HVK Archives: Their sacrifices: A chapter from tomorrow's textbooks
Their sacrifices: A chapter from tomorrow's textbooks - The Asian Age
Arun Shourie
()
January 23, 1998
Title: Their sacrifices: A chapter from tomorrow's textbooks
Author: Arun Shourie
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: January 23, 1998
In the beginning was a foreigner. He founded the Congress.
Then, no one did anything till the Nehru-Nehru (Father and Son)
Family stepped forth. They firmly stamped the history of India
with the twin features that characterise it in the first half of
the 20th century: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one
else made any sacrifices.
With the passing of the Father, the Son became the Father, and
with the coming of the Daughter, the Nehru-Nehru Family came to
be known as the Nehru-Gandhi Family. But it continued the noble
tradition: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made
any sacrifices.
Soon enough the country's interest demanded that the secret plans
of the new Viceroy and his co-plotters be ferreted out. The
Father therefore sacrificed that one thing to which he was so
attached - the sacred memory of his dear wife, who, having joined
the Nehru-Nehru Family had already made the Supreme Sacrifice -
and let the Viceroy's wife fall for him.
Time flew yet again, and the cares of office began to weigh
Father down. As president of the Congress and because of his own
scholarship, he was of course aware of historical precedents of
our rulers marrying foreign women to manage the household while
they attended to affairs of State. But so as not to further
disturb a people that had been so recently devastated, he
sacrificed his love of history and its mores, and continued to
live alone. That only weighed him down further.
Therefore, while hew dear husband was busy in various adventures
in Lucknow and Allahabad, the Daughter, Indira Gandhi, chose to
stay in Delhi. Soon, she too sacrificed her marriage to devote
herself to the one thing that was so necessary for our poor
country the well-being of Father.
Then, as Father aged (as the original Father had before him), she
sacrificed her devotion to housework and his care, and agreed to
take over the presidentship of the Congress.
And then, she sacrificed her deep devotion to this hoary party,
split it and threw out the blackguards - all so as to free it,
and therefore the country, from the clutches of The Syndicate.
And then, she sacrificed her respect for the elderly, and threw
Morarji out - so as to save the country from The Return of
Reaction.
And then, out of her infinite love for the poor, and because of
her exemplary fealty to the memory and inclinations of her
father, she sacrificed her own pragmatism, and embraced
socialism.
And then, seeing how those old stuck-in-the-muds, the judges,
were going to impede the great things which were being done for
the poor, she sacrificed her deep love for propriety, superseded
three of them, and made yet another original, sterling
contribution to world thought, the concept of a Committed
Judiciary.
And then, as the wretches had still not stopped howling, she
sacrificed her new love - socialism - for pragmatism; and thus we
got the justly fabled "Twenty Point Programme" which, as everyone
knows, catapulted our country to the very limits of prosperity.
And then, as she was being attacked from all sides and being
asked to resign just because some high court judge had found her
guilty of electoral fraud, her devoted son, Sanjay sacrificed his
love of automobiles, and stepped forth to protect her from these
evil machinations and conspiracies. And then, as misguided
students, and their misguides - JP and the rest started demanding
that corruption and inefficiency be checked, she and Sanjay
standing together sacrificed their deep attachment to probity and
excellence, stood firm, refused to mend matters under duress, and
thereby saved the country from extra-constitutional anarchy.
And then, as the bureaucratic machinery had become moribund, as
the political leaders had become limp, she sacrificed her deep
aesthetic love for consistency, and allowed Sanjay to station
himself as The Unconstitutional Authority par excellence so as to
kick-start the merely constitutional authorities.
And then, as the senile fools still did not abandon their
unconstitutional ways, she sacrificed her deep commitment to
democracy, and, -with the utmost reluctance so touching a
characteristic of The Family - and only to save the country from
The Foreign Hand - threw the entire oppositions as well as over a
lakh of people into jail, and suspended the Constitution.
And then, so as to create an example that would inspire all
budding entrepreneurs and thereby lift the country to ever
greater heights, she sacrificed her own good name and ensured all
official and non-official encouragement to Sanjay's dream
project, the Maruti.
And then, precisely when she had acquired complete mastery over
the entire country and everyone was ever so full of joy at the
trains running on time, precisely when a great scholar, the then
Congress president, had proclaimed, "Indira is India, India is
Indira," she sacrificed her unrivaled, unquestioned position.
and announced elections.
And then, just because the people had wiped her out and her
party, she sacrificed even her prime ministership and agreed to
go along with the verdict of the ignorant people - a verdict she
knew the blockheads would soon rue.
And then, as the Janata government floundered, she sacrificed the
well-deserved peace and quiet she had at last got after so many
years of travail, and agreed to take on the bother of once again
ruling this wretched country.
And then, because his dear brother had sacrificed his very life
for that ancient love of the Nehrus - aviation Rajiv sacrificed
his quiet family life, his love of the skies, his blossoming
career in aviation and stepped forth to help Mummy - so
beleaguered and alone at the pinnacle.
And then, to save her beloved Punjab from the communal Akalis,
she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to secularism, and put
up Bhindranwale.
And then, when those foolish young students in Assam began
demanding that foreigners not be smuggled on to electoral lists -
as the local Congress leaders were doing so as to enrich our
culture through cross-fertilisation she sacrificed her deep love
and compassion for all living beings; and let the forces shoot
down 800 of them.
And then, when the damned students still did not listen, she
sacrificed her undying love and commitment to the country's
unity, and directed her minions to encourage the Bodo militants
after all, how could mere students be allowed to decide what was
good for the country; after all, how could mere students be
allowed to challenge the decisions of Delhi?
And then, when Farooq and NTR would not see reason and submit to
her, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to the Constitution
and, with the same pain and reluctance that we have encountered
earlier, dismissed their elected governments -- she had nothing
to gain from the step, she had everything to lose, but she knew
that the country had to be made safe for the Constitution.
And then, as courts, legislatures, civil services with their
interminable forms and procedures, were all standing in the way
of the poor, she sacrificed her devotion to everything her father
had helped construct, and, by skillful undermining, she put all
institutions out of harm's way.
Unfortunately - and this tragic thing happens so often in the
case of the Nehru-Gandhi Family - the followers of Bhindranwale
did not see that Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale would
have never attained the heights he did it not been for her. They,
therefore, sacrificed her life to their ingratitude.
And then, though the Mummy he had stepped forth to help had been
taken away, Rajiv, disregarding the entreaties of his wife,
sacrificed the easy-relaxed life of a mere MP, and became PM: for
the earth which was quaking as the giant tree had fallen had to
be calmed.
And then, to safeguard the country, he sacrificed his commitment
and that of Olof Palme to the cause they had met to discuss,
disarmament, and swiftly concluded the Bofors deal.
And then, he sacrificed his longing to spend time in India, and
travelled incessantly all over the world to solve the problems
which were buffeting it from all sides.
And then, on his visits to his beloved India, he sacrificed all
his waking hours to solve its myriad difficulties.
And then, though he had not had anything to do with any of those
things Bofors, the Airbus purchases, the settling of the HDW
matter - he sacrificed the good name of generations of the Nehru-
Gandhi family, and, Shiva-like, took and held the entire poison
of calumny himself: for, steeped as he was in the Nehru-Gandhi
Family tradition, he saw that justice had to be done, and the
middlemen, who after being abolished had only taken fees for
"genuine industrial espionage," had to be protected from the
hounds out to destabilise the country.
And then, moved to compassion by the plight of Tamils across the
seas, he sacrificed his natural attachment to the principle which
was a family heirloom, his own grandfather having invented it -
that of non-interference in the internal affairs of other
countries - and opened training camps for Prabhakaran and his
LTTE.
And then, as those unthinking judges gave a judgment which hurt
the sentiments of the Muslims, he sacrificed his dedication to
another of the Family's principles, secularism - a principle
which would not even have been in the Constitution but for his
mother - and passed a law to overturn the judgment.
And then, the effect this had on the sentiments of the Hindus
moved him once again to compassion, and so he sacrificed his and
the Nehru-Gandhi family's' unyielding devotion to the sentiments
of Muslims, and had the locks to the Ram temple opened.
And then, his wife learnt that the Father (originally the Son)
had been sacrificing his sleep to write every night to the
Viceroy's wife. So as to spare the simple people of our country
any trauma, and so as to protect the one institution which held
the country together - namely, the Nehru-Gandhi Family - she
sacrificed the pile of royalties she could have made, and, having
kept them in her personal custody for long, refused to allow
their publication.
And then, as Prabhakaran's followers turned out to be as
ungrateful as those of Lt Bhindranwale, they too sacrificed his
life to ingratitude.
And then, his wife, so as to prevent the rich of the country from
squandering their money on worthless pursuits and so as to do
good to which the Nehru-Gandhi Family has always been committed,
sacrificed the good name of the Family once again, she sacrificed
her own peace and quiet, and. established The Foundation.
Today it is this noble lady, who has sacrificed the comforts of
foreign climes, who continues the noble tradition of The Family.
As she has said again and again, as she has shown again and again
Shrimati Soniaji Gandhi is not interested in any post - nor
should too much be read into the "for now" she has used of late:
she is just sacrificing her natural dislike for office to keep up
our hopes by keeping alive the prospect of her taking on the
reins.
She has stepped forth with the same great reluctance which has
been a mark of the Nehru-Gandhi family as much as aviation. She
has, like Rajiv before her, who had like his mother before him,
done so only to save the country. And what reassurance she,
provides, the reassurance of things continuing: "The time has
come," she told the people in her opening speech, "when I feel
compelled to put aside my own inclinations and step forward. I am
here not to seek political office or position but to share my
concern over the country's future. We do not want our society to
be broken into fragments" - the same touching reluctance of the
Nehru-Gandhi Family, the same putting aside of personal interest,
the same disregarding of ones own inclination, the same devotion
to our poor country. Reading it citizens were thrilled, they
felt 30 years younger, back in i969 - Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter,
was alive and back in Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter-in-Law, and the
entire reign lay before us again.
The first and second halves of the 20th century hold three
lessons. These are: all the sacrifices made were made by the
Nehru-Gandhi Family, and it is because of those sacrifices that
the country has risen to the heights, it has, second, that no one
else has made or makes sacrifices, and that is why the country is
on the verge of breaking into fragments. Third, and most
important for the future, that everything the Nehru-Gandhi Family
does is a sacrifice. If they do not accept the prime
ministership, they are sacrificing the comforts, the pomp and
show that go with the highest office. If they do accept it, they
are sacrificing their own inclinations, they are sacrificing
their personal interests and promising careers. If they accept
security, they are sacrificing their privacy. If they do not,
they are sacrificing their lives. If they keep rotten, minority
governments in place, they are sacrificing what no one else ever
sacrifices, power and its pelf. If they bring them down, they are
sacrificing the comforts of back-seat driving. If they eat
European food, they are. sacrificing the food of the country they
love so that our hungry millions may have more. If they eat
Indian food, they are sacrificing the joys of their childhood. If
they eat at all, they are sacrificing their vow to fast. If they
fast, they are sacrificing food...
Question in BA Exam: Resolve the following paradox - as The
Foreign Hand has been so vital to our survival, the Congress
having been founded by and then brought back to life by it, why
did Indira Gandhiji accustom the country to looking upon The
Foreign Hand with suspicion?
Model answer in Key: As Comrade Surjeet will soon explain, "Arey
bhai, had not Comrade Lenin explained long ago? 'There is
Foreign Hand and there is Foreign Hand' The Italian Hand is very
different from the American Hand The Italian Hand when it
installs a government that might be in my hand is very different
>from the Italian Hand that removes a government that was in my
hand."
ARUN SHOURIE is a writer and columnist
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