Opinion Indian holiday
In this part of the world there have been only faint echoes of this startling event but in Russia and Europe there is enormous excitement...
In this part of the world there have been only faint echoes of this startling event but in Russia and Europe there is enormous excitement over Stalins spectacular comeback,after more than half a century of oblivion,in the hearts and minds of the Russian people. The Russian authorities have reinstated verses in Stalins praise that had been erased,like everything else about him,after Nikita Khurschchevs secret speech at the historic 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956.
Remarkably,this has happened even though Georgia,Joseph Stalins home province,is a separate and sovereign country now,no longer a part of the Russian Empire. No wonder then that the memories of three important episodes in this country associated with the Soviet Unions tyrannical dictator and inspiring wartime leader,are flooding my mind.
The first dates back to March 5,1953,the day Uncle Joe died. In New Delhi Jawaharlal Nehru paid an eloquent tribute to him in Parliament,calling him a man of peace,got both houses adjourned and declared a days holiday. The next morning there was some embarrassment at Teen Murti because it transpired that the Soviet Union,though in deep mourning,hadnt stopped working even for a minute.
Secondly,Ajoy Ghosh,the general secretary of the then undivided Communist Party of India was the Indian fraternal delegate at the 20th Congress. Like other foreign comrades,he was kept out of the secret sitting. But before they left Moscow,they were all made privy to what had happened. Even so,on arrival in Delhi he gave me an interview stoutly denying that there had been any denigration of Stalin. The so-called secret speech,he claimed,was the invention of the Western capitalist press controlled by imperialists. But the cat was soon out of the bag,and when the next issue of New Age came out I was horrified to find that Ghosh had announced that the reporter who interviewed him had misunderstood him completely. Privately,however,he told me courteously that I should understand his compulsions. Our original decision was not to share this information even with the Central Committee.
The third event was unquestionably the most historic and most sensational. Stalins daughter,Svetlana,was married to Brajesh Singh,a Moscow-based Indian revolutionary and an uncle of Dinesh Singh,then a confidant and cabinet colleague of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Brajesh had died in early 1967 when India was in the throes of the fourth general election,the main issue in which was not which side would win but whether Morarji Desai would be able successfully to challenge Indira Gandhis leadership of the Congress parliamentary party.
Some time in February,Svetlana arrived to consign her husbands ashes in the Ganga. She had had some difficulty in securing the Soviet governments permission for her journey to India. Premier Alexie Kosygin,in fact,told her not to go because these Hindus usually burn the widows. After the ritual at Haridwar,she stayed on with Brajeshs family in his village in Uttar Pradesh. One day she confided to Dinesh that she planned not to return to the Soviet Union but to live in India. He naturally told her that this would not be possible because of the critical importance of Indo-Soviet relations. She said nothing but packed her bags and left for Delhi where she had to stay at the Soviet embassy. She told the ambassador that her passport be returned to her because she wanted to return to Moscow two days later. A greatly relieved ambassador immediately handed it to her.
Nobody in Delhi even knew that Svetlana was here. The entire country was obsessed with the election results and concomitant power struggle in the ruling Congress party that had lost no fewer than 82 seats in the Lok Sabha while retaining a narrow majority in it. There was hardly any other news. And then,all of a sudden,one morning in March,Stalins daughter changed everything. She hogged the headlines and limelight,overshadowing for a while Nehrus daughter.
After dusk on March 6,Svetlana,passport in hand,had appeared at the American embassy,and demanded a visa at once. The duty officer rang up his ambassador,Chester Bowles,who arrived within minutes from the Roosevelt House next door. It took him some time to realise the delicacy of the situation and its politically explosive potential. So the first thing he did was to give Svetlana a yellow legal pad and ask her to write out who she was and why she wanted to leave the Soviet Union and go to the United States. He also made up his mind not to reject Stalins daughters request but not to give her even temporary asylum in his embassy.
He therefore drafted an eyes only telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk telling him that if he got no instructions to the contrary within three hours he would give Svetlana an American visa on my discretion. According to Bowles,the telegram had reached the state department,decoded and placed on Rusks desk in 18 minutes flat. But no reply ever came. Bowles did what he said he would and arranged a passage for two to Rome on a Qantas plane leaving Delhi at 1 a.m.
Since Svetlana used her mothers maiden name Alliluyeva as her surname name,Immigration at Palam took no notice of her. Nor of a smart,young American next to her in the queue. He was a CIA agent posted to the American embassy and her escort to Europe.
The next day all hell broke loose. Moscow screamed about yet another CIA kidnapping plot. The External Affairs Ministry,to forestall Russian suspicions,charged Bowles with smuggling her out of the country in the dead of night. An IFS officer was rushed to Europe to persuade Svetlana not to go to the US; she told him to take a walk. Eventually,she reached her destination where she married a distinguished,if maverick,architect. But the marriage did not last. She got disenchanted with America and returned to her country,but eventually returned to Madison,Wisconsin where she now lives.
The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator.
Share
