Once again the light has been snuffed out. Once again, the country has been plunged into darkness. The blow is even heavier and crueler this time than on January 30, 1948. Then there were other stalwarts, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, who could steer the nation to safety. Now there is no one to step into her place. Indira Gandhi was not just India’s Prime Minister. She was the hope of the country in the turbulent period ahead. So much hinged on her. Independent India has never been so orphaned.
Indira Gandhi lived with danger of one kind or another since she was born 67 years ago. The threat increased or decreased from time to time, depending on the state of politics in the country. Of late, it had grown particularly acute. But it was characteristic of the brave little woman that she went about her task as if there was no threat to her life. She could not have been unaware that she was in danger. She did not need her intelligence chiefs to tell her that. The writing on the wall had been clear since June 6 when in fulfilment of her duty as custodian of the country’s unity and territorial integrity she had ordered the army into the Golden Temple. But she had her obligations to fulfil. These took her to different parts of the country day after day. This involved considerable risk which she ignored; she had to; a democratic leader cannot function from within a well-protected fortress. As it happened, the election to the Lok Sabha was just a couple of months away.
We had convinced ourselves that Indira Gandhi’s was a charmed life, that she was protected by some invisible power which presides over India’s destiny, and that she would be around for some more years to see us through the stress and strain which now dominate the nation’s life. It was a measure of our faith in her inviolability. But those charged with her security should have known better. They have let down the country as no security agency has done in any major country. Her assassins came from within her own security guards!
In the face of a tragedy of this magnitude, words fail. It becomes impossible to sum up the nation’s loss. Anger, bitterness and the feeling of despair, helplessness and hopelessness mixed with sorrow. It feels as if the earth has been removed from under our feet, as if we as a nation are suspended in mid-air with nothing to lean on. We all criticized her, sometimes quite sharply, and held her responsible for all that might have, or appeared to have, gone wrong in this vast land with over 700 million people. But this was our collective tribute to her. Her critics were as dependent on her presence as were her admirers. If the supporters needed her to keep the flag flying and to serve as a rallying point, the detractors needed her as a scapegoat and as a formidable opponent to defeat whom they could at least attempt to come together. Indira Gandhi has been the single most important point of reference for close to two decades for the Indian people – since she was first elected to the office of Prime Minister in early 1966. Her assassination eliminates that reference point. We cannot but feel lost.
Indira Gandhi’s arrival on the Indian political scene as Prime Minister in 1966 coincided with the beginning of the decline of the Congress party and therefore of political instability, confusion and even disorder. In the circumstances, she could not have preserved intact the framework Nehru had left behind. No one could have. India had entered the age of mass politics and all that it implies by way of a social, economic, political and moral upheaval. She had to bend with the storm if she had to help the country weather it. And she did manage to do it as best as was possible in the circumstances. But inevitably much more than the future of the ruling party came to depend on her. With her having been violently snatched away from our midst by a group of conspirators, the country has been thrown into a flux. Nothing that was valid till Wednesday morning is valid any more. As after a big volcanic eruption, it will be some time before the lava of Indian politics begins to cool down and the earth begins to settle. We are in for a period of great uncertainty. It is difficult to think of India without Indira Gandhi.