George Fernandes

George Mathew Fernandes (3 June 1930 – 29 January 2019) was an Indian politician, trade unionist, statesman, and journalist, who served as the Defence Minister of India from 1998 until 2004. A veteran socialist, he was a member of the Lok Sabha for over 30 years, starting from Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in 1967 till 2009 mostly representing constituencies from Bihar. He was the leader of the Samyukta Socialist Party and the Socialist Party, a key member of the Janata Party, the Janata Party (Secular) and the Janata Dal, and, finally, the founder of the Samata Party. Holding several prominent ministerial portfolios during his career, including communication, industry, railways, and defence, he was posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2020.

A native of Mangalore, Fernandes was sent to Bangalore in 1946 to be trained as a priest. In 1949, he moved to Bombay, where he joined the socialist trade union movement. Becoming a trade union leader, Fernandes organised many strikes and bandhs in Bombay in the 1950s and 1960s while working with the Indian Railways. He defeated S K Patil of the Indian National Congress in the 1967 parliamentary elections from the Bombay South constituency. As president of the All India Railwaymen's Federation, he led the 1974 railways strike. Fernandes went underground during the Emergency era of 1975, while challenging Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for imposing a state of emergency, but in 1976 he was arrested and tried in the infamous Baroda dynamite case.

In 1977, after the Emergency had been lifted, Fernandes won the Muzaffarpur seat in Bihar in absentia. As industries minister, he revoked the licences for multinationals IBM and Coca-Cola to operate in India, due to investment violations. As railways minister from 1989 to 1990 he was the driving force behind the Konkan Railway project. As defence minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led second and third Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministries (1998–2004), he oversaw the outbreak of the Kargil War and the implementation of nuclear tests at Pokhran. Fernandes has been dogged by various controversies, including the Barak Missile scandal and the Tehelka affair. George Fernandes won nine Lok Sabha elections from 1967 to 2004. He died on 29 January 2019 at the age of 88.

He studied from fifth grade at the school attached to St. Aloysius College, Mangalore, where he completed his Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC).

In an interview with ETV, Fernandes described his decision to stop studies after matriculation despite his father wishing him to study and become a lawyer. At the age of 19, he left the seminary due to sheer frustration because he was appalled that the rectors ate better food and sat at higher tables than the seminarians. He later confessed that, "I was disillusioned, because there was a lot of difference between precept and practice where the Church was concerned." For some time, he worked as an insurance agent and also tried wholesale businesses of shaving blades. His first guru was a Mangalorean activist and a freedom fighter Ammembala Balappa (1922–2014). Balappa identified and groomed a young Fernandes, who had taken refuge at places surrounding Nehru Maidan in Mangalore city, after being thrown out of the house. Initially, with Balappa's mentorship Fernandes gathered hotel workers and other menial labourers in the city. He was associated with Ram Manohar Lohia-led Praja Socialist Party (PSP) in its Mangalore division. Fernandes and few other union workers led Mangalore's earliest labour strikes on behalf of the workers of Canara Public Conveyance (CPC)in 1949. The strike was cracked down as the police resorted to lathi charge. After the strike, Fernandes came in contact with renowned Bombay-based Trade Union leader Placid D'Mello (1919–1958). Fernandes later left to Bombay in 1950 and faced tremendous hardships. Here again, he became a prodigy of D'Mello, who was handling the arduous Dock unions. After D'Mello's death in 1958, Fernandes succeeded in managing dock Unions and other major labour force unions in the city that included Taximen unions, textile mills and Mazdoor Unions.

Career

Brief history of participating in elections

He first contested Lok Sabha election in 1967 as a socialist, and defeated the Congress stalwart Sa Kaa Patil in Bombay in a famous upset, earning the sobriquet 'George the Giant-killer'. He contested from Muzaffarpur, Bihar in 1977 while still in jail as a Janata Party candidate, and won. He was made minister in the first non-Congress govt in India. In 1979, he resigned from : Janata Party, joined Charan Singh's breakaway Janata Party (S), and won again from Muzaffarpur in 1980. In 1984 he fought from Bangalore on Janata Party's ticket but lost to Jaffar Sharif of Congress. He lost a bye-poll from Banka in 1985 and again in 1986. In 1989 and 1991, he shifted back to Bihar and won both times from Muzaffarpur as Janata Dal candidate. In 1994, he left Janata Dal after differences with Lalu Yadav and formed Samata Party which allied with BJP.

In 1996 and 1998 elections, he won from Nalanda as Samata Party candidate. Samata Party merged with Janata Dal (United) and he won again from Nalanda in 1999. In 2004 he won from Muzaffarpur. In 2009 he was denied ticket by his party, contested from Muzaffarpur as an independent and lost. Later he was elected to Rajya Sabha in 2009. In the 2010s he was afflicted for many years with Alzheimer's and died in January 2019.

Bombay : 1967 (Lost in 1971)
Muzaffarpur : 1977, 1980, 1989, 1991, 2004. (Lost in 2009 as rebel)
Bangalore : Lost in 1984
Banka : Lost bye-polls in 1985 and 1986.
Nalanda : 1996, 1998, 1999
Rajya Sabha : 2009

Life in Mumbai

After leaving the seminary, Fernandes moved to Bombay in 1949 in search of a job. He went to the office of Socialist Party in Bombay and met Madhu Dandavate to ask him for staying there for some time but was not welcomed. His life was tough in Bombay, and he had to sleep on the streets, until he got a job as a proofreader for The Times of India newspaper. He relates to the beginning of his career by saying, "When I came to Bombay, I used to sleep on the benches of Chowpatty Sands. In the middle of the night policemen used to come and wake me up and ask me to move on." He came into contact with veteran union leader Placid D'Mello, and the socialist Rammanohar Lohia, who were the greatest influences on his life. Later, he joined the socialist trade union movement.

In 1951, Fernandes joined Bombay Dock Worker's Union and worked to revive the publication of a newsletter The Dockman. When in August 1951, Placid D'Mello was arrested, he organised foot march of around two-hundred dock workers from Bombay to Poona to meet Chief Minister Morarji Desai for the release of D'Mello. As a labour organiser, he served many prison terms when his workforce engaged in fights with company goons. He served as a member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation from 1961 to 1968. He won in the civic election in 1961 and, until 1968, continuously raised the problems of the exploited workers in the representative body of the metropolis.

On his first day at Bombay Municipal Corporation, 10 April 1961, he requested that the proceedings to be conducted in Marathi instead of English language. On 4 April 1963, George was arrested along with Sardar Parsbag Singh and Janardhan Upadhyay under Defence of India act because of their demand to change the taxi fair structure. He was jailed at Nasik Central Jail. On 9 August 1963, Madhu Limaye along with other trade union leaders organised a big rally in Bombay for his release. On 13 December 1963, he was released from Nagpur Central Jail.

The moment that thrust Fernandes into the limelight was his decision to contest the 1967 general election. He was offered a party ticket for the Bombay South constituency by the Samyukta Socialist Party against the more wellknown S. K. Patil of the Indian National Congress in Bombay. Patil was a seasoned politician, with two decades of experience. Nevertheless, Fernandes won by garnering 48.5 per cent of the votes, thus earning his nickname, "George the Giantkiller". The shocking defeat ended Patil's political career.

Fernandes emerged as a key leader in the upsurge of strike actions in Bombay during the second half of the 1960s but, by the beginnings of the 1970s, the impetus of his leadership had largely disappeared. In February 1974, the National Coordinating Committee for Railwaymen's Struggle (NCCRS) was formed to bring all the railway unions, the central trade unions and political parties in the Opposition together to prepare for the strike to start on 8 May 1974.

The strike, which started on 8 May 1974, at the time of economic crisis, provoked strong government reactions and massive arrests. According to Amnesty International, 30,000 trade unionists were detained, most held under preventive detention laws. Those arrested included not only members of the strike action committee and trade unionists, but also railwaymen who participated in the strike. Although large number of prisoners were released, among them Fernandes, thousands remained in detention, charged with specific offences. The strike led to a sense of insecurity and threat that led to Indira Gandhi's imposition of the Emergency era in 1975. Previous strikes were aimed at companies or industries, but this strike was aimed at the government and from its ramifications proved to be the most successful of disastrous industrial actions in Indian history.

In July 1975, Fernandes arrived in Baroda. There, he met Kirit Bhatt, who was president of Baroda Union of Journalists, and Vikram Rao, a staff correspondent of The Times of India at Baroda, both who opposed the Emergency. They used to meet and discuss on what could be done to topple the autocratic Indira Gandhi Government. An industrialist friend, Viren J. Shah, managing director of Mukand Ltd., helped them find contacts for procuring dynamite, used extensively in quarries around Halol (near Baroda). They aimed at blowing up toilets in government offices and cause explosions near the venue of public meetings to be addressed by Indira Gandhi. The idea was not to injure anybody, but only create a scare. The explosions were to be carried out either late in the night or hours before the public meeting was to begin to avoid injury. A plan was hatched to blow up a dais four hours before Indira Gandhi was to address a meeting in Varanasi. The conspiracy later came to be known as the infamous Baroda dynamite case.

According to Bhatt, there were two more plans that never worked out. Fernandes also wanted to rob a train used to carry weapons from Pimpri (near Poona) to Bombay. The weapons were to be used to blast government offices. Yet another plan was to take the help of other countries by using ham radio. After his arrest, Amnesty International members cabled the Government requesting that he be given immediate access to a lawyer and that his physical protection be guaranteed. Three world leaders from Germany, Norway and Austria were believed to have cabled Indira Gandhi and cautioned her against harming Fernandes. The Janata Party and its allies came to power, headed by Morarji Desai, who became the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India. Fernandes won the Muzaffarpur seat in Bihar by an over 300,000 vote margin in 1977 from jail where he was lodged in the Baroda dynamite case, despite his not even visiting the constituency.

On 28 March 1977, he was appointed Minister of Post and Telegraph. In his speech, on 31 March 1977, in Lok Sabha, he emphasised on expanding postal services to rural areas. During his union ministership, he clashed with American multinationals IBM and Coca-Cola insisting they implement FERA, the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, which had been passed under Indira Gandhi's government. Under the FERA, foreign investors could not own more than 40 per cent of the share capital in Indian enterprises. The two multinationals decided to shut down their Indian operations, when Fernandes pressed ahead with rigid enforcement of FERA. On 1 May 1978, he launched District Industrial Centre to provide employment in rural areas.

During his first tenure as MP, Fernandes set up a Doordarshan Kendra (1978), Kanti Thermal Power Station (1978) and the Lijjat papad factory to generate employment in Muzaffarpur. Fernandes also insisted on women's empowerment. In November 2014, Kanti Thermal Power Station was renamed as George Fernandes Thermal Power Station (GFTPS).

In November 1978, he sent his resignation letter to Desai to work for the organization of Janata Party, which was rejected. On 12 July 1979, speaking on Motion of no confidence brought by Yashwantrao Chavan, George Fernandes defended Morarji Desai's government. But on 15 July 1979, George along with other ministers like Biju Patnaik, Purushottam Kaushik, Bhanu Pratap Singh resigned from Desai's cabinet. After the Janata Party started disintegrating in 1979, Charan Singh left it to form the Janata (Secular) Party and with support from the Congress Party, replaced Desai as prime minister.

In the seventh general elections held in 1980, the Janata (Secular) ministry failed to maintain a majority in the Lok Sabha, and Congress once again became the ruling party. He contested for the Lok Sabha in 1984 from Bangalore North constituency against future Railway minister and Congress candidate C. K. Jaffer Sheriff, but lost the election by a margin of 40,000 votes. He then decided to shift his base to Bihar in 1989, when an anti-Congress wave was sweeping the country in the wake of the Bofors scandal, His second tenure as Minister of Railways in the V. P. Singh's government from 1989 to 1990, though short-lived, was quite eventful.

Fernandes broke away from the erstwhile Janata Dal and formed the Samata Party in 1994, which became a key ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). BJP formed a short-lived government in the 1996 general elections along with the Samata Party and other allies. The government survived only for 13 days, since the BJP could not gather enough support from other parties to form a majority. Fernandes later served in the opposition along with BJP during the two United Front governments (1996–1998) led by Janata Dal ministers H. D. Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral.

After the collapse of the second BJP-led coalition government, BJP and its allies formed a 24 party alliance called National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which became the first non-Congress coalition government in post-independence India to survive a full five-year term (1999–2004). Later, Fernandes became the convenor of NDA. On 27 July 1999, the Janata Dal again split into two factions, the Janata Dal (United) and the Janata Dal (Secular). In 2003, Fernandes reunited with the Janata Dal (United), and also merged his Samata Party with it.

Defence minister

thumb|right|Fernandes (left) with [[United States Secretary of Defense|US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2002]]

Fernandes served as the Defence Minister of India in both the first and second National Democratic Alliance governments (1998–2004). During his tenure as the defence minister, the Kargil war over Kashmir broke out between India and Pakistan in 1999. The war began when heavily armed Pakistan-backed intruders dug themselves in at heights of  – on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LOC) along an stretch north of Kargil. They began attacking the strategic highway linking Srinagar and Leh. As a result, the Indian army undertook the Operation Vijay to push back the Pakistani intruders and regain the occupied territories. The inability of the Indian intelligence and military agencies to detect the infiltration early received criticism, both by the opposition as well as the media. However, Fernandes refused to acknowledge the failure of intelligence agencies in detecting infiltration along Kargil sector.

In May 1998, India conducted five nuclear tests at the Pokharan range in Rajasthan. Earlier a staunch supporter of nuclear disarmament, Fernandes openly endorsed the NDA government's decision to test the nuclear bombs. He was also involved in skirmishes with the then Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy, Vishnu Bhagwat, over promotion of Vice-Admiral Harinder Singh as Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. Bhagwat was subsequently sacked over the issue. After the Tehelka defence scandal broke out in March 2001, Fernandes quit as defence minister, but was reappointed to the post later. Fernandes is the only defence minister of a nuclear power who had a picture of Hiroshima bombing in his office. He made 18 visits to the icy heights of the Siachen glacier in Kashmir, which holds the record of being "the world's highest battlefield". He was known for overseeing a huge increase in India's defence budget as compared to the allocations made by previous governments.

Later, political observers alleged that Fernandes was locked in a bitter party rivalry with his one-time friend, Samata Party co-founder, Nitish Kumar. In the 2009 general elections, he contested from Muzaffarpur as an independent candidate after being denied a ticket by the Janata Dal (United) on health grounds, but he lost the election. On 30 July 2009, Fernandes filed his nomination as an independent candidate for the mid-term poll being held for the Rajya Sabha seat vacated by Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav. The Janata Dal (United) did not field any candidate against him, which led to his being elected unopposed. He was sworn in on 4 August 2009.

Reception

Support to secessionist groups in Sri Lanka

Fernandes supported and endorsed many secessionist movements and groups. He was a long time supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an organisation which sought to create an independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. He also expressed support for Tibetan refugees fighting for freedom against China, and Burmese pro-democratic rebel groups fighting against the military government in Myanmar.

He revealed the infamous "Operation Leech" incident, which resulted in the capture of Arakan Army insurgents in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He also fought for the welfare and release of anti-Burmese rebels held by the Indian Government.

CIA funding

During the Emergency, as chairman of the Socialist Party of India, he faced prosecution for alleged conspiracy against the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Tehelka scandal

Fernandes' name figured prominently in Operation West End, a sting operation in which journalist Mathew Samuel, armed with hidden cameras, from a controversial investigative journal, Tehelka, posing as representatives of a fictitious arms company, appeared to bribe the Bharatiya Janata Party President, Bangaru Laxman, a senior officer in the Indian Army and Jaya Jaitly, the General Secretary of the Samata Party and Fernandes' companion.

The scandal caused uproar all over India and Fernandes was forced to resign from his post as Defence Minister. He was subsequently cleared by the one man commission headed by retired Justice Phukan. The Phukan Committee Report was rejected by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government headed by the Congress Party and a new committee headed by Justice K Venkataswami was appointed. The Committee investigated the case in detail, but Justice Venkataswami resigned before submitting the report in the case.

Barak Missile scandal

On 10 October 2006, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a First information report (FIR) against Fernandes, his associate Jaya Jaitly, and former navy chief Admiral Sushil Kumar for alleged irregularities in purchasing the Barak 1 system from Israel in 2000.

As defence minister

Following the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998, he openly branded China as "India's enemy number one". He later expressed regret for his statements, saying it was wrongly interpreted by the media. However, the US embassy in Delhi issued a formal denial that Fernandes had been strip-searched, and said that, "Fernandes was not strip-searched but a security wand was waved over him when a key in his pocket set off the metal detector." This was one in a series of incidents involving the detention and search of Indian VIPs at US airports that marred Indian–US relations post 9/11.

He was accused in the 2002 coffin scam, following allegations that 500 poor quality aluminium caskets were bought from the United States at rates 13 times more than the actual price, to transport the bodies of slain soldiers, after the Kargil War. However, the CBI gave a clean sheet to Fernandes in the scam in its 2009 charge sheet.

Positions held

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Positions held

! Position !! Duration

| Member, Standing Committee on Rural Development || 5 Aug. 2007

| Member, Committee on External Affairs ||

| Member, 14th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 2004 (9th term)

| Union Cabinet Minister, Defence || 15 Oct. 2001 – May 2004

| Member, General Purposes Committee ||

| Union Cabinet Minister, Defence || 13 Oct. 1999 – 16 March 2001

| Leader, Janata Dal (U), Parliamentary Party, Lok Sabha ||

| Member, 13th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 1999 (8th term)

| Member, General Purposes Committee ||

| Union Cabinet Minister, Defence || 1998–1999

| Member, 12th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 1998 (7th term)

| Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Human Resource Development ||

| Member, Committee on External Affairs || 1996–1997

| Member, 11th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 1996 (6th term)

| President, Samata Party || 1994 onwards

| Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs ||

| Member, Committee on Finance || 1993–1996

| Member, 10th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 1991 (5th term)

| Member, Railway Convention Committee || 1990–1991

| Minister of Kashmir Affairs (Additional charge) || March–May 1990

| Union Cabinet Minister, Railways || 1989–1990

| Member, 9th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 1989 (4th term)

| Member, 7th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 1980 (3rd term)

| Union Cabinet Minister, Industry || 1977–1979

| Union Cabinet Minister, Communications || March–July 1977

| Member, 6th Lok Sabha || Re-elected in 1977 (2nd term)

| President, All India Railwaymen's Federation ||

| Chairman, Socialist Party || 1973–1977

| General Secretary, Samyukta Socialist Party || 1969–1973

| Member, Committee on Petitions || 1967–1970

| Member, 4th Lok Sabha || Elected in 1967

Writings, journalism and other contributions

Fernandes liked writing and journalism in his student days. He was the editor of a Konkani language monthly Konkani Yuvak (Konkani Youth) in 1949. The same year, he was the editor of the Raithavani weekly in Kannada. The Dockman weekly in English, which had ceased publication, reappeared under the editorship of Fernandes in 1952–53. Though not a prolific writer, Fernandes wrote several books on politics including What Ails the Socialists (1972), Socialist Communist Interaction in India, In the year of the disabled: India's disabled government (1981), Dignity for All: Essays in Socialism and Democracy (1991), and his autobiography titled George Fernandes Speaks (1991). He was the editor of an English monthly, The Other Side, and the chairman of the editorial board of the Hindi monthly Pratipaksh.

In the year 2022, a Canada-based Mangalorean origin writer Chris Emmanuel Dsouza published a book titled Bandh Samrat – Tales of eternal rebel that chronicled George Fernandes's early days of Trade union activism in his hometown of Mangalore, his early slog in his adopted city of Bombay and his association with stellar socialist figures of Mangalore like the noted Ammembala Balappa and Placid D’Mello.

Family and personal life

Fernandes met Leila Kabir, the daughter of former Union minister Humayun Kabir, on a flight back to Delhi from Calcutta. Fernandes, then the general secretary of the Samyukta Socialist Party, was returning from Bangladesh while Kabir was on her way back from the battlefront where she had gone as an assistant director of the Red Cross. They began dating and were married on 22 July 1971. They had a son, Sean Fernandes, who is an investment banker based in New York. Fernandes and Kabir separated in the mid-1980s.

Fernandes was reported to be suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and in January 2010 was undergoing treatment at Baba Ramdev's ashram at Haridwar for the diseases at the request of Leila Kabir, who had recently returned to his life. In February 2010, Fernandes' brothers were reported to have been considering a court order for medical treatment and visitation; Kabir and Sean Fernandes are alleged to have forcibly removed Fernandes to an undisclosed location. In July 2010, the Delhi High Court ruled that Fernandes would stay with Kabir and that Fernandes' brothers would be able to visit.

In August 2012 the Supreme Court of India granted permission to Jaya Jaitly, a former aide, to visit him, a move which was opposed by his wife on the grounds of her locus standi.

He died at the age of 88 on 29 January 2019, in Delhi following a swine flu infection.

References

Bibliography

External links

Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website
Samata Party – official website. .
Ongoing news coverage from The Times Network
George Fernandes: Rebel without a pause from Gulf News
India's My Lai
vpradeepkumar.com story on George Fernandes