In many ways we are a fickle nation. We make heroes and gods out of ordinary people and forget them with equal ease after they are gone. Probably the best example in recent times is that of Indira Gandhi. In life she cut a towering figure, winning wars, fighting poverty and uniting a fractious nation, or so her spin doctors maintained. And even her severest critics would not deny the hold she had on the popular imagination, evoking comparisons with Durga and the mother incarnate.Yet months almost, after her death, the hoardings and photographs seemed to virtually disappear from public places as the nation prepared to deify her son. Her death created a massive sympathy vote and led to brutal riots in the capital yet, after the initial shock was over, a country that had seemed shattered by her assassination and ill equipped to cope rushed unhesitatingly into the 21st century led by a former pilot and his techno-savvy friends. And that too turned out to be just a phase. After Rajiv Gandhi, we have had a Congress led by a non-Gandhi, coalition governments, the BJP brand of politics so on and so forth. It seems a very long time indeed since anybody could have dreamed up the line, ‘India is Indira’.In the circumstances it seemed strange to me to hear somebody wish aloud recently that she should have been there. It was said just after the attack on Akshardham and what was surprising about the palpably plaintive plea was not just the fact that the late PM should have been remembered at that particular point — with all its implications of Indira Gandhi’s image as the only ‘man in the cabinet’, etc — but that the person expressing it had been anything but a Mrs Gandhi supporter in the past. It made me wonder why we routinely bury all traces of our public figures (save for the mandatory statues and signboards) instead of vigorously and publicly reassessing their acts and proclivities after time has created a measure of objectivity.For many people of my generation, for instance, it is primarily through the prism of the Emergency that we saw Indira Gandhi. The months of suppression, censorship and suspension of civil liberties and the triumphant ouster of the Congress was probably a bit like what the Independence movement might have been to our predecessors. And Mrs Gandhi emerged not surprisingly as a demonic figure, one who could do no right. Two decades on, however, one is prepared perhaps to be a bit more sympathetic. The problem with remembering people through their names alone is that only the myth endures Reading Katherine Frank’s much-publicised biography of Indira Gandhi, for instance, one finds a detailed account of Indira Gandhi’s early life: her long drawn battle with tuberculosis which entailed anxious, solitary periods of convalescence; the insecurity of her childhood with one parent perennially in jail, and another ill; her participation in the freedom struggle and in the difficult birth of the nation; her contribution as Nehru’s daughter, her stormy marriage and so on. The facts may be well known but there are details, such as a description of her being the only child wearing khadi in a school full of smartly dressed kids, that convey vividly the mix of high expectations and isolation that characterised her childhood and probably contributed to making her the extraordinarily driven individual that she was.There are many who would admire Indira Gandhi’s decisiveness evident in the way she nationalised banks and abolished privy purses. And, as the editor of this paper pointed out in a recent column, her forthright letter to Nixon during the Bangladesh war (in which the US government absolutely refused to consider India’s position) if made public would probably have the swadeshi lobby rooting for her.So is she the saviour we need today in our current state of turmoil?It is tempting to believe that. Given our experience of squabbling politicians, an ageing leader and a divisive agenda, it is extremely tempting to hanker after the dream of an authoritarian figure who would cut through the maze, take decisive steps, go to war if need be, offer immediate action and instant protection. It would be tempting if one chose to forget the burning eighties: the wave of Khalistan-related terrorist attacks in Punjab and elsewhere, the carnage in Assam, the rise of the LTTE and its impact in Tamil Nadu, the problems in Kashmir and so on, all of which Gandhi appeared to be unable to control. The problem with remembering people through their names alone is that only the myth endures. As we approach another death anniversary of this controversial leader it is time perhaps to consider more complex ways of remembering.
