New Delhi: Former Jammu & Kashmir Governor and the son of Maharaja Hari Singh, Dr Karan Singh on Friday said that "Sanjay Gandhi was both the architect of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's defeat followed by a massive triumph in 1980 elections."
Delivering a lecture as part of the Prime Minister Lecture Series on 'Life and Times of Indira Gandhi' organised by the newly named Pradhan Mantri Sanghralaya (former Nehru Memorial Museum Library), Dr Karan Singh while remembering his 10 years in the Cabinet under ex-PM Indira Gandhi said, "The idea or the popular belief that she was dictatorial was absolutely baseless. She loved to listen to people and sometimes I had to intervene saying, "Madam aage chale" (Madam let's move ahead).
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Speaking of the days of the Emergency and the political turmoil followed by a split within the Congress, the former Governor said that "sometimes Court's decisions create tragedies just like that in Manipur", referring to the June 12, 1975 verdict of the Allahabad High Court convicting then PM Indira Gandhi of electoral malpractices and debarring her from contesting elections, which ultimately led to the imposition of Emergency and the Manipur High Court order for inclusion of the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe list.
"And let me say that Sanjay Gandhi was a tough child. His policies in family implementation that were followed by the tragic sterilisation campaign and his eagerness to control the Congress angering the seniors ultimately led to the biggest political turmoil," Dr Singh said.
"When you are too big and powerful, people around you want to please you and say only what you want to hear," added Dr. Singh referring to the confidants of Indira Gandhi and others.
"Indira Gandhi's popularity was at its peak. Even the Intelligence said that. But, the 1977 elections wiped out her entire team except me. And there was Sanjay Gandhi, who actually hijacked my family planning programme and came up with the disastrous sterilisation programme", he claimed.
Applauding Indira Gandhi's actions during the 1971 War that split Pakistan from then-called East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), he, however, expressed his displeasure on the Simla Agreement, 1972.
"Sheikh Mujibur Rehman (founder of Bangladesh) won 160 seats out of a total of 300. Pakistan looked down at Bengalis... There was an uprising..terrible time..refugees started coming here...We were astonished. Indira Gandhi was very calm and she knew what needed to be done."
"She first sent Field Marshal (Sam) Manekshaw. But he first refused to intervene militarily due to rains and flooding of rivers but when the time came, he struck. 'Mahabharat' went for 18 days but this ended in 13 days. She never expressed emotions and she ran into the Lok Sabha and announced that Dhaka is free now and there were cheers."
"There were fears that now India would attack West Pak but Indira (Gandhi) released that it was important to announce the ceasefire. Then there was the Shimla Agreement in 1972 and I was very disappointed with this. We had 93K Pakistani troops. (PoW) We couldn't settle or bargain the situation. But we let them free. The LoC issue was neither solved then and, 50 years have gone by and the situation still exists."
Reminding the dreadful memories of the Golden Temple tragedy followed by the massacre of Sikhs, he said that the day DIG was killed inside the Golden Temple, she (Indira Gandhi) should've then attacked those perpetrators and the situation that followed shouldn't have happened. "She had to blow up the holy Akhak Takht and that was a tragedy and a disaster. Those were difficult times," he signed off.
