(Bhagya Luxmi, Intern Journalist) A founder of the Samata Party, NDA convenor, journalist and minister in several ministries during the reign of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has been a noted leader of Indian politics. He died on 29 January 2019 in Delhi. He was 88 years old.
Fernandes was born on June 3, 1930, in a Mangalorean-Catholic family in Mangalore to John Joseph Fernandes. He completed his primary education from the school in Mangalore. After this, he completed his 12th class from St. Aloysius College, Mangalore. George Fernandes was the eldest of his siblings. The closest members of the family called him Gary.
- Career:
Due to the traditional custom of home, George was sent to the St. Peter’s Seminary in Bangalore for religious education at the age of 16. In 1949, George left Mangalore and came to Mumbai in search of work. His life in Mumbai was difficult. He used to live on the sidewalk before getting a proofreader job in a newspaper and used to sleep on the bench of the Chowpatty stand but one day, in the night a policeman came and picked him up, due to which he had to sleep on the ground.
In 1950 George came close to social activist Ram Manohar Lohia and was greatly influenced by his life. He then joined the socialist trade union movement. In this movement, he raised the voice for the workers, the workers working in companies for less money, and the workers working in hotels and restaurants. He then became the voice of the workers in 1950.
- A career as a Politician:
George became a member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation in 1961 and 1968, winning the Mumbai Civic elections. Along with this, he continued to raise voice for the lower level laborers and employees and work properly in the state. Due to such frequent movements, George became noticed by the leaders.
In the 1967 Lok Sabha elections, he was given a ticket by the United Social Party from the seat of Mumbai South against Sadashiv Kanauji Patil of the Congress. George defeated Patil by 48.5 percent of the votes in that election, which led to his being named ‘George the Giantkiller’. Patil did not tolerate this defeat and left politics.
After 1960 George became a popular strike leader in Bombay. After this, there was a lot of change in politics and in 1969 he was elected General Secretary of the United Social Party and in 1973 became the Chairman of the party. George started a strike against Indian Railways in 1974 after he became the President of the All India Railway Federation. They had been demanding implementation of the Third Pay Commission since 1947 and were also seeking to increase the housing allowance. Railway workers from different parts of the country participated in this strike, while the taxi drivers of the state also supported this strike. About 30 thousand people were taken into custody by the police. The support of railway employees in this strike became a major problem for the railways. On 27 May 1974, the strike was called off. After this George told the reason for the end of the strike was that there were different voices in it.
In 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and imprisoned those who opposed her. George Fernandes, as opposed to others, issued an arrest warrant against him, to avoid which he went underground, but the police arrested his brother and forced him to surrender.
On 10 June 1976, George was arrested from Calcutta. After his arrest, Amnesty International members the government requested that a lawyer be given to him immediately and his life guaranteed. Leaders of the three countries of the world, Germany, Norway, and Australia believed that Indira Gandhi could harm George. George was then brought from Vadodara jail to Tihar jail and no charge sheet was filed against him. The Emergency came to an end on 21 March 1977 and the Congress party including Indira Gandhi lost the election and the Janata Party led by Morarji Desai won the election.
George Fernandes also won the election from Muzaffarpur in Bihar while in jail. After this, he became an Industry Minister in the Janata Party government. At the same time, there was a dispute over the implementation of FERA by two international companies IBM and Coca-Cola.
Within FERA, foreign companies were not willing to give more than 40 percent of the shares to India and two companies had decided to discontinue their services in India, while Fernandes was demanding from them to increase FERA shares.
In 1998, in the Lok Sabha election, he again won from Muzaffarpur and after losing to Congress candidate from Bangalore North in 1984, he again went to his old Lok Sabha seat. He won from the old seat in 1989, after which he joined the Janata Party. During this time, he became Railway Minister for a few years in VP Singh’s government. During this time, he started the Konkan Railway Project to connect Mangalore and Mumbai. This project was the first project for the development of railways since Indian independence.
In the 1998 elections, the Vajpayee government came to power, and at the same time the NDA was formed and George Fernandes became the NDA convenor. In 1999, the Janata Party was divided into two parts, out of which the Janata Dal-United and the Janata Dal became secular. George joined the JDU and merged his parity party with the JDU. George became the defense minister both times in the NDA government. Pakistan attacked India as its defense minister. In this war, heavy weapons were used from both sides.
The Indian Army forced the Pakistani Army to flee during ‘Operation Vijay’. The media, along with the opposition, pulled up the government citing the intelligence department’s failure behind this war on the government, but George dismissed their allegations.
George resigned from his post after the Tehelka defense scam in 2001 but later became a defense minister. George Fernandes is the first defense minister to have a picture of the Hiroshima bombing in his office. He has been to Siachen in Kashmir 18 times, a record all over the world. NDA lost in 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
After some time, political experts believed that George had differences with Samata Party co-founder Nitish Kumar at the party. He contested from Muzaffarpur as an independent candidate in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections leaving JDU ticket but lost. After Sharad Yadav quit the seat on 30 July 2009, George filed for Rajya Sabha as an independent candidate. The JDU did not put up any candidate against him.
Fernandes led to many movements. He was charged with various charges including protesting and under graduating Indira Gandhi with money from foreign institutions during the Emergency, the Tehelka scandal during her tenure as defense minister, a $ 7 million scam in the purchase of Barrack-1 from Israel in 2000 and the Pokhran nuclear. After the trial, China was accused of instigating the war. He died on 29 January 2019 in Delhi. He was 88 years old.
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