(Late) Mrs. Indira Gandhi:
She was not a born leader. She was the aristocratic and much pampered daughter of Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first, charismatic prime minister of free India. She was brought in to the cabinet by an uneducated but respected leader, as a state minister for Information & Broadcasting. If entire India is covered by the terrestrial broadcast TV network, the credit goes to her. The basic idea was that she would be loyal and play ball with the king makers. She was very disciplined and focused and knew what she wanted. She systematically built her power base and neutralized every male in her circle and became the prime minister. At one stage, she was known as the only man in her cabinet. She was tough as nails. She never cringed before anyone. President Nixon used to hate her. She was known for her 'leftist' leanings. In 1970, we had the Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, Bengali speaking refugee crisis. Millions of refugees were pouring in across the borders adding to our financial and security burden. We were and are still a poor country and the whole world was watching the circus. It was the cold war era and because of our friendship with the Soviet Union, no western country came to our support. We had no choice except to stop this nonsense and the only way was to liberate Bangladesh and make it safe for the refugees to go back. We never had any territorial ambitions and we were always attacked first.
President Nixon had his key adviser in Dr. Henry Kissinger. They were known to be friends of Pakistan's military junta of Gen Yahya Khan. The US Policy makers always rated Pakistani military superior to India's military under the false notion of being a martial race. The myth suited and was cultivated by Pakistani military rulers. There is no such thing as a martial race. They forgot that some of the present day Pakistani Muslims, who do not have Arabic descent, and the Indo Aryan Hindus have the same ancestors and genetic lineage. This can be verified by DNA genetic mapping. Religion has nothing to do with Valor and Bravery. You will find excellent soldiers from all religions and races. It all depends on training, skills, motivation and attitudes. The Indian sub continent's known history and culture dates back to 10,000 years. We have had enough wars and know how to fight.
India's armed forces are one of the best trained in the world, even though they may not have the monetary resources of western powers. Our soldiers at grass root level are intelligent. They may not be highly educated because most of them come from villages and poor family backgrounds. Our officers trained at IMA are among the best. It is a much disciplined force. It was classified into various ethnic groups by the then British East India Company. The objective was to divide on ethnic lines and rule. You have Sikh, Maratha, Gurkha, Madras, Rajput, Dogra, Kumaon Regiments and many others. Today, the names and colors have been retained but it is a mixture of all ethnic groups in all regiments. It has an elitist Para Commando regiment, the best of them all and the best officers and men from all regiments get into it. They are a superb combination of brain and brawn. It is easier to enter IITs or IAS. Its commandos were rated the best in the world, 6 years ago, in a contest held in the jungles of Botswana and elite western units like SAS had participated in it. Nobody can match the aggressiveness of Punjabis, the ferocity of Gurkhas, the valor of Rajputs, the daredevilry of Marathas and the determination of 'Thambis' as soldiers of the Madras regiment are known.
When any army becomes politically involved like Pakistan's, it can never be a good fighting machine. Where is the time to train and be battle fit and ready? Indira knew that USA will support Pakistan. If USA had wanted, it could have easily averted the crisis. She went to Moscow and signed the Indo Soviet treaty. We were worried because China had attacked us in 1962 on the north east front in the Himalayas. We were neither prepared nor well equipped at that time. Thanks to Nehru and his peace ideology which was nothing but naive and stupid. Our soldiers neither had proper winter clothing nor proper arms. They were facing, the well clothed Chinese soldiers armed with automatic sub machine guns, with .303 Enfield, single bolt action Rifles, which should have been in the museums of the world. When a country's security is involved, the principle is "Believe in God and Peace, but keep your Powder dry". We could not afford a third front. There was no guarantee that China would not attack us to help Pakistan. At that time Nixon was cozying up to Peking to control Soviet Union and an axis of Washington-Islamabad-Peking was in place. Without the Indo Soviet treaty, China might have attacked us under instigation from either Nixon or Pakistan. In the height of cold war, both USA and Soviet Union were at loggerheads. The Soviet Union became our natural ally. Most of our arms are Russian. Western powers always debunked them as of poor quality compared to theirs. We had excellent soldiers like General Maneckshaw, who later became the only Field Marshal of our country and (Late) Lt. Gen. J S Arora, who led the eastern operations, comparable to the best in the world. The strategy and tactics used by them is a textbook classic, which will be discussed in any military school of the world.
Having sewn up all ends, we went to war in 1971 and liberated Bangladesh in just 5 days. Bangladesh is criss crossed with hundreds of rivers and it is one of the most difficult terrains to launch a conventional warfare. An entire division was air dropped behind the enemy lines in the eastern front. Pakistan attacked us on the western front and we were prepared. We pounded Pakistan both on the eastern and western fronts. 92,000 soldiers of Pakistan army surrendered, because they were encircled and had nowhere to go. There has never been such large scale surrender before, anywhere in the world and the Pakistani army was humiliated. Their air force was wiped out in 1 day in the heaviest bombing since the World War II. They were supposed to be having superior aircraft on paper. We have an old saying in my mother tongue which translated goes 'A skilled and capable man will turn a blade of grass into a weapon'. We also have another saying. 'A garland of flowers in the hands of a monkey,' because he would not know what to do with it. Their submarine 'Ghazi' was blasted out by our naval frigate 'INS Khukri' in the Bay of Bengal, off the Vishakapatnam coast. The submarine had sneaked in to sink our only aircraft carrier INS Vikrant. Pakistani Navy could not move out of Karachi harbor, because the entire area was blockaded by our Navy. Pakistani Navy has only one outlet in the Arabian Sea. Our navy had blockaded the entire area right up to Iran in the Persian Gulf. Admiral Krishnan was the Chief of the Navy at that time. I have forgotten the name of the Air force chief but I think it is Air Marshal P C Lal.
Nixon, out of utter frustration, ordered his seventh fleet headed by aircraft carrier "USS Enterprise" based in the Pacific and carrying nuclear weapons to move to the area. He dared not move his sixth fleet off the coast of KMT China, later known as Formosa and now Taiwan, to move to the disturbed area. In those days sixth fleet was stationed there to protect Taiwan from potential Chinese invasion. If he had done that China might have attacked Taiwan. The Soviets moved their elite Baltic fleet armed with nuclear weapons along with nuclear powered submarines from the Baltic Sea. Nixon became the most hated man in India. This single act of Nixon made him the most untrustworthy of global leaders. He also made the unpardonable diplomatic and ungentlemanly mistake of calling Indira Gandhi "That Woman". It is never done by a head of state to another head of state, especially to a lady. She had as much class as Queen Elizabeth. She was no less than royalty. With his limited mental capacity and acumen, he probably would never realize that he was paying her a complement. It also proved that Nixon was totally unfit to occupy the chair. Nixon never had any class. I often wondered how the people of USA made him their President. However, this does not absolve his advisers of their roles. Nixon showed his real class in the Watergate scandal. He was lucky to escape impeachment unlike Andrew Jackson.
At that time there was a famous book called 'The Ugly American' written by some American writer, whose name I have forgotten. This book was based on the American Vietnam experience. Nixon symbolized the veritable 'Ugly American'. I was in my final year at IIT-M and whatever I have written is from memory. Nixon was literally very ugly looking with a bulbous nose and mean eyes. He always reminded me of the mean looking villains, in the old American Westerns, who would shoot people in the back. We were used to charismatic, handsome and good looking US leaders, with class, like Mr. John F Kennedy. The only Americans we had seen was in Hollywood movies like Gregory Peck, James Stewart, Charlton Hesston, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen etc., The Soviet Fleet was already in the Arabian sea, having entered through the Suez canal. The US Fleet just went past Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, 2000 Kms away from our southern tip, and nothing happened. By that time the operations had ended and Bangladesh was born and liberated. For seven days, the world held a bated breath, fearing a nuclear world war. She was crowned as the Empress of India. At one stage, sycophants claimed that "India is Indira and Indira is India'.
A good leader became a great leader by her hard work, discipline and focus. She also had vision. She realized that we were vulnerable as long as we remained weak. She ordered our nuclear scientists to make the bomb and its delivery systems. Today, no country dare attack us. We have all the modern technology and rocketry to defend ourselves. We have our own limited number of satellites in space. The only thing she missed out was the formation of a blue water navy to patrol the Indian Ocean. You can't fault her because she did not have the money for that. She made India's future secure for ever. She became a great leader by her vision, determination, discipline, courage and focus. In India's long history nobody made us secure from invasion over land like her. We were always invaded through the Khyber Pass in the Hindu Kush range of mountains right from the days of Alexander the Great. We were always under the foolish impression that the Himalayas will save us, till the Chinese proved us wrong. We must be grateful to her. The English, Portuguese, Dutch and French invaded through the sea.
The only thing left out is the formation of a blue water navy to protect our long coastline and commercial interests on the high sea lanes. The future threat to our nation is from the both the seas and the Indian Ocean. We have a western naval command and an eastern naval command. We need an Indian Ocean command based in the Andaman Islands. We need more aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates, minesweepers, fast gunboats and submarines. We can build all of them including nuclear powered submarines. We have enough scientists and engineers. We need more geo-stationery satellites in space, all of them positioned strategically, to cover every inch of mother earth capable of tracking the movement of an ant. Nothing is more important than making our country and interests fully secure, even if it means we eat less by tightening our belts. In these days of religious fundamentalism and fanaticism, nobody knows from where the threats will come. When it comes to a country's defense, trust no one. I fully agree with Dr. Andy Grove that "Only paranoid survive".
Whether people like it or not, she was and still is the boldest, best and most decisive political leader we have ever had. Her father Nehru is nothing in comparison. He was a good diplomat but a vacillating leader. A leader has to take hard and bold decisions and that is what Indira Gandhi did. The only major mistake she did was declaring an internal emergency in 1972. But considering her achievements, this can be pardoned, as all leaders are liable to make mistakes.
Mrs. Margaret (Maggie) Thatcher & Mrs. Golda Meier:
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher is one more example of a person from a middle class background, becoming a great leader by sheer discipline and focus. She was known as the "Iron Lady". She was the first woman prime minister of Great Britain. She took over in what is described as the most difficult period in English history. She handled the "Falklands War" though it was a cakewalk compared to the Bangladesh war. I know Argentineans are good at Soccer and Polo, but their Armed Forces? She is no Winston Churchill. It was more a skirmish between unequals. Mrs. Margaret Thatcher's achievements were more economic. She pulled England out of deep recession. She went for large scale privatization. She handled workers and miner’s strikes with an iron hand. She led England's industrial revival. She was great in her own way. Unfortunately, she could not handle her own son Mark Thatcher, who was involved in a mercenary scandal in Africa and sentenced. She was a contemporary of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Mrs. Indira Gandhi also had a difficult son in Sanjay who died in an air crash. Global leaders very rarely have time for their families. The world also had Mrs. Golda Meier, the prime minister of Israel around the same time. She was also a very tough leader and led Israel through turbulent and difficult times. In the case of Israel, it is encircled by its enemies, which makes it more difficult to defend. I have not had much of an opportunity to read about her background because it is not available. They are the three most powerful women leaders the world has ever seen. They all had brains and guts.
Final Word:
The entire above woman wore pants and most of the males around them were either nervous wrecks or bumbling idiots. They were all normal women with families and grown up children. None of them had extraordinary education or formal training. They achieved their greatness by sheer hard work, discipline and focus. They were self-driven, combative, aggressive, and assertive and at the same time retained their femininity, grace and charm. We all have a lesson to be learnt. Every one of us can become a good leader, if not a great one, but we must have vision, discipline and focus, backed by hard work.
The above is an abridged and revised version of the article written on December 19, 2005 titled ‘Discipline and Focus'.
© Copyright. Revised and written on July 3, 2008. Without prejudice. All rights reserved
Three most powerful women leaders the world has ever seen – Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meier - To learn more about this author, visit Madhavan T Gopalachary's Website.
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Madhavan T Gopalachary
(Visit Madhavan's Website)
Madhavan Gopalachary, nick name "madgopes"
(g pronounced as in go) given by IIT
classmates, is a Mechanical Engineer and
an alumnus of Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras having passed out
specializing in IC Engines &
Thermodynamics.
He has nearly 35 years of experience in
the Corporate World. He started off as a
trainee and handled sales, marketing,
manufacturing, product management, profit
center management, strategic planning and
corporate development including R & D in
various organizations and at various
levels before becoming a CEO. His last two
professional assignments were at CEO level
before embarking to start management
consultancy business on January 01, 1998.
He has worked for British, Swedish MNCs as
well as very large Indian business houses.
He has spent a large portion of his time
from June 1998 till date in East African
Countries practicing as an independent
Management Consultant.
More details can be obtained at the
following web sites:
mmg.name/
mtg.html
mmgconsu
lting.biz/
Madhavan's articles can be accessed at www.madgopes.com
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