When Rajiv Gandhi heard that Indira had been shot, he turned to BBC for news - Pranab Mukherjee’s memoirs

January 28, 2016, NewsCrunch

In the pre-TV and pre-Net era, Indians had two ways to catch up with earthshaking breaking  news.

They turned to All India Radio to hear an official account of it or to BBC to get to know what had actually happened.

This is what Congress heir Rajiv Gandhi did when he first heard that his mother and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been shot on October 31, 1984.

The second volume President Pranab Mukherjee’s memoirs The Turbulent Years: 1980-96 gives an account of what happened on the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated.

On the fateful day Rajiv Gandhi was in Contai, West Bengal, to address a public gathering.

As he was making his speech, at 9.30 am, Pranab Mukherjee received a message on the police wireless: ‘lndira Gandhi assaulted. Return to Delhi immediately.’

In the car, he sat in the front, beside the driver and turned on a transistor radio to listen to BBC news.

BBC informed them that sixteen bullets had been pumped into Mrs Gandhi.

Rajiv asked his PSO how potent were the bullets used by VIP security personnel and was informed that they were very powerful, according to a memoir excerpt in The Hindustan Times.

Pranab Mukherjee stepped in to console Rajiv. He pointed that BBC had got it wrong and been reporting that Pranab Mukherjee and Rajiv Gandhi were back in Delhi.

So Pranab Mukherjee reasoned that BBC had probably gone wrong in other parts of the bulletin as well.

The team drove to the helipad of the thermal power station at Kolaghat, and took a helicopter to Calcutta, where an Indian Airlines special plane was waiting.

Other officials including Uma Shankar Dikshit, then Governor of West Bengal, his daughter- in-law Sheila Dikshit, were also in the plane.

Rajiv went to the cockpit, and came out to announce that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was dead.

Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to turn to BBC for news proved to be a good decision.

Government officials had instructed All India Radio not to broadcast Indira Gandhi’s death till Rajiv returned to Delhiand took over as Prime Minister.