Following the publication of a report in the New Delhi daily Patriot on Sunday, the US state department on Monday confirmed that it did commission a study by Prof. Robert L. Hardgrave. The study, however, deals mainly with the likely course of events in India in coming years and not with the likely consequences for India and Mr. Rajiv Gandhi of Mrs. Gandhi’s death before or after the forthcoming elections to the Lok Sabha as such. The spokesman for the state department has also said that the writer has already published the study and that the book is available in the United States. This underscores two points. First, the work in question is not a secret document meant for limited circulation. Anyone can buy the book. Secondly, it is one of scores of similar studies, which scholars specially in the United States undertake all the time. This assumption demolishes the conspiracy theory which would involve the United States in the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi in some way. But to withstand scrutiny such a theory will need greater support in facts than the publication of a study, however much one may deplore it.
Like the rest of us Mrs. Gandhi was mortal. And in view of her critical role in India’s political life it was legitimate for a great power with interest to protect and promote in this country to commission a study which would cover the likely consequences of her departure from the scene and for a serious student of India to undertake such a study. That Mrs. Gandhi was not all that old and was in excellent health is beside the point. There was of course no obvious reason to assume that she was about to die. But Prof. Hardgrave does not make any such assumption. He only discusses what could happen if she were to die suddenly. That Mrs. Gandhi herself talked of threats to her life for years is equally relevant. The study does not assume that she could be assassinated as she in fact has been. It is clear beyond doubt that the study was undertaken long before developments in Punjab took a dangerous turn early this year culminating in the army’s entry into the Golden Temple in the first week of June. It is also reasonably certain that it was in the press long before June. It cannot therefore be argued that the state department has had any particular motive in declassifying the study and allowing it to be published.
The relevant portion of the study betrays an extraordinary lack of understanding of the Congress party. It is not a case of being wise after the event to argue that one had to be a novice to believe that anyone other than Mr. Rajiv Gandhi could have succeeded Mrs. Gandhi in the kind of contingency which is the subject matter of the study. This assessment is not based on the grief and the concern which her death – in any circumstance – was bound to provoke. It is also not based on the sympathy which her assassination was bound to produce for her son. The Congress party could not have agreed on anyone else, especially on the eve of elections to the Lok Sabha. Indeed, if, for some reason, it had not been decided within hours of Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination to do away with the previous practice of swearing in the senior-most minister as an interim Prime Minister, the inability of the party to agree on even a temporary incumbent of that office would have become public. In fact such a debate had already started in those few brief hours when President Zail Singh had not returned to New Delhi from Mauritius. While some held that Mr. Pranab Mukherjee should take over as pro tem Prime Minister since he used to preside over cabinet meetings in Mrs. Gandhi’s absence abroad in recent years, others held that Mr. PV Narasimha Rao was the senior-most minister by virtue of being union home minister. Needless to add, neither was willing to step in and incur the displeasure of the party. It is equally unnecessary to add that the party could not have gone to the polls under the leadership of either of them or anyone else other than Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. There are genuine differences of opinion on whether Mrs. Gandhi had deliberately reduced the party to such a state where only her son could succeed her, or whether this was an unavoidable development after the two splits in the Congress – in 1969 and 1978. But the fact is indisputable that once Mr. Rajiv Gandhi had joined politics, he was her inevitable successor. It is surprising that a serious student of Indian affairs should have harked back to 1964 (Mr. Nehru’s death) or 1966 (Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death) when the Congress was a very different kind of party.