Was Sanjay proving too wild even for Indira Gandhi: Former PM's principal secretary in book

New Delhi: As principal secretary to Indira Gandhi in the run up to the Emergency and during her authoritarian regime of 21 months, P N Dhar had a rare insight into the goings-on of the period, and one central character who gets the most unflattering portrayal in his otherwise sober account of the era is the former prime minister's younger son Sanjay Gandhi.

In his book 'Indira Gandhi, the Emergency, and Indian Democracy', Dhar says the PMH (Prime Minister's Home) became a hive of "extra-constitutional" activities as leaders junior in the Congress hierarchy but having the ears of an increasingly distrustful prime minister and another set of functionaries loyal to her son undermined the PMS (Prime Minister's Secretariat).

Critical of the power centralised in the PMS, Morarji Desai reduced its strength and rechristened it as Prime Minister's Office, a moniker which has continued, after replacing Indira Gandhi.

Sanjay Gandhi and his loyalists like Haryana leader Bansi Lal gained ascendency in the Congress during the era. Even the prime minister was left alarmed by their move to have state assemblies pass resolutions in support of forming a constituent assembly for sweeping changes in the Constitution.

Aware of her obsessive love for Sanjay Gandhi, Dhar said in the book published in 2000 that he would normally have attributed all this to temporary annoyance.

"But it was more than a passing mood this time. I knew how carefully she had kept Sanjay out of all discussions on constitutional reforms. I also knew how much she had resented the passage of the constituent assembly resolutions by the three assemblies without her knowledge, but with Sanjay's approval. Was Sanjay proving too wild even for her?" he wondered.

He said the main purpose of the constituent assembly appeared to be continuing the Emergency regime and postponing elections. Bansi Lal told Dhar that it would be to make "behan ji" (Indira Gandhi) president for life.

When the Congress suffered a stunning loss in the March 1977 elections after the Emergency was lifted, Delhi turned into a "vast whispering gallery" echoing with stories of Indira Gandhi's alleged crimes and the plans of the Janata Party, which had won a majority, to destroy her and Sanjay Gandhi.

She was more worried about Sanjay Gandhi and found herself isolated in her own family.

"Rajiv had no sympathy for his brother. He came to see me, very concerned about his mother and full of anger against his brother. He said he had been a helpless observer of his brother's doings," Dhar writes.

He said the Congress' defeat in the Gujarat assembly elections, which were held after the assembly was dissolved following student protests over a host of issues including corruption, and the Allahabad High Court's decision to disqualify Indira Gandhi from the Lok Sabha on the same day in June 1975 paved the way for the declaration of Emergency as the Jayaprakash Narayan-led opposition "cast off all restraint" to oust her.

He said, "Indira Gandhi withdrew into her lonely self. At the moment of her supreme political crisis, she distrusted everybody except her younger son Sanjay." Sanjay Gandhi disliked his mother's colleagues and aides who had opposed his Maruti car project, or had otherwise not taken him seriously, Dhar said.

"He knew he would get into serious trouble if his mother were not around to protect him. For all her childhood insecurities, Indira Gandhi had compensated, one should say over-compensated, her sons, particularly Sanjay, with love and care. She was blind to his shortcomings. Her concern for Sanjay's future well-being was not an inconsiderable factor in her fateful decision," Dhar said.

Indira Gandhi, he added, accepted the self-serving opinion of her party colleagues that the JP-led opposition's attacks on them were really attacks on her.

The Communist Party of India, her ally during the Emergency, had dubbed JP's agitation as a fascist movement supported by the US, a theory she embraced as she decided to suspend democracy, jail opposition leaders and censor the press to continue her rule.

In the book written with a distance afforded to bureaucrats, no leading figure associated with the Emergency who comes in contact with Dhar comes out an unblemished hero, not even the venerable JP, whose call for 'Sampoorna Kranti' (total revolution) and mass agitation for removing duly elected Congress governments in states and the Centre are questioned for their defiance of the rule of law and constitutional democracy.

However, the leadership of JP, as Jayaprakash Narayan was often called, was instrumental in galvanising popular sentiments against Indira Gandhi as his role in the Quit India Movement had cast him in a heroic mould and his rejection of Jawaharlal Nehru's offer of a Cabinet post gave him high moral stature in a country where renunciation of power is held in high esteem, Dhar noted.

Soon after extending the tenure of the fifth Lok Sabha for another year till February 1978 on November 1976, Indira Gandhi was shown by Dhar a report of "extreme coercion" inflicted on a group of school teachers for not fulfilling their sterilisation quota, one of the five-point programmes of Sanjay Gandhi beyond the 20-point programme of her government.

"She fell silent after reading it. This was the first time she did not dismiss such allegations as false as had become her habit. After a long pause, she asked me in a tired voice how long I thought the Emergency should continue," he said.

"Odd as it might seem, some Congressmen who believed that their party would lose in the elections also supported the idea of holding them.

"They were so disgusted with Sanjay and his associates that they did not hesitate to tell his mother the opposite of what they believed would be the outcome of the elections," he added.

Dhar wrote that he invited the then chief election commissioner on January 1, 1977, for tea at home and took him into confidence for holding elections.

The delighted CEC sent him a bottle of whiskey in the evening. On January 18, 1977, Gandhi announced that the Lok Sabha had been dissolved and fresh elections would be held two months later, leaving the opposition, people and the press stunned.