by Javier Moro
Indira was perturbed, and Sonia too. A death like that, at the time when it happened, instilled a vague, deep fear, a mixture of uneasiness and alarm. The fall from power had taken a victim very close by. The blood had reached the river, and where they were least expecting it. Indira became even more paranoid, unconsciously linking the death of Sanjay’s father-in-law with the threats to Sanjay. Now more than ever, she felt that she had to protect her son however she could. The news of the suicide arrived abroad and Sonia received distressing calls from her mother. There in Orbassano, the Mainos were following events with growing uneasiness and concern. Gossip from New Delhi reached them, rumours that Sonia and Rajiv were trying to get away and that Sonia had asked for asylum in the Italian Embassy…
“Mother, none of that is true. We are fine, the children too, but I can’t talk now, I’ll tell you about it later…”
And invariably the conversation was cut short. Sonia refrained from telling her mother that the government had taken away the passports of all her in-laws. Even if they had wanted, now they could not travel to Italy, not even in an emergency.
Indira set herself to working tirelessly with her lawyers to defend herself from the Shah Commission, while publicly she maintained a very discreet lifestyle. An English journalist called James Cameron interviewed her and found her to be “the loneliest and most apprehensive woman in the world”, according to the headline he gave to his article. “She is resigned and does not want to talk about anything. She is like a defeated boxer waiting for a miracle. But there will be no miracle for her,” he wrote in The Guardian on September 21st 1977.
James Cameron was wrong. The miracle that was going to make the phoenix rise out of the ashes occurred in a place called Belchi, a small, inaccessible village in the remote state of Bihar, surrounded by paddy fields, mountains and waterfalls. An idyllic setting which had been the stage for a terrible massacre. The crime had occurred in part because of the atmosphere of impunity encouraged by the new government, whose coalition included extremist Hindu elements. Now high-caste Hindus once again felt they were free to subjugate poor untouchable peasants, as they had done for thousands of years before independence. In Belchi, a group of landowners had attacked a community of landless peasants, exterminating several families and throwing the bodies into a fire. Among the victims there were two babies. The news took several days to get out, before it became front-page news in the national press. The government did not react. Its president, Morarji Desai, who considered the prohibition of killing cows and consuming 265 alcohol to be national priorities, did not think this kind of event merited priority attention. He did not even rush to condemn the crime.
Indira immediately saw the crack in her adversary’s armour. She knew what she had to do. She asked Sonia to help her prepare her things to go to Belchi.
“Everyone says that Bihar is a very dangerous place. There are groups of bandits who attack people…” Sonia told her, who, in effect, was well-informed. Bihar was the most backward, anarchical and unsafe state in India. And the poorest too. “You haven’t got a security team with you. It’s very risky,” Sonia insisted.
“I’m not going alone. I’m going with a group of party faithful.”
“But in Bihar the party hasn’t got a single seat… Will they have the power to protect you?”
“Of course they will. Don’t worry,” Indira cut her short, “nothing can go wrong.”
Sonia did not insist. She knew her sufficiently well to know that nothing would make her change her mind. But she was still worried. In an atmosphere so full of animosity such as in those days in India, anything could happen.
23
When Indira came back five days later, Sonia hardly recognized her. Her sari was dirty and she was all sweaty and covered in dust. She had bags under her eyes and had lost weight. She looked like a beggar. But Sonia, who knew her well by now, spotted a glint in her eyes, like a spark of life. She knew immediately that the trip to Belchi had been a success. Indira told her in great detail all about the epic journey she had just made. Sonia listened to her, entranced.
“It rained so much that all the roads to Belchi were impassable. Of the five hundred sympathizers who had begun the trip with me, following me in a line of cars, I suddenly realized that there were only two left. The others had given up. My idea was to get to Belchi before nightfall, but the roads were so flooded that we had to change the four-wheel drive for a tractor, which in turn ended up stuck in the mud a few kilometres further on. My companions insisted that we turn back, but I told them that I was going ahead on foot. They looked at me as if I were mad. I knew they were not going to leave me on my own, and I was right, and they were forced to go on with me, although they did so unwillingly. After a lot of walking, exhausted and soaking wet, we came to the river, and we realized that it was impossible to cross it on foot. There were no boats out in that weather, or boatmen prepared to take people across to the other side. My companions were ready to go back, but I spoke to some villagers who had come out of their huts when they saw us arrive: ‘There must be some way of crossing… Are there any horses around here?’
‘No, Madam…’ one of them told me.
‘A mule? A donkey?’
‘No Madam. There’s only an elephant.’
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘In the village. It’s the temple elephant.’
‘Can you bring it here?’
‘Yes, Madam, but…’ the man seemed bothered and found it hard to find the words.
‘But… what?’ I said.
‘We don’t have a howdah…’ he admitted finally, as though embarrassed.” “Do you know what a howdah is?” Indira asked Sonia.
“Isn’t it a kind of little tower that is put on the elephant’s back to carry important people?”
“That’s right… It’s always like that in India, over and above practical considerations there’s always concern over status! It’s as if that’s the only thing that governs people’s relationships. So I told them it didn’t matter if they didn’t have a howdah, and then one of them said triumphantly that he would put a blanket on.”
Indira was like an excited little girl telling Sonia all about this adventure. Seeing her so alive and sparkling, so direct and close to her, was like a miracle. Indira was transformed.
“You know… I didn’t feel tired, and that was in spite of having to stand waiting over an hour in the rain.”
“What happened with the elephant?”
“It finally came. It was called Moti. The peasants helped me up first and then hoisted up one of my companions, and he sat behind me. When I turned round, I could see his eyes were bulging in terror.”
Sonia laughed. Indira went on: “The other one decided to stay behind and organize our return. It was terrifying because the animal swayed a lot and the river water came up to his belly. The man hung on to my sari like a child holding on to his mother’s skirts. I thought he was going to start crying…”
They both burst out laughing. It was always funny to hear stories in which the women were in control of the situation. Then Indira’s face became serious.
“It was late when we got to Belchi,” she continued, “The survivors of the massacre had been taking refuge in a half-abandoned two-storey building. Suddenly I saw some torches come out, lighting up the faces of the people carrying them: there were old people with their faces all wrinkled, young widows, children with huge shining eyes, dark-skinned men, all of them very fearful and surprised… When they recognized me, they threw themselves at my feet. I think they saw me as a divine apparition. I had nothing to give them except my time, but those people who were so frightened did not stop thanking me for taking an interest in them, for having come through so many dangers to go and listen to them. They said my presence was a miracle, do you see? We stayed for several hours, and I heard horrible stories about the massacre. I was crying when I left them… there was so much poverty, and so much pain when the peasants showed me the ashes of the pyre wh
ere they had thrown the members of their families while they were still alive, that I was devastated. It was completely dark when we left Belchi. There was thunder, but it was not raining, so a boatman offered to take us across to the other side.
Do you know what happened then?”
Sonia shook her head. Indira went on, “As the load was excessive, the boat overturned as we were approaching the other side.”
They burst out laughing again. Indira continued: “… We all found ourselves splashing around in the dirty water. I managed to wade to the riverbank. We carried on walking as far as the main road, where some four-wheel drive vehicles were waiting for us. We were soaked to the skin. Then another miracle happened, Sonia. The peasants from the surrounding area who had heard about my visit began to arrive. They brought us fruit, flowers and torches. Suddenly I heard the beating of drums and some women’s voices… Do you know what they were singing? ‘We voted against you. We betrayed you. Forgive us.’ they were saying. They came with sweets and offered me their simple, dry saris to dry myself or change. Some of them even asked for my blessing!”
Sonia realized that Indira had seen the light at the end of the tunnel. She had delved into “the mass of Indian humanity” and had not felt that she was rejected. On the contrary, she had found her voice again, and an answer.
Indira went on to say that the next day she had gone to Patna, the tumbledown capital of the state of Bihar, to visit her old enemy J.P. Narayan, the man whose boycott had pushed her to declare the state of emergency. He was very old, almost on his deathbed. Now that Indira had been defeated and vilified, JP forgave her. They met for fifty minutes, talking about the many memories they shared of the times when Narayan’s wife was the best friend of Indira’s mother. They also talked about the massacre in Belchi and the fate of the untouchables. Then they posed for the Press. Indira took a crumpled up newspaper out of her cloth bag and showed her daughter-in-law the photo. It was an important photo for Indira, because it sealed her reconciliation with politics. Sonia understood that her mother-in-law was going back into the ring.
“But… weren’t you saying less than two weeks ago that you were retiring from politics?” Sonia asked.
“I haven’t gone back yet, and I would like not to go back, but how can I retire?… As long as they want Sanjay’s skin, or mine, I’ll have to fight to defend us.”
Encouraged, Indira decided to leave the next day for her old constituency of Rae Bareilly, where the voters had rejected her overwhelmingly less than four months earlier. It was risky because she could find hostile crowds, since that state had been the main objective of the sterilization campaign, but, to her great surprise, thousands of people turned up to welcome her in the blazing sun. Here too she knew perfectly well what she had to do and say. She came straight to the point and asked forgiveness for the excesses of the state of emergency and then she launched an attack on the Janata coalition which was in power. The people applauded her even more warmly than in Belchi. She decided to make a lightning tour of several towns in the state, repeating the same message. Everywhere she went, the reception was tumultuous. She came home worn out, dirty, exhausted but happy.
The tale of Indira’s journey to Belchi spread like wildfire across the sub-continent until it reached the villages set into the foothills of the Himalayas, the mud huts in the desert, the palm leaf shacks of the lowest castes, the plastic and tin shanties of the untouchables in the south… Beyond differences of race, caste or religion, the voice of the poor had found its source of inspiration and consolation again. In spite of feeling that India had begun to forgive her, Indira was still very worried about her situation and the threat of the Shah Commission. Voices in the government were demanding a “kind of Nuremburg trial” for her crimes during the Emergency.
“I’m sure that they will find any pretext to arrest me.”
“They won’t dare,” said Sonia to calm her down rather than out of conviction.
“I’ve heard that the Janata government has promised not to go after my former ministers in court if they agree to blame Sanjay for all the slipups that occurred during the state of emergency. I know perfectly well that they will betray me. They want to put Sanjay in jail.”
Those betrayals hurt her deeply and pushed her towards an abyss of loneliness that made her dizzy. Sonia saw how strong she was and yet how vulnerable. Unlike her mother-in-law, most politicians were in politics out of simple personal ambition and not out of a sense of duty. The mean-spiritedness of that world disgusted her. But she realized that public life, politics seen as service to others, were Indira’s raison d’être and that she would never change. Although she liked to say that she dreamed of retiring from that world, Sonia no longer believed her. Retiring was a luxury that Indira could not afford.
Given the harassment from the government and the Shah Commission, Indira took the bull by the horns. Faithful to the maxim that the best form of defence is attack, she travelled extensively to strengthen her presence, to get into contact with the greatest number of people possible, to build on what she had achieved in Belchi, the forgiveness of the people. At Agra station, the welcome was so triumphal that there was a stampede that left several injured. Everywhere she began by saying sorry for having harmed so many people, but she also reminded them of the achievements of the state of emergency, especially in the areas of the economy and security, emphasizing that it had been she who called the elections, and that when she was defeated she had accepted the people’s verdict with chivalry. In effect, the new government was unable to slow inflation, which was rising out of control again, or to deal with the black market. It was a disparate coalition, that was already showing signs of breaking up.
Her triumphant trips to Belchi and Rae Bareilly annoyed the weak government, which was becoming more and more alarmed at the spectacle of the masses venerating its arch-enemy. It was necessary to do something. On August 15th, 1977, Independence Day, the police arrested her secretary, the carefully coiffed R.K. Dhawan, as well as her former Defence Secretary, chubby Bansi Lal, both Sanjay’s henchmen. The net was tightening.
Sonia was afraid. Rajiv was having problems at work, and it seemed as though the management did not want to renew his licence to go on flying 737s. It smelt like a reprisal. His clear position against the state of emergency was not taken into account by the company, in spite of him having a faultless, apolitical reputation among his workmates. On top of the upsets with Indian Airlines came an inspection that the Tax Office set up against Rajiv. The inspection also involved Sonia, who, as a favour to her brother-in-law, had signed documents in 1973 making her the owner of shares in a fictitious company, Maruti Services Ltd. All that, which had already caused a violent argument between the brothers and tension in the marriage, was used as a weapon by the government, determined to prove shady financial dealings which had not actually existed. As Sonia was a foreigner, she did not have the right to own shares or hold any remunerated position in an Indian company without approval from the Central Bank, and this approval never existed anyway. Therefore there had been no infringement of the law. But now Rajiv was forced to prove that his wife had not had a single rupee from Maruti and that she had never had anything to do with that company. The most they could sentence her to was a fine. The time that Rajiv did not spend flying he spent searching for old papers, or if not, to obtaining them again, to going through a real via crucis because of how contorted Indian bureaucracy was. But he kept calm at all times. He had a clear conscience; the business with Sonia was unimportant and he had always paid his taxes religiously. Sonia was perturbed that they might try some dirty tricks with fake documents, for example. Fear was corrosive and deformed her perception of reality. “And what was the reality?” Indira’s ideas were clear: “This is a war of nerves, psychological warfare. We have to put up with it, that’s all.” Sonia did not want to add more paranoia to the atmosphere, but the thought that innocents might have to pay for the sinners alarmed her. When she saw her husband leave the house
to declare at the sittings of the Shah Commission, a knot formed in her stomach, and until he came home and she could see him safe and sound, she could not relax. Those hearings were a very unpleasant test because they took place in a disorganized and hostile environment that looked more like the Chinese people’s courts than a court of justice. Rajiv always came home agitated. He told how the courtroom was overflowing with people who shouted very aggressively while others ate or even drowsed on the floor. Dressed in black robes with white bibs, the lawyers were seated behind little tables covered in papers tied up with string, under ventilators that made the loose documents go whirling away. A yellowing photo of Gandhi decorated the walls. Every time he or his brother tried to defend themselves, loud booing drowned out their words. The people did not allow them to speak. The face of Judge Shah could barely be seen behind the piles of tomes of the Indian penal code and the bundles of papers that covered his desk. Outside the courtroom, other curious onlookers followed the hearings over loudspeakers. Obviously it was Sanjay who aroused the greatest ill will. Every time he went into the courtroom, he was received with loud whistles and insults. Several times the tension caused real running battles between his detractors and his followers. One of the sessions ended in uproar, with metal chairs being thrown and punches exchanged. Sonia understood how hard it must be for Rajiv to put up with that. He had always hated confrontation and had always tried to lead a quiet life. But, apart from how unfair the situation was, both Rajiv and Sonia were especially alarmed at the repercussions of so much hostility on their children.