When it was her turn to be prime minister, she was seen to give in to the demands of her sons. The Sanjay chapter is more familiar and stark. After Indira’s return to power in 1980, “Sanjay’s power was at its zenith and practically irresistible,” according to Inder Malhotra, Indira’s biographer. “Ministers and top civil servants vied with one another to do his bidding, however arbitrary. Those having qualms about this soon found themselves in trouble; politicians were sidelined and recalcitrant bureaucrats were summarily removed from their positions, humiliated and often kept waiting for months for alternative, usually inconsequential postings.” When Rajiv arrived on the scene, following Sanjay’s death, he was a contrast to Sanjay in demeanour and a radical visionary in many aspects, but whimsical and inexperienced in many others.

In the early 1980s he went to Andhra Pradesh as AICC general secretary and rebuked chief minister T. Anjiah in full public view. The incident became the single most important catalyst for the formation of the Telugu Desam Party by N.T. Rama Rao. Rajiv was accused of hurting Andhra pride.

Ideologically too, the Nehrus shifted towards the views of generation next. If Motilal the moderate was radicalised by Jawaharlal, the autocratic streak in Jawaharlal the democrat was touched off by Indira Gandhi. Indira even questioned the patriotic credentials of the Communists, before becoming their ideological co-traveller. Sanjay Gandhi brought about another turn in her political attitudes. Sanjay said in 1975 that the Left was ‘anti-national,’ and the public sector corrupt and inefficient and therefore must be privatised. Her Leftist friends complained to Indira, apparently to no avail.

... contd.