Sanjay Gandhi
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Sanjay’s business ambitions: Maruti company
From the archives of The Times of India
Gandhi brothers competed as middlemen for IAF deal
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
April 10, 2013
During the Emergency (1975-77), the Gandhi brothers, Rajiv and Sanjay, may have competed as representatives in at least one of the most lucrative aircraft contracts of the day, suggest the US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks. The US embassy had said in a cable on July 30, 1976 that the Maruti company controlled by Sanjay was negotiating for BAC (British Aircraft Corporation) in India, and in a later cable added that it believed the company was already working with it. BAC was in the race for two aircraft contracts in India-—for supplying aircraft to Indian Airlines and as a joint developer of Jaguar fighter for the Indian Air Force’s Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft (DPSA) project. The US embassy cables — sent between 1973 and 1976 — suggest that Rajiv was working for Saab-Scania, whose Viggen aircraft was in the fray with Jaguar for the DPSA venture. So, if the secret cables from the US embassy in India are to be believed, then the brothers were working for rival firms that were desperate to sell fighters to the IAF. It is not clear if the brothers’ rivalry over IAF’s fighter deal had spilled over to family ties. However, the IAF’s fighter contract went beyond the Emergency, and the final decision could not be taken until 1978, when the Janata government settled for Jaguar fighters. It is not recorded if Maruti, or Sanjay Gandhi, financially benefitted from the deal. Sanjay also probably worked for BAC in Indian Airlines contract. It had bid its aircraft 111-474 against Boeing’s 737-200 and Fokker’s F-28 Mark 4000. Finally, Boeing bagged the contract. According to the US cables, Maruti was also keen to represent other aircraft manufacturers in India. On August 27, 1976, the US Embassy cabled Washington DC saying that K L Jalan, managing director, Maruti Heavy Vehicles, requested mission’s assistance in “arranging a meeting with the president or high level official of Cessna aircraft to discuss the sale of Cessna aircraft in India”. Jalan assured the Embassy that his firm has an “immediate sale for two aircraft with a very promising outlook for 20 more units by fiscal yearend, March 1977”. Jalan requested that the Cessna's official make a special trip to India within the next 10 days to discuss financial details, the cable said. Four days later, Jalan approached the US Embassy again. This time he told an Embassy official that Maruti wanted to contact Piper Aircraft, another aviation firm, too. “Please inform Mr Robert C Watson, Piper Aircraft Corp, Lock Haven, PA of the approach by Maruti,” the cable to the headquarters said.
Cables talk of Sanjay’s business ambitions
In the mid-70s when Bombay wanted to buy 700 bus chassis and machine shop equipment for one of the biggest expansions of its public transport until then, authorities were forced to issue tenders to Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti firm. Though the Gurgaonbased Maruti did not manufacture buses, during emergency, BEST issued the tender to it without any objection, according to a cable sent from the US consulate in Bombay. The cable sent on August 10, 1976, by the Bombay consulate said, “Maruti Heavy Vehicles Ltd, New Delhi, a firm in which PM (Indira) Gandhi’s son Sanjay holds interest, has also been supplied with tender forms ‘under instruction’. Maruti is neither a bus-chassis producer, nor is known to represent any major foreign vehicle manufacturer. Best source was unable to identify reasons for Maruti’s interest in the bid.” The consulate, however, noted that in another tender in New Delhi, Maruti also wanted to supply international harvester truck trailers, which, too, it did not produce. In fact, many of the US cables — dispatched between 1973 and 1976 — show the reckless expansion and business ambitions of Sanjay Gandhi and his Maruti that also sought to represent several US firms, including aircraft-makers in India. The purchase was to be funded by the World Bank, and 30 tenders were sold to prospective suppliers. Of them the foreign firms included Volvo, British Leyland, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Ford etc. The Indian firms included Tata, Ashok-Leyland, Premier Motors. TNN
Antony, Dasmunsi: men of courage
They were the only top Congress leaders to openly criticize Sanjay: US Cables
From the archives of The Times of India
April 10, 2013
A K Antony was the only prominent Congress leader, other than Youth Congress leader Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, to flatly criticize the aggressive Youth Congress and the stranglehold of Sanjay Gandhi during the internal emergency, according the US embassy cables sent between 1973 and 1976. “Kerala Congress president A K Anthony was one of the only leaders to flatly criticize the new Youth Congress and Sanjay; the other key critic was West Bengal Congress leader P R Dasmunsi,” a cable sent on November 26, 1976, after the Gauhati session of the All India Congress Committee said. Antony would later split from the Congress to form Congress (A), only to return to the parent outfit sometime in the early 1980s. Dasmunsi was replaced as the Youth Congress president by Ambika Soni, who became the face of an aggressive Youth Congress during the Emergency. The Gauhati session was otherwise an exhibition of “large rousing and carefully stage-managed Youth Congress national convention against a far more modest (and predictably routine) AICC session”. It had the effect of “establishing the Youth Congress as a force almost on a par with the Congress itself ”. The cable quoted a private assessment given by a Times of India correspondent who covered the session to his editors. The reporter noted, “that, unlike AICC sessions earlier this year in Chandigarh and Delhi where there was heavy rush by ministers and other politicians to pay respects to Sanjay, this time an attitude of sullenness prevailed and aside from handful of hangers-on, there were few “foot kissers”. Editor of Maharashtra Times told US diplomats that foreign minister Y B Chavan confided to him that he was hearing increasing murmurs of dissatisfaction from Congressmen at the treatment being accorded by Sanjay and the disdain being displayed for traditional Congress politicians. The cable said at one point in the Youth Congress session in Gauhati, its president Ambika Soni complained that Congressmen sometimes “obstructed” Youth Congress work: “Their fear is that if the Youth Congress workers forge ahead by dint of their work, their chairs will be threatened. We do not want their chairs.” Soni was made the YC president after Sanjay ousted Dasmunsi. The cable described Soni as “an attractive, well-educated, outspoken but intellectually weak personality who has been working in the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) bureaucracy since 1969”. Meanwhile, in Kerala, the faction led by Antony and a large section of people were very critical of Sanjay’s growing importance. A cable from the US embassy said that their impression was that “Sanjay Gandhi is not very popular in that state”.
