by Karan Thapar
The private Indira Gandhi was surprisingly different. She was petite, with delicate, almost fragile hands. Her letters to Dorothy Norman reveal a troubled personality struggling between the political demands on her life and her inner wish for solitude and quiet contemplation.
Indira Gandhi also had an impish sense of fun. In the 1960s, when deference and formality still determined our lives, she organized a treasure hunt for one of Shobha’s birthdays. The clues were innocently naughty. They included fish bones from Alps, a restaurant in Janpath, and a policeman’s helmet. At the time, no one knew that the architect of this harmless mischief was Indira Gandhi. Even her two sons, who were at the party, had no idea of the clues their mother had devised.
In 1976, at the height of the Emergency when her power was unchallenged, I recall a breakfast at 1, Safdarjung Road before Indira Gandhi took my sisters and me to see one of the Pink Panther films at Rashtrapati Bhavan. When it was time for a quick pee before leaving for the cinema, my sister Premila asked her how she managed on her travels. I’ll never forget her reply.
‘It’s a dreadful problem for every woman politician. Unlike men, we can’t go behind a tree! So I drink all the water I need last thing at night in the hope that it’s out of the system by the morning.’
Indira Gandhi also had a dry and subtle sense of humour. Once, while speaking to Peter Ustinov about the appalling state of the Indian telephone system she said: ‘They call it crossbar but I think they mean crosswire.’ At the time, that said it all.
My sisters and later, I suppose, I, were part of a handful of friends that Sanjay had. The truth is that socially he was a recluse. He detested parties and preferred to be with just one or two in a small group. However, though no real talker, Sanjay could be entertaining. He loved jokes, even though he always preferred to tell them himself. His taste in humour was often vulgar but he told his jokes extremely well. Sanjay also loved dogs and horses. At his mother’s home in Delhi, he had a small kennel containing, among other dogs, two Irish wolfhounds, Sean and Sheba, of whom he was especially proud. They were the size of ponies and, though dumb and slow, pretty frightening to behold.
Sometime in the late summer of 1976, perhaps late August or early September, Sanjay asked if I wanted to go flying with him. He was a regular at the Delhi Flying Club at Safdarjung Airport, where he frequently flew a single-engine propeller plane. It had two seats, one for the pilot and one, in this instance, for a guest.
Once we had taken off and the plane had settled into a comfortable flight, Sanjay asked if I wanted to learn how to fly. Hesitantly, I accepted. What I recall is that he allowed me to occasionally put the plane into a wobble before he would laugh and correct course. His confidence made him indulgent not just of my inexperience but also my poor learning skills. However, I doubt if he was a qualified instructor. He was simply busking it.
Once the novelty of teaching a novice to fly had worn off, Sanjay began to display his own skill at aerobatics. He seemed to attempt every type of loop the little aircraft was capable of. I don’t recall anything particularly dangerous but it was, nonetheless, thrilling.
By this time, we were a good distance from Delhi. Judging by the landscape, we were flying over the agricultural lands that surround the capital. Suddenly, Sanjay decided to scare the local farmers working in the fields by aiming the aircraft straight at them. As we dived towards them, their first response was to happily wave back. However, when the plane continued aiming for them, I could see the immediate change in their behaviour. They scattered in every direction as they started running, clearly scared for their lives. At the last moment, Sanjay swerved dramatically upwards. As the plane changed course and lifted skywards he looked down and waved at the perplexed lot below. He was clearly pleased with the outcome of his prank.
Whatever view one takes of such sport, it requires nerves of steel and tremendous self-confidence. Sanjay had both in abundance. It’s a strange quirk of fate that he should have died in a flying accident caused by mechanical failure. Of course, we’ll never know for sure whether that, in turn, was brought on by the unsafe aerobatics he was attempting at the time.
I’ve known Aung San Suu Kyi since I was five. At the time, her mother was the Burmese ambassador in India and Suu, as I’ve always called her, was an undergraduate at Lady Shri Ram College. Our parents became friends and on most days Suu and my sister Kiran would drive together to college.
Madame Aung San, Suu’s mother, was a warm and caring lady who loved to feed people. Khow swe was one of her specialities. My favourite was her black rice pudding.
In the early 1960s, the Burmese ambassador lived at 24, Akbar Road. Today, it’s the Congress party’s office. On weekends Madame Aung San would drive beyond the Qutab to feed Buddhist monks in the monasteries that existed in that area. I would often accompany her, confident in my greedy belief that I would be fed khow swe thereafter!
Even as a teenager, Suu’s idealism and unrelenting commitment to her principles was the most defining quality of her character. It was one of the first things that struck you when you got to know her. She was clearly drawn to politics and knew that her future would ultimately lie in ruling Burma (the name she prefers for Myanmar). A pencil-drawn portrait that she made of my sister Kiran, dated 11 October 1962, has inscribed at the bottom: ‘Kiran Thapar may be allowed entry into Burma at any time’. Suu was seventeen at the time.
I personally got to know Suu a decade later. It happened in the late ’70s, when I moved to Oxford. By now married, she and Michael had a home in Park Town, not far from St Antony’s. I would often drop by for coffee and a piece of cake, or Suu would ring and ask if I could babysit her younger son Kim, while she and Michael went to the movies.
A little incident from this time illustrates the sort of person she was and how she would react to any hint of racial prejudice. As usual, I was babysitting Kim, and Suu and Michael had just returned home. She suggested a nightcap before I left. We started telling jokes and I cracked one about the Chinese. Unthinkingly, I referred to them as ‘Chinks’.
‘You can’t use that word,’ she sharply rebuked me. ‘It’s not acceptable even in humour.’ Her tone left me in no doubt of her seriousness.
Yet, this unflinching commitment to the values she considers important is, paradoxically, contrasted by her delicate and petite appearance. Suu is not just small and thin, she seems fragile. The flowers that she always wears in her hair give her an exotic touch. Her lilting speech is beguiling. So it is always a bit of a shock to hear her strong opinions. It’s not what you expect from someone who seems so delicate.
In 1982, when Nisha and I were preparing for our marriage, Suu found out about the impending date from a common friend. I’d been away in Nigeria and then caught up with my new job at LWT and, as a result, we hadn’t met for a couple of years.
‘I hope you’re going to invite me,’ she rang up to ask. ‘I’m the closest thing you have to a sister in London and I have to be there.’ When I assured her that I would, she laughed, sensing that I was simply covering up. ‘Come off it, Karan, you were never a good liar. If I hadn’t rung you, you would never have phoned me.’
Suu travelled down to London for the wedding and brought Kim with her. Later, at the reception Nisha and I hosted for ourselves at the London School of Economics—Nisha’s alma mater—Suu met her for the first time. When she was leaving, she grabbed my hand and pulled me aside.
‘Do you realize how lucky you are?’ she said. ‘Nisha’s not just a lovely girl, but I think she’s going to keep you in check and, even if you don’t know it, that’s what you need!’ In the years that followed, whenever she called, Suu would claim that it wasn’t me she wanted to speak to but Nisha, and the reason was to find out if I was behaving myself!
When I started appearing on Eastern Eye on LWT, Suu would often call and talk about the stories I’d done and joke about my self-consciousness on screen. I got the impression that she made an effort to watch the programme and, whenever she
did, she wouldn’t hesitate to communicate what she thought about it.
Sometime in the mid-1980s—perhaps 1986 or 1987—I returned from a vacation in India to find a series of messages from Suu on the answering machine. Each asked me to ring and each sounded more anxious than the previous one. The final message simply said, ‘Where are you? What’s happened to you? Why won’t you ring back?’
I rang her at once, wondering what had happened. It took a couple of calls before I traced her to London, where she was at the time.
‘Thank God you’ve rung.’ But when I tried to explain that I had been away on holiday and had only just returned from Delhi, she interrupted me.
‘Well, you have to come over at once. There’s someone you have to meet and you’ll never believe who it is. I’m not going to tell you, so you have to come as quickly as you can.’
Though jetlagged, I hurried across to find out that Suu’s mother was in town and, in fact, on her way back to Rangoon. Suu had been ringing for a couple of weeks because she’d wanted me to meet her. Now they were in London for a bit before Madame Aung San’s return. I think I met Suu’s mother on what must have been her last day in England.
‘Look, Ma, look. Do you remember the fat little roly-poly? Hasn’t he changed? And these days he appears on television and tells the rest of us what to think!’ Suu was giggling as she said it. Her mother enveloped me in a warm embrace as she used to when I was five or six.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this was my last meeting with Suu for more than twenty years. A year or so later Suu’s mother fell ill. Suu dashed home to nurse her and ended up involved in politics, leading her country’s popular student movement against military rule and in support of democracy. Years of house arrest and endless political struggle followed, during which time Suu was cut off from the world. For the following two decades my only contact was the unexplained phone call and the lucky interview I’d managed sometime in 1989.
We next spoke in 2011, the year she was released. We met a year later when she visited India and then again in 2015, when I flew to Rangoon to interview her.
I now saw Suu in a changed light. I realized that she had learnt to become two different people almost at the same time. During her interviews she was a politician, conscious that I was going to ask awkward questions which she was determined not to fully answer. She seemed to enjoy the cut and thrust of our exchange. This was the formal and somewhat reserved politician. But when it was over she would always say, ‘Now tell me about yourself and the family. Let’s have a cup of tea and catch up.’ She would recall the smallest of details, the names of my entire family—including aunts and uncles I assumed she had long forgotten—as well as my hobbies and interests and the pranks I often used to get up to. Despite all that had happened, her memory and her desire to reconnect was undimmed. This was the old Suu.
That is why it’s so surprising that today Suu is unable to express concern and sympathy for the Rohingyas. I realize that she has to walk a careful line between offending her country’s majority Burmese population and showing concern for the Rohingya minority they despise. When I last interviewed her, in September 2015, just before the elections that brought her to power, I questioned her silence. Her explanation was that this was the only way of ensuring she would be seen as impartial by both sides. Silence gave her the opportunity and credibility to act impartially when she came to power. Her aim was reconciliation and condemnation would get in the way. It would fan the flames, not douse them.
She was speaking to me three years after the Rohingya issue first flared up in 2012 but long before October 2016 and August 2017. So I had no reason to doubt her.
Yet, this was a test she knew she would have to face sooner rather than later. The Rohingya problem is an old one that goes back to the 1940s, when they sided with the British against the Japanese, who had the support of the majority Burmese people. Indeed, immediately after Myanmar’s independence, the Rohingyas tried to form a breakaway Muslim nation. Therefore, the bitterness between the Rohingyas and the rest of the country was waiting to explode. Suu has always known this.
It is also a fact that she’s not president and internal security lies in the hands of the army who thwarted her claim to the top job. Criticizing them could endanger the limited power she exercises. She has to tread carefully and speak cautiously. Hers is not a positon of absolute authority. She has to compromise to survive.
Yet, not for a moment did I think that the compromise she would strike would be so tilted in favour of retaining power and influence whilst forsaking her own principles.
Today, if she speaks, it’s about Rohingya terrorism and the killing of security personnel. She has nothing to say about the innocent men, women and children who have been killed in their hundreds and rendered homeless in their hundreds of thousands. Does political expediency dominate her principles so completely that she cannot even express compassion? Is she so fearful of the army that she’s forgotten her own values? I didn’t expect her to defy the army or endanger Burma’s fledgling democracy, but I also did not expect her lips to remain so firmly sealed.
This raises a disturbing question: was her silence on the Rohingya issue before the elections impartiality, as she claimed, or seeking favour with the Burmese majority whose support she would need? Was it pragmatism or opportunism?
In the interview in September 2015 she described herself as ‘a pragmatic leader’. At the time, that adjective conveyed a sense of careful balance. Today it suggests a cover for unbecoming compromise. When I asked if she was ready for the challenge of ruling Burma, she answered: ‘It’s a daunting challenge … I hope it brings out the best in me.’ I wish I could say that it has.
8
RAJIV GANDHI AND MY RETURN TO INDIA
I
t was Rajiv Gandhi who made my return to India possible. It happened in two stages and he was, I suppose, the architect of both.
First, in 1989, months after Nisha’s death, when I happened to be in Delhi, Rajiv asked if I had decided how and where I would now lead my life. I said I was toying with the idea of returning home.
‘But have you any experience of working in India?’ The truth was, I had none. Nor, till then, had this troubled me.
‘Perhaps you ought to try it out for a bit before you commit yourself to a final decision?’
‘But how?’ I asked.
It seemed as if Rajiv had already thought this through. He suggested that I come back and work with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), and Doordarshan. ‘Do a trial period of three to six months and then, if this experience proves helpful and encouraging, come back for good.’ This made a lot of sense and I immediately agreed.
Rajiv arranged for me to spend time in the ministry with the rank of secretary. At the time, the I&B secretary was Bob Murari. Suman Dubey was the special adviser.
These were the last months of Rajiv’s tenure. With every passing week, it became clear that he was unlikely to be re-elected. This changing and febrile political environment made it easier for Doordarshan to be adventurous and, occasionally, even objective in its coverage.
I worked with a new band of reporters Doordarshan had recently recruited—young men and women keen to show their skills and prove their intellectual independence. I’m not sure if we made any impact, although some of the young people went on to make a name on the independent television channels which sprouted and then flourished a couple of years later.
My stint with the ministry and Doordarshan ended with Rajiv’s defeat. To my astonishment, however, he did not forget about me.
‘Well, what’s your conclusion after three months?’ Rajiv rang one night to ask. ‘Has this experience put you off India or are you still keen to return?’
I said I was keener than ever, but I now had to look around for a proper job. After all, I needed something to do before I committed myself to coming back. But Rajiv already had the answer. He’d been in touch with Shobhana Bhartia, then the editorial director
of the Hindustan Times and K.K. Birla’s favourite daughter, and had persuaded her to set up a video magazine. This was one way of starting independent news and current affairs in India. The concept was similar to Aroon Purie’s Newstrack, which had started making waves in urban middle-class India. Shobhana liked the idea and Rajiv suggested she should ask me to set up the venture and run it.
‘Would this interest you?’ Rajiv asked.
I knew this could be the only way of continuing a television career in India. My three months with the ministry and Doordarshan were sufficient to convince me that it was impossible for an independent journalist to fit into the government system without damaging his or her integrity and credibility. In the absence of independent TV channels, a video magazine that circulated through video libraries or direct subscription was the only hope of a television career. So my answer was that this made a lot of sense and I would be happy to join such a venture.
It took a few months to tie everything up, but by the early autumn of 1990 I was back in Delhi. Shobhana Bhartia’s new venture was called Eyewitness and I was its editor-in-chief.
Those were early and exciting days for budding Indian television journalists. The members of the team I recruited were in their twenties and often fresh from college. Journalism was new to them. But they were quick learners and their diligence and natural curiosity helped shape them into sharp-eyed correspondents. At least two of the four correspondents I recruited graduated to the top of the journalist profession: Seema Chishti and Nikhil Alva. Nishtha Jain, one of our film editors, later became a top producer while Narendra Godavali became a leading cameraman with NDTV.
Eyewitness launched with a bang in March 1991, a day or so after Rajiv pulled the plug on Chandra Shekhar’s minority government. This one act threw Indian politics into turmoil, thus creating a rich and fertile feeding ground for a new journalistic venture. We couldn’t have asked for a better start.
