The assassins of Rajiv Gandhi have done something much worse than kill a former Prime Minister and possibly a would-have been Prime Minister. They have struck at the democratic process and, indeed, derailed it for the time being. This is evident not so much from the decision to put off the second and third phases of the poll as from the talk of forming a “national government” and setting up a second Constituent Assembly. It is beyond belief that the “initiative” in this regard should have come from President Venkataraman himself.
Indian democracy, of course, possesses sufficient resilience to survive this onslaught, as it has survived similar ones in the past. But realism demands recognition of the point that the country has yet to overcome the negative consequences of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 and of Indira Gandhi in 1984.
The three assassinations fall in different categories and should be viewed as such. The Mahatma was a victim of the general atmosphere of bitter hatred resulting from partition and the holocaust that preceded and followed it. It is shocking that the awesome fact of partition is widely ignored and the Mahatma’s assassination continues to be used for partisan ends over four decades later.
Indira Gandhi in turn fell a prey not to the “politics of vilification”, as her admirers would have us believe, but to the deep resentment that Operation Bluestar had stirred up among a sizeable section of the Sikh community. Indira Gandhi doubtless aroused strong emotions for a variety of reasons. But that had little to do with her brutal murder as such.
Finally, as for Rajiv Gandhi’s murder, it is in all probability related to his decision as Prime Minister in 1987 to send the Indian Peace-Keeping Force to Sri Lanka. This force was initially not intended to fight Tamil Tigers but had to do so and the Tamil Tigers now appear to have taken their revenge, as was only to be expected from so ruthless, determined and efficient a guerrilla organisation with an extensive operating base in Tamil Nadu.
In the circumstances, it is truly extraordinary that an attempt should be made by some apparently well-meaning editors and commentators to link Rajiv Gandhi’s brutal murder with the violence that has broken out in connection with the elections in many parts of the country, especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. That doubtless constitutes a grave threat to democracy, especially if it is true, as is widely believed, that the administration in the two states has been particularly keen to ensure free and fair elections. But surely that is a different issue which has little to do with the former Prime Minister’s murder.
It may, however, be said in this connection that one reason why no Indian ruler, Hindu or Muslim, was able to build a durable state on a pan-Indian basis was the presence of large amounts of arms with the peasantry outside the control of rulers. The British disarmed the peasantry for the first time. That was one main reason that they could consolidate the Raj and that is one major reason why it has been possible to establish and maintain democratic institutions in the country.
So if we are keen to preserve not only democracy but the Indian state itself, it is necessary that no effort is spared to prevent a return to the culture of armed might. And while it is still possible to check the drift in that direction, time is clearly running out. Indeed, even those who think that power grows out of the barrel of a gun, should pause and reflect on the old saying that those who prosper by the gun also perish by the gun. The ballot is a civilised substitute for the bullet. It must not be thrown away in favour of the latter.
To return to Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, it is evident that its reverberations will be felt for quite some time. The emotional outburst outside his residence on Tuesday night, which did not spare even President Venkataraman wanting to visit the bereaved family, not to speak of media-persons doing their duty, was proof enough that it would be so. The unanimous election of Sonia Gandhi as Congress president by the party’s Working Committee clinches the issue.
The Congress leadership, such as it is, has acted in the belief that the “sympathy wave” resulting from Indira Gandhi’s assassination played a major role in winning a landslide victory for it in the 1984 poll. It is to be seen whether this calculation is justified. But be that as it may, the Congress has once again gone in for a dynastic succession in a repeat of 1984.
Fortunately, the popular response to the tragedy, unlike in 1984, has generally been reasonably calm. This is consistent with the nation’s long-term needs. This suggests that the decision to postpone polling by almost three weeks has been a case of over-reaction. A three-day postponement could have sufficed. But that decision is at least understandable. The same cannot be said at all for the move to form a so-called national government.
A national government is a euphemism for an attempt to freeze politics. That would be undesirable at any time in a democracy. It would be particularly dangerous in the given situation when a struggle is on to redefine the very organising principles for Indian society and polity. The Hindutva and Mandal platforms have raised fundamental issues and these must be settled one way or another through the electoral process. Partisanship is the very stuff democratic politics is made of. It cannot be made an excuse for scuttling politics.
In this moment of national grief, however, let us put all this aside, and look at the man many of us have known, some intimately as friends and some others not no intimately and not as friends but still from close enough quarters. I may be forgiven if I believe that I belong to the second category.
Ever since I came to know him in 1985 when he was well ensconced in the office of Prime Minister, I have often asked myself, and others have asked me, as to what I think of him. The answer has invariably been the same. “A good man fallen among thieves”. That is how I felt about him when he was around and that is how I feel about him after his most tragic death.
To say this is not to denigrate politics and politicians. I for one have no desire to engage in this kind of moralistic posturing. On the contrary, I regard politics as an essential part of human existence and practitioners of this highly dangerous and precarious profession as representatives of the larger ethos. Thus if the standard of our public life is not particularly high, it is because the standard of our private life is also not particularly inspiring.
The point I wish to make about Rajiv Gandhi is that he was not meant for politics and politics was not meant for him. Again this is no reflection on Rajiv Gandhi either. Politics calls for what one-time British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan called the killer instinct. Good men often lack this instinct. Rajiv Gandhi certainly did. He could not even be frank because he could not bring himself to face any kind of unpleasantness in a face-to-face encounter.
As is well known, more than a cruel turn in history in the shape of Sanjay Gandhi’s death in 1980 pushed Rajiv Gandhi into a role he was obviously not prepared for either in terms of training or temperament. Indira Gandhi was keen that he stepped into the deceased younger brother’s place as her possible successor and she prevailed.
The irony of it all is not so much that a “reluctant” Rajiv was pitch-forked into the deadly business of politics against his own and Sonia Gandhi’s better judgement – I do not believe he was all that reluctant – as that Indira Gandhi too acted partly against her own judgement. She was aware he was too much of a gentleman for the harsh realities of politics. Or, at least, so it seemed to me then.
I raised the subject at one of my meetings with her. At the very mention of it, she went into a long monologue on the leadership qualities of Sanjay Gandhi. She did not talk of Sanjay’s ruthlessness, determination and passion for power. But it was implicit in what she said. On her statement, Rajiv Gandhi was a study in contrast.
I was, of course, not the only person whom Indira Gandhi spoke to in this manner. I know it for a fact that she spoke to any number of individuals in this refrain. Many of them concluded that she was putting on an act, as she often did in other matters. Perhaps she was. After all, she was more than proud of being Nehru’s daughter, she was a dynast; she was convinced that the Nehrus and, as a corollary, the Gandhis, alone could rule the country and as such determined to do all that she could to ensure that her only surviving son succeeded her. But if she was keen on him, she was also sceptical about him primarily, in my view, on account of his gentlemanly ways.
As I saw things, so much had come to hinge, fortunately or unfortunately, on Indira Gandhi that it was vital in the nation’s interest that someone should be ready to move into her place if something should happen to her suddenly. And that someone could only be Rajiv Gandhi since by then other Congress leaders had been fully emasculated, or, to put it differently, proved to be men of straw. Those who crawled before Sanjay Gandhi or crawled back into the ‘fold’ after his death could not possibly stake a claim to succeed her.
To begin with, his role could only be of a flag-bearer for the transition period, the rest depending on his performance and finally on the verdict of the electorate.
But that too was not to be. History again took a cruel turn. This time Indira Gandhi herself was mowed down and in circumstances which ensured not only that Rajiv Gandhi stepped in as Prime Minister for the transition period, but also that he was given an overwhelming mandate for a full five-year term. Thus, as the Mahatma’s assassination helped Nehru sell his approach and consolidate his power, Indira Gandhi’s ensured Rajiv Gandhi’s succession to her not only as Congress president but also as Prime Minister.
Rajiv Gandhi’s weaknesses as a result of lack of experience and natural feel for politics had become obvious during his period of apprenticeship to his mother. He had surrounded himself with his equally inexperienced friends and cronies who were strangers to Congressmen and the party’s tradition and culture, shown scant respect for old party veterans and displayed a strong preference for computer culture. His installation in the office of Prime Minister did not persuade him to try and overcome these weaknesses. Instead they got reinforced.
The best in Rajiv Gandhi surfaced on the occasion of the tragedy of his mother’s assassination. He bore the pain in his heart with a stoicism and quiet dignity which was particularly impressive precisely because it is so rare in India.
Rajiv Gandhi did not act unflappable. He was unflappable. He was not out to prove that here was a young man the country could trust as it faced an uncertain future on account of the growing Pakistan-backed terrorist-secessionist threat in Punjab and the impasse in Assam. He is made that way. He was being his natural self.
Millions of fellow-Indians, who, thanks to the vastly expanded Doordarshan network, saw him perform his mother’s last rites with certain dignity, were overwhelmed by his demonstration of quiet courage and cast him in the saviour’s role. This obviated the need for Rajiv Gandhi to engage in self-introspection, realise his inadequacies for the awesome responsibilities that a cruel fate had heaped on him, look for experience, such as was still available in the Congress, and respect it. The foundation for the troubles which burst on him in 1987 had been well and truly laid in 1984-85.
When the explosion occurred in 1987 in the shape of V.P. Singh’s deliberate and well-planned challenge to him and was followed by a deterioration in Rajiv Gandhi’s relations with the then President of the republic, Zail Singh, who finally claimed the right to dismiss him, Rajiv Gandhi did not lose his nerve. I met him a number of times in the evening after he had had a most gruelling day in Parliament and every time I always found him relaxed, friendly and communicative. His handling of problems was, as is widely recognised, messy and less than competent. But if he was not a natural warrior, he was no deserter either. Those who believed he would quit politics and even leave India in the wake of defeat in 1989 did not know the man.
The 1984 mandate was a frightening development. Implicit in it was a level of popular desperation and expectation no one could possibly have coped with and fulfilled.
It should have frightened Rajiv Gandhi. I doubt if it did. On the contrary it exhilarated him as it could exhilarate only a novice in the dangerous world of popular passions and power.
Rajiv Gandhi spoke of continuity and change. The reference to continuity was misplaced unless he meant that he embodied it by virtue of being Indira Gandhi’s son. He was serious about change. This meant a leap into the 21st century wholly on the strength of technology, borrowed as well as indigenously produced. If he was sensitive to the constraints and the risks, he did not show it.
In fact, he imported Sam Pitroda from New York who convinced him that he (Sam) could help him (Rajiv Gandhi) solve not only India’s economic problems but shape the Congress into an efficient machine. Sam Pitroda symbolised the Rajiv approach as no one else – not Arun Nehru or Arun Singh or the PR men who made their fortune out of Rajiv Gandhi’s search for the mirage of modernity. Machine is what Rajiv Gandhi could understand and machine is what Pitroda offered him and that too on the cheap, indigenously produced.
I was not being original soon after the 1984 poll when I said at a public discussion at the India International Centre that the people of India were looking for a king-emperor and had elected one in Rajiv Gandhi. The Economist, of London, had described Indira Gandhi as queen-empress after India’s military victory under her leadership over Pakistan and the establishment of Bangladesh as a sovereign nation in 1971. But implicit in what I said was also the foreboding that just as Indira Gandhi’s glory did not last more than two years, Rajiv Gandhi’s would not last much longer unless he was exceptionally lucky and careful.
He was not exceptionally lucky and he could not have been more maladroit in the choice of some of his ministerial colleagues and aides. Not only was V.P. Singh his choice as Finance Minister but was also allowed to appropriate the title of “Mr Clean”. Indira Gandhi would never have tolerated such a “misappropriation”. The tragedy was built into the situation from the word ‘go’.
Soon after the elections, Rajiv Gandhi wrote me a letter which spoke of his natural friendliness; mind you, we had not met till then. He followed the letter with an invitation for a meeting with him. The meeting lasted for over two hours and the only subject of discussion was Punjab.
From that discussion, it did not appear to me that he had informed himself adequately on the complexity of the Punjab problem, that he was fully aware of the bitter infighting among Akali leaders, the virtual impossibility of bringing major Akali factions together for a deal with the union government, their need to win back, if at all they could, the ground they had lost to the extremists through anti-government campaign well in advance of an election in the state and so on.
Perhaps secret talks with Sant Longowal and his colleagues had not been initiated by then. Or else, he would not have agreed to discuss with Swaran Singh the possibility of his once again acting as an intermediary between New Delhi and the Akalis. But by the time the meeting between them was arranged, Rajiv Gandhi was operating through other channels. He visibly lost interest in Swaran Singh within minutes of the beginning of the discussion.
This is a long and complicated story which obviously cannot be discussed in this piece. I have brought it up to make the point that only a basically good man unencumbered by experience and a knowledge of details could have approached so vital a problem as Punjab in the manner Rajiv Gandhi did. He was inspired by goodwill and apparently he believed it would see him through the Punjab minefield. He came a cropper; that was unavoidable; it could easily have been predicted.
That highlights another facet to Rajiv Gandhi’s personality. Having adopted an approach which involved major concessions to the Akalis such as the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab by a fixed date, he did not stick to it. If not he himself, his aides drove Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala round the bend, obliged him to order the police into the Golden Temple when it was known that the militant leaders had already escaped and finally forced him out of office.
If, however, one was looking for a single episode which highlights the theme of this piece, one would do well to get a copy of the speech Rajiv Gandhi delivered as president of the Congress at its centenary celebrations in Bombay in December 1986. He was, of course, sincere when he spoke of “power-brokers” in the party and of his determination to purge it of them. But this apparent sincerity was matched by blissful disregard of the reality that the Congress survived by virtue of its leaders’ role as “power-brokers”, that politics in India, especially for a ruling party, inevitably involved mediation between the all-powerful bureaucracy and the people, particularly those in a position to help the party, that without such a mediation the economy would grind to a halt unless the system was overhauled to rid the bureaucracy of its enormous power and Byzantine ways, and that weakening of the economy would provoke a political crisis of unmanageable proportions.
It does not require special political acumen to recognise that by the middle of 1986, Rajiv Gandhi had lost the initiative to V.P. Singh. The Raja from Manda had run away with the emperor’s “Mr Clean” cloak. I cannot say for sure whether Rajiv Gandhi was unaware of how his status was being undermined or whether he was feeling helpless. But that is not particularly material. What is pertinent is the fact that with his well-advertised raids on leading business houses,V.P. Singh had placed himself in a position from where he could challenge Rajiv Gandhi if and when it became necessary or expedient. Imagine someone trying to do it to Indira Gandhi and getting away with it!
Rajiv Gandhi could never again seize the initiative. He could shift V.P. Singh from the finance to the defence portfolio only amidst a confrontation with Pakistan on the border in early 1986. Two points may be underscored in this connection. First, Rajiv Gandhi felt that V.P. Singh had to be allotted a portfolio which was as important as finance. Second, Rajiv Gandhi thought that he needed an opportunity like the one provided by the possibility of an armed conflict with Pakistan to make the change.
I am in no position to say that by the time the Raja was shifted to defence, the stage had been set for the subsequent disclosures on the HDW submarine and Bofors gun deals. But I am told that this was indeed the case. Anyway, the change placed the Raja in an excellent position to strike, which is precisely what he did when he went public with his order for an inquiry into the HDW deal.
A majority of people in India, as anywhere else in the world, admire the victor. They have nothing but contempt for the loser. And they are quick to spot a would-be victor or a would-be loser. By the middle of 1987, public sympathy was clearly moving away from Rajiv Gandhi and towards V.P. Singh. It took another two-and-a-half years for the issue to be clinched because elections were due only towards the end of 1989. But the outcome of the protracted conflict was at no stage seriously in doubt. Rajiv Gandhi’s middle class constituency was quick to desert him partly because it was the Raja’s constituency as well and partly because, in addition to goodies, the latter offered it moral self-righteousness as well.
If we analyse Rajiv Gandhi’s most important foreign policy decision to send Indian troops to Sri Lanka, we would discover the same story of an undue willingness to trust, disregard for details and failure to see through the game of the other side. It is as irrelevant to blame Jayewardene for leading Rajiv Gandhi into a trap as to blame V.P. Singh. As politicians they utilised the openings Rajiv Gandhi and circumstances offered them.
So as I reflect on Rajiv Gandhi’s brief political career beginning truly with his mother’s assassination on October 30, 1984, the first impression abides. A good man fallen among thieves. Neither expression, I may add by way of abundant caution, is used in a pejorative sense.
Sunday Mail, 26 May 1991