Indira Gandhi - Revision history

Jyoti: /* On Delhi’s campuses */

2025-07-06T19:06:03Z

‎On Delhi’s campuses

Jyoti: /* 1975 */

2025-07-04T15:19:55Z

‎1975

Jyoti: /* 1984: Assassination */

2023-11-09T06:22:29Z

‎1984: Assassination

Pdewan: /* 1984: Assassination */

2023-10-31T12:58:08Z

‎1984: Assassination

Pdewan: /* Sanjay’s crash, Indira’s tryst with Devi */

2023-07-31T16:54:21Z

‎Sanjay’s crash, Indira’s tryst with Devi

Pdewan: /* 1980: Chamunda temple and Sanjay’s death */

2023-07-31T16:53:45Z

‎1980: Chamunda temple and Sanjay’s death

Pdewan: /* Indira gets Rajiv to reach out to R S S */

2023-07-31T16:52:01Z

‎Indira gets Rajiv to reach out to R S S

Pdewan: /* 1984: Death threats to Thatcher for attending funeral */

2023-07-31T13:40:09Z

‎1984: Death threats to Thatcher for attending funeral

Show changes

Pdewan: /* Indira gets Rajiv to reach out to R S S */

2023-07-30T11:20:43Z

‎Indira gets Rajiv to reach out to R S S

Pdewan: /* 1984: Assassination */

2023-07-30T11:18:29Z

‎1984: Assassination

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:06, 6 July 2025
Line 288:		Line 288:
	A year later, Indira’s personal envoy Mohd Yunus took adig at Palkhivala by comparing his action with that of a doctor who abandons a patient and questioned his professional ethics. Palkhivala was not the one to be perturbed by such insinuations.		A year later, Indira’s personal envoy Mohd Yunus took adig at Palkhivala by comparing his action with that of a doctor who abandons a patient and questioned his professional ethics. Palkhivala was not the one to be perturbed by such insinuations.

−	~~==On Delhi’s campuses==~~
−	~~[https://epaper.indiatimes.com/article-share?article=26_06_2025_008_003_cap_TOI Sugandha Jha, June 26, 2025: ''The Times of India'']~~

−
−	New Delhi : The plan became routine. A trusted friend would lock a hostel room from the outside and slip the key into his pocket, making it seem empty. Inside, a student would wait silently — one of the many in hiding across Jawaharlal Nehru University after the Emergency was declared in June 1975.
−
−	Every day, the hideouts shifted. No one stayed in one place for too long. It was a campus under watch, where friends became jailers and silence was survival. But one evening, the friend — a student from neighbouring IIT Delhi — forgot to return. The next morning, a knock came. Loud. Deliberate. The student inside opened the door, unaware — and was arrested.
−
−	Inside that room was Sohail Hashmi, now a noted historian and cultural activist, who was then a young student evading a govt crackdown on dissent. This was Emergency-era JNU — a campus of barricaded doors, whispered alerts, and quiet defiance. As Indira Gandhi’s govt suspended civil liberties and jailed opposition leaders, students at JNU became some of the most organised and persistent voices of resistance. What unfolded in those years is now etched into campus memory as both a story of rebellion, and of personal loss.
−
−	Hashmi recalled how an underground system sprang into action. News of an imminent police raid to arrest student activists was leaked by one of the police informers, a man the students had befriended. “The university turned into a fortress. Any anti-establishment slogans or posters were torn down. There were three layers of armed police along the ridge,” Hashmi said. “They crouched behind Aravalli rocks with guns. Some of them walked among us, dressed as students. Police informers were everywhere. Still, we found ways to resist.”
−
−	An informal yet sophisticated system was set up. Rooms were shuffled, hideouts rotated, and locking duties assigned to volunteers. A code of silence emerged. No one talked. Underground bulletins criticising the govt, covering national and campus news, were typed, stencilled, and quietly slipped under hostel doors at night. “We used stencils to print hundreds of copies of the paper called The Resistance. To date, the police have not found out where we printed it on campus,” Hashmi said.
−
−	One arrest, he remembers vividly. “We organised a university shutdown, but Maneka Gandhi, daughter-in-law of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, insisted on taking her classes. The students tried to stop her. She later complained that she was obstructed,” he said. “Soon after, an Ambassador car drove into the campus. A tall man stormed out, dragged Prabir (Purkayastha) by his collar, and shoved him into the car. They came looking for DP Tripathi, but took Prabir by mistake,” he added, with a slight laugh.
−
−	~~Purkayastha, a student at JNU, spent the remainder of the Emergency in jail under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), a draconian law that allowed imprisonment without trial.~~
−
−	In Delhi, the Emergency came down like a hammer. On June 25, 1975, Prime Minister Gandhi declared the Emergency, citing threats to internal security. Thousands of political opponents were jailed overnight. Press freedoms were curtailed, civil liberties suspended. Universities such as JNU, where leftist student unions flourished, quickly became targets of the state.
−
−	Not all arrests were accidents. Some were pre-emptive. Communist leader and former SFI activist Prakash Karat, a key figure in student politics, said he wasn’t even in Delhi when the Emergency was announced. “I was warned in advance that they would be looking for me, so I went underground,” Karat said. “Later, we organised a three-day strike and shut down the campus. The vice-chancellor suspended many students and blacklisted others from readmission.”
−
−	He added, “The strong sentiment against the Gandhi govt's policies had long been brewing. In Bihar, the JP movement emerged as an uprising against corruption and misrule. In West Bengal, the Left fiercely resisted central authoritarianism. There was a growing mood of defiance across the country.”
−
−	Even under intense surveillance, students found subtle yet potent ways to protest. One such moment came during a university event where the then education minister was invited as the chief guest. “A circular was informally issued — no slogans, no disruptions,” a former student recalled. “We sat quietly throughout the programme. But the moment the minister stood up to speak, the entire audience, except university officials, silently rose and walked out. It was a mass protest in silence.”
−
−	Not every story from that time was one of revolution. Some carry the weight of deep personal pain. Ranjana Kumari, now a prominent women’s rights activist, said: “I was a student and got arrested. I spent one night in custody at Hauz Khas police station with my boyfriend, now my husband. My younger sister was arrested too. She spent six months in jail in Varanasi. My father had a heart attack and died from the stress. The whole family suffered as we fought for democracy and freedom.”
−
−	Fifty years later, those who have lived through the Emergency remember the paradox of that era. There was fear, yes, but there was also an unrelenting desire for liberty. At JNU, this took the form of camaraderie and codes, of calculated risks and whispered resistance.
−
−	Today, the corridors of the university echo with newer debates. But the stories from 1975 still resurface. A time when rooms became safe houses, students walked out in silent protest, and a generation that refused to be silenced.  One message these alumni have for the new generation of student activists is: “Stand up for your rights.”

	[[Category:India\|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI		[[Category:India\|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:19, 4 July 2025
Line 266:		Line 266:

	"The IB wasn't consulted on the Emergency," Rajeswar told TOI. He said that six months into the Emergency, the IB advised calling it off, releasing all prisoners and going for polls in March 1976. "Mrs Gandhi was inclined to go with the IB's view but in the end, it was Sanjay Gandhi who had a decisive say," writes Rajeswar.		"The IB wasn't consulted on the Emergency," Rajeswar told TOI. He said that six months into the Emergency, the IB advised calling it off, releasing all prisoners and going for polls in March 1976. "Mrs Gandhi was inclined to go with the IB's view but in the end, it was Sanjay Gandhi who had a decisive say," writes Rajeswar.
		+
		+	==Arguments before the Supreme Court vacation bench on June 23, 1975==
		+	[https://epaper.indiatimes.com/article-share?article=26_06_2025_022_004_cap_TOI Dhananjay Mahapatra, June 26, 2025: ''The Times of India'']
		+
		+
		+	New Delhi : Arguments extending over 210 minutes before a Supreme Court vacation bench on June 23, 1975, challenging an 11-day-old verdict of Allahabad HC annulling then PM Indira Gandhi’s election from Rae Bareli, and Justice V R Krishna Iyer’s June 24 ‘conditional stay’ to keep her afloat as PM, led to imposition of Emergency on June 25.
		+
		+	One of the greatest lawyers of India, Nani Palkhivala, and a team of 10 advocates had appeared for Indira before the high court, which on June 12 found her guilty of corrupt electoral practices, set aside her election, and disqualified her from holding elective office for six years. However, HC stayed operation of the order for 209 days to enable her to appeal in SC.
		+
		+	Presenting Indira’s appeal before judge Justice Iyer on June 23, Palkhivala was allowed to argue for 90 minutes, the same as Raj Narain’s counsel Shanti Bhushan to counter it, and then another 30 minutes to Palkhivala for rejoinder.
		+
		+	On June 24, Justice Iyer gave a long interim order and said Indira was entitled to participate in Lok Sabha proceedings as PM, but would not have the right to vote or draw remuneration as an MP till her petition was decided by the apex court. It said her powers as PM would remain unaffected.
		+	Much later, Justice Iyer revealed it was Palkhivala’s brilliance which persuaded him to grant stay. In Justice Iyer’s own words, “Nani presented the case lucidly and luminously, pressing every point that deserved to be made but not haranguing or cringing... His courtesy to the court was winsome, his diction delectable, his precision perfect.”
		+
		+	A day later, at 11pm, Indira went to Rashtrapati Bhavan to inform President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed that her govt had decided to impose a state of internal Emergency at once. After arguing the case, Palkhivala had left for Bombay.
		+
		+	After imposition of Emergency, many renowned lawyers requested Palkhivala to withdraw from representing Indira. Palkhivala agreed and rang up TOI to publish a long statement about returning the brief — Indira’s case file. Risking the draconian censorship powers vested with the police, TOI agreed to publish a short news item stating Palkhivala had returned the PM’s brief.
		+
		+	On June 27, 1975, Palkhivala wrote to Indira: “While I adhere to my views regarding the legal merits of the PM’s appeal against HC’s judgment on the election petition against her (filed by Raj Narain), the measures taken by the govt this morning are such that, consistent with my lifelong convictions and the values I cherish, I have requested the law minister (H R Gokhale) to convey to the PM my decision to withdraw as counsel from the appeal. Unfortunately, pre-censorship did not permit even this perfectly innocuous statement to be printed.”
		+
		+	A year later, Indira’s personal envoy Mohd Yunus took adig at Palkhivala by comparing his action with that of a doctor who abandons a patient and questioned his professional ethics. Palkhivala was not the one to be perturbed by such insinuations.
		+
		+	==On Delhi’s campuses==
		+	[https://epaper.indiatimes.com/article-share?article=26_06_2025_008_003_cap_TOI Sugandha Jha, June 26, 2025: ''The Times of India'']
		+
		+
		+	New Delhi : The plan became routine. A trusted friend would lock a hostel room from the outside and slip the key into his pocket, making it seem empty. Inside, a student would wait silently — one of the many in hiding across Jawaharlal Nehru University after the Emergency was declared in June 1975.
		+
		+	Every day, the hideouts shifted. No one stayed in one place for too long. It was a campus under watch, where friends became jailers and silence was survival. But one evening, the friend — a student from neighbouring IIT Delhi — forgot to return. The next morning, a knock came. Loud. Deliberate. The student inside opened the door, unaware — and was arrested.
		+
		+	Inside that room was Sohail Hashmi, now a noted historian and cultural activist, who was then a young student evading a govt crackdown on dissent. This was Emergency-era JNU — a campus of barricaded doors, whispered alerts, and quiet defiance. As Indira Gandhi’s govt suspended civil liberties and jailed opposition leaders, students at JNU became some of the most organised and persistent voices of resistance. What unfolded in those years is now etched into campus memory as both a story of rebellion, and of personal loss.
		+
		+	Hashmi recalled how an underground system sprang into action. News of an imminent police raid to arrest student activists was leaked by one of the police informers, a man the students had befriended. “The university turned into a fortress. Any anti-establishment slogans or posters were torn down. There were three layers of armed police along the ridge,” Hashmi said. “They crouched behind Aravalli rocks with guns. Some of them walked among us, dressed as students. Police informers were everywhere. Still, we found ways to resist.”
		+
		+	An informal yet sophisticated system was set up. Rooms were shuffled, hideouts rotated, and locking duties assigned to volunteers. A code of silence emerged. No one talked. Underground bulletins criticising the govt, covering national and campus news, were typed, stencilled, and quietly slipped under hostel doors at night. “We used stencils to print hundreds of copies of the paper called The Resistance. To date, the police have not found out where we printed it on campus,” Hashmi said.
		+
		+	One arrest, he remembers vividly. “We organised a university shutdown, but Maneka Gandhi, daughter-in-law of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, insisted on taking her classes. The students tried to stop her. She later complained that she was obstructed,” he said. “Soon after, an Ambassador car drove into the campus. A tall man stormed out, dragged Prabir (Purkayastha) by his collar, and shoved him into the car. They came looking for DP Tripathi, but took Prabir by mistake,” he added, with a slight laugh.
		+
		+	Purkayastha, a student at JNU, spent the remainder of the Emergency in jail under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), a draconian law that allowed imprisonment without trial.
		+
		+	In Delhi, the Emergency came down like a hammer. On June 25, 1975, Prime Minister Gandhi declared the Emergency, citing threats to internal security. Thousands of political opponents were jailed overnight. Press freedoms were curtailed, civil liberties suspended. Universities such as JNU, where leftist student unions flourished, quickly became targets of the state.
		+
		+	Not all arrests were accidents. Some were pre-emptive. Communist leader and former SFI activist Prakash Karat, a key figure in student politics, said he wasn’t even in Delhi when the Emergency was announced. “I was warned in advance that they would be looking for me, so I went underground,” Karat said. “Later, we organised a three-day strike and shut down the campus. The vice-chancellor suspended many students and blacklisted others from readmission.”
		+
		+	He added, “The strong sentiment against the Gandhi govt's policies had long been brewing. In Bihar, the JP movement emerged as an uprising against corruption and misrule. In West Bengal, the Left fiercely resisted central authoritarianism. There was a growing mood of defiance across the country.”
		+
		+	Even under intense surveillance, students found subtle yet potent ways to protest. One such moment came during a university event where the then education minister was invited as the chief guest. “A circular was informally issued — no slogans, no disruptions,” a former student recalled. “We sat quietly throughout the programme. But the moment the minister stood up to speak, the entire audience, except university officials, silently rose and walked out. It was a mass protest in silence.”
		+
		+	Not every story from that time was one of revolution. Some carry the weight of deep personal pain. Ranjana Kumari, now a prominent women’s rights activist, said: “I was a student and got arrested. I spent one night in custody at Hauz Khas police station with my boyfriend, now my husband. My younger sister was arrested too. She spent six months in jail in Varanasi. My father had a heart attack and died from the stress. The whole family suffered as we fought for democracy and freedom.”
		+
		+	Fifty years later, those who have lived through the Emergency remember the paradox of that era. There was fear, yes, but there was also an unrelenting desire for liberty. At JNU, this took the form of camaraderie and codes, of calculated risks and whispered resistance.
		+
		+	Today, the corridors of the university echo with newer debates. But the stories from 1975 still resurface. A time when rooms became safe houses, students walked out in silent protest, and a generation that refused to be silenced.  One message these alumni have for the new generation of student activists is: “Stand up for your rights.”
		+
		+	[[Category:India\|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
		+	INDIRA GANDHI]]
		+	[[Category:Pages with broken file links\|INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
		+	INDIRA GANDHI]]
		+	[[Category:Politics\|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
		+	INDIRA GANDHI]]

	=Mathai claimed intimacy with Indira Gandhi=		=Mathai claimed intimacy with Indira Gandhi=

@@ Line 435: / Line 435: @@
 It was a political assassination that shocked the nation perhaps as profoundly as that of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. On the morning of October 31, 1984, prime minister Indira Gandhi had an appointment with well-known actor Peter Ustinov to record an interview. But it was an appointment she could not keep. “She died in the one contingency that her legion of security officials had been unable to guard against: traitors from within her own security guards,” said India Today in November 1984.
-[[Category:India|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
+==Details==
-INDIRA GANDHI]]
+[https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-history/oct-31-1984-assassination-of-indira-gandhi-9006876/ Arjun Sengupta, Oct 31, 2023: ''The Indian Express'']
-[[Category:Pages with broken file links|INDIRA GANDHI
-INDIRA GANDHI]]
-[[Category:Politics|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
-INDIRA GANDHI]]
-[[Category:India|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
+Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984. Two of the Prime Minister’s bodyguards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, fired over 30 bullets at her from point blank range, purportedly to avenge the humiliation of Sikhs and the desecration of the Golden Temple during Operation Blue Star in June of that year.
-INDIRA GANDHI]]
-[[Category:Pages with broken file links|INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
+This is what happened on that day 39 years ago.
-INDIRA GANDHI]]
-[[Category:Politics|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
+The Indian Express front page on October 31, 1984.
-INDIRA GANDHI]]
 [[Category:India|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI

@@ Line 429: / Line 429: @@
 =1984: Assassination=
 [http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/10%20biggest%20national%20security%20failures/0/23067.html ''India Today'']
 December 29, 2008
@@ Line 446: / Line 447: @@
 INDIRA GANDHI]]
 [[Category:Politics|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
 INDIRA GANDHI]]

@@ Line 298: / Line 298: @@
 =1980=
-== Sanjay’s crash, Indira’s tryst with Devi==
+=== Sanjay’s crash, Indira’s tryst with Devi===
 [https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/revealed-sanjays-crash-tested-indiras-faith-rajiv-rss-talks-sonias-shah-bano-red-flag-raos-temple-wis-8867038 An extract from Neerja Chowdhury’s book '' How Prime Ministers Decide '', Aleph, 2023]
@@ Line 313: / Line 313: @@
 Indira ensured that a ghat was constructed in Chamunda in Sanjay’s name. “It cost (Rs) 80 lakh which was borne by Congress leader Sukh Ram, later to become a Union Minister,” Bali said.
 [[Category:India|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
@@ Line 319: / Line 388: @@
 INDIRA GANDHI]]
 [[Category:Politics|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
 INDIRA GANDHI]]

@@ Line 442: / Line 442: @@
 Around this time, many jailed R S S workers gave unconditional undertakings to get out of prison, signing standard forms the government had prepared that they would not do anything ‘detrimental to internal security and public peace’. Though Bhave did not respond immediately, he was to play a major role in softening Indira Gandhi’s stance towards the R S S.
+[[Category:India|G INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
-On 13 December, 1980, a helicopter carrying Indira Gandhi landed at Yol Camp in Kangra. The chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, Ram Lal, was there with his ministerial entourage to receive the prime minister.
-−
-Indira had arrived to pray at the temple of Chamunda Devi in Palampur, considered an incarnation of Goddess Durga. Interestingly, Indira herself had been hailed as ‘Durga’ nine years earlier, after the liberation of Bangladesh.
-−
-The sixteenth-century temple drew thousands of devotees every year. Indira Gandhi was a great believer in the goddess. Until she died in 1984, prayers were offered regularly in her name at the temple, and prasad would be taken back to her in Delhi. ‘She would put money in a lifafa (envelope) and give it to me,’ Anil Bali recounted.
-−
-‘Every two months, I would take Rs 101 from her for the temple.’ This time, though, she was on a somber mission. She had arrived to offer prayers in the memory of Sanjay who had died in an air crash on 23 June that year. He had been flying a small plane, a Pitts S2-A, and lost control of the aircraft. Indira had been slated to come to Chamunda with him a day before he died.
-−
-When she won in January 1980, Anil Bali had suggested to her that she should personally visit Chamunda Devi after taking the oath of office, and get the goddess’s blessings. The day she took the oath on 14 January, 1980, she had organized a kirtan at her residence at 12, Willingdon Crescent. She had rushed back home to take part in it, soon after the swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
-−
-‘Madam, you have to go to Chamunda Devi,’ Anil Bali reminded her at the kirtan. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Give me four to five months.’ In the first week of May 1980, Bali received a letter from R. K. Dhawan. It said the prime minister wanted to visit Chamunda on 22 June (1980). She would land there at 4:45 p.m., Dhawan wrote. He asked Bali to organize her programme. Bali went to Chamunda and made arrangements for a puja to be done by her when she came. This was to be followed by a havan and a langar to feed the local people and worshippers at the temple.
-−
-On the evening of 20 June, a message arrived in Chamunda that the prime minister’s programme had been cancelled. The entire government of Himachal Pradesh, including Chief Minister Ram Lal, had been camping there, awaiting her arrival. When the priest heard she was not coming, he reacted sharply. ‘You tell Indira Gandhi, this is Chamunda. Ma will forgive if an ordinary mortal is not able to come. But the Devi (goddess) will not forgive if the ruler shows disrespect. Devi ki avamanana nahin kar sakte (The ruler cannot insult the goddess.)’
-−
-‘Panditji,’ Bali tried to pacify him, ‘there must be a good reason why she could not come.’ They went ahead with the kirtan and prayers on the 22nd as planned. On the 23rd morning, the group left town. ‘We had reached the Jwala Mukhi temple, 50 kilometres on, when my secretary came running (to me),’ Bali remembered.
-−
-‘Sanjay Gandhi’s plane has crashed,’ he said, ‘and Pakistan radio is broadcasting it.’
-−
-Thirty-three-year-old Sanjay had lost control of the aircraft while doing an aerobatic manoeuvre. Sanjay was known for performing dangerous stunts while at the controls of the small aircraft he flew—a reflection of his devil-may-care attitude to life. Maneka, his wife, had gone for a ‘joyride’ the previous evening when he wanted to show her his latest toy. ‘In the plane I screamed and screamed for, I think, two hours,’ she said later.
-−
-‘When we came down, I ran home and told my mother-in-law, ‘I have never asked you for anything in my life. I need you now to tell Sanjay not to fly ‘this’ plane again’.’
-−
-The news of Sanjay’s death shocked the country. Anil Bali and Kapil Mohan’s family (who had been at the Chamunda temple) rushed back to Delhi. Bali headed straight for Indira Gandhi’s residence. It was 2.30 a.m. when he arrived. Indira sat with the body. She saw him and got up to have a word with him.
-−
-‘Does this have something to do with my not going to Chamunda?’ she asked Bali.
-−
-‘Madam,’ Bali tried to calm her, ‘this is not the time (to talk about it). I will tell you later.’
-−
-At the chautha (fourth day) ceremony, Bali arrived at 1, Akbar Road. Flanking Indira Gandhi were Sunil Dutt and his actor wife, Nargis. But Indira beckoned to Bali and took him aside, ‘Now tell me what happened.’ Bali told her what had happened the day she was expected at the Chamunda temple.
-−
-‘I don’t know who cancelled my programme,’ she said thoughtfully. They were to come to Chamunda from Jammu, she said. Sanjay had accompanied her and was to come with her to visit the temple. She had been told that the weather had deteriorated and that it was raining very hard at Chamunda. The helicopter would not be able to land there in the coming hours. So, they decided to return to Delhi a day earlier. A mystified Bali told her that the weather had not been bad in Chamunda. Nor had it been raining. Somebody had decided on her behalf to give Chamunda a miss. Later, Indira confided to Pupul Jayakar that Sanjay’s death was her fault. She had not performed the rituals and prayers she had wanted to.
-−
-Several months after Sanjay’s death, Indira Gandhi’s political aide, M. L. Fotedar, phoned Bali.
-−
-‘The prime minister wants to see you,’ Fotedar said. ‘Be sure to be there at 7.30 in the morning.’
-−
-She had instructed her attendant, Nathu Ram, to let Bali inside the Residence. She had a cap on her head. ‘She had obviously dyed her hair,’ Bali recalled. She came to the point immediately. ‘I want to go to Chamunda,’ she told Bali. She asked him to make the necessary arrangements.
-−
-On 13 December, 1980, she went to Chamunda. ‘As she performed the puja, the pandit’s hands shook.’ ‘I am a diehard Hindu….And the way she read the mantras for Purnahooti, and when she went to do her mathathekna (bowing the head) in the sanctum sanctorum, or (when) she was performing the mudras for kali ki puja, she did it to perfection.
-−
-‘And she wept. She just wept and wept and wept. I recalled that the pandit had said that she would come (there) weeping.’ ‘You now have 60 crore beti betiyan (sons and daughters),’ the priest said as he tried to comfort her. ‘Aap inko dekhiye.’ And he added, ‘Aaj ke baad rona nahi (You look after them. You are not to cry after today).’
-−
-She took the prasad, did a parikrama (round) of the temple, and left. Accompanying her were Home Minister Buta Singh and Himachal Pradesh chief minister Ram Lal. Outside, she planted trees—one of the key elements of Sanjay’s five-point programme during the Emergency.
-−
-She had taken with her Jagannath Sharma, who at one time had worked as a mali for her husband, Feroze. She ensured that a ghat was constructed in Chamunda in Sanjay’s name. ‘It cost Rs 80 lakh, which was borne by Congress leader Sukhram, later to become the Union Communications Minister,’ Bali said.
-−
-After Sanjay’s death, many had wondered if Indira Gandhi would quit politics. She did not. But his death affected her deeply. In 1977, Sanjay had brought about Indira Gandhi’s downfall. In 1980, it was Sanjay who had helped her stage a comeback. Within thirty-three months of her being dethroned, she was once again enthroned as the prime minister of India. In all the decisions she had taken after her defeat, her younger son had been her crutch, her co-conspirator, her comrade-in-arms.
-−
-And now he was gone. In some way, the prayers she had offered to the goddess on that cold December day in 1980 helped her come to terms with Sanjay’s death. Before leaving the temple premises, she said quietly, ‘I have never seen such a beautiful place.’
-−
-When Indira Gandhi flew back to Delhi from the Chamunda Devi temple, she headed straight for a function she was scheduled to address.
-−
-The event had been organized by Quami Awaz, the sister paper in Urdu of the National Herald. She walked into the venue in her usual brisk way, but there was a look of fragility about her. Before the function ended, she called her older son, Rajiv Gandhi, to the dais and introduced him to the gathering. Those present made a mental note of it.
-−
-For, that evening, without saying so openly, Indira Gandhi was launching her new political heir apparent.
-−
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-[[Category:Pages with broken file links|INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
+[[Category:Pages with broken file links|INDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHIINDIRA GANDHI
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 “After he became prime minister, Rajiv did not meet Bhaurao. But they remained in touch. Halfway into his term, the R S S had made a request to Rajiv to facilitate the telecasting of the Ramayana serial by Ramanand Sagar on Doordarshan—it had run into hurdles. Congress leader H K L Bhagat, later to become minister for Information and Broadcasting, was alarmed when Rajiv mentioned the R S S request to him; he warned Rajiv that it would open a Pandora’s box—and generate a climate in favour of the BJP-VHP-R S S-led Ram Janmabhoomi movement…..Rajiv did not pay heed to Bhagat’s apprehensions.”
- The nodal person facilitating these meetings, according to Bali, was Indira’s political secretary, M L Fotedar.
+The nodal person facilitating these meetings, according to Bali, was Indira’s political secretary, M L Fotedar.
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