The Nehru Syndrome

Jawaharlal Nehru : ‘‘I was simply bowled over by Gandhi,’’ Nehru once said. ‘‘He was like a beam of light that pierced the darkness.’’ India’s first Prime Minister also began rather uncertainly in politics. He often admitted that it was his meeting with Gandhi and the Jallianwala Bagh firing that catapulted him into the freedom movement, and he often had severe differences with his father over political methods. Jawaharlal’s political initiation came with the protests against the Rowlatt Bills of 1919 and the Non Cooperation Movement of 1920-21.

Indira Gandhi : There were no indications from the start of her political career, that she would one day become PM. She started by being a member of the Monkey Brigade, the children’s group of the INC. She formally joined the Congress in 1938 but was so quiet and timid that she was known as the goongi gudiya (silent doll). In 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri appointed her as I&B Minister and in 1966, when Shastri died, she became Prime Minister for the first time.

Sanjay Gandhi : Showed no inclination to join politics in the early years of his mother’s governments. Rose to ascendancy during the Emergency, when he gained notoriety for his Five Point Programme, sterilisation campaigns, forcible demolitions and autocratic methods deployed by the infamous ‘‘Sanjay Gandhi Gang’’. Won from Amethi in 1980, but killed in an air crash the same year.

Rajiv Gandhi : ‘‘I had no love for politics. I treasured the privacy of my happy family life,’’ he often said. Famous last words. With the death of Sanjay in 1980 and the subsequent assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, he joined active politics, becoming the famous baba log Prime Minister and won the Amethi seat in 1984, 1989 and 1991, before he was assassinated in the same year in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.