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What If?
Posted by the lazy knight
on
9:45 AM
One of history’s most riveting enquiries is the ‘What if?’ A simple two word question but one which can throw up unthinkable and unimaginable answers. It represents the black hole of the historical universe, the area where no one knows exactly for sure what lies and where no one has traveled before. The ‘What if?’ is history’s alternative- the path which could have been, the destiny which escaped us either by a sheer stroke of luck (or bad luck in some cases) or by the individual or collective brilliance of certain minds.
What if for example Alexander ‘The Great’ had not died of a mysterious illness while on his way back from Asia to Greece? Would Europe and the Middle East been more integrated than they are today? Would Islam have risen as strongly in West Asia as it eventually did in the early centuries after the death of Christ? Would the Crusades have taken place and would the Greek empire under a strong headed and at times autocratic Alexander have given way as easily as it later did?
Looking at modern history, What if Adolf Hitler had honoured his non-aggression pact with the Soviets and not marched on to Moscow in the winter of 1941? A German army not strained by its demoralising losses on the Eastern front would surely have been much more difficult to overcome. The United States of America and Britain might still have invaded mainland Europe but would have had to contend with much stiffer resistance and much larger casualties than they eventually did. In fact, a stronger and undefeated Hitler might well have prompted the wary Americans to show some element of accommodation towards him. Remember, Germany had not attacked any American citizen or property before the Americans declared war on Japan. It would have indeed been a strange world in the mid 1940s with Nazi fascism co existing with Soviet Communism and American liberalism and democracy. Its anybody guess as to how long an unrelenting and whimsical Hitler would have allowed the status quo to continue but had he decided at the height of his power not to succumb to his hubris and invade Russia, the Second world war might well have not turned out to be a world war after all. Britain would have suffered; its power undermined by both the Nazis and the Communists. Would there have been a Cold War? Would the United States been as powerful as it eventually ended up being after the war… and would George Dubya have remained a Texan cowboy in a remote ranch somewhere near Houston.
In the Indian context certain What Ifs are equally intriguing. What if the Congress ministries had not resigned en masse in all the states ruled by them after the British unilaterally made India a part of the second world war? In hindsight, it is considered as a political mistake on part of both the Mahatma and his disciples Nehru and Patel. A mistake not often quoted and rarely discussed. But the reality was that in those three years between 1939 when the Congress ministries resigned and 1942 when the party came back to the political centre stage with the Quit India movement, the initiative was surrendered to Jinnah and his Muslim League. In 1940, the League passed the Lahore resolution demanding a separate Pakistan. Riots were precipitated all over the country and the British gently encouraged Jinnah and his mad plan for Pakistan in the face of an obstinate, uncooperative and rigid Congress. The lost intiative was never recovered; the League gained strength, the politics turned shriller and with the British only willing to play cynical spectators, reason and sanity were lost in a growing cloud of communal cauldron. Would the future of India and the Indian subcontinent as a whole been different had the Congress stayed in power and not created a political vacuum which was an open invitation for Jinnah? Would a less powerful and less ballistic Jinnah gone for broke and stopped nothing short of Pakistan? And would the Muslim League, which was badly routed in the 1938 elections to the provinces, been able to exert itself politically in the face of a centrist and secular Congress administration?
But independent India’s biggest What if is far more interesting and complex. It is rarely posed and addressed and its possibilities seem to have become barred with the lapse of time.
What if on a hot June morning of 1980 a two seater Cessna aircraft had managed to complete its routing flight after taking off from the Safdurjung Airport in Delhi and not crashed barely a few kilometers away from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s residence? What if Sanjay Gandhi had not died at a tragically young age? What if the Congress party had not lost arguably its most powerful member and India its biggest thug and goon?
The impact of Sanjay’s death has never really been holistically considered, as if the nation was too grateful to watch him go and too scared to consider what might have been. Sanjay Gandhi was his mother’s undisputed successor and despite the ignominy of the emergency very clearly the man in charge of the affairs of his party and as some suggest even the office of the Prime Minister. His was the overall looming presence and four months after a fresh electoral triumph of his mother, he was poised to regain his political space which he was forced to temporarily yield post emergency. An alive and active Sanjay Gandhi might well have reacted very differently to the challenges which his mother and brother were confront later in the decade. With Sanjay alive Rajiv Gandhi would have worked and retired peacefully as an airline pilot. Rahul and Priyanka would probably never have appeared on a Congress poster or advertisement. And the ambitious and equally whimsical Maneka Gandhi might well have become the Congress party’s new Mrs.G after her husband.
But more important is to assess the impact Sanjay, the man and the politician would have had on the state of India. Would he have ordered an Operation Bluestar? Would he have been more belligerent in dealing with the Akalis and the militants? Never one to consider constitutional proprieties, Sanajy Gandhi would surely have taken Punjab in his own hand, and then gone about swinging deals with the Akalis and the gun wielders. At the time of his death, he was still untested politically and one wonders how he would have performed in the face of grave political challenges. The only hints come from his personality and his actions (specially those during emergency). An unrelenting and pushy Sanjay, devoid of tact and wisdom, would have sought to crush any challenge to his authority. The response to both Punjab and Kashmir would have been more blunt and forceful and more damaging.
How would he have fared in the face of a lagging economy and ballooning deficits? Would India have witnessed a minor China type economic revolution in the mid eighties? Sanajy Gandhi had the knack of pursuing what he thought was correct with single minded zealousness. Would he have tolerated opposition to economic reforms? Would liberalization have come a decade earlier than when it eventually did? Would tough economic decisions like labour laws and foreign direct investments which governments seem to side step till date have been taken earlier? And would all of this been done by brutally suppressing protests and undermining basic rights and freedoms (ala China)?
The last question probably exposes the biggest threat. Indira Gandhi at the end of the day was politically more her father’s daughter than her son’s mother. Her son would have had no such inhibitions. He would have readily subverted democratic norms and institutions to extend and prolong his power. India may have had to deal with another emergency, this time a consequence of an electoral defeat. Sanjay Gandhi as a Prime Minister would have sought to undermine Parliament and more dangerously the judiciary. Powers would have been curbed and laws subverted to keep him in power. Sanjay had all the makings of despot. Would he have become one? Would Indian polity have become like its western neighbour- held hostage by some one who claimed he knew best how to determine the direction of his path? Would we have seen rigged elections and brazen manipulation of political power? Would a critical press have been stifled and social rights curbed? Would we have become a banana republic?
These are grave and disturbing questions. Questions that a nation may never have to seek answers to. Looking back, it can be said with reasonable certainty that as a mother and a family grieved when the Cessna piloted by Sanjay Gandhi crashed, a nation heaved a sigh of relief. The man who could have swung its destiny, for the worse as many believe, was gone and with him went certain possibilities which we all would rather not contemplate.
What if for example Alexander ‘The Great’ had not died of a mysterious illness while on his way back from Asia to Greece? Would Europe and the Middle East been more integrated than they are today? Would Islam have risen as strongly in West Asia as it eventually did in the early centuries after the death of Christ? Would the Crusades have taken place and would the Greek empire under a strong headed and at times autocratic Alexander have given way as easily as it later did?
Looking at modern history, What if Adolf Hitler had honoured his non-aggression pact with the Soviets and not marched on to Moscow in the winter of 1941? A German army not strained by its demoralising losses on the Eastern front would surely have been much more difficult to overcome. The United States of America and Britain might still have invaded mainland Europe but would have had to contend with much stiffer resistance and much larger casualties than they eventually did. In fact, a stronger and undefeated Hitler might well have prompted the wary Americans to show some element of accommodation towards him. Remember, Germany had not attacked any American citizen or property before the Americans declared war on Japan. It would have indeed been a strange world in the mid 1940s with Nazi fascism co existing with Soviet Communism and American liberalism and democracy. Its anybody guess as to how long an unrelenting and whimsical Hitler would have allowed the status quo to continue but had he decided at the height of his power not to succumb to his hubris and invade Russia, the Second world war might well have not turned out to be a world war after all. Britain would have suffered; its power undermined by both the Nazis and the Communists. Would there have been a Cold War? Would the United States been as powerful as it eventually ended up being after the war… and would George Dubya have remained a Texan cowboy in a remote ranch somewhere near Houston.
In the Indian context certain What Ifs are equally intriguing. What if the Congress ministries had not resigned en masse in all the states ruled by them after the British unilaterally made India a part of the second world war? In hindsight, it is considered as a political mistake on part of both the Mahatma and his disciples Nehru and Patel. A mistake not often quoted and rarely discussed. But the reality was that in those three years between 1939 when the Congress ministries resigned and 1942 when the party came back to the political centre stage with the Quit India movement, the initiative was surrendered to Jinnah and his Muslim League. In 1940, the League passed the Lahore resolution demanding a separate Pakistan. Riots were precipitated all over the country and the British gently encouraged Jinnah and his mad plan for Pakistan in the face of an obstinate, uncooperative and rigid Congress. The lost intiative was never recovered; the League gained strength, the politics turned shriller and with the British only willing to play cynical spectators, reason and sanity were lost in a growing cloud of communal cauldron. Would the future of India and the Indian subcontinent as a whole been different had the Congress stayed in power and not created a political vacuum which was an open invitation for Jinnah? Would a less powerful and less ballistic Jinnah gone for broke and stopped nothing short of Pakistan? And would the Muslim League, which was badly routed in the 1938 elections to the provinces, been able to exert itself politically in the face of a centrist and secular Congress administration?
But independent India’s biggest What if is far more interesting and complex. It is rarely posed and addressed and its possibilities seem to have become barred with the lapse of time.
What if on a hot June morning of 1980 a two seater Cessna aircraft had managed to complete its routing flight after taking off from the Safdurjung Airport in Delhi and not crashed barely a few kilometers away from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s residence? What if Sanjay Gandhi had not died at a tragically young age? What if the Congress party had not lost arguably its most powerful member and India its biggest thug and goon?
The impact of Sanjay’s death has never really been holistically considered, as if the nation was too grateful to watch him go and too scared to consider what might have been. Sanjay Gandhi was his mother’s undisputed successor and despite the ignominy of the emergency very clearly the man in charge of the affairs of his party and as some suggest even the office of the Prime Minister. His was the overall looming presence and four months after a fresh electoral triumph of his mother, he was poised to regain his political space which he was forced to temporarily yield post emergency. An alive and active Sanjay Gandhi might well have reacted very differently to the challenges which his mother and brother were confront later in the decade. With Sanjay alive Rajiv Gandhi would have worked and retired peacefully as an airline pilot. Rahul and Priyanka would probably never have appeared on a Congress poster or advertisement. And the ambitious and equally whimsical Maneka Gandhi might well have become the Congress party’s new Mrs.G after her husband.
But more important is to assess the impact Sanjay, the man and the politician would have had on the state of India. Would he have ordered an Operation Bluestar? Would he have been more belligerent in dealing with the Akalis and the militants? Never one to consider constitutional proprieties, Sanajy Gandhi would surely have taken Punjab in his own hand, and then gone about swinging deals with the Akalis and the gun wielders. At the time of his death, he was still untested politically and one wonders how he would have performed in the face of grave political challenges. The only hints come from his personality and his actions (specially those during emergency). An unrelenting and pushy Sanjay, devoid of tact and wisdom, would have sought to crush any challenge to his authority. The response to both Punjab and Kashmir would have been more blunt and forceful and more damaging.
How would he have fared in the face of a lagging economy and ballooning deficits? Would India have witnessed a minor China type economic revolution in the mid eighties? Sanajy Gandhi had the knack of pursuing what he thought was correct with single minded zealousness. Would he have tolerated opposition to economic reforms? Would liberalization have come a decade earlier than when it eventually did? Would tough economic decisions like labour laws and foreign direct investments which governments seem to side step till date have been taken earlier? And would all of this been done by brutally suppressing protests and undermining basic rights and freedoms (ala China)?
The last question probably exposes the biggest threat. Indira Gandhi at the end of the day was politically more her father’s daughter than her son’s mother. Her son would have had no such inhibitions. He would have readily subverted democratic norms and institutions to extend and prolong his power. India may have had to deal with another emergency, this time a consequence of an electoral defeat. Sanjay Gandhi as a Prime Minister would have sought to undermine Parliament and more dangerously the judiciary. Powers would have been curbed and laws subverted to keep him in power. Sanjay had all the makings of despot. Would he have become one? Would Indian polity have become like its western neighbour- held hostage by some one who claimed he knew best how to determine the direction of his path? Would we have seen rigged elections and brazen manipulation of political power? Would a critical press have been stifled and social rights curbed? Would we have become a banana republic?
These are grave and disturbing questions. Questions that a nation may never have to seek answers to. Looking back, it can be said with reasonable certainty that as a mother and a family grieved when the Cessna piloted by Sanjay Gandhi crashed, a nation heaved a sigh of relief. The man who could have swung its destiny, for the worse as many believe, was gone and with him went certain possibilities which we all would rather not contemplate.
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