Cruel fate has cut short an extraordinary political career. It has removed from Indian politics the most forceful personality it has known since independence. Indeed, we have not had another political figure like him since Gandhiji burst on the scene with the force of a volcano over six decade ago. This is not to compare Sanjay Gandhi with the Mahatma. No two human beings could have been more different from each other. But if Sanjay did not care about the means, he shared with the Mahatma a grim determination to push the country forward. He was so unusual in this regard that Mrs. Gandhi herself said recently that he was American in his approach – a doer among a political elite of talkers. He moved from business to politics on that fateful day on June 12, 1975, when Mr. Justice Sinha of the Allahabad High Court held Mrs. Gandhi’s election to Parliament void. He played a leading role in persuading her not to resign. Since then he has been in the eye of the storm. By comparison Mrs. Gandhi has been a non-controversial figure.
It is open to question whether Sanjay could have acquired the power and the following he had if he had not been his mother’s son. But it would be equally wrong to deny that he possessed strong nerves and a tremendous drive. No adversity or failure could daunt him. Troubles made him only more defiant. He stood like a rock as one storm after another threatened to overwhelm him and Mrs. Gandhi after she lost office in March 1977. If he had leaned on her when she was in power, she also leaned on him when she faced persecution and prosecution during the Janata rule. Even then it was not an equal partnership. Mrs. Gandhi’s assets always remained more considerable. The people followed her and not Sanjay. He could not match either her appeal or her political skill. But his was not a small role in her triumphal return to office last January.
Mrs. Gandhi might have conceived the strategy for breaking up the Janata party and bringing down the in effectual Morarji Desai government. He implemented it with superb skill. By the time President Sanjiva Reddy ordered the mid-tern poll to the Lok Sabha last August, Sanjay was in fact, though not in name, co-leader of the Congress (I) with Mrs. Gandhi. The selection of the party nominees first for the Lok Sabha and then for the vidhan sabhas in nine states which went to the poll last month fully bears it out. His appointment as general secretary of the party some days ago formalised his position. He was no longer just the leader of the Youth Congress (I). He was the second most important leader of the ruling
party itself. What an irony that he should die so soon afterwards.
Mrs. Gandhi has lost a son and a valued colleague whose judgment she had come to trust. And the nation has lost a potential leader who could have seen it through the difficult period ahead. With responsibility he could have matured as his mother did in the sixties. The nation shares her and her family’s, especially Maneka Gandhi’s, great grief. Mrs. Gandhi has been a lonely person at the best of times. She must feel desolate now. Fate that has so stricken her also enjoins on her to soldier on in the service of the country. It has no one else to look up to. Mrs. Gandhi has gone through many trials and tribulations. This is the most grievous blow she has suffered since her father, Jawaharlal Nehru’s death. She bore that tragedy with great fortitude and she will bear this one with the same fortitude. In this period of sorrow and suffering, the nation’s prayers will be with her.