Rajiv Gandhi’s election rally and a camera roll in my pocket
As a journalist, I have been privileged to have come into close contact, interacted, interviewed or even shaken hands with prime ministers, former prime ministers or the would be prime ministers. These comprise Indira Gandhi, P. V. Narasinha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi, Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar in the same order. I am sure not many journalists of the new generation would be able to equal this feat. Present Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is elected for the second consecutive term abhors the idea of interacting with or taking questions from journalists or from anyone.
Among the above mentioned former prime ministers, the entire public life and political career of Rajiv Gandhi was the shortest one, only eleven years, and journalists of my generations were witness to this entire career.
Rajiv Gandhi came into the public gaze for the first time in 1980 after the accidental death of his younger brother, Sanjay Gandhi, to whom Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had groomed as her political heir. Much against his wishes, Rajiv then had had to give up his career as a pilot to enter into the shoes of his younger brother to be the Congress general secretary and also an MP from Amethi. After the brutal assassination of his mother three years later, he was destined to be India s prime minister the youngest to be occupy the seat, at 40.
As a final year college student, I had watched Indira Gandhi from a very close distance at Hotel Mandovi in Panjim in Goa in December 1979. She was then on a whirlwind tour of the nation to romp back to power. Half an hour later at the Campal ground near Miramar beach, I had experienced her oratory powers. Only three years later, as a reporter of The Navhind Times, I covered the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) retreat in Goa which was attended by 39 heads of the states including United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Australian Prime minister Bob or Robert Hawke and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was of course the hostess of this CHOGM retreat.
Rajiv Gandhi government announced demarcation of Goa, Daman and Diu Union Territory and full statehood to Goa in 1987. I was then completing a diploma in journalism in Russia and Bulgaria. But I was back in Goa before the Goa statehood ceremony. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi attended the statehood ceremony at the same Campal ground. I however missed the opportunity to cover the prime minister’s function as only two reporters from The Navhind Times were allotted the press passes.
I got the opportunity to cover the prime minister function when I joined The Indian Express in Pune two years later. Rajiv Gandhi government had completed five years term and general elections were to be held in December 1989. The Prime Minister was scheduled to address an election rally in Pune and I was issued a reporter’s pass to cover the poll meeting.
As a security measures, all of us reporters were instructed not to carry anything with us except the notepad and a pen. The entire election meeting venue was barricaded with bamboos and at each entrance, people were thoroughly screened by the security personnel. Our team of journalists too was stopped at the entrance leading to the press section. The reporters too were being allowed to go ahead only after undergoing a frisking. When my turn came, the security person detected something into my pant pocket. He looked questioningly at me as I took out the small object from the pocket. It was a camera roll which I had planned to take to a photo studio for developing colour photo prints.
My face turned pale and I fumbled for words as the security men told me firmly that I cannot proceed to the press section along with that object. I did not carry a photographer’s pass and there was no reason for me to carry the camera roll at the venue of the prime minister’s rally. No, no, I was not to drop that suspicious object at the rally venue, I would have to go back and dispose it off some other place, I was curtly told.
By this time, other reporters had proceeded to the press section. Cursing myself for the folly, I turned back, walked through the bamboo barricades for almost half a kilometer and then flung the camera roll far off into the tress along the road .I rushed back, was again frisked by the security men and allowed to join my fraternity members at the press section.
It was getting dark and as I settled into my seat, there was sudden hectic movement at a corner near the raised pandal. Rahul, Rahul Gandhi has come, were the words being said by some people with unconcealed excitement. I saw a bespectacled teenager, clad in white pyjama and white Nehru shirt stepping down briskly from a makeshift ladder. Rahul disappeared from our sight even before the team of photographers could adjust their camera shutters.
When Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi began his speech, it was past 7 pm. In the lit up podium, we from the press section could see him clearly, turning to various directions to establish rapport with the large assembly. Sometimes he paused to sip water kept near him, occasionally he wiped out sweat from his face with the white scarf around his neck. My colleague reporter Naren Karunakaran was assigned to cover the speech while my assignment was to report sidelines of the election rally.
The next day, The Indian Express carried the prime minister’s speech and photo on the front page and continuation and rally highlights were carried on inside pages. In the sidelights, I had mentioned presence of young Rahul Gandhi . I had also mentioned that prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was visibly tensed with the prevalent hostile political atmosphere against his government as he continued to wipe out the sweat on his face and repeatedly drank water during his speech. Our newspaper forever known for its an anti establishment stance had typically carried this small sidelight prominently in a box item.
A couple of days, we journalists in Pune travelled in cars to attend some event. As soon as he settled into the seat beside the car driver, Kiran Thakur of The Indian Post asked me. Camil, who had filed the box news story on the Rajiv Gandhi in The Indian Express ?
When I replied that it was my story, he said. “But isn’t it natural for an orator speaking for over half an hour to sip water in between or clean his face with a cloth ? It was not proper to infer from this act that Rajiv was tensed or scared because of the hostile political atmosphere Camil, let me tell you frankly it was ethically not right.. That is not journalism ! ”
There was truth in what Kiran Thakur who later became the head of journalism course at Savitribai Phule Pune University,, was telling. I could not defend or justify the box news item. To this date, I am ashamed of the content of the box news story I had filed that day.
The Congress led by Rajiv Gandhi lost power in 1989 elections and Vishwanath Pratap Singh was elected the next prime minister. A few months later, Rajiv Gandhi, now leader of the Opposition, addressed a press conference at the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce and Industries hall at Tilak Road in Pune. Senior journalists including Gopalrao Patwardhan, Kiran Thakur and Rajiv Sabade had penned down a few questions in English and Hindi for Gandhi and distributed them among us journalists. On behalf of The Indian Express, I too read out a question and Rajiv Gandhi had replied to it.
At the end of the press meet, Rajiv Gandhi stood at the hall entrance and shook hands with all press personnel present there. When it was my turn, I introduced myself “Camil Parkhe from Indian Express ” He smiled as he shook hands with me. That smiling face of Rajiv Gandhi is afresh in my mind to this date.
Nearly two years later, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated at an election rally at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. As it became clear that a teenager girl Dhanu welcoming the former prime minister with a garland was his assassin, an earlier incident flashed before me. I instinctively recalled the scene when I was denied entry at Rajiv Gandhi election rally in Pune because I carried a camera roll.
The refusal of the security personnel to allow me to carry that tiny object to the press section which was around 200 meters away from the dais was a very minor incident. Although initially upset, I had totally forgotten the incident because after disposing off the objectionable object, I was able to attend the election rally. This otherwise insignificant event immediately turned memorable for me in the contest of the circumstances in which Rajiv Gandhi was brutally assassinated.
