Have we learnt nothing from Indira Gandhi?

"Indira Gandhi: a life of courageous conviction," wrote former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. Speaking at a meeting to celebrate Indira Gandhi's 100th birth anniversary Mukherjee said that she was the best prime minister India ever had. Mukherjee is the ultimate insider, having been in the Congress almost all his adult life and rewarded with plum ministerial posts, apart from a few years when he was sidelined by Rajiv Gandhi. Mukherjee thinks it was a good thing that she nationalized banks, which is why the Indian banking industry escaped the subprime crisis in 2008. Bad loans in public sector banks are like an iceberg, most of which is hidden under water, wrote T Bandopahyay. Indira Gandhi showed her commitment to socialism "through the 42nd Amendment by inserting the two words 'socialist and secular'" in the constitution. We could argue that socialism led to the economic crisis of 1991, when India had to pledge 67 tons of our gold reserves to survive, and secularism has been derided as 'minority appeasement', allowing the BJP to win elections by appealing to the Hindu majority in India. Indira Gandhi stood up to the coterie of men who were ruling Congress at the time and had an emotional rapport with the masses but her populism destroyed the institutions of the nation, wrote Prof N Chandhoke. Her imposition of Emergency in 1975 is still seen as the darkest period in our post-independence history. Indira Gandhi wanted to be a dictator with absolute powers but also wanted to be seen as a democrat, which is why she called for general elections in 1977, in which she was trounced, only to be re-elected with a huge majority in 1980, because the opposition was so poor, wrote Z Masani. "Indira Gandhi lived and died for India, and she thought she knew better than any other Indian what was good and best for India," wrote Ramachandra Guha. The present Prime Minister, Narendra Modi is a lot like Indira Gandhi, in that he is suspicious of an independent media and does not give interviews, like her he has little respect for parliament, like her he absolutely dominates his party, like her he appoints his favorite civil servants to senior positions and like her he wants to eradicate the opposition, referring to the Congress as "termites" to be exterminated. So how should Indira Gandhi be remembered? "Durga who broke Pakistan into two. Tyrant who suppressed democracy. Insecure leader who split her party to get rid of dissenters. Control freak who ran from Delhi a party that spanned the nation, as well as chief ministers. Dynast who foisted her progeny on her party as leaders," asked TK Arun. Perhaps all of those. Perhaps, in the end, she was a woman, shaped by her birth and her nation's history, doing what she thought was best for her people. We should learn from her not to repeat her mistakes. But, it seems that we are doing precisely that.