Review of Srinath Raghavan's new book on Indira Gandhi

The Hindu

19-06-2025

Srinath Raghavan's latest book, Indira Gandhi and the Years That Transformed India, examines her political career as India's long 1970s. It takes a chronological arc: her assumption of prime ministerial office in 1966, her struggle to take tight control of the Congress party, her landslide electoral win of 1971, thereafter her leadership of the country in the war with Pakistan, the imposition of Emergency, loss to the Janata Party in 1977, her stint in opposition, return to office in 1980 and her assassination in 1984. Placing this extended decade in a global context, Raghavan argues that 'the long 1970s were the hinge on which the contemporary history of India turned, transforming the young postcolonial country into today's India.'
In an interview, Raghavan explains various ideas and events that marked these tumultuous years. Excerpts:
In this political history of the Indira Gandhi years, a word that recurs repeatedly is Caesarist/Caesarism. In your view, is it central to understanding the changes that she oversaw, and how it transformed the Indian polity?
Caesarism refers to a style of politics in which the leader seeks directly to connect with the people, bypassing party structures or the parliament. I found it useful to understand an important change in the Indian politics ushered in by Indira Gandhi – more useful than currently modish terms such as populist or charismatic. Democratic politics has, by definition, an element of populism. And charisma is only one aspect of the Caesarist style of leadership.
Was she already inclined to the Caesarist style? Did her style shift-shape along the way?
Indira Gandhi adopted this mode of leadership in response to the specific problems confronting the Congress party. The party's drab performance in the 1967 elections underlined its inability to carry with it significant sections of the electorate. At the same time, it accentuated the power struggle within the party between the prime minister and the regional grandees who controlled the machine. Indira Gandhi moved towards a Caesarist style both to undercut her rivals in the party and revive its electoral fortunes. Her decision to split the Congress was undoubtedly a crucial first step. But equally important were the extraordinary performance of her party in the general elections of 1971 and the decisive military victory over Pakistan later the same year. These, in turn, propelled the party to a massive win in the State elections of 1972. None of these could have been predicted when she broke the old Congress. But cumulatively they cemented her control of the party. Without such dominance it is difficult to imagine the party tamely falling in with her decision to impose the Emergency in June 1975.
The triumphs of 1971-2 to the imposition of Emergency in 1975 and the rapid consolidation of the Emergency regime — do you see a vein of risk-taking running through the entire arc? Or did, as in the popular view, fortitude give way to paranoia?
I don't see her as an inveterate risk-taker. Rather she had a sharp, instinctive grasp of power relations (whether in domestic or international politics), an instinctive sense of timing and a willingness to make bold choices. These qualities worked for her in the crises of the early years, but they also led to counterproductive outcomes in later years—not only the Emergency but also her handling of the problems in Punjab, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir during her final term in office. All along, she tended to blame difficult situations on the machinations of her domestic or international opponents. This made her somewhat impervious to introspecting on her own choices and their consequences. Yet, as her bete noire Henry Kissinger once said, even the paranoid can have real enemies.
You write that 'the long 1970s placed the Indian economy on the road to liberalisation, if only via a crooked path'. Do you think this point remains little appreciated?
Indeed. The received wisdom on Indira Gandhi's economic policies is that they were 'socialist' and they tightened the grip of the state on private capital. This is true, but it is also a partial picture. In fact, the heyday of nationalisation and state control in the early 1970s proved brief, though it was damaging enough. The embrace of these policies coincided with the onset of a global economic crisis triggered by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of stable exchange rates and the oil shocks that followed the Arab-Israel war of 1973. Such was the impact of this global crisis on the Indian economy that Indira Gandhi was forced to embrace conservative macroeconomic policies and move in the direction of liberalising controls on the economy. Before and during the Emergency as well as in her last term in office she adopted strong anti-inflationary policies. During these periods, she also espoused pro-business policies — policies that were viewed favourably by established players like J.R.D. Tata and newer entrants like Dhirubhai Ambani. In so doing, she put the Indian economy on the long road towards liberalisation.
The tenure of the Janata Party was a vital phase of the long 1970s. How much was Indira Gandhi a defining factor in the manner and pace at which the regime unravelled?
The Janata government was united in its desire to fix Indira Gandhi after 1977, but divided on how best to proceed. This led to some spectacular own-goals such as the abortive move to arrest her in 1978. Indira Gandhi, for her part, proved more astute in playing on the faultlines within the Janata Party and on the thrusting ambition of some of its leaders. In particular, her move to support Charan Singh's bid for premiership ensured that the Janata Party was broken beyond repair or rapprochement.
How important were these years out of power, 1977-1980, in her own eventual evolution?
These were undoubtedly the most challenging years of her political life. Yet, her ability to retain a grip on a section of the Congress party, to revive her popular fortunes by dramatic moves (such as in support of the Dalits after the massacre in Belchi), and to bounce back by winning the 1978 by-election in Chikmagalur — all showcased her political instincts and tenacity. At the same time, these years also led her further down the path of personalising power in the party (which she split for a second time) and of relying on her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, who was clearly the dynastic heir apparent.
You conclude that while the Janata government had successfully rolled back the Emergency, it did not reconfigure the coordinates of parliamentary democracy put in place on Mrs. Gandhi's watch. Yet, did its record inform the coalition governments to come in later years, of the 'third front', BJP, and the Congress?
The Janata government certainly foreshadowed the era of coalition politics that began in the late 1980s. While several of the main protagonists of this period were active in 1977-79, it is not clear they had learned much from that bitter experience. Rather, the record of some of the later coalition governments bore out the dictum that the only thing we learn from history is how to make new mistakes!
You choose not to speculate about the reasons for her announcement of elections in 1977. But did this announcement embed in the Indian political system the centrality of elections?
The outcome of the 1977 elections demonstrated that even the most powerful political leader could be unseated and humbled. Coming in the wake of the Emergency, when institutional checks and balances had manifestly failed to uphold democracy, elections were now regarded as central to Indian democracy.
A decade ago you had published a profile of Indira Gandhi - from then to now, has your assessment of the arc of her prime ministerial career altered?
My assessments have changed in a couple of ways. The availability of newly declassified archival materials, including from the Prime Minister's Secretariat, has enabled me to understand better the ideas and impulses that lay behind many of the choices and decisions made by Indira Gandhi and her contemporaries. This is true even of such well known episodes as the nationalisation of banks. At the same time, I have developed a deeper appreciation of the gulf between intentions and outcomes, and how the latter were decisively shaped by the wider, including the global, currents of the long 1970s. At the outset of her premiership, for instance, Indira Gandhi wanted to restore the economy to the track of planned economic development (on the Nehruvian model). But the economic imperatives and crises of the period effectively led to rather a different model of political economy — one that combined targeted anti-poverty programmes with a liberalising, pro-business outlook. This framework has proved durable and continues to shape Indian political economy today.
The interviewer is a Delhi-based editor and journalist.
Indira Gandhi and the Years That Transformed India Srinath Raghavan Allen Lane ₹899