A Legacy That Still Resonates

Indira Gandhi was a conservationist who saw the protection of India's rich natural heritage fundamental to its economic growth

 

- Jairam Ramesh

I DID not set out to assess or judge Indira Gandhi. What I sought to do was paint a fresh portrait of a much-written about but little-understood personality—a leader who was complex and contradictory on the one hand, and charismatic and compelling on the other. I sought to discover and elucidate an aspect of who she was and what she did—an aspect that has not received the attention it deserves in the volumes that have been written about her.

Indira Gandhi’s institutionalized educational journey followed a zig-zag route. She went to college without actually ever getting a formal degree. But she graduated with the highest distinction, summa cum laude, from the University of Nature.

Who was the real Indira Gandhi? Historians have grappled, and will continue to grapple, with this question. She has hordes of admirers, awed by her spectacular achievements. She also has a large number of critics who cannot see beyond her errors of judgement and action—some of which were of her own making, while some others forced on her by circumstances.

There were, to be sure, poignant paradoxes in her personality. But what should be beyond any doubt from this chronicle (Ramesh’s book, Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature) is her commitment to the environment. Her tryst with nature inspired and refreshed her throughout turbulent personal upheavals and a tumultuous political career. Her love for all things ecological was an inheritance and a part of her disposition, which she nurtured into an abiding passion.