Wajahat Habibullah brings out many shades of Rajiv Gandhi

Aditi Tandon

An engrossing new book about the life and times of Rajiv Gandhi claims that the late Prime Minister, who continues to be associated with the unlocking of Babri Masjid gates to Lord Rama devotees in February of 1986, in fact knew nothing of the controversial development.

Making this startling claim in his absorbing memoirs, “My Years with Rajiv: Triumph and Tragedy”, former Director in Gandhi’s PMO Wajahat Habibullah recalls how, in response to a question by him about the utility of unlocking the mosque gates, Rajiv was to voice complete ignorance.

“But sir, you were the Prime Minister,” Habibullah, an IAS officer of J&K cadre, asked Rajiv Gandhi in September of 1986, to which the latter replied, “Of course I was. Yet I had not been informed of this action and have asked Vir Bahadur Singh (then Chief Minister of UP) to explain. I suspect it was Arun (Nehru) and Fotedar (Makhan Lal) who were responsible, but I am having this verified. If it is true, I will consider action.” In the coming months, Arun Nehru was dropped from the Rajiv Cabinet.

The book by retired bureaucrat Habibullah, India’s first Chief Information Commissioner and Rajiv Gandhi’s schoolmate from Doon, abounds in revelations, including a particularly interesting one about the Shah Bano case which the writer calls a pivot of what was to be derided as appeasement of minorities.

Handling minority affairs in the PMO at the time, Habibullah says he advised the government to respect the Supreme Court judgment and at the most not contest a review by the petitioners.

But the book claims that it was journalist-turned-politician MJ Akbar who convinced Rajiv otherwise. “MJ Akbar succeeded in convincing Rajiv that if the government were not to challenge the Shah Bano judgment, it would appear to the Muslim community that Rajiv was distancing himself from the defence of the religious rights of Muslims. Rajiv needed to demonstrably recognise the support that the community has always placed on his family,” recounts Habibullah of those days.

Tracing the journey of Rajiv Gandhi from Doon school to the PMO, Habibullah dwells on several crucial events under the late PM, most notably Operation Brasstacks, Bofors, 1987 J&K elections (which, in the writer’s words, “were so sullen they fed directly into insurrection”), and the Rajiv-Longowal Accord.

On Brasstacks, the Indian military exercise which escalated into a major confrontation between the armed forces of India and Pakistan in 1986-87, Habibullah writes: “The Prime Minister of India had in fact no inkling of an exercise that had brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.”

He goes on to claim that Rajiv Gandhi learnt of the Operation only on January 15, 1987 from Lt Gen PN Hoon, then GoC-in-C of Western Command, during Army Day celebrations, after which he intervened to control the damage.

In the meantime, the media had been accusing Rajiv Gandhi of having agreed to Brasstacks to divert public attention from Bofors, notes the book, documenting how little the late PM interfered with the work of Arun Singh, his closest friend from school and later his Minister of State for Defence. “This was with consequences,” the author says. The memoirs speak of how Rajiv Gandhi assured Parliament that there were no middlemen in the Bofors deal, “when there indeed were”.

In many ways, Habibullah’s work sheds the much needed light on a little researched leader who ushered in historic reforms — from the 61st constitutional amendment to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18 years, to championing the cause of the panchayati raj institutions.

The book also uncovers the softer side of Rajiv Gandhi, a friend and a family man. Narrating an incident from 1991 in Kashmir where he was shot outside a mosque in Nowhatta, Habibullah recalls how Rajiv, upon hearing of the incident, sent him a bulletproof vest via an Indian Airlines flight.

“Years later when I asked Sonia whether it was an old vest, she said no, it was his only bulletproof vest that he had been advised to wear always, but rarely did. When I insisted that I return it to her, Sonia refused, saying Rajiv had wanted me to have it and I must keep it. It remains — and ever will — a treasured possession,” writes Habibullah.

Another poignant memory Habibullah records is of Sonia Gandhi and her late husband. The two got married in February of 1968. Years later after Rajiv’s assassination in 1991, a grieving Sonia was to recount their first meeting in England: “As our eyes met for the first time, I could feel my heart pounding. We greeted each other, and as far as I was concerned, it was love at first sight. It was for him, too, he later told me.”

Rajiv had met his future wife Sonia at Varsity, a Greek restaurant in Cambridge.