Former def min George Fernandes dies

George Fernandes, a lifelong socialist despite his political adventurism that included Cabinet posts in two ideologically opposite governments, died in New Delhi on January 29. He was 88. Fernandes was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, which had forced him out of the public eye for several years, and had recently contracted swine flu.

Fernandes, who was born to a Christian family in Mangalore, rose to political prominence when he led the Bombay Taxi Unions Association and defeated the “uncrowned king of Bombay” S.K. Patil, a Congress heavyweight, in the 1967 general election.

Fernandes had played a critical role in the anti-Emergency movement of the Opposition parties that ousted Indira Gandhi in 1977. During the 1975-77 Emergency, when civil liberties were severely curtailed and the Opposition throttled, Fernandes was arrested in the so-called Baroda Dynamite case.

Fernandes later won the 1977 Lok Sabha polls from Muzaffarpur in Bihar even while in jail and became Industry Minister in the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai. He was at loggerheads with industrialists and slapped foreign exchange violation charges against American MNCs Coca-Cola and IBM, which forced them to shut down their operations and quit India. Coca-Cola was replaced by a local drink known as 77.

He became the Railways Minister in 1989 under V.P. Singh’s National Front coalition government and was instrumental in setting up the Konkan Railway project, connecting Mangalore and Mumbai.

Despite being a staunch critic of the RSS, his party allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party and he joined the NDA government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1998 and 1999, in which he was appointed the Defence Minister. Under his stewardship, India fought the Kargil War in 1999. It was also during his tenure that India conducted the nuclear tests at Pokhran in 1998.

He was forced to resign due to allegations of a scam in the purchase of coffins for soldiers during the Kargil War, but returned to the Vajpayee Cabinet after a clean chit from the Phukan Commission of Inquiry.

He faded away from public consciousness after unsuccessfully fighting the 2009 general election. He was also a Rajya Sabha member in 2009-10.

President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation in paying homage to Fernandes.