This book could have been benefited with a newer edition to add information after the famous first ever defeat of congress government in India, because the subject of the book not only died suddenly and accidentally soon after this, but far more happened, much of the events of eighties related to the family and the nation woven intricately together as it then used to, that could have put a lot more in perspective. For reasons perhaps not that obscure, this wasn't done.
Much of what is here was known to most who lived through those times, especially those connected in any way with India, especially those that lived in India, even if press was silent for most part about negatives related to the family. This was so not merely during the emergency when political silence was imposed, but also before and after, when personal details of non exemplary nature were kept off. Indeed that was so until the Times motto, very characteristic of a GWTW English era, of "all news that is fit to be printed" was replaced with another set of values and style, especially in film journalism where gossip and dirt was brought in in seventies and paid news replaced it all parading as all news and thought there could be. In non film journalism and indeed in officialdom people still did and do cater to power, which is perceived as intricately related to this family albeit the winner branch of it rather than the thrown out wife and son of the subject of this book, who remain mostly ignored but for the opposition generosity in giving them space in the party. That the family is for now out of power even as opposition, while opposition is a strong winner and ruling party, has changed only a little of that equation as far as most press and other officialdom go.
Mehta here gives little that is not known, and leaves out much that is known, which he states could have filled another book but was not included for reasons of journalistic integrity, specifically for lack of substantiation - so most of this is a reliving through the known and few unknown details. He mentions the big theft, but leaves out the real mccoy that was change of name due to the incident overseas, and instead claims the subject of his book left the Rolls Royce apprenticeship due to being no longer interested.
What is really interesting is that he leaves the book and the reader, after meticulously cataloguing all the unsavoury details of Sanjay Gandhi's exploits and misdeeds known and less known in detail, is that he makes one question instead if the guy wasn't so much a villain as a character out of place and out of his time, and would have been instead seen as a saviour and unquestionable prince and king benefic and loved by his people if only time and place were different. This may or may not have been his intention - after all his very meticulous balancing of the book might not have been all that merely due to integrity of journalism, but more of a safety precaution, since one couldn't even then have been certain of just how long congress and the family would be not in power. Indeed they were back in two years, except for Sanjay who was no longer quite the unopposed prince and died before he could come back to that position.
This impression, of a man out of his time and place but not intrinsically bad per se as much as
simply lacking the circumstances that could have instead made him look very different, is perhaps all the more stronger if one has just finished reading about the various royal families and persona of Europe, One gets the impression they got away with much including deaths of millions, being not personally responsible for events they presided over as heads of nations, and more.
Indeed the author leaves one with the impression that the one single characteristic of the man was that he was autocratic in his style of thought and decisions, and while he heard and understood others when he did meet or hear them, he gave little importance to what he did not consider worth taking into account. In the process much was discarded that could have benefited him, from school education to the final routing at elections due to not listening to those that knew better.
One might wonder if there was more in this line - after all various despots of many nations did flourish quite long and well under a benevolent eye from a superpower, due to their ability to agree to just that much; that some of them cheated on the agreements successfully and were never punished is yet more evidence that perhaps downfall of this young man, fortuitous for the nation or not, was not all due to his serious flaws as much as due to faults that put him out of ever being supported by a superpower.
Mehta mentions Sanjay's own family but little, makes no mention of death of his father in law and the Sikh problems that the nation and more specifically the family faced after the death of Sanjay Gandhi and especially more so after the events that unfolded post his death. All that of course happened after this book was published, but he has added only a new forward to the book, mentioning only the death of Sanjay Gandhi and no more.
All in all one wonders if the author was all along merely in a fortuitous circumstance as people in higher positions during and post British times tended to be, rather than earning it with merit. One expected much more of the book on this subject, more than this, better than this, due to his name and position of being a well known top journalist and editor of decades of top magazines.
One of the examples where it fails or at least falls very short is the infamous Turkman Gate episode of emergency misdeeds - Mehta describes it as a slum, deserving of being razed to the ground, and only badly done as in human terms: Tavleen Singh, another journalist of excellence, has explained it differently, in her book Durbar. And while Mehta does give a lot of details about the whole operation making one cringe as one reads it, it is the crucial difference in describing it merely as a slum that is a serious discrepancy at the very least if not outright mistake.
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So Mehta wrote the book soon post emergency, and the subject and his mother being still very much then alive, didn't take chances but wrote so meticulously that it comes across as all documentation of what most others either wrote or said until then, or could find easily enough, with - as he very explicitly and pointedly mentions - much withheld. He really hasn't said anything that could help them persecute him legitimately, if and when back in power, which they did come soon enough, even though Sanjay died very soon and suddenly in an accident with a plane he was flying crashing near his home that was the home of his mother, then again the prime minister of India.
The effect is to make one wonder if he really wished one to take a startled second look at whether the guy was not a villain but a much misunderstood visionary out of time and space and role, with much that was blamed on him being not his fault, much that was his fault not being held up for him to be accountable to but minor stuff, and much that was his accomplishment being lost in the sycophancy during the emergency.
One small detail comes to mind much later post having finished the book and been busy at other stuff, which - the detail - is interesting in its shedding light on the author.
He has made it a point to give details of how he was asked, with no uncertainty, by henchmen of the power during emergency, to give publicity favourable to Sanjay Gandhi via articles and editorials, which other publications did readily enough (he refrains from mentioning the chief publication that stood out against it all, funnily enough!) - which he meticulously mentions he had not until then complied with, and later fortunately didn't have to, due to emergency being lifted.
And therein lies the secret of why he gives detailed description of the circumstances and wedding of the parents, Indira Nehru and Feroze Gandhi, pointing out and specifically mentioning that the ceremony might not have been legal or legitimate, at all. Most people would satisfy themselves using a small one word. But Indian culture being unlike that of west, no such words exist in India for children of parents who might not be married to one another, and the concept of such stigma for children is borrowed or imposed via colonial rules of foreign origin over a millennia, as are the small words.
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