Fernandez, George

Born in the family of an employee of a financial company belonging to the community of Mangalur Catholics . The eldest of six children. Father and mother Fernandez were notable for their sincere loyalty to Britain, the eldest son was named George in honor of King George V.

After graduating from the Jesuit College, in 1946, George Fernandez moved to Bangalore to study at a Catholic seminary. However, he was outraged by the hypocrisy of the seminary order. Being a Catholic believer, George became an opponent of the church hierarchy and refused to become a priest.

At age 19, Fernandez left the seminary and moved to Bombay . He worked at the car factory, then in the service of hotels and restaurants. He was very poor, he had to spend the night on the streets.

Bombay Uprising

In Bombay, George Fernandez met with socialist activists. Rammanohar Lohia, an outstanding leader of the Indian socialist movement, became his senior comrade and main ideological authority. Fernandez proved to be an effective trade union organizer, showed oratorical gift, operational abilities and pronounced charisma.

In the 1950s-1960s, George Fernandez was the organizer of major strikes and riots. For trade union activities, he was repeatedly arrested by the police and subjected to attacks by militants hired by employers. Popularity in the masses and the organizational structure allowed Fernandez to conduct trade union work in an offensive style (trade union pressure on the owners, carried out under his leadership, was sometimes compared with racketeering .) ^[3] .

In 1967, Fernandez was elected to parliament from the United Socialist Party - defeating Sadashiv Patil, Indira Gandhi’s closest ally, an influential functionary of the ruling Congress , the mayor and the “uncrowned king” of Bombay. This situation received a wide response, making George Fernandez a politician of national scale.

In 1969, Fernandez was elected leader of the GSP. In the elections of 1971, the united socialists of Narayan spoke in a broad anti-congressional coalition, which included not only left and centrists , but also such right-wing parties as Svatantra and Bharatiya Jan Sangh . In 1973, Fernandez took over as chairman of the Socialist Party .

"The Great Strike"

The largest protest action was the railway strike headed by Fernandez ^[4] on May 8-27, 1974 . Railway communication was interrupted throughout the country. A distinctive feature of the strike was its political sharpness, focus against the government ^[5] .

The great railway strike, organized by George Fernandez, shook the ruling party. At this time, Indira ordered a nuclear explosion in the desert of Rajahstan. Some political scientists still believe that this was a step of despair in the face of a strike. (The irony of history is that the first nuclear test was caused by George’s strike, and the second was made by him as minister of defense in the Vajpayi government.) ^[6]

The authorities responded with mass arrests (up to 30 thousand people). This action was one of the reasons for the introduction of a state of emergency by the government of Indira Gandhi.

June 25, 1975 Indira Gandhi announced the introduction of emergency. Constitutional guarantees were suspended, opposition organizations were banned, and their leaders were arrested. George Fernandez managed to hide in the underground. Police arrested and tortured Lawrence Fernandez, seeking information on the whereabouts of his brother. Michael Fernandez, also a trade union leader, was imprisoned.

In the summer of 1975, George Fernandez arrived illegally in Vadodara , where he held a secret meeting with the leaders of the local underground. It was decided to carry out terrorist acts, including an explosion in Varanasi , where Gandhi was expected ^[3] . It was also planned to attack the army train in order to seize weapons. According to some reports, Fernandez tried to establish links with the CIA for joint action against the ruling regime - despite the hostility of the Indian socialist to foreign, especially American capital ^[7] .

However, these plans could not be realized - on June 10, 1976, Fernandez was arrested in Calcutta . His photo went around the world press, turning into a symbol of “India in chains” ^[8] and “black days of the country” ^[9] .

The government has planned a loud political process - the “Case of the Vadodar Dynamite” - to which it was supposed to involve more than 20 oppositionists. International protests followed, in particular from Helmut Schmidt and Bruno Kreisky . But the authorities did not have time to hold a trial.

The state of emergency was terminated on January 18, 1977 . Parliamentary elections were scheduled for March (the leadership of the ruling INC was confident of success). Opposition forces of various orientations, including the Socialist Party of Fernandez, united in a coalition party of Janata .

The parliamentary elections of March 16 - March 20, 1977 brought a crushing defeat to the INC. “Janata” came to power. He was elected a deputy and imprisoned Fernandez. Political opponents of Gandhi were released. The new government was headed by the recent prisoner Morarji Desai .

In the Desai government, Socialist representative Fernandez was appointed Minister of Information and Broadcasting , then Minister of Commerce and Industry . He pursued a populist policy, defending the interests of trade unions and national priorities. The result of Fernandez’s ministerial work was, in particular, the withdrawal from India of IBM and Coca Cola .

The socialist views of Fernandez were reflected in contradictions with the right-wing nationalists who dominated the BDP government. So, Fernandez sharply opposed state preferences for the nationalist movement Rashtriya svayamesevak sangh and insisted that government members leave the organization (the RCC consisted, in particular, of the then foreign minister and future prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ). This conflict contributed to the split of the coalition and defeat in the 1980 elections .

In the 1980s, Fernandez was an opposition socialist politician and member of parliament. In 1984 he lost the election in his district. In the late 1980s he joined the party Janata Dal , actively participated in appearances against the INC. In 1989, he became a deputy again, then headed the Ministry of Railways in the government of Viswanath Pratap Singh . Under the leadership of Fernandez, the IPU initiated the largest Concan railway project in the history of independent India.

In 1994, Fernandez left Janata and established the socialist Samata Party , which turned into an important ally of the right BDP against the INC. Since 1998 , the National Democratic Alliance joined the anti-congressional coalition.

Hard course

From 1998 to 2004, George Fernandez was (with a short break in the early 2000s) Minister of Defense in the center-right governments of Atal Bihari Vajpai. In this position, Fernandez held a tough position, contributing to intensive rearmament and power expansion.

In 1998, India officially acquired nuclear weapons . Fernandez said that India needs India’s new weapons, not only to confront Pakistan , but also to defend China as the “number one enemy”. (Subsequently, Fernandez visited China on an official visit ^[10] and expressed regret about the literal interpretation of his statement.) During the period of the Fernandez ministry, there was a sharp increase in defense expenditures of the budget.

Under Fernandez, the 1999 Kargil war broke out with Pakistan . The victory as a whole was left to India, but the Ministry of Defense was then criticized for the ineffectiveness of the military special services. Fernandez refused to recognize the criticism as fair. There were conflicts with the minister and with the command of the Navy , mainly in personnel matters.

Post Scandals

George Fernandez was featured in several major scandals. Investigative journalists, posing as representatives of a fictional company, modeled bribing several prominent representatives of the Minister’s environment ^[11] . Fernandez was forced to resign for some time, but it was not possible to press corruption charges against him personally. In addition, Fernandez was presented with violations of the procedure for acquiring a missile system in Israel ^[12] . However, the illegality of the transaction has not been proven.

Twice - in early 2002 and mid-2003 - with Fernandez, scandalous incidents occurred in the United States: Immigration officers at the airport subjected the Minister of Defense of India, who did a lot to strengthen the Indo-US military ties, to check for prohibited items ^[13] ( that the reason was the memory of his activities in 1975). The US Under Secretary of State Richard Armitage offered an apology, but Fernandez said that he wouldn’t intend to visit the United States in the future.

Military Diplomatic Balance

In principle, the policy of the socialist Fernandez as Minister of Defense was consistent with the foreign policy attitudes of the right-wing parties - more rigid and ambitious than the diplomacy of the INC. At the same time, Fernandez tried to maintain a balance in military-diplomatic relations with the United States and the Russian Federation . In 2002, he visited Washington and New York, where he discussed with the leadership of the Pentagon questions of the global fight against terrorism ^[15] , seeking the support of the Indian side in difficult relations with Pakistan ^[16] . A year later, Fernandez visited Moscow and held a series of talks on Russian-Indian military-technical cooperation ^[17] . At the same time, quite complex problems were discussed - in particular, those related to the sale of India to the Russian cruiser Admiral Gorshkov .

In 2004, the National Democratic Coalition ceded power to the INC. George Fernandez was again in opposition. There was also a conflict in the leadership of Samata Party on the issue of relations with Janata gave. In 2009, Fernandez was forced to run for parliament as an independent candidate, but did not succeed. However, at the same time he, on a non-alternative basis, became a member of the upper chamber of the Indian parliament , formed by state delegation.

George Fernandez is known for the active support of separatist movements in the neighboring countries of India. For a long time, Fernandez contributed to the Tamil Tigers of the Liberation of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka ^[18] (it was Tamil terrorists who in 1991 killed the Rajiv Gandhi who supported the Sri Lankan government). In 1998, as Minister of Defense, Fernandez prevented the party from intercepting weapons for the LTTE. The government of Sri Lanka regarded Fernandez as "the main Indian supporter of Tamil separatists."

Fernandez has publicly expressed support for the anti-Chinese movement in Tibet . He actively supported the Myanmar insurgents leading a guerrilla war against the central government . The performances of Fernandez were broadcast by rebel radio stations. During his ministry, the rebels were able to use Indian territory to supply them. Fernandez acknowledged the rebel capture of one of the Indian islands in the Andaman Sea .

In this course, Fernandez’s ideological sympathies were seen, especially in the case of Burma-Myanmar ^[19] . In addition, the factor of Indian support really or potentially anti-Chinese movements played a role.

George Fernandez was married to Leila Kabir ^[20] , the daughter of a former minister. He has a son Sean (Sushanto) Fernandez - a financier who lives in the United States. He divorced Kabir in 1984. Closely converged with the employee of his staff, Jaya Jaitley, who later headed the Samat Party ^[21] .

Since January 2010, George Fernandez has been undergoing treatment for Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Leila Kabir and Sean Fernandez took him out of the hospital, but the brothers Michael and Richard Fernandez filed a lawsuit about inpatient treatment and their right to visit. The Delhi court in July 2010 decided on the right of the ex-wife to be George Fernandez at her location, but guaranteed the brothers the right to visit ^[22] .

In August 2012, the Indian Supreme Court allowed Jaya Jaitley to visit Fernandez (which Kabir and Fernandez brothers objected to, referring to Jaitley's conviction).

In fact, there was a struggle among family members for the right to be called people next to George Fernandez. That in itself says a lot about his personality.

George Fernandez personifies the controversial specificity of the Indian socialist movement. The ideas of democratic socialism close to him were formally always included in the program of the INC. However, the socio-political realities — bureaucratic dictate, brutal exploitation, mass poverty — pushed the convinced socialist into a radical opposition. Oppositional Indian socialism bore the character of a kind of populism opposing the state represented by the INC apparatus (up to partisan ^[23] or terrorist resistance). Hence the seemingly paradoxical alliance of the “continuously rebellious” ^[24] socialist Fernandez with the forces of Hindu nationalism .

George Fernandez is also a well-known journalist and political writer. In 1950 he edited several publications, collaborated on this basis with the Ball Takarey . He is the author of several socialist political journalism and autobiography works by George Fernandes speaks , says George Fernandes , published in 1991 . He speaks ten languages ​​(peoples of India, as well as English and Latin, studied in the seminary).

• Jayaprakash Narayan