Deconstructing Durga

Twenty years ago on October 31 when Indira Gandhi was gunned down, everyone forgot that she had a bulldozer for a son, that she was a leader who chose her followers, that she did not even trust herself. She had mastered the act of playing both victim and rescuer – post-Emergency, post-Sanjay’s death, even after her own death when her not politically-inclined son was pulled out to save India.

Today, when her daughter-in-law tries to replace her, we realise that it can be done only by quick-fix sops. Rahul agrees that the Emergency wasn’t the best thing; Sanjay’s son, Varun, is in the BJP (therefore his genes are slightly different); Bangladeshi immigrants are not seen as illegal; and the new Prime Minister is a Sikh.

Twenty years ago, 2,150 Sikhs were killed by Congress goons. This was after Indira Gandhi had given orders to the Army to attack the Golden temple and 40 other gurdwaras in Punjab and the ensuing mayhem. Operation Bluestar was based to a large degree on lies. Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was the Osama to Indira’s Bush. She and Sanjay had used him, propping him up as a leader, when he was a non-entity. Just days before the attack, Rajiv reportedly referred to him as a “saintly religious preacher”. And, according to most sources, he had not talked about a separate state. In fact, a formal declaration of “independent Khalistan” came only in April 1986.

Raj karega Khalsa?

The Khalsa celebrations in 1999 were going berserk – diamond-studded swords, ostentatious religious programmes, one-upmanship. Three hundred years of fortitude counted for much more than a few years of ignominy.

The “fraternity of crusaders” mattered more than some discarded turbans and beards. As Khushwant Singh said, “During the RSS shakha meetings, pictures of Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh were kept side by side. They perceived Sikhism to be a militant arm of Hinduism.”

At one time the Sikhs may not have minded. But after 1984, there were conflicting emotions. Because in 1984 they were uprooted again. Sikhs had suffered a great deal during the partition of the country. And this time the enemy was at home. There was a sense of having lost something, but they had to regain it.

Which is what Harbans Singh, a Delhi cabbie, has been doing. It started with vegetarianism (his wife sends him a tin of asli ghee with a note reminding him to abstain from meat, and he always remembers). Then came Satya Sai Baba, “who is god’s own man because he can attract so many people towards him.” Later, the idols arrived.

Did these give him a sense of safety? Did he feel less of a minority? Did the memory of his people being killed still make him cringe?

I wanted to ask him these questions but was afraid of re-opening old wounds. But are they ever completely sealed? Harbans was driving me in the streets of Delhi for a few days. And each day he spoke, he revealed more and more.

What began as philosophical musings ended up as simmering discontent. He, like every Sikh, remembers the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated, because for three days after that there was a rampage. William Dalrymple described the scene in all its grossness, “…dogs were fighting over piles of purple human entrails, while charred and roasted bodies lay in great heaps in the gullies. Piles of hair, cut from Sikhs before they were burned alive, lay on the verandahs.”

Harbans has seen those bodies, heard the screams, wiped away tears. But fears? What do you do about ghosts you have to walk with because you cannot deny your past?

One evening, as we were passing by Indira Gandhi’s house, where her bloodstains have been marked out, he said, “Inki wajah se hum hero ban gaye.” I did not understand, so he pointed to his turbanless head and trimmed hair. Was that a smile of cynicism or helpless acceptance? How can you accept yourself as part of a criminal conspiracy, which most Sikhs were looked upon as? “No, you can’t. Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi, so were all Maharashtrians seen as killers? I will not let anybody point a finger at me. I refuse to take the blame upon myself.”

So he blames one family. From Teen Murti to 10, Janpath. It might be better than holding a community or the country responsible, but is it a good thing?

I think the Congress lost out on Sikh goodwill because of that. When the BJP came to power many Sikh defence personnel joined in. Harbans too has some respect for the Hindutva parties simply because of the animosity towards the Nehru-Gandhi family.

“Maneka was shunted out of the house all because she is a Sardarni”, Indira had an “evil, parochial mind”, Sanjay was “a goonda”, Rajiv’s sins were his weakness and insensitivity in making that now infamous remark after the massacre, “When a great tree falls, the ground shakes.”

Harbans has formulated his own peculiar theories regarding the political machinations of the dynasty. He believes Sonia is the brain behind a lot of things. “Why did no one bother about the other security guard who escaped? The one who was shot dead was in fact very close to Mrs. Gandhi. She would ask him about arrangements and where it was safe to go. She trusted him. That made Sonia very jealous. She wanted him out of the way because due to him she was not aware of many things.”

Why would a woman who was happy being Mrs. Indian Airline’s pilot want to be privy to these things? “That was a big tamasha. She always wanted Rajiv to be in power. She spent so much money, do you think they could afford it with his salary? She always wanted to play the big bahu. Now she has got her way.”

Did he hold any grudges against the loyalists like Buta Singh? “He had to atone for his sins in Operation Bluestar when he cleaned the shoes and worked like a labourer. You have to be true to the Khalsa.”

Talking to Harbans and listening to his cathartic spiel, I can safely say that for him Khalsa is not a narrow term. It is a state of being. He cares about his fellowmen, he is faithful to his religion, which has borrowed liberally from mysticism, and he remains a pacifist. By expunging the violent thoughts from his mind with every new conversation he is reaching the core of peace.

Harbans may try to deny it in his appearance, but he is a Sikh. He will tell you that even if you do not ask. What more proof do you need of where he comes from and where he wishes to be?

Was she just a devil woman?

When Indira Gandhi was voted as the woman of the millennium by the BBC, the general opinion was that India was the flavour of the season. So, like the Miss Worlds breeding a consumerist society, it was needed to get an Indian to be politically-correct.

Does she deserve any sort of honour at all?

She saw imaginary demons. The result: The Emergency. Like all frightened people, she camouflaged her silly theories -- about others trying to plot against her government and stall its functioning -- beneath self-righteousness, declaring that democracy was not more important than the nation. She could not even tolerate a peaceful resistance movement. This is what prompted Jayaprakash Narayan to write her an open letter in February 1976 in the ‘Far Eastern Economic Review’. (The Indian press was muzzled.)

His words were stinging: “You have accused the Opposition of trying to lower the prestige and position of the country’s Prime Minister. But in reality, the boot is on the other leg. No one has done more to lower the position and prestige of that great office than yourself. Can you ever think of the Prime Minister of a democratic country who cannot even vote in his Parliament because he has been found guilty of corrupt electoral practices? The Supreme Court may reverse the High Court’s judgement – most probably it will be in this atmosphere of terror – but as long as that is not done your guilt and your deprivation of your right to vote remain).”

She encouraged coteries without seeming to court anyone. She took away the privy purses, but kept the princes. She spoke about rationality, but had Swami Dhirendra Brahmachari, a hedonistic sadhu, as a close confidante. She was suave and sophisticated, but she encouraged greasy dalals like R.K.Dhawan. She spoke about “social democracy” but blatantly gave a fillip to the license permit raj. And she thrived on strife. This is how she came to support the Mukti Bahini in what was then East Pakistan. She did not want sainthood, but a shrine.

Did she design the dynasty?

She was constantly hitting back. It started with her father. He used her. Papa’s daughter was really his puppet. Naturally, in that small stage she had to move according to a preset rhythm. Katherine Frank’s biography talks about her paranoia regarding those she considered Nehru’s enemies. She felt that they were “out to trap her father and bring him down”. What was happening is that she was fearful for herself. Even as puppet she wanted to be on centrestage. Who knows that by getting her father to move away from the clique, she was subconsciously trying to even destroy him?

I think her equation with his secretary M.O.Mathai has been very perceptively analysed: “(their) relationship had always been an ambivalent one, in part because he usurped a number of her responsibilities…Seeing Mathai’s prominent role in her father’s life, Indira may have had little choice other than to cultivate him.” If indeed she did have a relationship with him, she played a vampire role, more out of insecurity than anything else.

And what did he do? He tried hitting back by spreading rumours, even writing about it. Because, it is said, he felt he had been wronged. By the whole family, including Feroze. Apparently, Feroze was privy to the goings-on, and the reason was that she wanted him to know. He, as a womaniser, had to be taught a lesson, and made to feel that her humiliation would be avenged only if he felt that while he had proved his manhood all over the place, he had lost out as the “nation’s son-in-law”. Little did anyone realise that the reason he went on a binge of sexual adventures was because this role was not suiting him one bit. So blood was being drawn at every turn.

If there is anything blameless about Indira Gandhi, It is her stint as mother. And although the universal opinion is that women are those self-sacrificing creatures, the sons are made to repay the debt. It prompted someone to say, “It’s not what men fight for. They fight in the last resort to impress their mothers.”

Rajiv knew that the only way to be in the good books of his mother was to be in command. Due to Sanjay’s grassroots work, it is assumed she was closer to him. Could it not be that she was trying to protect her elder son? Isn’t it significant that Sanjay, despite his tragic and untimely death, is still considered some sort of hoodlum, whereas Rajiv has always been seen as a scrubbed Mr. Clean?

Children do not necessarily follow in their parents’ footsteps, but they do not spontaneously give up jobs as pilots, a job they say they love, unless there is a repressed need. The nation would grant her Durga Ma status only if she was seen as somebody’s mother. For both the sons their best friend, as well as their worst enemy, was their mother.

An incident recounted by a Delhi high-flier is worth repeating. “Mrs. Gandhi had just won the elections and we were at her place. At some point she rushed into an inside room. It could have been an urgent call or a message. A man standing near me asked, ‘What must have happened? Has the milk boiled over?’ Another male smirked, “No, I think it must be the daal!’ She was a threat to these men.”

It is too pat an explanation. This Durga needed to slay a few demons, even if they were not haunting her. A few years later, she had internalised the spook and revelled in the praise, “Indira is India, and India is Indira.”

With her delusions, Indira Gandhi till the very last posed a threat only to herself.