Indian Defence Review

Indira Gandhi was much more equipped in foreign affairs than Lal Bahadur Shastri. As Nehru’s daughter, she had the rare privilege of being constantly exposed to the outside world. At their luxurious house in Allahabad, where she lived as a child, she was surrounded by books, and by a sweep of intellectual atmosphere created by a rich grand father and politically oriented father whose sojourn in England had made him conversant with a wide array of ideas that saturated the West at the turn of the 20th century. Her own extended sojourn in the West also greatly contributed to the enhancement of her understanding of the world.

Europe, at the time, was in an tumultuous state—a Europe heavily marked by the Spanish Civil War, by Nazism and Fascism, by Soviet sponsored popular front movements, and a slew of small countries of the continent living in constant fear of dictatorial dangers looming on the horizon.

It was hardly possible for Indira Gandhi to escape the impact of these events–politically conscious as she was, and living as she did in the heart of Europe as a young girl.

There is no evidence to suggest that Indira Gandhi had any reservations with the broad foreign policy framework that Nehru had originally established…

Much has often been made of her lack of intellectual verbosity, and the absence of any marked capacity to dovetail dimensional global issues in abstract theoretical frameworks. This may be viewed as an handicap by those pretending to be intellectuals, but they should hardly be considered as vital instruments for comprehending what was happening in the world. Abstract theoretical frameworks often have a tendency of congealing existing realities into a set and fixed positions that may not have anything to do with the complex environments one lives in.

In her letters to her father from Europe, one can discern the socialistic options she took, the strident attacks she made on the British establishment for its contribution to European fascism, and openly declaring in one her letters to Nehru that fascism “seems to be spreading like flames” 197 in an another letter to her father she went even further justifying the Soviet decision to sign the Soviet-German Pact. She wonders if the responsibility for this act did not rest “heavily on those eight years of British Foreign Policy.” “Munich, England and France,” she asserted, “proved definitely on which side they stood.

Russia’s policy of collective security having failed, she retired into her pre-Litvinov isolation, and her chief preoccupation was bound to be how to keep herself out of the impending European war.”198 While this was a standard argument among European intellectuals, it took an excessive form among the Indians in Europe because it highlighted British responsibility—an imperialist nation for which they had developed a contempt due to British colonialism in India.The ongoing educative process continued at adult age. It must have been even more impactful than the earlier years since it really entailed a direct experience in foreign affairs. Acting as the official hostess at Prime Minister Nehru’s official residence she had innumerable opportunities of meeting foreign dignitaries and interacting with them. Accompanying the Prime Minister on his myriad official visits to other lands must have also given her an additional backdrop of diplomacy, of power and of international actors.

None of the other Indian mainstream politicians had the privilege of such an experience. And, finally, consider the countless informal tête-à-tête she must have had with her father on world affairs and about global leaders. As they were very close to each other, Nehru’s level of openness with her must have been more exalted than with anyone else.

…she was neither attracted by long-winded theories of international relations, nor by any abstract conceptualisation of the configuration of international forces despite the fact that she had frequented Marxist circles.

To all these exposures should be added the circle of Indian intellectuals she encountered during the earlier periods of her life. Their impact can be as critical as those of parents and educators. At times even more so, especially at an early age when vulnerability is at its apogee. At some moments in our early lives we can be carried away by ideas and by proponents expounding them.

While in London, Indira Gandhi had an exposure to a set of radicals through Krishna Menon— like Feroze Gandhi (her future husband), P.N. Haksar (her future Secretary) a student at the London School of Economics, the journalist Nikhil Chakravarty studying at Oxford, and Mohan Kumarmanglam, a product of Cambridge who later became her Cabinet Minister. All of them were proponents of Marxist thought, rampant among Indian intellectuals residing in Europe of the thirties. And, they, all of them, remained Marxist even after the independence of the country.

In India too, when she was still in the corridors of power, with her father as the central political figure, she surrounded herself by the so-called “Kitchen Cabinet” largely composed of left-wing intellectuals. While all of them were leftists, some of them were committed Marxists, including Romesh Thapar, I.K.Gujral, Nandini Sathpathy, Pitambar Pant, Dinesh Singh, C.Subramanium, etc. But, their role was different from the London crowd.

For they were not involved so much in the theoretical realm of floating ideas, as in the nitty-gritty of power politics. She could hardly keep herself away from politics while living with her father, whose house and environments were essentially political. Besides, Indira Gandhi was herself a political animal, watching and even participating in politics, and holding responsible positions in the Congress Party.

Perception

However, notwithstanding this privileged knowledge of international affairs, it is difficult to suggest that Indira Gandhi had developed a structured perception of the outside world. She had not. Temperamentally she was neither attracted by long-winded theories of international relations, nor by any abstract conceptualisation of the configuration of international forces despite the fact that she had frequented Marxist circles. She did not have the mental make-up for such intellectual wanderings, nor did she really believe that theoretical underpinnings were essential for political behaviour.

From the documentary evidence available, it can be argued that, like most Indians of her class and her epoch, she considered herself as anti-imperialist socialist who was attracted by the Soviet Union as a country that embodied socialism, and ,even more so, as a victimised country targeted by the capitalist world.Fascination with the Soviet Union continued after the war. From her trips in 1953 and 1955 (accompanying her father) she returned greatly impressed by the Soviet system. The original perception of a victimised USSR in the thirties was replaced by a new thinking of that of a powerful country representing an economic system that dovetailed with her own ideas.

…Indira Gandhi’s perceptual journey through the years, one thing is certain: years of continuous exposure to international affairs had given her an incomparable background and knowledge of the world when she became the Prime Minister

There is no evidence to suggest that Indira Gandhi had any reservations with the broad foreign policy framework that Nehru had originally established—a framework of nonalignment, a balanced equidistant approach to the two superpowers, active participation in the international system, and mediation in conflictual situations.

These were the normative goals that Nehru had established and followed. Indira Gandhi had no reason to give short shrift to any of them. But, unlike her father she was a pragmatic person interested in India’s backyard. The Nehruvian record of relations with neighbours had not been impressive. If anything, it was a record of failures: impassed armed conflicts with Pakistan; humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese, a drift away from India by Nepal, Burma and Sri Lanka.

In the face of this debilitative record, interested as she always had been with power politics, her perception of foreign affairs was focalised on the region, and on setting the record straight by making India a powerful centre of South Asian politics. The rest was all marginal during her first mandate as Prime Minister.

In any event, whatever views one may have of Indira Gandhi’s perceptual journey through the years, one thing is certain: years of continuous exposure to international affairs had given her an incomparable background and knowledge of the world when she became the Prime Minister—in any event far greater mastery than anyone else among her mainstream political contemporaries. What must have made things easier was that she had personally encountered many of them who were in office, and with whom she could interact comfortably and easily when she became the Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi was one of the persons who could completely close up, but, who also had the remarkable capacity of becoming aimiable, open and interactive whenever cirsumstances required such a behaviour.

By no means was it an intellectually abstract mastery of the underlying forces that underpinned the world. What she had acquired was more than sufficient knowledge and diplomatic savoir faire that gave her what her assistant considered as an “incomparable mastery of India’s foreign policy.”

Mrs. Indira Gandhi and President Nixon

Character and Personality

Indira Gandhi owned a character and possessed a personality that “covered her countless complexes.”199

While living in a joint family as a child, with myriad relatives bustling around, she led a lonely life with a father, often away either in prison or heavily involved in politics, with a sick mother often disdained as an outsider by some members of the family, and with an aunt (Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit) who considered her ugly and stupid.200

What the Prime Minister now needed was not a bunch of left wing intellectuals but a different category of people. And this is what she did.

As a child and young woman she was overwhelmed by politics, by books, and by an intellectual father and rich grand father, but she did not acquire anything resembling intellectuality or anything connected with advanced education. All the efforts of her father to obtain an entry into Oxford failed. Clearly she was not qualified. The same was the case of her two sons who too did not excel in higher education. The one (Rajiv) finally did end up as an pilot, while the other (Sanjay) apparently drifted as a car mechanic. And yet, belonging as they did to powerful, affluent and political family, they had all the facilities and all the opportunities of going in that direction.

Indira Gandhi’s intellectual insecurities must have been further aggravated by the fact that, living with her father, she must have encountered myriad situations of being out of depth with him and the intellectual circle he moved around.

Her domestic life too did not arrange matters. She married Feroze Gandhi against the wishes of her father, but rapidly alienated herself from him by taking over responsibilities of looking after Nehru. “I am,” she lamented to Dorothy Norman in 1954-55 “in the midst of a domestic crisis…I have been and am deeply unhappy in my domestic life.”201 Indeed she was. Living as she did in a joint family with one son (Rajiv) interested in a quiet comfortable marital life in the secluded company of an Italian wife and two children; and the other (Sanjay), highly ambitious politically, to the gleeful contentment of his mother, but hare-brained in striking shady economic deals, vindictive against those who disagreed, and recklessly courageous to the point of having died while performing daredevil loops with a Pitts aircraft. His wife, Maneka, “utterly fearless…and the very reincarnation of a Durga astride a tiger,”202 openly defied her mother-in-law with continuous door slamming rows, and with open announcements to all and sundry of her political ambitions.

The women dimension should also be factored into her personality. At the political summitry, where decisions were taken, she was invariably surrounded by men – a situation that did not fail to have some bearing on her being withdrawn, suspicious and aggressive.

Indira’s insecurities were further exacerbated by her mother’s death and the innumerable bouts of serious illnesses she herself suffered from, including tuberculosis. Her alleged sex life apparently did not arrange matters; if anything, according to one actor, rendered her even more insecure.

The compounding together of all these difficulties and problems, through the years, must have marked her personality. They were there all the time. But now that she had finally reached the political summitry as Prime Minister without her father around, there were palpable manifestations of handicaps the most important of which was that of distrust of practically every one around her. “In the first year,” observed Raj Thapar, “Indira was shaky. It was then that we noticed her reluctance to trust people, particularly those in the government,” and it was then that Thapar discovered that Indira Gandhi “never wanted to reveal her hand or her mind on anything,”203 and that she began to show, in the early stages of her mandate, a lack of “ trust in herself, in her capacity to function as Prime Minister.”204 M.O. Mathai, who knew her well was even less indulgent when she became the Prime Minister. “She,” he forecasted, “will play a different type of politics—the politics of manouvre, manipulation and deception” with “no loyalty to anyone except to herself.” “Not being,” he declared, “overburdened with scruples, She can do almost anything.”205 Equally critical was Satish Gujral, a well-know artist, who though had nothing to do with her politically, had arrived at the conclusion, after having portraited her, that “behind the façade of smiling gentility was an embittered woman concealing vengeful and arrogant traits.”206

In fact so great was her distrust of others that none of the important decisions were taken collectively. Invariably, they were her decisions taken after individual consultations. There were actually indications of her deliberate intention of sowing seeds of distrust among her advisers. She would have a meeting say of three colleagues. After the meeting she would ask one of them to stay. The next time she would do the same in regard to another person. This was her continuous practice the net result of which was that no one knew what was happening. Her insecurities also translated themselves in some form of withdrawal, and in lack of any great confidence in her capacity of expressing herself. In fact, many who knew her called her the “Dumb Doll” during the first few months of her mandate since a general impression prevailed among those who placed her in power that she could be manipulated.

The women dimension should also be factored into her personality. At the political summitry, where decisions were taken, she was invariably surrounded by men—a situation that did not fail to have some bearing on her being withdrawn, suspicious and aggressive.

Mrs. Indira Gandhi and PLO Leader Yasser Arafat

In the face of all these psychological handicaps she had to do something to empower herself. Now that she had become the Prime Minister, she made a determined effort of imposing herself, and of projecting herself as a leader. Clearly this was the first thing she had to do to survive her political adversaries.Soon after the inauguration of her mandate, Indira Gandhi changed: she spoke well publicly, exuded greater confidence, and acquired a remarkable capacity of imposing herself on others. All this was vital for efficacious governance.

But, on the other hand, with the acquisition of power some of the other characteristics of her personality were preserved; if anything they were perpetuated, and even cultivated. For they gave the image of a charismatic leader and the embodiment of power, both of which she needed to enhance her position on the Indian political scene. Furthermore, she became even more distant, even more distrustful of her political entourage and even more aloof in her decisional process.

At the political level, Indira Gandhi always maintained some degree of distance from others. Originally this stemmed from a lack of confidence and from some degree of shyness; but after she became Prime Minister it continued; and as distance is the stuff charisma is made of, she became even more aloof.

Her distrustful mode, which had been with her for years, was continued; in fact, it was exacerbated after she rose to power. What was previously viewed as a shortcoming, now became an asset to be used against political adversaries. Also her character of being very reserved and of being taciturn, of never wanting to reveal her hand or her mind on anything was now fully used in politics.

DECISION MAKING

One of the first manifestations of these features was the establishment of some degree of distance from those with whom she used to interact before coming to power. In sum her so-called “kitchen cabinet,” composed of intelligent people, who had rendered her innumerable services, and who provided her with sharp argumentations, and who had crafted intelligent strategies against her political adversaries, were slowly and discreetly dropped.

Her distrustful mode, which had been with her for years, was continued; in fact, it was exacerbated after she rose to power. What was previously viewed as a shortcoming, now became an asset to be used against political adversaries.

She did not need them anymore, since none of them had any experience of governance, or any real knowledge of the inherent responsibility of power, and since most of them, furthermore, were known for their left wing views—clearly perceived as a handicap for someone who had acceded to the summitry of power. Having the vast machinery of the government at her disposal, she had no use for them in the corridors of power. What the Prime Minister now needed was not a bunch of left wing intellectuals but a different category of people. And this is what she did.

The first category were advisers and operators for domestic affairs, who, in the word of a journalist were a “a set of fawning wheeler dealers” 207” “Not one of them,” he wrote, “had the qualities of a mediocre politician. Bansi Lal, V.C.Shukla, D.K. Barooah, Om Mehta, Yunus, S.S.Ray, D.P.Chattopadhya, Pranab Mukerkjee, not to speak of men like Yashpal and R.K. Dhawan, were all backroom boys …who were devoid of any values. These were the men who rose to the country’s top positions and debased them all. So much mediocrity, so much grossness and insignificance of character would have been hard to find even in the minor courts of the Italian Renaissance.”208

But, in India it was all over—in the corridors of power. All of them had some basic functions: carry out her instructions, protect her interests, raise money by underhand means, and neutralise those perceived to be a threat to her. In sum, most of them had very negative roles to perform.The second category of people were in her Secretariat—a Secretariat whose role was to monitor the functioning of the government, and to advise the Prime Minister on a host of internal and external issues. L.K.Jha, who had originally established the Secretariat under Shastri, was slowly replaced by P.N. Haksar as her Principal Secretary. Haksar was a powerful, cultivated and highly respected left-leaning diplomat with an impeccable reputation. Obviously she needed someone who seemed more trustworthy, and who had the intellectual capacity of projecting an overwhelming image of Indira Gandhi’s power and role.

In addition, she calculated, that as a senior member of the foreign service with considerable experience in diplomacy, Haksar would lessen her dependence on the vast bureaucracy of the foreign ministry. As some, who were close to Haksar, remarked that he was “a weighty man in all senses, weighty in bulk, in intelligence, in integrity” who had “an image of a comfortable bear whose very voice could be an assurance in times of need.”209 Clearly, this is what Indira Gandhi needed, at least in the early stages of her mandate. L.K. Jha could have been a good choice too since he was the one who had established the political secretariat, but his major disqualification, in the eyes of the Prime Minister, was that he had been too close to Shastri. Haksar expanded the secretariat and made it into the most powerful decision making agency in the country thus enabling Indira Gandhi “to concentrate all the powers in her hand.”

Foreign policy was not a priority for Indira Gandhi when she came to power. For there were array of domestic issues that needed her urgent attention…

The power of the secretariat can be measured from the fact that even a Deputy Secretary in the government could not be appointed without its approval. One close observer of the Indian political scene has suggested that the secretariat had virtually become a “mini government” with each officer dealing exclusively in one area with the overall responsibility of keeping an eye on the minister and the ministry concerned. In sum, the secretariat was highly politicised in the sense that for the first time in the country’s post-independence history, government machinery came to be used for political purposes, if need be the Congress party’s purpose.

The third category consisted of those who had some expertise in foreign affairs. The whole process of foreign policy making was handled in an informal and secretive manner with powerful and intelligent individuals serving the Prime Minister, including L.K. Jha, T.N. Kaul, P.N. Haksar, G.Parthasarathy, B.K. Nehru, D.P. Dhar and H.Y. Sharada Prasad. All these personalities were carefully selected for delicate assignments about which a very small group had any knowledge. At times, only a few high-powered members of her own secretariat were privy to these assignments. This was in sharp contrast to the advisers she had selected for domestic affairs. This different pattern of choosing advisers in domestic and foreign affairs is revealing.

In domestic affairs Indira Gandhi needed advisers who would faithfully carry out her instructions and follow her political strategy, whereas in external affairs she needed people with experience, with knowledge, with some sophistication, and with whom she could interact comfortably; and the ones she had selected were no “fawning wheeler-dealers;” they did interact–the only problem was that none of them really knew what task the other had been assigned. This way of functioning may be attributed to the fact that “she never trusted any person completely or unreservedly—“ even those very close to her. This was very much a part of her character, explanations for which may lie in her childhood. This tendency became much more pronounced after 1977 when she had to go through the bitter experience of being persecuted and prosecuted by the Janata Government.

Given her personality and character, it could be suggested that she strove to maintain an autonomy of action to defend and safeguard what she perceived to be Indian national interest.

Indira Gandhi’s household family can hardly be ignored in any analysis of her personality and of the decisional process. She had always lived in a joint family—with her grand father in Allahabad, with her father in Delhi, and then her own household when she became the prime minister. While in some cases the phenomenon of living together may not have any ramifications on decision making, in her case they did. Her two sons, their wives, and grand children—all of them lived under one roof, where her elder son, Rajiv Gandhi, apparently kept himself aloof from the political commotion that overshadowed the house, Sanjay Gandhi, her second second, on the other hand, became an important actor in shaping political strategies. And as Indira Gandhi’s power expanded, so did his.

So much so that he began to occupy centre stage not only in the house but even beyond. He had a strange influence on her, even apparently some capacity of blackmailing her. In the Prime Minister’s house, he received streams of petitioners every day for three minute audience, and behaved, according to the New York Times Correspondent “like a Tammany boss, nodding sympathetically, questioning sharply.” Nobody really doubted that he was being promoted as his mother’s successor.210 Some even went to the extent of suggesting that Indira Gandhi “became a pawn in Sanjay Gandhi’s hands.”211

The fifth category of advisers were the Indian intelligence service. Having realised the importance of intelligence in foreign affairs, she divided the whole service into two, leaving the Intelligence Bureau in-charge of internal intelligence and counter-espionage, and entrusting external intelligence to the newly formed Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Both these services, along with revenue intelligence (which was under the Finance Ministry), were brought directly under the Prime Minister’s control. This was perhaps the most important innovation of which she was the architect–an innovation that gave a new dimension to the decisional process in foreign policy.

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The subsuming of these categories was by no means very strict. The edge that separated foreign from domestic affairs was so thin that persons belonging to one category could move on to the other. In fact this is what occurred.

Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Dalai Lama

FOREIGN POLICY

Foreign policy was not a priority for Indira Gandhi when she came to power. For there were array of domestic issues that needed her urgent attention, including the consolidation of her own authority in the face of emerging dissidence within her own party. Some of her weighty colleagues, who had throned her, were now out to oust her.

Neither any conceptualised framework was discernible nor any broad principles were detectable in her foreign policy actions. She neither had the time – heavily involved as she was domestically – nor the mental inclination to venture into any fixed direction.

There were other problems too, like a serious drought, or the fractious language issue, that required imperative scrutiny; but remaining in power obviously was primordial since there was nothing much she could do to address these issues without having an assailable charge of the country.

Indira Gandhi, therefore, applied herself earnestly to remain in power. With a combined strategy of rhetoric, open confrontation, devious intrigue, overwhelming courage and a calculated political swing to the left she confronted themThat she finally came out victorious was indeed remarkable—remarkable in terms of risks she had to take and the courage she had to show.

But, in the process, India had to pay a price, a downside from which it has never recovered—even years after her disappearance. For Indira Gandhi had debilitated the country’s democratic framework, enhanced an unsightly decisional process, developed intrigue and corruption into an art, and projected onto the Indian political scene a distasteful group of people—at least in the domestic sector. It was indeed a total departure from the ethical mode of conduct that was so dear to her father and to her immediate predecessor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, both of whom embodied a set of moral principles and political consistency to which they remained faithful to the end of their lives. Indira Gandhi, on the other hand, was a chamelonic leader who changed whenever it suited her.

But, what about the substance of foreign policy. Did Indira Gandhi establish any broad framework of action, or institute any basic principles that underpinned her actions, or architectured any road map that steered the country?

It would seem not. Neither any conceptualised framework was discernible nor any broad principles were detectable in her foreign policy actions. She neither had the time—heavily involved as she was domestically—nor the mental inclination to venture into any fixed direction.

Given her personality and character, it could be suggested that she strove to maintain an autonomy of action to defend and safeguard what she perceived to be Indian national interest. This was a ubiquitous phenomenon in all her diplomatic actions.

CONFIGURATION OF GREAT POWERS

The US Dimension

One of the first visible changes she introduced in foreign policy was to slowly jettison Shastri’s objectives of building bridges to the US. It was not so much because she had any principled objection against such an initiative as the fact that they never really took off despite some discernible efforts from both sides to introduce an element of warmth in Indo-US relations. The Johnson Administration showed a conspicuous tendency of exercising exacting pressures on India that none of the preceding administrations had venture to exert.

However, notwithstanding these reservations about Washington, her first trip abroad was to the US. Apparently this seemed unavoidable and made consummate sense. India badly needed massive food aid which only the US was in a position to provide. Besides, Washington had shown some visible signs, during Shastri’s mandate, of wanting to get closer to India in which Chester Bowles’ role was crucial. She wanted to see personally and directly what Johnson had in mind.The Prime Minister had indeed received a very warm welcome from Lyndon Johnson personally. Finding her irresistible, Johnson had proclaimed in his typical Texan style to all and sundry that he wanted to see to it that “no harm comes to this girl,” and immediately promised 3 million tons of food and 9 million dollars of aid.212 But, it was a promise that had to be processed through normal US channels, and it was a promise which entailed concessions from the Indian side.

On the face of it, the visit was successful, but given India’s serious economic difficulties, the US Administration opted in favour of exercising leveraged pressure on the country. From all indications it would seem that Washington wanted to push India to take another course domestically and internationally. While the whole idea had originally spawned during Shastri’s time it was earnestly put into operation when Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister.

In foreign affairs she became even more powerful and even more defiant. The domestic dimension was no more there to restrain her authority and to question her diplomatic actions.

To risk a generalisation it would seem that the US had manifold objectives: (a) to encourage India to move away from the heavy industry model to a more benign objective of focussing on consumerism and agricultural development; (b) to establish a greater equilibrium in foreign policy, which, in American perception, had tilted excessively in the Soviet direction; (c) to push India to adopt a neutral position on Vietnam in which Washington was heavily involved; and (d) to devalue Indian currency so that India could become more export-oriented and more integrated into the international capitalist system.

In exchange for these mutations, Washington would give a massive food aid, allocate $900 million in non-project aid, and push the World Bank to give additional project loans.

Clearly, Johnson was more ambitious in pushing India to radically change its policies than any of his predecessors. Already, during his visit to India as Vice-President, he had sensed “an intellectual affinity or an affinity of spirit” between India and the US, and had recommended to President Kennedy that this be exploited.213 While, in his confidential report to Kennedy, he did not consider it necessary or probable to draw “India into our sphere,” he favoured a deep-rooted “cementing… an India-US friendship which would endure beyond any transition of power in India”214 But, when he became President he did show signs of taking a more ambitious interest in India—an interest that went beyond the simple maintenance of the existing status quo in Indo-US relations.

To counter what had really become a serious threat to her power, she mobilised everything in her armour to stage the “great split” in the party.

But the US strategy never materialised. It is still not clear what really happened. Opinions differ. Could it be, as alleged by Indira Gandhi, years after the events (1979), that Johnson sat over the urgent Indian appeal for immediate assistance “in order to push India to modify its policy of friendship with the Soviet Union,”?215 Or, even more so, could it be that the Johnson sat over the Indian request for assistance particularly after Indira Gandhi’s refusal to change India’s friendly posture towards North Vietnam, an issue on which the US President had very firm views.?

In fact, she made her views quite clear when Vice President Hubert Humphrey was in India for Shastri’s funeral. When L.K.Jha emphasised, in the presence of Indira Gandhi, that it was “of utmost importance that India remain friendly with North Vietnam, otherwise there would be an erosion of Ho Chi Minh’s trust in India,” Humphrey declared “My God, am I to go back and say to the President that India feels closer to Vietnam than to the US.”216 Or could it be that Indira Gandhi was irritated by US pressures and was not prepared to introduce fundamental changes in India’s economic and foreign policies. Howsoever valid the US argumentation may have been regarding the options India had taken, it was unlikely—given Indira Gandhi’s character and personality—that she would have reneged on the fundamental politico-economic and diplomatic options India had consensually taken at the time of independence.

The bureaucracy in Washington demanded too much, and that even continued during the very first year of her mandate when she was busy consolidating her political power. Besides, it was hardly realistic to expect India to introduce fundamental changes in its economy, and turn their back to the Russians at a time when Indira Gandhi was using left-wing rhetoric to undermine the power of her adversaries.

India badly needed US aid and Indira Gandhi knew well that she would have to cede on something; and she decided to cede on devaluation.

In any event, Chester Bowles, US Ambassador to India confirmed Washington’s irritation with New Delhi. “Cables from Washington,” he wrote “burned with comments about ‘those ungrateful Indians,’ and the shipments of wheat were further delayed. Our official logic in regard to India seemed to run as follows… If India cannot support US policy, it should at least refrain from criticising it, or accept the consequences. The spirit at its worst was reflected in a remark a White House official made to me…Mrs.Gandhi, I asserted was only saying what (UN Secretary General) U Thant and the Pope had said over and over and over again. ‘But, replied the official, ‘the Pope and U Thant don’t need our wheat’.” 217

The only issue on which India went along with the US was on the devaluation of the Indian rupee. The pressures were indeed very great; and not only from Washington but also from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and from some of her own close advisers. India badly needed US aid and Indira Gandhi knew well that she would have to cede on something; and she decided to cede on devaluation.

But on the other issues, the Indian response was a firm no. In fact, she did the opposite. Instead of moving in the direction of market-oriented policies, she tilted even more to the left and nationalised all the commercial banks; instead of establishing some distance with Moscow she maintained the traditional Indian posture of friendliness vis-à-vis the Communist world; and finally, instead of adopting a prudent policy on Vietnam she became even more openly critical of US policies there.

While all these policies were a continuation of the traditional foreign policy pattern designed by Nehru, the rhetorical re-assertion of them all was prompted by domestic factors. Indira Gandhi was really facing the prospects of loosing power. Many of those who had manoeuvred to place her in power were now out to dethrone her. For the majority of her party colleagues, she was becoming too independent, and too defiant of the existing Congress leadership. She had to be, therefore, ousted. For them, there was no other alternative, for her continuation in power would unavoidably result in their marginalisation in Indian politics.

The whole Indian political system had taken an oligarchic turn with Indira Gandhi as the stellar figure. In the eyes of the New York Times she had become “a prime minister on her own right, and not a transitional figure trading on her legacy as the daughter of Nehru”.

To counter what had really become a serious threat to her power, she mobilised everything in her armour to stage the “great split” in the party. She mobilised her own instinctive courage, her dynastic name, her popularity, and a great leap to the left consensually acceptable to the country.

Indira Gandhi came out of this political battle with flying colours, seriously weakening the dissidents who were clearly slow on the uptake.

The “great split” of the Congress Party in 1969 marked a milestone in the development of Indira Gandhi’s personality, and a salient turning point in Indian politics. She “had come into her own,”218 gaining considerable confidence in herself and in her actions; so much so that she arrived at the ominous conclusion that she was the only one capable of leading the country.

But the ramifications of this psychological revolution in her personality was calamitous for the country. She centralised power in her own hands. The Congress Party was no more a loose organisation where different ideological groups co-existed and functioned democratically. The decisional process was further narrowed with her son, Sanjay Gandhi, always there playing a crucial but underhand role on an array or issues. The Cabinet members, radically reshuffled, were reduced to sycophancy with most of them attempting to outbid each other in oleaginous behaviour. The state leaders, who had failed to support her in her battles against the “Syndicate,” were ousted, and the Indian intelligence, split into two (internal and external), was brought firmly under the direct control of the Prime Minister.

The whole Indian political system had taken an oligarchic turn with Indira Gandhi as the stellar figure. In the eyes of the New York Times she had become “a prime minister on her own right, and not a transitional figure trading on her legacy as the daughter of Nehru”.

Her hand was further strengthened by going to the polls in 1971 and returning with a landslide victory.

It was this victory that gave her the real legitimacy that she needed. Isolating and defeating the “Syndicate” was one thing, but popular electoral victory was another matter, since it was this success at the polls that gave her the confidence she needed, and pushed her to become politically even more active.

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In foreign affairs she became even more powerful and even more defiant. The domestic dimension was no more there to restrain her authority and to question her diplomatic actions. None of the Prime Ministers, before and after, had acquired such a large leverage as she had. And, She used it to the hilt.