Behind Closed Doors

Two significant events that took place way back in 1972 still remain etched in my memory. The first was my visit to Shimla (then spelt Simla) at the time of June-July 1972 India—Pakistan summit (details given later in this chapter). This summit was held in the wake of Pakistan’s defeat in the December 1971 war, which led to the creation of a new nation called Bangladesh. At Shimla, India was represented by none other than Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan by her counterpart, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. (Bhutto was eventually executed on 4 April 1979.) It was then that I saw Benazir Bhutto (then 19 years old) who had accompanied her father and went on a shopping spree in the hill state capital’s main commercial centre. She went on to become Pakistan’s prime minister twice (first in 1988 and next in 1993). Unfortunately, she was assassinated on 27 December 2007 (more details are given later in this chapter).

The second was the way in which Bansi Lal managed to secure his second term in office (in 1972) by seeking a mid-term poll in Haryana. This step was taken in the backdrop of the March 1971 Lok Sabha mid-term elections.

In 1970 Indira Gandhi faced strong opposition from the National Democratic Front, an alliance made up of the Indian National Congress (O; O stood for Organization), the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the Swatantra Party, the Samyukta Socialist Party and the Praja Socialist Party. The Congress (O), which was led by K. Kamaraj (a former Congress president and a former chief minister of Madras state, as Tamil Nadu was known earlier) and Morarji Desai (a former Union minister who went on to become the prime minister of India in late March 1977), used to be described as ‘the Syndicate’ by its critics. (Kamaraj and Desai were in the rival camp vis-à-vis Indira Gandhi after the Congress split in 1969.) She feared that the NDF would destabilize her government. She opted for mid-term elections to the Lok Sabha, which were held in March 1971. Her party – the Congress (I; I standing for Indira) — won with a thumping majority. Her slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’ (remove poverty) had triumphed over the opposition NDF’s clamour of ‘Indira Hatao’.

No one who saw the tall and lean girl on The Mall in Shimla or at the Chandigarh airport in June 1972 could have imagined that, one day, she would emerge as the most popular leader of the largest democratic party of Pakistan.

Benazir Bhutto was then only 19. In her junior year at Harvard and on summer vacation, she was visiting India with her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was heading the Pakistani delegation for the summit meeting with Indira Gandhi after Pakistan’s defeat in the Bangladesh war.

Even in her hour of glory, Benazir will find it difficult to erase from her memory the ‘warm and welcoming streets’ of Shimla and the affection the town’s residents showered on her. Her five-day stay in Shimla not only proved to be her first lesson in international politics but also convinced her about the close bonds between the people of India and Pakistan even after the partition.

During her stay in Shimla, the girl in shalwar kameez was virtually the craze for its residents. Whenever she ventured out of the Himachal Bhavan, where she was staying, large crowds would gather on the roads to see her. Sometimes, the crowds would be so large that the traffic had to be stopped. The authorities often found it difficult to keep the crowds away from the shops Benazir would visit during her stay. Though she did not wear any jewellery, she carried with her to Pakistan pieces of imitation jewellery and handicrafts bought from some well-known shops of the city.

At the summit, talks were held in secrecy. Benazir became the focus of media attention. But journalists did not have easy access to her. She refused interviews. Her attitude, however, did not dishearten the enterprising journalists. Razia Ismail, an Indian Express reporter, made several attempts to get in touch with her but failed. But then she had an idea. She rang up the Himachal Bhavan PBX exchange and told the operator her name without disclosing her professional identity. The operator thought her to be a friend of Benazir. When she came on the line, Razia disclosed her professional identity and sought an interview. Benazir put the receiver down saying that ‘papa does not like it’. This was enough to make a readable story the next day!

Though she remained in the limelight from 28 June to 2 July 1972 – the days the Pakistani delegation was in Shimla – Benazir often found it a ticklish task to conduct herself in public in view of the sensitive nature of her father’s mission. In her own words: ‘My father advised me: Everyone will be looking for signs of how the meetings are progressing, so be extra careful. You must not smile and give the impression you are enjoying yourself while our soldiers are still in Indian prisoners of war camps. You must not look grim either which people can interpret as a sign of pessimism. They must have no reason to say: look at her face. The meetings are obviously a failure. The Pakistanis have lost their nerve. They have no chance of success and are going to make concessions.’ ‘So how should I look?’ I asked him. ‘I have already told you. Don’t look sad and don’t look happy,’ my father said. ‘That’s very difficult,’ I told him. ‘It is not difficult at all,’ he said. ‘For once he was wrong. It was very difficult to maintain a neutral stance of the face as we transferred to the helicopter at Chandigarh that was to take us to the hill station of Shimla …’

It was a totally different Benazir in the VIP room of the Chandigarh airport after the return here from Shimla of the Pakistani delegation on 3 July. Wearing jeans and a half shirt, she sat fully composed and listened to the conversation [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto was having with B. N. Chakravorty and Bansi Lal, the then governor and the chief minister, respectively, of Haryana. For a while, she was the topic of discussion. Chakravorty and Bhutto knew each other as it was Chakravorty who had replied to Bhutto’s attack on India in the United Nations [in December 1971].

Bhutto told Chakravorty that when diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan were re-established, he would like his daughter to study in India. He asked about the institutions where she could be sent for study. Chakravorty named Jawaharlal Nehru University [in New Delhi], Delhi University and Sapru House [also in New Delhi] as the institutions where Benazir could seek admission.

But this was not to be. The 1977 military coup in Pakistan and the subsequent fast-paced developments resulting in the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [on 4 April 1979] upset the plans of the father for his daughter.

After some weeks, Bhajan Lal invited media persons for breakfast at his residence. Taking me aside, he apologized to me and, in the presence of his principal secretary, asked me to forgive and forget what had happened in the past.

A few months later, I had an experience of Bhajan Lal’s ‘generosity’ when, one early morning (sometime in the mid-1990s), during his tenure as CM from 1991 to 1996, he rang up to thank me for my column published in the Punjab Kesari group’s newspapers, in which I had appreciated some of his decisions I thought were beneficial for the people of Haryana. He asked me not to hesitate to tell him if I wanted any ‘work to be done including allotment of a plot’. I thanked him, saying that I already owned a plot I had acquired as a member of the Chandigarh Journalists’ Housing Cooperative Society.

¹ Jagjivan Ram (5 April 1908 to 6 July 1986), a veteran politician from Bihar, was a Union minister who had held several important portfolios in the Indira Gandhi Government (1966–77). He broke away from the Congress in February 1977 and set up his own party called the Congress for Democracy (CFD). He was the deputy prime minister of India from March 1977 to July 1979.

² RSS stands for the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, an organization known for its pro-Hindu stand.