Two Encounters with Indira Gandhi, Seven Years Apart.

Since we seem to be in a season of personal recollections, family anecdotes and intimate revelations, not all of which necessarily have much to do with facts or history, I thought I might add two of my own.

I met Indira Gandhi twice. The first time I was eleven. The second, eighteen.

The first meeting came about in rather unusual circumstances.

In November 1971, my father had moved us to Damana, Jammu and Kashmir, a few kilometres from the Pakistan border. By December, war had broken out and, like any child growing up in a military family, I was witnessing events that were extraordinary, frightening and, in their own way, exciting.

In my fortnightly letter to my grandparents In Delhi, I described what we were seeing and experiencing.

It was quite a brave little letter. Written with the uncomplicated patriotism of a child who knew her country was at war and whose family was very much part of that reality.

My grandfather read the letter aloud one evening to a good family friend who dropped in frequently.

The gentleman, in turn, happened to have close associations with the Congress Party, showed it to the then Defence Minister, Jagjivan Ram - who, I was told, subsequently read it out in Parliament on 4 December 1971, while speaking about the high morale of the Indian armed forces.

He spoke of the extraordinary dedication and spirit of the officers and jawans, their readiness to make the supreme sacrifice for the motherland, and how even their children, growing up in military families, were imbued with the same patriotic fervour.

Of course, at the time, I had no real appreciation of what that meant.

Two months later, when we were visiting my grandparents in Delhi, the same gentleman took me to meet the Defence Minister.

I remember exactly what I wore. My best party dress, stitched by my mother. White socks, white shoes and a hairband. I was also a little sulky because my mother had insisted I wear a cardigan, which mostly concealed the enormous, very pretty bow at the back of my cheerful yellow dress.

A big tragedy, as far as I was concerned.

I have no recollection of my conversation with Jagjivan Ram, but I remember his warmth and affection. And that he admired my yellow dress.

He then took my hand and, accompanied by my grandfather’s friend, led me to meet Indira Gandhi.

And there she was. The Prime Minister of India.

Down a few steps from a veranda, across a small patch of grass, past several pots of flowers. This, I think was the Congress Party HQ at 5, Rajendra Prasad Road.

It was a rather perfunctory encounter. She seemed preoccupied, distracted and decidedly uninterested. There was little warmth, no particular curiosity, and I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

I was eleven. Children don’t necessarily understand the demands on a Prime Minister’s time, but they are remarkably quick at sensing whether an adult is interested in them.

On returning home, I remember announcing to my grandparents, quite categorically, that I didn’t like her. “She blinks too much.”

That, apparently, was my considered assessment of the Prime Minister of India.

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Seven years later, I met her again. This time, in Kashmir.

My father was the Brigade Commander, and Indira Gandhi, now in the Opposition, had come for a political rally. She was waiting at the brigade’s helipad in Baramulla, to board a helicopter for Jammu.

A marquee had been erected, and she sat beneath it in a midnight blue pheran embroidered in pink. with two attendants in tow.

The GOC was present, as were my parents, other officers and their wives. I went up, wished her, as so many others had done, and moved away.

I was no longer the little girl in the yellow party dress. I was eighteen, old enough to observe people with rather more interest and, perhaps, a little more discernment.

Or so I liked to think.

She seemed uninterested, almost disengaged. But what struck me was something else.

She appeared to have little interest in engaging with the women around her. 

Her distant and bored expression was rather off-putting. Yet whenever an officer approached, her demeanour changed.

She seemed to perk up, becoming noticeably more attentive and even charming. I found it interesting that, even at eighteen, I could recognise a certain coquetry in an older woman.

It was a small observation, but one that stayed with me.

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I have often wondered how much of our admiration for public figures comes from the people themselves, and how much from the positions they occupy.

We are conditioned to regard certain individuals as extraordinary because history has placed them in extraordinary circumstances. Their reputations precede them. Their offices lend them an aura. And we tend to assume that greatness in public life must somehow translate into an equally impressive personal presence.

It doesn’t necessarily.

Indira Gandhi was, without question, one of the most consequential political figures in India’s history. Her decisions shaped the country, for better and for worse, in ways that continue to be debated.

That is a matter of historical record.

But history’s assessment of a political leader and one’s personal impression of that leader are two entirely different things.

Mine was formed during two brief encounters, seven years apart, in circumstances that could scarcely have been more different.

I don’t pretend that two fleeting encounters offer any profound insight into Indira Gandhi’s character. They don’t.

But they left me with remarkably similar impressions.

Perhaps she was preoccupied on both occasions. Perhaps I expected too much. Or perhaps I was simply an unusually opinionated child who grew into an equally opinionated woman.

Whatever the explanation, seven years had done little to change my mind.

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