skin was as clear as that of a young girl and she had a femininity about her that was, according to men of reliable expertise, her real allure. ‘Look at the way she always smells of wonderful perfume,’ one of them said to me that evening. ‘Look at how her hands are always perfectly manicured, look at how beautifully she is dressed… You women should learn from her.’
That evening she sat surrounded by an audience of businessmen and socialites whom she was regaling with stories of the ‘social work’ she was doing ‘for Sanjay’ in the old city. He wanted her, she said with a sweet smile, to introduce Muslim women to modern ideas like family planning. The fragment of this conversation that remains etched vividly in my mind is her saying, ‘You know, these women are ready for change, darling, but they do not know how to defy their men. So when they see me, a Muslim woman, wearing chiffon saris and pearls and French perfume they like it… They see me as someone they would like to be.’ They were words I was to remember well, some weeks later, when Rukhsana’s efforts at coaxing Muslim women to plan their families caused riots in the old city and I was nearly attacked by a mob because my sunglasses caused some people to mistake me for Rukhsana.
Why Sanjay Gandhi chose an apolitical socialite to influence conservative Muslim women to stop having babies remains a mystery but what soon became evident was his personal touch when it came to running the government. In the very first weeks of the Emergency, after he appointed a tough information minister of his choice, a concerted effort began to introduce Sanjay to India as her future leader. Photographs of his thin-lipped, bespectacled face started appearing nearly every day on the front pages of newspapers. Doordarshan, state-controlled and obedient, followed him on his travels around the country with the prime minister. He suddenly seemed to be accompanying his mother everywhere she went.
He started his own political activities as well with the creation of a new youth wing of the Congress Party. It soon became hard to ignore in Delhi. Thuggish young men in white became a worrying feature of life in the city. They moved in large, noisy groups and terrorized restaurants and shops in Connaught Place and Janpath. If they chose not to pay their bills or create a disturbance nobody objected, because everyone knew that these were Sanjay Gandhi’s men. Sanjay made no effort to hide his growing political power or his influence on government policies. He announced a 5-Point Programme that was given more publicity than Mrs Gandhi’s own 20-Point Programme. The 5-Point Programme turned big policies into short sentences.
Plan your family.
Plant a tree.
Clean your street.
Remove poverty.
Remove slums.
Delhi’s walls were soon covered in posters advertising the political thoughts of the new leader in snappy, one-line slogans.
Each one, teach one.
We two, our two.
Clean India, dream India.
The one that urged Indians to stop having more than two children. ‘
Hum do, hamare do
’, which literally translated is ‘We two, our two’, survived beyond the Emergency as a family planning message.
Along with Rukhsana’s efforts to teach Muslim women the joys of having fewer babies, another point in Sanjay Gandhi’s programme that began to manifest itself in Delhi soon was the injunction to remove slums. If Rukhsana Sultana was an odd choice as his family planning envoy, the person he picked to be his slum clearance envoy was odder still. He chose Jagmohan, a municipal official, whose family had come to Delhi as refugees in 1947 and who had a reputation for being bitter about the division of India in the name of Islam. Years later when he started writing regularly in newspapers, the thoughts he expressed had a distinct tinge of Hindu nationalism.
Jagmohan was a small, charmless man with a long nose and hair that he brushed upwards to cover his bald pate. He was
That evening she sat surrounded by an audience of businessmen and socialites whom she was regaling with stories of the ‘social work’ she was doing ‘for Sanjay’ in the old city. He wanted her, she said with a sweet smile, to introduce Muslim women to modern ideas like family planning. The fragment of this conversation that remains etched vividly in my mind is her saying, ‘You know, these women are ready for change, darling, but they do not know how to defy their men. So when they see me, a Muslim woman, wearing chiffon saris and pearls and French perfume they like it… They see me as someone they would like to be.’ They were words I was to remember well, some weeks later, when Rukhsana’s efforts at coaxing Muslim women to plan their families caused riots in the old city and I was nearly attacked by a mob because my sunglasses caused some people to mistake me for Rukhsana.
Why Sanjay Gandhi chose an apolitical socialite to influence conservative Muslim women to stop having babies remains a mystery but what soon became evident was his personal touch when it came to running the government. In the very first weeks of the Emergency, after he appointed a tough information minister of his choice, a concerted effort began to introduce Sanjay to India as her future leader. Photographs of his thin-lipped, bespectacled face started appearing nearly every day on the front pages of newspapers. Doordarshan, state-controlled and obedient, followed him on his travels around the country with the prime minister. He suddenly seemed to be accompanying his mother everywhere she went.
He started his own political activities as well with the creation of a new youth wing of the Congress Party. It soon became hard to ignore in Delhi. Thuggish young men in white became a worrying feature of life in the city. They moved in large, noisy groups and terrorized restaurants and shops in Connaught Place and Janpath. If they chose not to pay their bills or create a disturbance nobody objected, because everyone knew that these were Sanjay Gandhi’s men. Sanjay made no effort to hide his growing political power or his influence on government policies. He announced a 5-Point Programme that was given more publicity than Mrs Gandhi’s own 20-Point Programme. The 5-Point Programme turned big policies into short sentences.
Plan your family.
Plant a tree.
Clean your street.
Remove poverty.
Remove slums.
Delhi’s walls were soon covered in posters advertising the political thoughts of the new leader in snappy, one-line slogans.
Each one, teach one.
We two, our two.
Clean India, dream India.
The one that urged Indians to stop having more than two children. ‘
Hum do, hamare do
’, which literally translated is ‘We two, our two’, survived beyond the Emergency as a family planning message.
Along with Rukhsana’s efforts to teach Muslim women the joys of having fewer babies, another point in Sanjay Gandhi’s programme that began to manifest itself in Delhi soon was the injunction to remove slums. If Rukhsana Sultana was an odd choice as his family planning envoy, the person he picked to be his slum clearance envoy was odder still. He chose Jagmohan, a municipal official, whose family had come to Delhi as refugees in 1947 and who had a reputation for being bitter about the division of India in the name of Islam. Years later when he started writing regularly in newspapers, the thoughts he expressed had a distinct tinge of Hindu nationalism.
Jagmohan was a small, charmless man with a long nose and hair that he brushed upwards to cover his bald pate. He was
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