Dr. A Surya Prakash,
Distinguished Fellow, VIF
On December 20, 1978, Bhola Pandey of Azamgarh and his friend
Devendar Pandey of Ballia hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC 410 from
Lucknow to Delhi, soon after it took off from Lucknow.There were 132
passengers on board. The hijackers, who appeared to be armed, made
several demands and forced the aircraft to land at Varanasi. They said
they were members of the Youth Congress. They wanted Indira Gandhi to be
released from jail; all criminal cases against her and Sanjay Gandhi to
be withdrawn; and the Janata Party Government at the Centre to tender
its resignation. They demanded that the authorities should convey
“their regards” to Sanjay Gandhi and summon the Chief Minister of the
state for talks. The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the Inspector
General of Police and the Chief Secretary took a special flight to
Varanasi and arrived at that airport soon after 1 a.m. the following
morning, to negotiate the release of the passengers. The hijackers also
demanded that arrangements be made for them to address a press
conference at the airport lounge and that the Prime Minister and All
India Radio should be informed of the hijacking.
Following protracted negotiations with the Chief Minister and senior
state officials, the two hijackers released the passengers and
surrendered. The hijacking incident created quite a stir in Parliament
and the Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation Mr.Purushottam Kaushik
made a statement the following day and explained the sequence of events
beginning with the hijack of the aircraft soon after it took off from
Lucknow the previous day.1
That week was marked by large-scale violence in many states triggered
by members of the Congress Party in protest against the arrest of
Ms.Indira Gandhi in a breach of privilege case and her disqualification
from Parliament on December 19. Tha Pandeys hijacked the plane on
December 20 to protest against Parliament’s decision to punish
Ms.Gandhi. On December 21, Congress mobs went to the extent of hurling
bombs into the Calcutta residence of Mr.Samar Guha, the Chairman of the
Committee of Privileges of the Lok Sabha, which had indicted Ms.Gandhi.
Congress goons also went on the rampage in Bangalore and Hyderabad and
targeted public property. Several persons were killed in these
incidents. These violent incidents became the subject matter of an
intense debate on December 23 in the Lok Sabha.
MPs belonging to other political parties condemned the hijacking and
said that such trends smacked of fascist tendencies, which the Congress
Party had in any case displayed in abundant measure during the dreaded
Emergency imposed by Ms.Indira Gandhi for 19 months from June, 1975.
However, leading lights of the Congress Party including
Mr.R.Venkataraman, who later became President of India and Mr.Vasant
Sathe, sought to rationalize the conduct of their party members and even
tried to dismiss the hijacking incident as nothing more than a joke.
They went to extraordinary lengths to defend Bhola Pandey and Devender
Pandey when the Lok Sabha debated the incident. Their comments said a
lot about the respect that the Congress Party had for Parliament and its
committees. It showed that despite the humiliating defeat suffered by
the party in the March, 1977 Lok Sabha election, when it was punished
for imposing a dictatorship on India, it had learnt few lessons. The
debate once again exposed the Congress mindset, its fascist inclinations
and revealed a lot about the party’s respect for the rule of law.
Among those who stood up to defend the violence unleashed by the
party was Congress veteran R.Venkataraman, who went so far as to talk
about the right of every citizen to express dissent.”It is a lesson we
have learnt from Gandhiji…..when in South Africa, he protested against
discriminatory laws and courted imprisonment…..When Gandhiji broke the
salt laws in the country for the purpose of agitating the peoples’ right
to freedom , he exercised the right to dissent. Therefore, the people
of the country feel that a certain punishment is out of proportion or is
unwarranted (expulsion of Indira Gandhi from the Lok Sabha and her
arrest) and they have a right to dissent and to take recourse to such
things as to bring forth their point of view…..”.2
After this near shameful justification of country-wide violence,
including the hijacking, Mr.Venkataraman claimed that the Congress
Working Committee had passed a resolution condemning violence. However,
“if in spite of it (the resolution), certain people take to certain
measures, it is not because of the bidding, it is in spite of it”.
Therefore, he claimed, the party was not to blame. He then went on to
claim that “there are always recalcitrant and intransigent elements in
every party. There are always extreme elements in every party and
extreme elements cannot be shown or brought up as an argument for
condemning the party as a whole”.3
This argument sounds hollow today because the Congress Party has
rewarded the “recalcitrant and intransigent and extreme elements” with
party tickets to contest not just the state assembly election in Uttar
Pradesh but the Lok Sabha polls four times in a row! It shows that those
who hijacked the aircraft in 1978 are deeply loved and respected by the
Nehru-Gandhis and the Congress Party.
Finally, Mr.Venkataraman dismissed the hijacking as nothing more than
a joke. He said when they first heard the news about the hijacking,
there was great deal of anger in the country. “But, ultimately, when it
turned out to be nothing more than a toy pistol and a cricket ball, Sir,
it has become the joke of the year”. On hearing this, the Speaker said
“fortunately” Mr.Venkataraman was not in that plane.4
Mr.Vasant Sathe, another senior parliamentarian in the Congress
ranks, said at the outset that he was not justifying the conduct of the
Pandeys but said he did not know how to describe the incident. Was it
hijacking, skyjacking or skyjoking? According to him, it was “a prank by
misguided young men” because they had deployed a cricket ball and a toy
pistol.5
Mr.Janardhana Poojary blamed the ruling Janata Party government for
the violence that culminated in the hijacking. He said there was an
overwhelming sentiment across the country in favour of Ms.Gandhi and
people were willing to sacrifice their lives and their property for her
sake.
Lok Sabha records show that Mr.K.P.Unnikrishnan informed the House of
the political connections and antecedents of the two Pandeys. He said
they were closely connected with a confidant of Ms.Gandhi and were “very
active” in the campaign to oust Mr.Bahuguna from the Chief Ministership
of Uttar Pradesh.6
Mr.Yadvendra Dutta spoke of how members of the Congress Party were
saying that “if Indiraji goes to jail, rivers of blood will flow”. The
Congress had just a single point programme – “release the queen bee or
the honey bees will die. Is this not sycophancy of the highest order?”7
Mr.Dutt compared the Congress Party’s tactics to “Hitlerian tactics”.
He said the technique of a dictator is to bring the institutions of
democracy into disparagement, disregard and disgrace” and all this one
can see when Sanjay Gandhi is taken to court, followed by a howling mob
which is abusing every court officer. He recalled that in Hitler’s time
this is what happened in Germany. In the streets of Munich or Hamburg,
jack-booted storm-troopers marched on the streets to give people the
impression that democracy was useless. “And that is exactly what they
(Congress Party) want to show…that Mrs.Gandhi and Shri Sanjay Gandhi are
above the law and they are above everything. Nothing can be done
against them except to worship them by garlanding. That is what they
want to establish in this country”.8
Mr.Saugata Roy said Mr.Dharam Bir Sinha, a former MP was on the
hijacked plane. He told him that the hijackers were dressed in khadi
kurta and pyjama . They came out of the cockpit and addressed the
passengers and told them why they were hijacking the plane. They said
they wanted to focus the attention of the world to Ms.Gandhi’s arrest.
“There may not have been specific instructions; but these young men had a
specific purpose in mind – to demand the release of Mrs.Gandhi”. He
said he heard from Varanasi that groups of Congress Party supporters
went to the Varanasi airport that day and raised slogans like “Pandeyji
ki jai”.9
Mr.P.G.Mavalankar, a member of the Committee of Privileges which
found Ms.Gandhi guilty of breach of privilege of the House, said ‘there
was ample proof of her guilt”. He did some plain speaking and said he
was shocked to hear of the bomb attack on the house of Mr.Samar Guha,
Chairman, Committee of Privileges. He said the House must stand as one
and condemn this incident and build up public opinion against such
behavior. He said neither Mr.Guha nor other members of the Committee of
Privileges would be intimidated by such conduct. He said such protests
were highly objectionable “as they lead to disruption, dislocation and
sabotage” and we cannot tolerate it. He said some public decency and
standards of morality had to be maintained in politics. Mr.Mavalankar
was also amused at Mr.Venkataraman talking of the right of dissent in a
democracy after Indira Gandhi had crushed dissent during the Emergency
and jailed MPs who spoke against her in Parliament.10
Prime Minister Morarji Desai lambasted Mr.Venkataraman and other
Congress MPs who were trying to down play the hijacking. He said it was
fortunate that the incident did not end in a disaster.”If the pilots had
lost their nerve, anything could have happened”. This was the gravity
of the hijacking. He said he was pained to hear Mr.Venkataraman’s
comment that the incident was a joke. “How was it a joke? Such a thing
can never be defended, whether it was a toy pistol or whether a ball was
presented as a bomb. How was it possible for the pilot to know that it
was a toy pistol? They could not take a risk. If anything had happened, I
do not know how many lives would have been lost”. He also referred to
the large scale violence unleashed by the Congress Party in the country
including the bomb attack on the house of the Chairman of the Committee
of Privileges of the Lok Sabha; the violence in Karnataka and the attack
on the house of another MP, Mr.Shejwalkar in Gwalior the previous
night; and attempts to burn the office of the Janata Party in Delhi.11
The Congress hatched a plot to split the Janata Party in Parliament
in 1979 and succeeded in doing so by weaning away Chaudhary Charan Singh
and his followers. The Congress Party tempted him with prime
ministership if he broke away with his MPs. It offered him support to
form the government. These moves led to the fall of the Morarji Desai
Government. Mr.Charan Singh was sworn in as Prime Minister by the
President, but he never faced Parliament as Prime Minister because the
Congress Party withdrew support before the next session and thus forced
elections. Meanwhile, the Charan Singh Government, under pressure from
the Congress Party, initiated the process to withdraw the case against
the hijackers. The case against the two Pandeys was dropped.12
Thereafter, the Congress Party honoured both of them by giving them
tickets in the 1980 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. They were elected
to the assembly. Devendra Nath Pandey too has held key posts in the
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee apart from successfully contesting
elections to the state assembly.13
Since then, Bhola Pandey has been a favourite of the Nehru-Gandhis
and given tickets to contest Lok Sabha elections in 1999, 2004 and 2009.
On all these occasions, he has been unsuccessful. Further, Bhola Pandey
has had his brush with the law on several occasions since the
hijacking. For example, he was arrested and remanded to judicial custody
by a local court in Ballia in March, 2009 following a non-bailable
warrant in an extortion case dating back to 1982. Though remanded to
judicial custody, the magistrate permitted him to file his nomination
papers for the Lok Sabha election.14
However, his clout with the Nehru-Gandhis is such that he has been
once again given the ticket for the Salempur Lok Sabha seat in 2014! Who
knows? Given their persistence, the Nehru-Gandhis may well succeed in
their efforts to bring the man who hijacked a plane in 1978 into their
ranks in Parliament!
References:
- Lok Sabha Debates, December 21, 1978, Cols 331-335
- Lok Sabha Debates, December 23, 1978, Col 16
- Ibid, Col 17
- Ibid
- Ibid, Col 41
- Ibid, Col 3
- Ibid, Col 37
- Ibid, Col 39
- Ibid, Col 47-48
- Ibid, Col 59-61
- Ibid, 107-108
- P. 124, Indian Airports (Shocking Ground Realities), Kishin R. Wadhwaney,Diamond Pocket Books, 2005
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bholanath_and_Devendra_Pandey
- http://zeenews.india.com/news/general-election/cong-candidate-from-salem...
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