Indira, the Nationalist

Indira Gandhi is dead and she cannot defend herself. But that doesn't mean others can't

IF Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes his current term in office, he will exceed Indira Gandhi's term in office by a few months short of a year. During the past decade, Modi has never missed any occasion, never let slip the slightest opportunity, to denigrate her and glorify his government's achievements during its rule over India. Indira Gandhi died in tragic circumstances more than 40 years ago. So for obvious reasons, she cannot defend herself. But that doesn't mean that others can't.

My entry into journalism in 1966 virtually coincided with her becoming Prime Minister, and by sheer coincidence, I was on Safdarjung Road on October 31, 1984, a couple of hundred metres from her home, when a constable erecting a barrier told me-his eyes red with grief and suppressed anger-that Indira Gandhi had been shot.

In the 17 years between 1966 and 1984, I commented upon her government's policies and actions almost every day in editorials and columns in The Times of India. In the past 10 years, I have done the same with the policies of the Modi government in The Wire. Much of my writing in this decade has been devoted to correcting the warped version of our history and religion, and of Indira Gandhi's rule that Modi and his digital army have been projecting. In what follows, I have looked back over those 17 years and tried to assess the validity of Modi's criticisms.