Rajni Patel was a lawyer, trade union leader and politician – and much more – who dominated the political landscape of Bombay in the 1970s. He was a close associate and adviser of Indira Gandhi. A Cambridge-educated lawyer, he had been on the watch list of British authorities during his days in Britain and upon his return to India, got involved in cooperative movements and public life in general. His legal battles in the courts are legendary.

A new book by his wife Bakul Patel brings together tributes from well-known stalwarts of the time, from P.N. Haksar, Ram Jethmalani, Justice Krishna Iyer and many more. The foreword is by former president Pranab Mukherjee, who formally launched it an event in Mumbai last week.

In this excerpt from the book, former chief minister of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar recalls his friendship with Patel.

My association with Rajni Patel goes back to the 1960s, when I was in my last year of college and was a member of the Youth Congress, working in and around Pune.

In 1962, Krishna Menon the then foreign minister, contested elections as the Congress candidate from North Bombay. There was a section of the Congress Party that was not happy with this and we were organised as an informal group called the Anti-Menon Youth Front. Our leader was the well known Congressman S.K. Patil – he was supporting the candidature of Acharya Kulkarni. Many industrialists and Congress leaders were supporting us.

By this time, I had graduated from college and was working for the Party full-time in Bombay; the Party office was at Tilak Bhavan in Prabhadevi and I was staying there, too. The Anti-Menon Front’s work was also carried out from this office.

Krishna Menon’s campaign was being managed by Rajnibhai – I did not know him then, of course, but we all knew that he was supported by people like journalist Russi Karanjia, actor Dilip Kumar and other prominent citizens, as well as Left-leaning well-wishers who were not directly involved in the party, but were influential in their own way.

As it happened, Menon eventually won, and those of us in the Anti-Menon Youth Front were summoned and ticked off by another leader, Y.B. Chavan who was very unhappy with us for working against a Congress candidate from inside the Party. His words still resonate with me – he said, “You must work with the Party or you should leave.”

Of course, I stayed on and in 1967, got elected to the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha from Baramati district, near Pune. I was 26 – the youngest member in the Assembly; I was also now heading the Congress’ Youth Wing in the state. In those days, the Party worked very differently from how things are done now – there was a rural group and another one that was based in Mumbai. There was a cultural gap between them. As the leader of the Youth Wing, I used to travel across the state and at the time, you didn’t stay at a Circuit House or in hotels, but with other Congress workers which built bonds and personal equations between people working in the Party.

This was an important time for the Congress. In the General Elections of 1967, George Fernandes, a trade unionist and member of the Samyukta Socialist Party, was the candidate contesting against S.K. Patil, who was a legendary figure. Back in 1967, no one knew George and no one expected him to win. He fought hard and his campaign slogan had only one sentence – “You can defeat Patil.” Eventually, he won and came to be known as George the Giant Killer. At the national level, the Congress Party was voted to power in the elections, but with a lesser margin than before and the central leadership – with Indira Gandhi as prime minister – was not very strong.

I have always found that when a stalwart is defeated, those who dislike him feel powerful and that is exactly what happened in Mumbai after S.K. Patil’s defeat. At this time, Rajnibhai, who had been working for the Congress but was not an office bearer, became more prominent. To me, it appeared that he was working behind the scenes to strengthen and support Mrs Gandhi’s leadership. He began to take more interest in the party’s affairs, but not the day-to-day running of it. Those who visited Mumbai from the Centre or from other states began making it a point to meet Rajnibhai and take his advice on various matters. At the same time, he was gathering support for Mrs Gandhi from a cross-section of society – the intelligentsia, businessmen, film stars, etc. Respected Bombay citizens like Dr L.H. Hiranandani and Dr A.V. Baliga would be part of meetings that Rajnibhai convened. All of this greatly raised Rajnibhai’s status within the Congress.

Mrs Gandhi used to take an active interest in the working of the Youth Wing at the time and as its Chairman, I had the opportunity to attend meetings with her a couple of times, which also made me understand that Rajnibhai was one of the people she trusted a lot and who influenced her.

Around 1969, Mrs Gandhi decided to introduce policies that would help the poorer sections of society and Rajnibhai played a very important role in the change of strategy. In the Congress, it was always true that those at the state level always had their gaze fixed upon Delhi and the moment you realised that someone was influential at the national level, you began looking up to them. Thus, Rajnibhai’s importance in the party circles grew and he eventually became president of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee in 1972.

I had, of course, been very aware of him and his work but had not yet met him or had a conversation with him directly until this time. In the early 1970s, just before he became president of the BPCC, Rajnibhai began organising many meetings and conferences – both at the national and state levels – and some of us would introduce ourselves to him when we got a chance to, which is how I met him. I was now the General Secretary of the Congress Party in Maharashtra and he, too, was watching my career. At the time, a serious drought had affected areas of Maharashtra and one of them was my constituency, Baramati. Rajnibhai used to raise funds for emergencies such as these by reaching out to his network of well-wishers and friends across the board.

One day, he called me to meet him. “Young man,” he said, “We are in a crisis and we have to work together. You have to encourage younger people to help. Their job should not be to concentrate on gaining a position but to help affected people.” He wanted us to go out into the field to help those who were affected. Many of us were inspired by his work and a Drought Relief Committee was set up. I remember, he organised all kinds of supplies, including medicines which were donated by pharma companies and his contacts in the transport sector ensured that truckloads of these supplies were on their way to the drought victims.

1971 was a significant year – it began with general elections and ended with India’s resounding victory in the war against Pakistan. Mrs Gandhi, who had been voted to power again, led the country to victory and Bangladesh was formed. The country was in a jubilant mood. In that year – just before he became president of BPCC, as I have mentioned earlier – Rajnibhai’s influence and importance in the Congress was very high. As for myself, I was now a Minister of State for Home in the V.P. Naik-led Government in Maharashtra and had become a regular visitor at Rajnibhai’s office in Cuffe Castle. I turned to him for advice, especially when it came to administration and organisation. He would always remind me that while I had to do well as a minister and work in the State Legislature, I also had the responsibility of looking after and building up the party at the grass-roots level. I took this advice and recruited more youngsters into the Vidhan Sabha. And I was not the only one he was mentoring – there were about 60 to 65 of us who were supported by him and who supported him. He was also now consulted regularly by chief ministers from across the country and across party lines.

In early 1975, Mrs Gandhi wanted to replace V.P. Naik with S.B. Chavan as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra; when we first heard of her intentions, my associates and I were not happy with it. And then one morning, Rajnibhai called me and asked me to accompany him on a trip to Delhi; he was going to meet Mrs Gandhi and the top leadership, along with P.K. Sawant who was the president of the Congress Party in Maharashtra. As it turned out, they deliberated on how best to facilitate this change of guard and Rajnibhai played a very key role in the whole matter. He requested me to organise a meeting with Y.B. Chavan who was a minister at the Centre at the time – the idea was to include him in the plan, in order to not upset anyone and have as much support as possible. I saw, first-hand, how Rajni negotiated with everyone involved and made sure that the transition was as smooth as possible. Eventually, S.B. Chavan did take over as Maharashtra chief minister and a few months after that, Mrs Gandhi imposed a state of Emergency in June, 1975.

Initially, the country was positive about the Emergency. There was a feeling that law and order was improving, prices of essential commodities were coming down and a number of programmes were being implemented for the poor. After some time, however, an authoritarian approach was adopted by the governments, both at the Centre and in the states. And Sanjay Gandhi, Mrs Gandhi’s younger son, began to gain more prominence and influence. That was also the time when certain chief ministers forgot that this is a democratic country, and that their power was given to them by the people and they could not just bypass public sentiment. They started behaving like autocrats. Unfortunately, the Maharashtra Chief Minister was one of them.

Sanjay Gandhi began touring the states and I remember one time when I was a minister in the S.B. Chavan-led government; we were all asked to line up at the airport to welcome him. Some of us did not do so because he held no position in the Congress – he was Mrs Gandhi’s son and that was no reason for senior ministers to queue up for him. However, there were people in the party who supported Sanjay and his policies such as forced sterilisation of young men. S.B. Chavan was a big supporter of this birth control programme and as Sanjay set targets to meet, Chavan would pass these numbers on to the party workers. The entire government machinery and party machinery were now working to meet those targets. Many of us started observing public reaction – it was not positive but no one was voicing dissent. I also heard that certain senior Congress leaders were not ready to toe this line and one of them was Rajnibhai; I think he also expressed this opinion to Mrs Gandhi, saying that she was not aware of ground realities. Eventually, she had to lift the Emergency and she lost the general elections that followed in 1977.

The Janata Party came into power at the Centre and in Maharashtra the two factions of the Congress Party – one led by Brahmanand Reddy and the other by Mrs Gandhi – decided to pool votes and form the government. Initially, the chief ministerial candidate was Vasantdada Patil but there were members who were unhappy with that choice. Some of us decided to dissociate from the Congress Party and everyone encouraged me to take the initiative. I was in two minds about breaking the party. At that time, Rajnibhai heard of these developments and asked to see me. I was honest with him and said, “I don’t want to keep you in the dark. The younger leaders feel that Vasantdada is not the right person to continue as chief minister because he is toeing Mrs Gandhi’s line, which is not liked by many.” Rajnibhai said that this problem could be solved and cautioned me against destabilising the government.

However, one morning, when the Assembly was in session, I submitted my resignation, along with other ministers. Chandra Shekhar was the Janata Party president and he decided to support us. His party and a certain section of the Congress elected me as their leader – I was made Chief Minister of Maharashtra. My relations with Rajnibhai cooled. For the first six months, Rajnibhai would not even answer a phone call from me. He had been a victim of the Emergency and Sanjay Gandhi’s policies; now to see us breaking away from the Congress was terrible for him.

After six or seven months, there were severe floods in West Bengal. The chief minister, Jyoti Basu, who was also a friend of Rajnibhai, rang me to ask for assistance. In those days, whenever and wherever there was a calamity, people depended on Bombay to help. I contacted Rajnibhai and said, “I know that you are unhappy with us but Jyoti Basu has contacted me. It is a tradition in Bombay that whenever there is a calamity, we help.” He agreed to see me and the first thing he said was, “You know I am very fond of you but your action of splitting the Party was not appropriate. But now, I am going to forget about it. You are the Chief Minister and we have an important responsibility to West Bengal.” Of course, he worked day and night to raise funds and also supported me wholeheartedly again.

In 1980, Mrs Gandhi came back to power and now Sanjay’s influence was very strong. Though I never discussed it with Rajnibhai, all of us could see that he did not like Sanjay’s policies and he took a conscious decision to disassociate himself from the Party. He focused instead on the construction of Nehru Centre, which was his brainchild. On many occasions, I remember him, Bakulben and the architect, I.M. Kadri discussing the details of its construction. Rajnibhai raised funds for it and was supported by several eminent citizens, as well as important people from the scientific community. Everything that Nehru Centre is today, is because of Rajnibhai’s vision.

There are many reasons why Rajnibhai was a great leader. Since I witnessed him in the Party, I can say that when S.K. Patil was the leader of the Congress in Maharashtra, the perception of him in the eyes of the common man was that he was the representative of rich people and of industrial houses. At that time, the Shiv Sena started gaining support because of the Marathi-speaking population and the working-class from different communities were not happy with the Congress. It was Rajnibhai who revived the Congress in Mumbai city with mass support as the BPCC chief.

One of the most important organisations in Mumbai at that time was the Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh, which had about 2,00,000 members from nearly 80 textile mills. Rajnibhai headed it. He also had the support of over 1,00,000 dock workers and of the workers of important public sector companies like Indian Oil and LIC. He also started taking interest in providing housing for low-income people.

I recollect that one day, he called me into his office and introduced me to a gentleman called K.M. Goenka who owned 200 or 300 acres of land in Gokuldham, in the suburbs. Rajnibhai wanted me to exempt Goenka’s project from tax and in return, Goenka would have to provide flats to workers. He specified that these flats should be 600 sq ft in size and have two bedrooms. He told Goenka that the per square foot rate should be Rs 60 and if he agreed to all of these conditions, he would be exempted from taxes. It all worked out and Rajnibhai even arranged for loans through his connections in banking, so that the workers could purchase these flats. It was the first major successful affordable housing scheme in the city.

Personally, I had a wonderful equation with him. In stature and age, we were never the same but he treated young people as colleagues, friends and equals. If something went wrong, he would sit and explain the situation, and try to help us. He gave me the opportunity to see the world and interact with important national and international personalities. He would take me on his travels and encourage me to take more responsibility at the national level. He wanted me to be confident and prepared for the highest posts in the country.

The most important thing I learnt from him is to always consider the country’s interest, not just your own. And whenever there is a problem anywhere in the country, if you have the opportunity to help, you should help. I recall in 1993, when there was an earthquake at 4 am in Latur, Maharashtra I was there within two hours. I was then the chief minister and I stayed there for 15 days and our rehabilitation project was hailed as a model, even by the World Bank. In fact, when Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji was the prime minister, there was an all-party meeting in Delhi where Sonia Gandhi raised the issue that India had no disaster management plan. When we discussed it, everyone suggested I take the responsibility of developing it. And let me say, in all honesty, that my whole involvement and association with this subject, which has won praise and respect for me in India and around the world, was because of Rajnibhai and what he taught me.

He was a man who never held or even lobbied for a position in the Government, but he remained a man who was everything to everybody.

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