The Red Sari: A Novel

by Javier Moro

  13

  Indira was ready to burn all the bullets to avoid a war, or at least to delay it. She thought that only intervention from the rest of the world could achieve a peaceful agreement to stop the bloodshed. The world press reported the atrocities committed in what they were beginning to call Bangladesh. The editorial comments were critical about President Nixon’s support for the Pakistanis. The American elite seemed united in its strong condemnation of General Yahya Khan. In France, André Malraux proposed sending weapons to the Bangladesh resistance. The ex-Beatle, George Harrison and the Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar organized a massive concert to raise funds for the refugees. Allen Ginsberg, the poet Indira had listened to in London when she went to inaugurate the exhibition about her father, sang of the suffering in the camps.

  Indira had no option but to go off on tour around the United States and Europe, trying to galvanize worldwide public opinion.

  “If people in the West could see the pictures in the documentary that we saw the other day,” she told Sonia, “I am sure they would mobilize.”

  She intended to spend several months travelling round the world. She went with the certainty that the domestic front was well looked after, which gave her some very necessary peace of mind. That is what she told an Arab journalist on one of her stopovers. “I have no concerns about the family when Sonia is at home.” Before she left, her daughter-in-law had given her some more good news: she was pregnant again, and this time it did not look as though she would need to spend another nine months in bed.

  The tour began badly; her meeting with Nixon was a huge fiasco. Decidedly, Indira was accumulating bad experiences with American presidents who considered her too far to the Left, although Nixon seemed a hundred times worse than that brute of a Johnson. Their discussions were tinged with mutual distrust and antipathy. Indira and Nixon met sitting in wing-back armchairs on either side of the fireplace in the Oval Office at the White House, while her advisor and Kissinger, like a couple of seconds at a duel, listened to their bosses’ dialogue while sitting on the edge of sofas. Nixon refused to recognize the dimension of the human tragedy that had been unleashed on East Pakistan. He also refused to accept Indira’s suggestion that he convince General Yahya Khan to free Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and set up direct negotiations with him and his party, the only serious chance of putting an end to the conflict. Nixon did not feel sorry for the fate of the refugees or Sheikh. Indira’s words seemed to slide off him. “It was a dialogue between two deaf people,” declared Kissinger when they came out. Then he made the comment that Nixon had said things “that were unprintable”. Years later, when the documents of the time were declassified, it became known that Nixon based all his policies in that corner of Asia on his personal sympathy for the dictator Yahya Khan—“a decent and honourable man” — whose loyalty towards the United States should be rewarded by helping him to repress the rebellion in East Pakistan, and his aversion towards the Indians—“those bastards”—as he called them. Both were sure they would not go to war. They were too poor even for that, they thought.

  The next day, Nixon made Indira wait forty-five minutes in the antechamber of the Oval Office. The Prime Minister was full of repressed anger when they sat down to talk. She was the head of a country of poor people, but it was a great democratic nation with a huge population and an age-old civilization, and she did not deserve such treatment. In front of her she had a person who did not seem human, a man who, according to her advisor, “lacked all moral principles”. And a Kissinger who was “an egomaniac who thought he was Metternich”. Why waste any more time with that kind of negotiators? The fate of the refugees and the financial burden that India had to bear had left them cold. “It would have been a mistake to shed tears over what that old witch was telling us”, Nixon had said in private to his advisor. They were clear allies of Pakistan, and Indira realized that she was not going to change that on that visit. So at their second meeting, Indira paid back his rudeness with subtlety. She made no reference to the problem with Pakistan, as though Southern Asia were the most peaceful part of the world and, instead, she asked about Vietnam and American foreign policy in other parts of the planet. Nixon took it as an insult. “That old bitch” he called her in private.

  In spite of how full her agenda was, Indira managed to take a couple of afternoons free for her private activities. Her friend Dorothy Norman found her exhausted. The tension of the meetings with Nixon and the continual journeys, the effort of having to keep a tight control of herself and stay reasonable in the face of provocation were beginning to leave their mark on Indira’s face. Dorothy had bought tickets for a performance of the New York City Ballet. It was a work by Stravinsky, choreographed by Balanchine: just what her friend would like. At the last moment Indira told her she could not go. “She seemed sad and jumpy”, Dorothy would remember, not understanding what was wrong. Indira tried to explain herself. “I can’t Dorothy. It would be too beautiful. I can’t bear it.”

  She was on the verge of bursting into tears. Dorothy was worried, but the next day she was relieved to see that Indira “had recovered her poise”.

  In the other countries Indira came up against the same message. They asked her to be patient, to accept the presence of UN observers and to find a peaceful solution. “The biggest problem I have come up against,” she told the Press, “is not the confrontation on the border, but the constant efforts of people from other countries to divert attention away from the basic question.” On English television she appeared as a Prime Minister who measured up to the circumstances. She had lost weight, and on her face her father’s features were appearing, the same imperious manner, great dignity and a fiery look. When the interviewer talked to her about the need to be patient, Indira exploded: “Patience? Patience for the massacres to go on? For the rapes to go on? When Hitler was killing everyone … did you just stand there doing nothing? Did you let him kill all the Jews? How can an exodus like this be controlled? If the international community had recognized the situation, the problem would already have been solved.” She was not only addressing the interviewer, but also all the world leaders who were ignoring her.

  When she returned to India she found that the number of refugees had risen to ten million. Now she was convinced that war was inevitable, but she did not say anything at home. Omitting all the tensions of the journeys and what was looming on the horizon, she told them she had managed to get the time to see the opera Fidelio in Vienna, where she had also seen a spectacle she had liked a lot, the Spanish Riding School. In Paris she had dined at the home of some friends where she had met Joan Miró and a politician named François Mitterand who had made a very good impression on her. It was as though she was returning from a pleasure trip instead of an exhausting and frustrating international tour. But Rajiv and Sonia were not deceived. They knew perfectly well the level of tension she was putting up with and in the end Indira could not hide the truth from them: there would be war. Sanjay did not seem to be affected by the news, but Rajiv and Sonia were worried. Little Rahul grizzled in his cot.

  “You’ll have to get used to going out less and to having more protection around you, at least while all this lasts,” said Indira. “The whole country is calling for fast and efficient action. Time’s running out.”

  That night, her friend General Sam Manekshaw came, and Sonia and Rajiv could hear fragments of the conversation, in which the general talked about the army’s preparations, bases for operations that he had set up inside Bangladesh, and how he had protected the border with West Pakistan with defence units.

  “I’m afraid we have to go to war, Sam,” they heard Indira say.

  “If we do, it has to be now, taking advantage of the full moon on December 4th. That day, we can attack Dacca.”

  Indira remained pensive for a moment. She never thought that one day she would have to start a war. But if the world ignored the problem and the situation became untenable, she had no option but to take matters into her own hands. She remembered s
ome words her father had said to her one day: “Be mistress of your own life, of your present and your future, consult me if you need to, but decide for yourself.” She could not consult him, but she could decide. She turned her head towards her old friend and said, “Go ahead, Sam.”

  At home, she tried not to let her worry show. In fact they all made the same effort. They were afraid for Sonia, who was in the advanced stages of her pregnancy. The Nehrus were used to hiding their feelings when things were going badly. In that, they were very British. What if they went to Italy for a while? The suggestion had come from a friend, but Sonia rejected it. She had no intention of leaving Indira on her own in that situation. That did not fit in with her concept of loyalty. Sonia knew her mother-in-law well enough to guess that now more than ever she needed the warmth and companionship of her family. Besides, both she and Rajiv had confidence in life, in the future, in Indira and in India, and it never occurred to them to think about the consequences in case of defeat. That eventuality simply was not considered.

  What they did was to surround Indira with affection, without asking too many questions and trying not to wear her out more than she already was. They were very loving towards her and when they saw she was especially worried, Rajiv would give her a big hug.

  Indira travelled to Calcutta on December 3rd, 1971, one day before the planned attack. On the great esplanade in the centre of what had been the British Empire’s capital, she addressed a crowd of half a million: “India wants peace, but if war breaks out we are prepared to fight, because it is as much about our ideals as our security…” Just as she pronounced these words, an aide came on to the podium and passed her a note: “Pakistani fighters have bombed nine of our airbases in the northwest, the north and the west, including those in Amritsar, Agra and Srinagar in Kashmir.” Indira hurriedly finished her speech, without announcing what she had just read. As soon as she left the rally she told her aide: “Thank God, the Pakistanis have attacked first!” The third Indo-Pakistani war had broken out. And Pakistan was the aggressor.

  That night Indira flew back to New Delhi, and her plane was escorted by Indian fighters. There was the danger that the Pakistani Air Force might locate the plane and shoot it down. But Indira did not seem to be affected by the speeding up of events. Quite the opposite: she took out of her bag a book by Thor Heyerdal about the Ra expedition and read during the entire flight. There was no point in getting upset: the die was cast. When she landed, the capital was shrouded in utter darkness, the result of the power cut ordered by the military authorities. Indira went directly to her office in South Block where, in the map room, she was informed of the damage inflicted by the Pakistani planes. Then she met with members of the opposition to inform them that she had given orders for the Indian army to invade Bangladesh. They described her as “calm, serene and confident”. It was past midnight when she addressed the nation on the radio to announce the Pakistani attacks and warn of the great dangers that were threatening that part of the world. That day she did not sleep at home. She stayed up all night monitoring the escalation in the military situation. The following morning, in Parliament, she announced to the representatives of the people that they should prepare for a long fight.

  About to go into labour when the conflict broke out, Sonia was more worried about the birth than a war that she saw as far away, in spite of having to spend the recent nights in darkness because of the power cuts. If she felt anxiety, she did not show it at any time. Life went on as usual, apart from extra army reinforcements to protect the house and the fact that now General Sam Manekshaw came for breakfast every morning to inform the Prime Minister about how the conflict was going. Sonia liked to serve tea for the general, a pleasant, courteous man, known for his fondness of British military traditions. Every day, as soon as he got up at 5.30, he liked to have a shot of whisky, listen to the news on the BBC and take care of his garden for a while before he went off to work. The same serene, confident behaviour as Indira, which inspired calm in everyone around her—colleagues, military men, soldiers—also had an effect at home.

  On the sixth day, Sam arrived with a serious look on his face. Sonia heard him say that several units of his army had become stuck in swamps near Dacca, the capital of Bangladesh. They were losing crucial hours. The general informed Indira of the precise number of losses and planes shot down. He seemed very upset. She asked questions, always calm and positive. “Sam, you can’t win every day,” she told him by way of consolation. Sonia saw them go out on to the porch. There was not the slightest trace of anxiety in Indira’s face as she shook hands with the Commander-in-Chief. General Manekshaw said that Indira’s courage was an inspiration to everybody. Sonia was able to verify that when she heard the people shouting victory from the other side of the gate.

  Not even that day did Indira lose her interest in family matters. When she came home after an exhausting day in Parliament and her office in South Block, she shut herself up with Usha to deal with matters that deserved the same importance as those she had discussed during the day: how to organize national Republic Day without knowing the result of the war, for example, or what to give Sonia on December 9th, her birthday, and drawing up a list of presents for the coming Christmas.

  Perhaps the commotion was inside her and Indira was not as sure of herself as she wanted to seem, because at that time she began to ask for the services of astrologers and palm-readers. That night her yoga teacher arrived, a guru called Dhirendra Brahmachari, a good-looking man, with long hair and a beard, always dressed in an orange kurta and sandals. He locked himself in a room with her for a long time. At nine o’clock, while Usha, Rajiv and Sonia were watching the news on television about the Indian troops stuck in the swamp, Indira came into the living room, with a worried look on her face. She had just said goodbye to the visitor. “He thinks we’re going to have a hard time of it until February,” she said, somewhat perturbed.

  On December 6th, while the Indian army was getting out of the swamp and advancing on Dacca, in Parliament Indira announced official recognition of the new nation of Bangladesh. A loud ovation welcomed her words. She received unconditional support from all sides. The opposition and all sectors of society had come together as one under her leadership. The people began to identify her with Durga, the goddess of war who rides a tiger and defeated the demons after they had ejected the gods from heaven. Sonia would not forget that December 9th when she became 25, and was eight months through the pregnancy. Indira called mid-morning to say that she would not be attending the family’s celebratory lunch because something serious had come up. It had to be very serious for Indira not to be present at her daughter-in-law’s birthday, those that knew her thought. The news, which came from the United States, shook everyone. Nixon had decided to send the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal, led by the nuclear aircraft carrier, Enterprise. This was utter provocation which could lead to a worldwide holocaust.

  While some friends celebrated Sonia’s birthday in the intimacy of her home, Indira, worked up, was giving an incendiary speech on the esplanade of Lila Ram in New Delhi, in front of a crowd of hundreds of thousands. Some Indian fighter jets flew over the place to prevent any surprise attacks by the Pakistani Air Force. Indira had not listened to the advice of her security staff to speak on the radio instead of in public. She was brave; it seemed she was afraid of nothing.

  At night, she met with General Manekshaw and her advisor. Undaunted by the American provocation, Indira confirmed her decision to continue with the war. She thought that Nixon’s gesture was a bluff because the Americans would not be so crazy as to open up another front in Asia after the one in Vietnam. But also it was true that anything could be expected from a person like Nixon. She turned to General Manekshaw: “Sam, now it is imperative that we capture Dacca before the Seventh Fleet arrives in Indian waters,” she said. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Yes,” replied the general without hesitation, “unless the Chinese intervene.”

  Indira’s advis
or stepped in: “They are upset at the situation, but they have not made any direct threats,” he said.

  “Well then,” Indira went on, “tomorrow I’ll send the Foreign Secretary to Moscow to activate the treaty we have with the Soviets and to make sure of their support if there’s an American or Chinese attack. My opinion, let me repeat, is that we have to go with the war. Do you agree?”