There is no doubt that Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Sunil Gavaskar were the dominant figures in India’s public life in the 1970s. However, there is something else that makes these personalities very significant. Their perceived weaknesses — Indira Gandhi’s communication skills, Amitabh Bachchan’s appearance, and Sunil Gavaskar’s height — were later recognised as unique personality attributes. It is astonishing that a woman went on to become one of India’s decisive and toughest politicians; an extremely tall and average-looking actor became the ultimate superstar of Hindi cinema; and a batsman with below average height emerged as one of the greatest openers — the ‘Little Master’ — in the history of cricket. Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Sunil Gavaskar were also able to create newer templates of professionalism. An assessment of these three figures can help us understand the nature of India’s ever-changing public life.
Let us look closely at the political and the cultural contexts of the 1970s. The first generation of leaders post-Independence in the realms of politics, films and sports had begun to get marginalised by that time. Politicians who used to assert their status as freedom-fighters found it difficult to employ the idealist appeal of nationalism to gain legitimacy in electoral politics. The world of Hindi cinema was changing as well. The image of the romantic and/or melancholic hero had, no doubt, survived after the advent of the Rajesh-Khanna phenomenon; yet there was an inclination towards a paradigm shift in the then film narrative. This was also apparent in cricket. The old, aristocratic, elite style of playing cricket was not in a position to satisfy the growing aspirations of a new, deeply-obsessed, cricket-loving public. In other words, there was an imbalance between the popular expectations and the performance of established public figures. In this highly-unpredictable environment, Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Sunil Gavaskar introduced professionalism as a new idiom of public life.
Indira Gandhi may be described as the first Indian leader who redefined politics as a full-time profession. She exposed the inherent weaknesses of an imaginary institutional morality, which Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of his generation wanted to establish after Independence. She gave a new meaning to politics wherein electoral winnability was the guiding principle to secure, nurture, and protect power. This professional realism helped her sideline her opponents such as the Congress veterans and the Opposition.
She emerged as the most powerful political personality in the aftermath of the Bangladesh war in 1971. But soon after, her decision to impose a national Emergency (1975-1977) made her highly controversial, even unpopular. Interestingly, the political debacle of 1977, during which the Congress lost power in the national election, did not
affect her professionalism. She was quick to read the limitations of the Janata Party. This adaptivity helped Indira Gandhi regain her status as the most popular political leader in the 1980s, once again. Her resilience destabilised decades of the old rhetoric of anti-Congressism, making it electorally irrelevant. Even her tragic death in 1984 was used by the Congress as political capital.
Amitabh Bachchan’s trajectory was slightly different. Despite being an extremely talented actor, he was not perceived to possess the personality and the appearance of a typical hero. His uniqueness was identified by the emerging generation of film-writers, such as Salim Khan, Javed Akhtar, and Kader Khan, who created a new image of the action hero. Popular film-makers like Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai used Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘angry-young man’ image to create some of the most successful Hindi films.
Amitabh Bachchan’s professional approach to acting was highly exceptional. He neither followed Dilip Kumar’s script-oriented method acting, nor did he copy the flamboyant mannerisms of Dev Anand or Rajesh Khanna. He took acting purely as a serious profession. This realistic approach helped him not only establish his image as a clear-headed superstar during his heyday but also encouraged him to deal with his failures in the later stages of his career. He was, for instance, quick to learn that his participation in politics in 1984 or his business venture, ABCL, in the mid-1990s would eventually be counter-productive. He took these misadventures seriously and remained committed to his professionalism. The actor’s ability to adapt to new situations is exceptional.
Sunil Gavaskar entered the world of cricket as a superstar. He scored 774 Test runs in the India-West Indies series in 1971 which is still an unbeaten record in India. However, he did not score a Test century in the next three years. His (in)famous, unbeaten knock of 36 in a One Day International match against England in the 1975 World Cup was criticised heavily. But these debacles did not affect his professionalism. He realised that competitive international cricket required determination, clear technique, and concentration. His cricketing career began to take shape after 1976 in an unprecedented manner. He broke almost all the batting records in the next few years, including those for the most runs in Test cricket and the most number of Test centuries. In the later part of his career, he reinvented himself as a useful ODI player as well. This reveals his ability to adapt to new challenges. Like Amitabh Bachchan, Sunil Gavaskar did not give up his main profession. After his formal retirement from cricket, he emerged as one of the world’s most informed and popular cricket commentators, and an author and a columnist.
Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Sunil Gavasakar have been succeeded by others in their respective fields. Narendra Modi has become the first prime minister after Nehru to win three general elections in a row. Shah Rukh Khan has reached unparalleled heights of success in the film industry. And Sachin Tendulkar became the first batsman in the world to score 100 international centuries. But this does not undermine the significance of the templates of professionalism established by Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Sunil Gavaskar. They did not subscribe to any idealism in their respective fields; instead, new professional norms — realism, adaptability, and resilience — were carefully evolved to nurture their status as public figures. This desire to survive in the public imagination professionally is perhaps the defining feature of India’s contemporary public life.
Hilal Ahmed is Professor, CSDS, New Delhi
