Indian Defence Review

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.