Svetlana Alliluyeva and Brajesh Singh
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Early 1960s: An era of affection
[Akshaya Mukul From the archives of the Times of India]
The sweetheart Stalin’s li’l girl never forgot
Sochi, the biggest resort city of Russia, can be an ideal setting for lonely hearts. In the early 1960s with Stalin long gone and history yet to assess him fully, his daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva aka Lana Peters was living off the Communist Party of Soviet Union, a stifling existence where her needs were taken care of, but had no independent pursuits. It is believed she met Brajesh Singh in Sochi.
Brajesh had everything to sweep a woman off her feet. He was handsome, suave, of a royal lineage — hailing from the Kalakanker family near Allahabad — and above all a communist. Marriage to Brajesh would have liberated her from the monitored life of USSR. Soon, Brajesh and Svetlana were immersed in a tempestuous relationship choosing to live in Sochi. It did not matter that he was already married. With Indian wife Laxmi Devi still in Kalakanker, Brajesh had married Austrian lady Leela, who bore him a son. And then came Svetlana.
CPI general secretary A B Bardhan does not remember Singh as a communist leader. But he says it was common those days for communists to be sent to USSR. Lok Sabha MP Ratna Singh, grand niece of Brajesh and daughter of late Dinesh Singh, former foreign minister and a close confidant of late Indira Gandhi, says Brajesh was a close friend of communist Z A Ahmed and went to jail thrice during the national movement. Ratna disputes the duo ever got married. “Getting divorce was not easy those days. They were living together,” she says. Real action began after Brajesh’s death in Russia in October, 1966. Ratna says, in December, 1966, Svetlana landed in India with Brajesh’s ashes. “She stayed in our family palace in Kalakanker. She knew about our family even the fact that my father had six daughters. She had got gift for all of us and was very pleasant. All the rituals were conducted,” Ratna recalls. But the Russian government wanted her back by March, 1967.
Ratna recounts Svetlana wanted her father Dinesh to exercise influence for stay beyond March. “My father could do little as the Soviet government was not in a mood let her stay longer,” she says. Exasperated, Svetlana approached socialist Rammanohar Lohia in Allahabad so that could build a memorial for Brajesh. Lohia promised to help her out, using Svetlana’s condition to make the larger political point of how Stalin’s daughter is running around and Nehru’s daughter is a prime minister.
Except for Lohia’s promise, Svetlana had nothing to wait for. Ratna says her family was busy with a wedding little knowing what Svetlana had in mind. “We thought she was staying in a hostel. Russians were trailing her throughout. With many guests around, we forgot what Svetlana was doing till news came that she had ran off to the US embassy in Delhi. It took us by surprise,” she says. Within days she was in the US. But Ratna says Svetlana did not forget her commitment for the memorial. “She kept sending money for many years for a hospital in our village in our grand uncle’s name. Later, it was taken over by the government. Now, a school runs from that building.”
1966/ Svetlana's visit to Kalkankar, UP
December had been unusually cold and dry in 1966 when Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, stepped foot on the stony paths of Kalkankar, a village in Uttar Pradesh's Pratapgarh district.
It was her longing to connect with the roots of the man she loved, Brajesh Singh, the uncle of Indira Gandhi's foreign minister, Dinesh Singh, that brought her to the erstwhile royal estate of Kalakankar, and made her stay there for over two months, 50 years ago.
Svetlana's relations with Brajesh, an Indian communist, began from the dull corridors of the Kentosevo Hospital in Moscow in 1963, where they were both recuperating from their illnesses.
It ended only after Svetlana, who never married Brajesh but called him her husband, was able to come to India to immerse his ashes in the Ganga after cremating him in October in Moscow. It made international waves when she defected to the US, from Delhi soon after.
Tracing Svetlana's steps, when TOI visited Kalakankar, the “Roos ke tanashah ki beti“, as she was referred to by village folk, is still remembered. They recalled she had blonde hair and intense eyes.
“She used to wear knee length skirts and a blouse. She had short golden hair and would go to the post office and the ghat during the evening,“ said 70-year-old ML Gupta, retired head clerk of Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Inter College in Kalakankar.
“The visarjan ritual of Kunwar Brajesh's ashes was held in the morning and thousands gathered to be part of it and to see Stalin's daughter,“ added Gupta. As villagers jostled behind the car that drove Svetlana into the village and to the Raj Bhawan, she mentions in her book `Only one year' how the women of the family had perched on the terrace of the house, while Brajesh's brother, Lal Suresh Singh and nephew Shirish, were ferried in a boat to the middle of the Ganga to immerse his ashes.
It was at that moment that led to her “unshed tears to melt and flow,“ and Svetlana finally broke down.
Svetlana wrote in her book that three years before Brajesh's death, she read his notebook and found his last wish.“Let my body be cremated and ashes be thrown into a river.No religious ceremony is nec essary ,“ the note had read.
The book mentions that when Svetlana asked Singh which river he meant, Singh said the Ganga, which brought her to Kalakankar.
She spent her days in a small room that belonged to Brajesh, in `Prakash Grih' -barely any distance from the Raj Bhawan, amid his white wooden English furniture. It was here that Svetlana also started learning Hindi.
“At 5pm every day , from December to January , I used to go to Prakash Grih for 30-45 minutes and give Hindi lessons to her,“ recalled 79-year-old K K Lal, head of the Sanskrit department of the inter college back then. Her desire to build a hospital in memory of Brajesh surfaced in the village itself. It was only later, from the US, that she was able to send funds from the royalty of her book `Twenty Letters to a Friend' to get it constructed.
The foundation of the 35bedded Brajesh Singh Memorial Hospital with Svetlana's help was then laid in May 1969 by Hindi writer Sumitra Nandan Pant. Till the late 70s, Svetlana was able to send funds for it, following which it closed.
The hospital building is now a private school on a 30year lease. Two portraits that say “Srimati Svetlana“ and “Kunwar Brajesh Singh“ in Devnagari, that once adorned the walls of the hospital, are still in `Prakash Grih.'
