The mark of a leader

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto considered her a hated adversary, as noted by Henri Kissinger in Years of Upheaval. He wrote in the White House Years how “Mrs Gandhi relentlessly pursued India’s national interest with single-mindedness and finesse. She and Richard Nixon were not intended by fate to be personally congenial”, adding “… her bearing towards him combined a disdain for a symbol of capitalism… her moody silences brought out all of Nixon’s latent insecurities… Richard Nixon considered her a cold blooded practitioner of realpolitik…”

And, what of the other Iron Lady? Baroness Thatcher saw Indira Gandhi as being much more hard-headed than other Third World leaders. In her Downing Street Years she observed that “her policies had been high-handed but only a strong figure with a powerful personality could hope successfully to rule India.” Indira left a deep impression on Andrei Gromyko, as recorded in his memoirs: “… exhibiting enormous integrity, a clear mind and great firmness of character”.

Admiral Premvir Das, then a Midshipman, recounts how, onboard INS Mysore at sea, the PM dropped in to join the officers in the Ward Room. Someone was emboldened to ask her why they were not allowed to marry foreigners while her own son was about to do so. It is another matter, and indeed a matter of pride, that the distinguished spouse is a full-blooded Indian now. Indira Gandhi smiled, and said that it helped that her son was not in the Navy. That evening, with gentle persuasion, the prime minister joined the chorus in singing, ‘Oh Susannah…’

Indira Gandhi so loved French, a language she learnt in school, that often she asked my French professor wife to come over to help her remain in touch. Once when my wife told her that she was going to take the family out to dine in the club because of an absent cook, the proud mother-in-law gave an engaging smile and said, ‘‘Why so? At such moments when we did not have help in the kitchen in 12 Willingdon Crescent, it was Sonia who helped us out.”