhi, was the longest serving Prime Minister of India after Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru who had been the nation’s PM for 17 years from 1947 to 1964. She was the nation’s head of government for almost 16 years in two phases- Jan. 1966 to March 1977 and Jan. 1980 to Oct. 1984.

The second Prime Minister of India, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri died suddenly in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan (then part of erstwhile Soviet Russia) on January 11, 1966. Following a leadership tussle in which the then Congress President K. Kamaraj played a crucial role in her favour, Smt. Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister after defeating senior Congress leader Morarji Desai in a keenly contested election for the leadership of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP). Morarji Desai got only 169 votes as against Indira Gandhi who was supported by 355 Members of Parliament of the Congress who constituted the electoral college. The victory of Indira Gandhi had in fact been a foregone conclusion when 12 of the 14 Chief Ministers had decided to support her and prevail upon their MPs to vote for her. Magnanimous in defeat the ascetic and strong-willed Morarji Desai offered his cooperation to the newly elected leader Smt. Indira Gandhi who described herself in all humility as a ‘Desh Sevika’.

The first term of Smt. Gandhi was a ‘Bed of Thorns’ as described by Durga Das, a journalist of repute during the first two decades after independence. The country was facing many challenges - the economy was slithering downward, foreign exchange resources were dwindling rapidly, the import of essential goods had to be severely restricted and the exports were beginning to show alarming signs of sluggishness. In international affairs, the aftermath of Indo- Pak conflict of 1965 was not conducive to tranquility. China’s hostility towards India acquired a sharper edge following its new understanding with Pakistan. In North- East, the Mizo tribes were in revolt, the demand for a Punjabi Suba had gained momentum, on the streets of Delhi the sadhus and sanyasis had come out demanding an end to cow slaughter. To top it all, there was unprecedented drought in 1966. The rains failed for the second year in succession, and the drought was more secure than in 1965, and led to galloping inflation and grave food shortages. The first duty of the government, Smt. Gandhi said soon after assuming charge, was to ensure food to her people. She set about tackling the food problem by integrating community development and cooperation into the ministry of Food and Agriculture and placing it into the experienced hands of C Subramaniam, who with her encouragement and a sense of urgency, was to play a vital role, alongwith fellow Tamilian, Agro-scientist MS Swaminathan, in ushering Green Revolution. It was her first visit to USA a few months after she became PM, where US President Lyndon Johnson offered food aid to India with conditions that influenced Indira Gandhi to launch the Green Revolution. Though it would take three years to fructify and make India self-sufficient in food, it can be said that this initiative of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was her greatest achievement of her first term. Rebuilding relations with USA which had suffered in the aftermath of 1965 India - Pak War, was an important milestone in the country’s foreign policy.

Within a year of her premiership, Smt. Indira Gandhi had to face general elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. The first election of post- Nehru era saw the Congress tally in the Lok Sabha drastically reduce from in 1962 to 283 seats. In a shrewd move, against the advice of her close colleagues- Ashok Mehta, YB Chavan and Dinesh Singh- Smt. Gandhi called on Morarji Desai and offered him the Deputy Prime Ministership which he accepted. This averted a leadership contest like the an year ago. In an event, many of the senior leaders who would have supported Desai had themselves lost in the elections. These included the Congress President Kamaraj, who had by now drifted away from the Prime Minister, SK Patil and Atulya Ghosh. Soon after the beginning of her second innings, election for the Presidentship of India was due and Smt. Gandhi was faced with the choice of either giving the incumbent Dr. S. Radhakrishnan a second term or elevate the Vice President Dr. Zakir Hussain. She chose the latter, despite the fact that many senior leaders of the Congress and other parties favoured re-election of Dr. Radhakrishnan. In this difficult decision, it was the Deputy Prime Minister Morarji Desai who threw his weight behind Smt. Gandhi. But less than two years later, in April 1969, President Zakir Hussain died in harness and this necessitated election of another President. Against the official choice of Congress Parliamentary Board (CPB) Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Prime Minister Gandhi backed by her Senior Ministers Jagjivan Ram, YB Chavan and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, supported the candidature of Vice President VV Giri who won only when second preference votes were counted: a hair-splitting win that left the Congress divided.

The formal split in the Congress took place in November 1969 with 220 Congress MPs of Lok Sabha supporting PM Indira Gandhi and only 68 going with what came to be known as Congress (O). The Indira Gandhi-led Congress came to be known as Congress (R) with ‘R’ initially standing for “Requisitionists” and, later, “Ruling” while ‘O’ meant “Organization”. The nationalization of 14 major banks of the country, before the Congress split and abolition of privy purses and privileges of Princes, were the landmark achievements of Indira Gandhi’s second term as Prime Minister. Both these steps were enthusiastically welcomed by the people of India who now saw her as a ‘Messiah’ of the poor and economically weaker sections of society. Another landmark achievement of the Indira Gandhi government in 1969 was the introduction of MRTP (Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices) Act to check concentration of economic power in the hands of few leading business houses. The Prime Minister also advised her Chief Ministers to earnestly implement the existing land reform laws and undertake more land ceilings legislation.

After the split in the Party, the Indira Gandhi government had been reduced to a minority and Smt. Gandhi was not happy that she had to depend on smaller parties for getting any legislation passed in Parliament. Sensing the mood of the nation, she advised the President of India in December 1970 to dissolve the Parliament and call for fresh elections to the Lok Sabha in Feb 1972. The Non-Communist opposition parties led by the Congress (O) formed a grand alliance against the Congress (I) and coined a catchy slogan personally directed against the Prime Minister: ‘Indira Hatao’. The parties of the opportunistic alliance, who had no common ideology, besides Congress (O), were Jan Sangh, Swatantra and Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP). Smt. Gandhi hit the campaign trail, vigorously countering the ‘Indira Hatao’ slogan with a more appealing slogan ‘GaribiHatao’ that caught the imagination of the masses who were already convinced of her sincerity and passion to raise their standard of living and narrow the rich-poor divide... (To be continued in the next issue). (The writer is the Editor, The Secular Saviour and a former Secretary, AICC)