A book on the assassination of Indra Gandhi which happened in 1984 and was republished in 2022 and still bought by athai because she likes the writing of Mark Tully , a BBC journalist who she believes knows more about India than Indians themselves.
My first book on Indra Gandhi was read when I was still in school and all I remember is that her dad wrote letters to her and that she was a great woman leader.
Now this one starts very heavy - at the end of her life and the politics behind why.
There are 15 chapters and I've read 2, one on the assassination and the other on the Sikhs.
The assassination:
What I learnt was that she was killed by her own security (or the lack of it) because she sent army into the Golden temple which was causing trouble for her by being the meeting place of extremist Sikh groups. She enraged the already angered Sikh people against the Hindus by doing this.
Unlike the usual narrative of the Iron Lady, here she is seen as a woman who had a court like system that was ripe with gossip, and also of a woman who did too much too late. She was also seen fatigued. Her son seemed aware of the weaknesses and strengths of his 'strong' mom.
The Sikhs who were partially divided against the Hindus, before the revenge against her death by the Hindus - now felt even more fully unsafe and divided from Hindus after the murder of many Sikhs.
Mark Tully and Satish Jacob(his ally in India) unravel what went behind this assassination and what were the roles that played both from the Congress side and the Sikhs side.
Sikhs
Reading about the Sikhs was great validation to how I thought about religion. An analogy that played out in my mind was that of an adolescent son who was trying to fight for his own identity and space by revolting against his two alpha parents. One of his alpha parents was Hinduism and the other , Islam.
Guru Nanak wanted to combine the learnings of both Islam and Hinduism , removing all the superstitions, corruptions and focus on the essence - this had no idols, was monotheistic and no castes like the Muslims, and had reincarnation and karma like the Hindus - all well.
It was brought together by space assigned by Akbar for the practice of the prophets and mystics of that time. It became quite popular that Akbar's son Jehangir saw it as a threat and decided to dilute it.
Over time because of the push and pull of many kingdoms , the religion had turned its learnings and teachings into artillery and army, out of the need to save it's identity. He did not want to reabsorbed into Hinduism. Identity became very important for this son. It was very important for him to let the world know that he is not his mom, nor his dad - he was his own. The identity was the long hair, the bangle, the knife... (5 k's)
The brave son who was nothing like his parents was now facing the world. But he was a little confused, indeed. The practicalities of the world corrupted him - caste and sub divisions founds its way into him. Idols found its way into the golden temple. When Mahatma Gandhi spoke about non-violence and Bhagat Singh became popular for his heroic fight for Lala Rajpat Rai, the Sikhs were conflicted. Generations and marriages alternated between Sikhism and Hinduism. When the Sepoy Mutiny was formed from Bengal , the very Sikhs who were against the British were now part of the British army because of how much they embraced the identity of the army and worked hard to be the best there with interests in guarding their own identity with British's help. But when the same Britisher's attacked them later, the very folks who fought all over the world on British's behalf were again conflicted. Finally when the partition occurred, the divorce in a family where a child was already looking to find his identity, the child is enraged feeling like he neither belonged in Pakistan(40%) nor in India(60%). A holocaust emerged.
Ranjit Singh (his story is key in the Sikh religion) was one of the kings who built his empire in Lahore which was lost to Pakistan.
Arya Samaj (Dayanand Saraswati) was trying to reabsorb the Sikhs.
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