by Mark Tully
‘What do you mean “the best bits”?’ Digvijay asked.
‘Tell them about Indira and Feroze,’ the doctor laughed.
Digvijay was not amused. He turned towards me and said, ‘It is quite true that I was very close to Indira Gandhi and to her husband, Feroze. Indira trusted me throughout her life, and just because she's dead it's not right that I should break that trust and tell tales about her. I can tell you they were not pulling on well. You know that – everyone knows that. In fact they were almost separated, except for social occasions. One problem was that Feroze drank a lot. I once went with him to a doctor to discuss his heart complaint. The doctor said, “Please don't drink whisky.” But Feroze wanted to die. He felt frustrated; he felt that he couldn't do what he wanted to do in politics because he was Nehru's son-in-law. That was why he continued to drink, and that was why he died.’
Doctor Sahib roared with laughter and said, ‘That's not the half of it. Come on, Digvijay – tell him about the time when Feroze and Indira were locked into your bedroom. You remember, when you hid them there for twenty-eight hours, so that they could sort out their differences. You arranged for food to be brought in to them.’
Digvijay frowned, but said nothing.
‘Well it's true, isn't it?’ Doctor Sahib insisted.
Digvijay replied, ‘Look here. I have already told you I don't think it's right to tell tales about your friends, especially when they share their confidences with you.’
Doctor Sahib gave up, and I took over the conversation.
‘Well, let's go back to the beginning, Digvijay. How did you get into big-time politics, mixing with the Nehrus and all that?’
‘It was really S. K. Sinha, the chief minister of Bihar – the man who came to that last big wedding in my family mansion. I had several links with him. He knew my family well and the work they had done. He also knew the role I had played in the independence movement. Then again, he was a member of the same caste as I was – although caste was not as rampant in politics then as it is nowadays.’
‘You were both bhumihars?’
‘Yes. It's a strange caste – I suppose you could say we are half Brahmins.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘We were Brahmins until the Buddhist period, and then we converted to that religion. In the fourth and fifth centuries, Buddhists started converting back to Hinduism. The Brahmins said that we could return to the fold but we couldn't be priests and take money for conducting religious ceremonies, and so we became the only Brahmins who tilled the soil. In Bihar we became landlords.’
Taking part in the independence movement and making valuable contacts with leading Congressmen gave Digvijay a taste for politics. After independence, he gave up all thoughts of becoming a lawyer and threw himself into political work. Those were days of hope when it did seem that a new India would be built – an India which was economically as well as politically independent; a socialist India in which giant strides would be taken towards the eradication of poverty. Digvijay thought that, as a young man, it would be appropriate to start his career as a member of the Bihar state assembly, but the chief minister advised him to go for parliament straight away. The chief minister arranged for him to stand from Sitamarhi near the Nepal border in 1952 – the first election since the constitution of independent India had been drawn up. Digvijay won handsomely.
The chief minister had judged correctly: Digvijay soon established himself in the highest political circles in Delhi. Within three years he managed to get on to a much sought-after parliamentary delegation to the Soviet Union. He told me how this had been achieved. ‘I had to go and see Nehru himself, to get his approval. He made a spluttering noise, which was a good sign – if Nehru got annoyed with you then you knew that you had probably succeeded. I found Nehru very approachable. When I went to him about my work, I found I got about 70 per cent of it done.’
‘What work?’
‘The work – the things that I wanted to be done for my constituency.’
Nehru selected Digvijay to go on two more political delegations. He was clearly an up-and-coming parliamentarian. Doctor Sahib said that when news of these delegations and of Digvijay's friendship with Indira and Feroze reached the family, they thought that he was really going places.
‘We were very proud of him: we thought that he would certainly become a junior minister in his first parliament. But even in those days Digvijay didn't seem to be like ordinary politicians. He didn't seem to want to make anything out of his opportunities. He was always a king-maker and never a king.’
‘Could you have become a minister?’ I asked Digvijay.
‘Being a minister never attracted me. I am a carefree man, and I never wanted to bow and scrape to anyone, which you have to do if you are going to get a berth as a minister. It was being a member of parliament which attracted me.’
Our conversation was interrupted by another relative who had heard that Digvijay was telling his life story and had come to contribute his bit to it. He was Braja Prasad Singh, an uncle of Digvijay, who had spent eleven years in jail during the independence movement and had gone on to a long career in parliament, mostly in the upper house. He was at least ten years older than Digvijay, but much more sprightly and cheerful.
I asked Digvijay's uncle, ‘Don't you think that he wasted his talents and his opportunities? Surely he could have done much more.’
‘You know, I never interfered with Digvijay's politics and he never interfered with mine, but I don't think you are necessarily right. It all depends on a man's temperament. He pursued the right career. He did what suited him. Backbenchers also serve who only stand and wait.’ Braja Prasad Singh laughed and went on, ‘Digvijay was a good, quiet organizer and an excellent lobbyist. Lobbying behind the scenes is something very great. You see, people trusted him.’
People trusted him. That was the hallmark of Digvijay's political career, but in the end he was to be let down by those he had trusted.
Digvijay didn't allow his friendship with Indira Gandhi to influence his political judgement: he became a firm ally of Morarji Desai, the stern, unbending moralist from Mahatma Gandhi's home state of Gujarat and the one man whom both Nehru and Indira did not want to succeed to the premiership. Digvijay was not very clear about his reasons for supporting Morarji.
‘I am not sure why I became a Morarji man. He did impress me. Perhaps it was because of his bluntness; perhaps it was because I too am a blunt man. Then Morarji was a very good administrator, and I personally felt we needed someone who could administer. When he came to the centre from politics in the states, I got to know him and he became very friendly with me.’
‘You may be blunt, Digvijay, but you are not stern and Morarji certainly is.’
‘Of course he is stern. He used to tell me that he had not slept with his wife or any woman since he was very young. He never eats cooked food, and he's deeply religious. He's totally opposed to drinking. He is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi in a far more real sense than anyone else nowadays.’
‘Come on, Digvijay,’ I laughed. ‘You certainly drink – we have often drunk together. I have never thought of you as religious either.’
‘I remember once Morarji said to me, “Digvijay, I hear you drink.” Of course I couldn't tell him a lie, so I replied, “Yes I drink.” Morarji simply said, “It would be better if you give it up.” I never heard from him on that subject again. He drinks his own urine and says that it's good for him. Perhaps he's right.'
Doctor Sahib laughed. ‘I don't know that there are any medical grounds for that statement, Digvijay, but the old boy is over ninety and still going strong. I don't think that people like us who drink a different golden fluid are going to live to that age.’
‘What about religion?’ I asked.
‘Well, of course I don't spend hours praying or meditating like Morarji. Every morning after washing I say Mahatma Gandhi's prayer: “O God, O Christ, O Muhammad, if I have committed any sin, forgive me. If you can't
forgive me, punish me in any way you like.”’
‘I don't know what you did, Digvijay,’ laughed Doctor Sahib, ‘but God certainly seems to be punishing you.’
When Nehru died, in 1964, Morarji threw his hat in the ring and Digvijay lobbied hard on his behalf, but the diminutive Lal Bahadur Shastri won. He died less than two years later in Tashkent, where he had just signed the controversial treaty which formally ended the second war between India and Pakistan. This time Morarji's enemies backed Indira Gandhi, just to keep him out, but Digvijay refused to take advantage of his friendship with the new prime minister and stood by his leader. In 1969, Indira Gandhi, feeling herself stifled by the old guard who still dominated the Congress Party organization, took one of the great gambles of her political career: she caused a split in the parliamentary party. It was a close-run race, but Indira was the winner. I asked Digvijay, ‘Did you tell Indira that you were not going to vote for her at that crucial stage in her political career?’
‘Yes, of course I did,’ he replied. ‘She didn't say anything. She never used to talk. Nehru and Morarji used to talk. But, you know, even then she didn't turn against me. In the general election after the split I was one of the few Morarji men to win. One reason, perhaps, was that Indira never campaigned against me. I was told that some people had suggested that a stronger candidate should be put up against me, to teach me a lesson, but Indira refused.’
‘How near did you come to defeat that time?'
‘Oh, it was a very close fought thing. I won by only 7,000 votes, mostly the votes of my own caste. I remember my son at the counting station saying that he was going home because he did not want to be there when my defeat was announced. I told him, “I am going to win. It doesn't look good if you go now. Stay with me and wait.”’
‘It doesn't look good’ is a phrase which recurs often in Digvijay's conversation. Throughout his political career he was always concerned about appearances: he felt that right should be seen to be done. Right to him meant honesty and loyalty. He stood for a Victorian concept of loyalty which is not practical in politics anywhere today.
The only time that he was totally opposed to Indira Gandhi was during the state of emergency she declared in 1975. That came about because a judge had found her guilty of electoral corruption. The law demanded that she resign but she went to the Supreme Court, which allowed her to stay in office while the appeal was heard. Sanjay Gandhi, her younger son, urged the prime minister not to take any risks. He collected a group of his mother's senior advisers who helped him to persuade her to declare a state of emergency. This she did on 26 June 1975. Ignoring the constitutional niceties, she arrested the leaders of the opposition – including Morarji Desai – in the early hours of the morning, before she got the approval of her cabinet for the emergency. But then the Constitution was to be torn into shreds during the emergency, so perhaps it mattered little that the process started prematurely. The press was censored; fundamental rights, including habeas corpus, which obliged the state to bring anyone arrested before a court, were curtailed; and the prime minister was elevated to a position where she was virtually above the law. The little problem of the corruption charge was dealt with by the simple expedient of amending the law so that election disputes involving the prime minister could not be taken to court.
Indira Gandhi justified the emergency by claiming that there had been a ‘plot’ against the state. It is true that her infringement of the electoral law had been little more than a technicality, and that in the months before the court verdict the opposition had taken to the streets – first in Gujarat, Morarji's state, and then in Bihar. Nevertheless, no substantial evidence was produced to justify the claim made in an official document that there was a ‘grand design’ to overthrow the government.
This certainly ‘did not look good’ to Digvijay. However, remembering his role in the independence movement, he decided against going for the limelight and forcing Indira Gandhi to arrest him too. He was taken into custody once for demonstrating in Patna, but that was a very mild affair: he was held for only two weeks and he was allowed to go to Doctor Sahib's house for a bath every morning. For most of the nineteen months the emergency was strictly enforced, he worked quietly but effectively at breaking the stranglehold of the censors. By paying bribes to a junior official in the Ministry of Information, he managed to get hold of much of the news which was being censored. In that way he did better than the president of India – a Muslim who did not know of brutal slum clearances in a Muslim quarter of Delhi just two miles from his palace until he was told of them by a member of his own family. The slum clearances and an attempt to deal with India's chronic population problem by compulsory sterilization provided plenty of copy for Digvijay. (Both those programmes were spearheaded by Sanjay Gandhi.)
Digvijay distributed his news to foreign correspondents and to some Indian journalists. I asked him what was the purpose of that when both foreign and Indian correspondents were being censored. He replied, ‘The Indians were at least able to feed it into the rumour mill, which did enormous damage to the government, and the foreign correspondents told me that they got some of it out to the world. That worried Indira Gandhi a lot. She was always very conscious of her international standing.’
‘Was that the only way you distributed the news?’ I asked.
‘No. I used to travel a lot too, you know. I would deceive the police by buying a first-class railway ticket at the parliament booking-office to one place and then going by second-class to another. I wasn't used to second-class and I didn't find it very comfortable, but there you are. As the train pulled out of stations, I used to scatter leaflets carrying the news. Actually I don't think I needed all that subterfuge.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, after the emergency was over I was shown a file on which Indira Gandhi had noted that I was not to be arrested without her written approval. You see, she still had a soft spot for me. In fact, after the emergency she herself said to me, “I know that you know a lot of things about me personally, but you never printed them.”’
In January 1977, nineteen months after the declaration of the state of emergency, Indira Gandhi surprised her countrymen and the many international pundits who had pronounced Indian democracy dead by announcing that there would be a general election. Censorship was relaxed, and most of the opposition leaders – including Morarji Desai – were released. Digvijay's hour of triumph had come, but he had also started on the road which would lead to his final defeat. The town of Muzaffarpur in northern Bihar was to be the scene of that defeat; so we decided to postpone discussion of that until we had gone there.
The next day, Digvijay's family came on to the verandah to see him off. His wife said to me, ‘I am very sorry that my eldest son and his wife are not living in the house at Muzaffarpur at present. He will not be able to look after you properly.’ She never referred to Digvijay by name, or as her husband.
A grey-haired servant who was deaf and dumb packed Digvijay's baggage in the boot of the car. Digvijay's wife had found the servant living on the streets many years ago and had taken him in. He was now fiercely loyal to her. Digvijay's baggage consisted of an old-fashioned bedding roll and a battered black suitcase. He explained, ‘I always take that suitcase wherever I go, because it travelled with me throughout the emergency. Those were the best days of my life.’
Digvijay's cousin Mahesh Prasad Sahi was to travel with us – Digvijay still retained enough of his feudal instincts to dislike travelling without at least one sidekick.
As we drove down the narrow alley which led from the house to the main road, Digvijay said, ‘My wife was very attentive to you. I don't know how she sat and talked to you – she would normally say, “ooh, angraiz [foreigners]!” and go and hide herself.’
I laughed and said, ‘Perhaps she does not have the same respect for you now that you are no longer a neta [leader].’
Digvijay smiled.
We crossed the bridge over the Ganges which had replaced the f
erries. The river was still swollen because of the good monsoon. We then bypassed the town of Hajipur on the opposite bank to Patna and drove into banana country. Groves of banana plantains with their light-green fronds and red spiky flowers lined the road on both sides. There were also tall tari palms. We were too late to see the toddy tappers shinning up the palms’ thin trunks to collect the earthenware pots suspended from their flowers. Juice drips from the flowers into the pots and ferments to make toddy, the poor man's tipple.
The banana groves thinned out and we came to open country and rice fields. The harvest had started. Men and women squatting on their haunches were cutting the yellow rice with sickles. Others were laying the rice out to dry. In some fields the rice had already dried and was being rolled into unwieldy bundles and carried away on the heads of labourers. Women and children were scouring those fields for straw and grain which had fallen from the bundles – to them, every grain counted. I contrasted this traditional harvest with the combine harvesters I had seen recently in Punjab.
A local cattle fair was in progress in one of the small towns we drove through. The thin and unproductive cows were tethered in groups under trees. Again Punjab, with its sleek and healthy cattle improved by Jersey and Friesian strains, came to mind.
Mahesh kept me amused by telling me stories about Bihar politics and Digvijay's campaigning. He said that Digvijay had been very obstinate. ‘We always had a lot of trouble with him because he would only do what he wanted to do – he wouldn't listen to us. I personally think he only won because of his own reputation for honesty and because of the standing of his family. No one else could win campaigning like he did. For instance, we could never get him to address meetings like other candidates do.’