Not dynasty but heritage

That was until Gandhiji came and inspired Jawaharlal Nehru, Motilal’s only son, educated at Harrow and Cambridge. With the son becoming a full-time freedom fighter who dedicated himself to the service of the country’s freedom, the emancipation of its oppressed masses and the propagation of socialism, it was the father who was converted.

Jawaharlal Nehru demonstrated soon enough that he had a mass popularity in the country second only to that of the Mahatma. It was among the youth and the intelligentsia that his appeal was the strongest, although it was by no means confined to them. Moreover his secularism was beyond reproach and his understanding of international affairs far surpassed that of his colleagues. It was because of all this that, as the prospect of freedom drew closer, Gandhiji publicly proclaimed Panditji as his heir. “The nation will be safe in his hands,” he said. And so it turned out to be.

In 1964, sensing that his end was near, Pandit Nehru nominated, not his daughter as his successor, but Lal Bahadur Shastri. And so it was. Indira Gandhi accepted the post of Minister of Information and Broadcasting in Shastriji’s Cabinet. The latter’s sudden death in Tashkent led to her being chosen as the Prime Minister. After the 1967 Lok Sabha elections, she retained that position by defeating Morarji Desai in an election conducted by the Congress Parliamentary Party. There was no dynastic succession.

In the first years of her leadership, Indira Gandhi had to confront the formidable opposition of the entire old guard within the party organised as the Syndicate. She was able to defeat them over the 1969 Presidential elections, when she displayed both her mass popularity and her tactical skills. However, she was able to consolidate her position only after her implementation of radical reforms like the nationalisation of banks, the abolition of the privy purses and, above all, her courageous handling of what has come to be known as the Bangladesh crisis. The gungi gudia was proclaimed as Durga Mata by none other than Atal Behari Vajpayee.

She was not allowed to rest on her laurels. In 1973, Jayaprakash Narayan launched, with RSS support, his “total revolution” to remove her from office, destroy civil libertarian parliamentary democracy and replace it by the partyless democracy that Field Marshal Ayub Khan had established in Pakistan. He failed to achieve his objective.

The 1977 general elections, however, witnessed Indira Gandhi’s removal from office. It was a punishment dealt by the people for the excesses of the Emergency. She returned to power in 1980 through an election and was assassinated in 1984. The record of the ups and downs in her political career needs to be made known to a whole new generation which has only now arrived on the electoral scene and is being regaled with “anti-dynastic” falsehoods. Which dynastic representative had to struggle in the way Indira Gandhi had to?

But what about Rajiv Gandhi? After all, didn’t Indira Gandhi want him to take her place and wasn’t she training him for that role? In her assessment, this was the only way for the Congress to remain united and to advance the country on the path of self-reliant, non-aligned, democratic and socialist advance.

As it happened she was assassinated and Rajiv Gandhi had no option but to accept the decision of the Congress Parliamentary Party to take up its leadership. He faced electorate soon after and won an unprecedented majority, no doubt because of a sympathy wave in his favour. But some of those who emphasise this forget to ask why there was such enormous sympathy for Indira Gandhi.

That this was not prompted by a love for dynasties was soon proved when Rajiv Gandhi was defeated in the 1989 elections, which also happened to be the year of Pandit Nehru’s birth centenary. It was loudly proclaimed by the opponents of the Nehru-Gandhi family that, terrified by this defeat, Rajiv Gandhi and his family would escape to Italy or somewhere else. Of course, he remained behind to fight.

Incidentally, Rajiv Gandhi’s defeat in 1989 had nothing to do with any sudden “anti-dynastic” sentiments on the part of Indians. It was a result of a combination of factors, including the slander campaign on the Bofors issue, the mishandling of the Babri Masjid problem, and the destabilisation attempts made from Rashtrapati Bhavan. The tide hadclearly begun to turn in Rajiv Gandhi’s favour by 1991. The Congress had recovered electoral ground even before his assassination, although securing a majority would not have been possible on that basis. It was not possible even after he was assassinated, with the Congress receiving the benefit of the consequent sympathy vote. Whatever the sneers of the cynical, the majority of Indians have gone beyond the stage when dynastic loyalties determine electoral choice.

The Nehru-Gandhi family has, however, a powerful mass appeal. This is partly due to the personal character and quality of those who are regarded as its representatives, starting with Motilal Nehru and going on to Sonia Gandhi.

Very much more important, however, is the Nehru-Gandhi heritage. This is, in fact, a worthy and noble heritage shaped by Indians themselves and regarded as a sacred trust by the Nehru-Gandhi family.

This is the heritage of Indianness, of progressive nationalism, of secularism, democracy and socialism. It is the heritage of love for and pride in India and the people of India. It is, in fact, the heritage of the Congress which it helped to build and which helped to build it.

This heritage faces its most serious challenge today from the divisive communalism of the BJP. It is appropriate that the defence of this heritage is being undertaken by the party and the family who best represent it.

The writer is the general secretary of UCPI