My meetings with great personalities - Indira Gandhi

I entered politics in a formal way in 1974. In these 22 1/2 years of public life, I have personally
been in close touch with many great names of contemporary history. Today's younger
generation know of these names, but have little idea or depth of knowledge of their
contribution to our or world history. So I thought I will write a series of short articles about
these personalities and about what made them great. The names that every household has heard
of are such as Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, etc..
I shall write about each of these leaders by turn. Today I will write about Mrs.Indira Gandhi,
who was Prime Minister of India for 16 years. I first met Mrs.Gandhi at Brandeis University in
the USA in the year 1965, some months before the Indo - Pak war of 1965. She was then
Information and Broadcasting Minister in Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet, and was visiting the
University to speak to an audience about Jawaharlal Nehru who had died the previous year.
In 1962, I had arrived as a Ph.D (Economics) student at the world famous Harvard University,
and within six months I had broken the record by qualifying in the Ph.D general examination in
the shortest time. Soon I joined the Harvard University as a professor, and my scholastic record
became famous.
Brandeis University, to where Mrs.Indira Gandhi had come was only 32 kilometres away. So
she asked my very good friend Ashok Kalelkar studying at nearby MIT, whom Mrs.Gandhi
knew because he was the grandson of Kakasaheb Kalelkar, noted freedom fighter of Gujarat, to
bring me to meet her at the Brandeis University guest house where she was staying. Our
meeting lasted half hour. I had to leave for attending to my lectures; otherwise I would have
stayed longer. Mrs.Gandhi liked the company of highly qualified persons who had
distinguished themselves. At that time, I was already a 25 year old Harvard Professor,
something to be proud of.

The topics Mrs.Gandhi talked with me were only two. One was how to make Rajiv and Sanjay,
both in Britain to study harder. She asked me how to motivate them. It was quite clear that she
was disturbed by her two sons non-serious attitude to studies, and wanted tips from a
Professor. The other topic Mrs.Gandhi talked to me was how people, whom Nehru had helped
so much, had so quickly forgotten him. She said bitterly to me "you know, we Indians are by
character ungrateful people. That is why no one wants to help anyone else". This remark I
never forgot. Much of Mrs. Gandhi's actions later as Prime Minister, such as declaring
Emergency came from this bitter thought of her's.
I next saw Mrs. Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1968, aboard an Air India flight to New York. In
those days, Prime Ministers did not charter flights but travelled First Class as a passenger. I was
still a Harvard Professor then, and when she saw me boarding the flight at Rome, she
recognized me. We sat side by side till Frankfurt, which was about one hour. I talked to her
about why India should make the atom bomb. She heard me patiently till I said to her "If you
don't prepare India's defence against China, you will be repeating the mistakes of your father."
At that she flared up, and criticized me for disparaging Nehru without knowing the
circumstances. She was particularly harsh on Morarji Desai, who she said as Nehru's Finance
Minister, refused to allot enough money for defence. Interestingly at that time, Desai was
Mrs.Gandhi's Finance Minister too! But I did not argue. However when she returned to India, I
was happy that she began opposing the NPT nuclear treaty. In 1970, I resigned my Harvard
Professorship and returned to India. Mrs. Gandhi by then had split the Congress and with the
help of the communists had become ultra-socialist.
I was against state control and monopoly. So I became her critic, soon entered Parliament to
oppose her tooth and nail. During Emergency, I had escaped to America to campaign against
the human rights violations. Today it may be surprising but it is worth recounting that when
Mrs. Gandhi tried to force me to return by asking the US Government to cancel my visa, and
failed, she had asked Sri.Chandraswami to go to USA and use his influence with President

Jimmy Carter who he knew personally. Chandraswami did go, but my influence through my
Harvard colleagues was stronger, so he too failed. He became my friend later in 1988, when he
fell foul of Rajiv Gandhi on Bofors.
After Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she became friendly with me again. We used to
meet often in her parliament office or corridors for a brief chat. She became especially warm
towards me after I helped to get the Chinese government to deny Assam militants sanctuary in
Tibet. I also got the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping whom I met in 1981 to agree to reopening
the holy Kailash and Mansarovar area to Hindu pilgrims. She was very much impressed with
these achievements and suggested to me to be friendly to Rajiv Gandhi, who was reluctant to
enter politics. She had obviously also talked to Rajiv, because he and I became friends very
quickly thereafter.
My last meeting with Mrs.Gandhi was in August 1984. She and I had many verbal duels in
LokSabha over her Punjab policy. In fact, Chandrasekhar and I were the only two MPs who had
condemned Operation Bluestar. I had even met her in April 1984, and had warned her of the
dangers of military action. When she saw me in August 1984, she gave me a motherly squeeze
of my fore arm and said "Swamy, you were right. The Sikhs will never forgive me." She also
enquired me what my plans were for the Lok Sabha elections, because Chandrashekar as Janata
Party President had expelled me from the party for challenging him for the post in the party
elections. I understood her hint. I said to her: "I will come and discuss with you after the
Parliament session is over". I never saw her again. She was assassinated on October 31, 1984.
My recollection of her today is that she was a very nationalistic person, but insecure about
betrayal. She had a vision to make India great, but lacked the political associates to carry it out.