A formidable leader whose presence marked the national politics for decades breathed his last on Tuesday, years after he was first stricken by Alzheimer’s in the early 2000s. It was a tragic end for a great socialist. In his heyday, he was a giant-killer, having humiliated the veteran Congress leader S K Patil from the South Bombay parliamentary seat on the strong support of the working classes, notably various trade unions, particularly that of the taxi drivers. George opposed the then dominant Congress with passion, refusing to compromise while a number of his socialist colleagues crumbled. Even Indira Gandhi’s emergency failed to break his spirit.
In 1974, he organized a nationwide rail strike and found himself thrown into jail. He undertook to fight the emergency regime with all means, including the use of force. Eventually, he was caught, and meted out third- degree torture in what came to be called the Baroda dynamite case. Nothing came of the charges Indira Gandhi had slapped against him. Soon, when she and her wayward son were felled by the 1977 poll storm, he was given the charge of Industry by Morarji Desai. He drove out the IBM and Coca Cola, and launched the home-made 77 cola, bottled by a public sector unit.
In the Vajpayee Government, he came into his own as Defence Minister, identifying with the soldiers and flying often to Siachen to experience first hand the extreme conditions the nations’bravehearts worked under. He did whatever he could to provide for them. But the Congress targeted him, trapping his Samata Party colleague Jaya Jaitley in a false sting operation Later it falsely accused him of hanky-panky in the import of caskets. Both cases were dismissed by a Congress-led UPA Government for lack of evidence.
In his long career, Fernandes maintained his reputation for integrity and grassroots activism. As a senior minster in the Vajpayee Government, he kept an open house, with victims of repression, be they from Burma, Tibet or Sri Lanka, using it as their home. He was a rare species among politicians who lived simply, had no contact with his lone son and estranged wife and spent his time among the struggling people, relentlessly fighting against the system to get them justice. He was the finest Socialist that the country has been fortunate to have.
