Category: Anecdotes

Last year, around this time, I had visited the Dras War Memorial.No true Indian can visit there and not get emotional.

I strongly believe that Indian civilians do not have a clue about the numerous sacrifices made by our Army brethren to save our country from our murderous enemies.Not only are Indian civilians clueless, they are utterly insensitive and callous too.

Here is a heart-breaking anecdote from an Army daughter:

While news coverage in 1999 brought Kargil to the Indian living room, we witnessed the war at a very personal level. With every tricolour wrapped coffin, we hoped it was not someone we knew. Not the officer who used to play hide and seek with us during Mess parties, or the one who used to take us for bike rides on his new Kawasaki, or the one who first taught you how to hold a tennis racket or even the one who we used to make fun of because some pretty girl refused to dance with him in last month’s social evening. But all we could do was hope. As the number of dead soldiers soared, our hopes waned. Every death was the loss of a father, a husband, a son, a brother a fiancé or a childhood sweetheart, all of whom to us, were family.
While most of the country was surprisingly supportive, given the lack of information about the defence forces out there, there were instances that made most of us Army kids cringe, partly in disbelief and partly in disgust.

 

I remember flying Indian Airlines from Bombay to Bhuj and as I was about to board the plane I suddenly noticed those dreaded coffins about 10 meters from where I was.

There were about fifteen of them, along the sidewalk, wrapped snugly in the tricolour before they were about to be transported to their various residences or battalions. I noticed this rather corpulent gentleman giving stern directions for what exactly to do with these ‘boxes’ as he called them. These were his exact words, while he loudly thumped one of them “Arey kya yaar, in dabbo ko hatta yaha se, poora jam karke rakha hai idhar.” My heart sank and my eyes welled up instantly with tears of anger, rage and most of all, insult.
But I could do nothing. I let him deride the lost lives of the people I have known and loved for years. To my horror, I found out later, that Indian Airlines had refused to transport these very coffins in their carriers. So much for being a public sector airline.

The aspirants included the late Arjun Singh, N.D Tiwari, Sharad Pawar and Madhav Rao Scindia. Sonia Gandhi was aware of this. I told her that the time had come for her to indicate her preference for Congress president. He would naturally become Prime Minister. For so momentous a decision, I suggested she ask P.N. Haksar for advice. She said she would let me know. Meanwhile, she consulted several people, including M.L. Fotedar.

 

The next day, she asked me to bring P.N. Haksar to No.10 Janpath. Haksar’s advice was to offer the post to Vice-President Shankar Dayal Sharma. He suggested that Aruna Asaf Ali and I should sound out the Vice-President. Aruna Asaf Ali told the Vice-President that she and I had been asked to request him to accept the post of Congress party president. In other words, he would be the Prime Minister. Shankar Dayal Sharma gave us a patient hearing. He then said he was touched and honoured by Soniaji placing so much trust in him.

 

What followed staggered Arunaji and me. The Vice-President continued, “The prime ministership of India is a full time job. My age and health would not let me to do justice to the most important office in the country. Kindly convey to Soniaji the reasons for my inability to take on such an awesome a responsibility”. His answer was wholly unexpected. To turn down the prime ministership of India was something only a man of self-confidence and integrity could do.

 

On the way back, Arunaji and I hardly exchanged a word, because Shankar Dayalji’s response had overwhelmed us.

We reported to Ms. Gandhi the Vice-President’s decision. The country was without a Prime Minister. Such a hiatus could not be prolonged. Already the media was reporting unseemly and not-so-innocent jockeying for the job.

 

Once again she turned to P.N. Haksar, who advised her to send for P.V. Narasimha Rao. The rest is history

 

–wrote Natwar Singh, former Foreign Minister of India in The Hindu

In autumn 2011, a Dalit first-year student at AIIMS named Pankaj Meena was delivering a PowerPoint presentation in class on the functioning of the human kidneys. When he got to the fifth slide, Pankaj said, the professor interrupted and told him to go back to the very first slide. Then he asked Pankaj, “What is the most interesting thing in this introduction?” Pankaj looked at the slide, puzzled, and found nothing. The professor answered his own question: “The most interesting thing on this page is Meena, his caste.”

“After that I forgot everything,” Pankaj told me. “I just wanted to leave the classroom.”

 

–Incident at India’s # 1 Medical Institute, AIIMS

N Vaghul has written a booklet to honour the memory of R K Talwar, the trail-blazing chairman of State Bank of India (SBI) from 1969 until his abrupt departure in 1976, at the height of the Emergency. The vignette that deserves a wider audience relates to Talwar’s ouster.

 

Mr Vaghul, who started his own distinguished banking career in SBI, recalls that a cement company to which the bank had given a loan became “sick”, with mounting losses. Seeing that the problem was mismanagement, the bank agreed to a restructuring package provided the company’s promoter, also its chairman and CEO, made way for a professional. The promoter happened to be a friend of Sanjay Gandhi.

 

Sanjay called the finance minister (who, though unnamed, was C Subramaniam; Pranab Mukherjee was nominally under him as minister for revenue and banking), and asked him to direct the bank to waive the condition on change of management. The minister phoned Talwar, who called for the details of the case, satisfied himself, and informed the minister that the condition could not be waived. The minister summoned Talwar to Delhi and told him that he had instructions from “the highest authority” in the country. Talwar stood his ground.

 

This was communicated to Sanjay, who called for Talwar. Talwar refused to meet him, saying he had no constitutional authority. Sanjay’s response was swift: Sack Talwar.

 

This was easier ordered than done, because under the State Bank of India Act the chairman could not be removed without sufficient cause. So the minister offered Talwar a different assignment, to chair the proposed Banking Commission. Talwar said he would accept and could do that in addition to being the SBI chairman.

 

The minister looked unhappy, so Talwar observed that the minister seemed to be “very particular” that Talwar not continue as the bank chairman. The minister admitted that the problem was Talwar’s lack of flexibility on the cement company issue, and said that if he did not resign, he would have to be dismissed. Talwar said he had no intention of resigning, and the minister could decide on dismissal.

 

As Mr Vaghul tells it, Sanjay next asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to look for grounds on which Talwar could be dismissed. It turned out that Talwar had sent appeals to many businessmen, seeking donations for the Auroville project to which he was devoted. But no businessman was willing to testify that Talwar had spoken to him or tried to persuade him to make a donation. All that he had done was to forward an appeal signed by the prime minister and the secretary-general of the United Nations (U Thant), recommending the Auroville project for support. The CBI was forced to close the case.

 

Sanjay now lost all patience, and told the minister to amend the SBI Act so that Talwar could be dismissed without stating the reason. With opposition leaders in jail, Parliament rubber-stamped the Act’s amendment in no time. The minister told Talwar one final time that if he did not resign he would be dismissed. Talwar remained defiant.

 

Finally, on August 4, 1976, Talwar was given 13 months’ leave and asked to hand over charge to the managing director of the bank.Even after arming itself with the required powers, the government could not bring itself to sack Talwar. Mr Vaghul records that there was hardly anyone to see off SBI’s greatest chairman that evening, so great was the atmosphere of fear at the time.