Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi by Katherine Frank

Author:Katherine Frank [Frank, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: History, Asia, India & South Asia, General, Biography & Autobiography, Historical
ISBN: 9780007372508
Google: 3bt5jZv2DHsC
Amazon: 039573097X
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2002-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

Indira did not consult Kamaraj, the Congress President, about the ‘strong medicine’ of devaluation, knowing that he was vehemently opposed to it. As were a number of cabinet ministers when the matter was finally raised at a cabinet meeting on 6 July. Indira argued that there could be no foreign aid without devaluation. Her insistence on devaluation, in the face of such opposition, revealed two crucial elements in her emerging political character: she was capable of taking an unpopular decision, and she felt beholden to no one.

Devaluation was attacked in every quarter – on the right and the left, among the press, the public and Indira’s Congress colleagues. The CWC itself passed a resolution denouncing it and Kamaraj, who had ensured that Indira rather than Desai became Prime Minister, reportedly moaned, ‘a big man’s daughter, a small man’s mistake’. Embarrassingly for Indira, the promised American aid was slow to materialize and when it did, food shipments were erratic.

Within months of becoming Prime Minister, Indira had managed to make herself far more unpopular than Shastri had ever been. Her closest advisers – the kitchen cabinet’ comprising Dinesh Singh, Inder Gujral, Nandini Satpathi, a young woman MP from Orissa, Umar Shankar Dikshit, D.P. Mishra, the powerful Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, and three men who were also members of Indira’s official Cabinet, C. Subramaniam, Asoka Mehta and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed – urged a leftist ideological line on her and a repudiation of her friendliness with the United States. Such a policy shift would also distance Indira from the old guard bosses in the Syndicate.

Indira responded swiftly. As an opening salvo she issued a statement on 1 July 1966 ‘deploring’ the American bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. Then, during a further visit to the Soviet Union she signed a joint statement with Kosygin condemning imperialist aggression’ in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson was furious and deliberately delayed food shipments to India. Chester Bowles, the US ambassador to India, pointed out to Johnson that the UN Secretary General U Thant and the Pope had also condemned American policy in Vietnam; but Johnson retorted that the Pope and U Thant ‘do not want our wheat’.26 Unperturbed, Indira continued to denounce America’s involvement in Vietnam. She also agreed to scrap the Indo-American education foundation. Her cosy relations with Lyndon Johnson were now in a shambles.

Closer to home, there were further troubles for the Prime Minister. In November 1966 a mob of thousands of trident-bearing, naked holy men called sadhus staged a demonstration in front of Parliament calling for an end to cow slaughter. India was a secular democracy and beef was a cheap source of protein for non-Hindus. Nevertheless, Hindu chauvinists demanded a ban on killing cows throughout the country. The cow slaughter demonstration swiftly deteriorated into looting and violence. Six people were killed when police fired into the crowd; shops were stripped; cars and buildings were torched. Indira told the Times of India that she would not be ‘cowed down by the cow-savers’. And she stood firm.

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