Blood was being pumped into Indira’s body, but it was a losing battle: AIIMS ex-chief

For the first time since former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, a detailed account of events, as they unfolded on October 31, 1984, has been recorded by Sneh Bhargava, the first and only woman director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, in her just published memoirs.

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“The Woman Who Ran AIIMS", a Juggernaut publication, reveals hitherto hidden details of what happened between the time Indira was shot and brought to AIIMS casualty to the time her body was transported to Teen Murti Bhavan for everyone to pay homage.

October 31, 1984, was in fact Bhargava’s first day as the AIIMS Director--a position to which Indira had appointed her against all odds. “I had not even taken charge. The meeting to confirm my appointment was underway when a radiographer burst through the door and said the PM was in the casualty. There was panic all over," remembers Ferozepur-born Bhargava, whose parents defied patriarchal norms to get the best education for five daughters and a son who was born later.

Bhargava went on to pioneer diagnostics radiology in the country. She was the HoD-Radiology, AIIMS, when Indira named her the institute director.

Memories of that fateful day still haunt Bhargava, now 94. “I saw her lifeless body on a gurney and realised it did not even have a bedsheet on it. The cold metal against the skin would have made any patient wince. Her personal secretary RK Dhawan and adviser ML Fotedar were weeping,” Bhargava tells The Tribune, recalling how Indira was moved to the OT on the eighth floor and arrangements made on the seventh floor for her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi to meet the mourners.

The book adds details, noting, “We were told that we had to put off announcing her death until her son Rajiv Gandhi, President Giani Zail Singh and others, including PC Alexander, her Principal Secretary, who was in Bombay, could reach Delhi. Rajiv Gandhi was in West Bengal and arrived before Giani Zail Singh, who was on a state visit to North Yemen. There was to be no power vacuum. Rajiv Gandhi had to be sworn in the moment he returned. Until then, our job, for the next four hours, was to keep up the charade that we were trying to save her life when, in fact, she was dead when she was brought to AIIMS."

On the AIIMS’ response, Bhargava said the hospital cancelled all elective surgeries for the day and senior surgeons P Venugopal and MM Kapur were summoned to attend to Indira. “We struggled to arrange B-negative blood, which is rare. Then we requisitioned O-negative, the universal donor, from wherever we could. Blood was being pumped into her but it was a losing battle. Of the 33 bullets fired at her, some had passed through her body while others remained lodged inside. The bullets had shattered her right lung and liver. As the surgeons tried to staunch the bleeding, bullets kept tumbling out and clattering to the floor. Dr Venugopal had to change his scrubs three times--they were drenched in so much blood," the memoirs state.

Bhargava also remembers how a Sikh technician operating a heart lung machine on the PM fled the OT when he heard Sikh bodyguards had shot her. “We were lucky to find a replacement," she says, recalling Sonia’s asthma attack that day and how her physician KP Mathur had to be called to resolve it.

Another challenge, Bhargava says, was to embalm the PM's body. “The effort failed. The embalming chemical injected into different main arteries kept oozing out. So we decided to focus on her face and placed her on a special cooling mattress cardiac surgeons use to keep patient temperatures low," recalls Bhargava.

Pointing to her most abiding memory of the time, Bhargava spoke of how she made sure the AIIMS' Sikh faculty, technicians and their families remained safe amid the riots that erupted. “I spoke to the Delhi Police chief and we had police personnel stationed at AIIMS to keep our Sikh families safe," says the author. "I asked myself then and I ask myself today--why are we fighting on the grounds of religion? Can't we live together as one?"