In his forthcoming memoirs, First Draft: The Making of Modern India, B.G. Verghese, distinguished journalist, Magsaysay Award winner and champion of human rights, recalls the period when he was media advisor (1966-69) to Indira Gandhi during her first stint as prime minister. In this exclusive extract (from the chapter ‘Madam, Prime Minister, Sir’), he provides a riveting, first-hand account of one of the first challenges the untested Indira had to face—the devaluation of the rupee—and how the episode became “a psychological turning point that was to shape her future attitude”.
One of the first things I had been told in great confidence by Asoka Mehta and C. Subramaniam (members of Mrs Gandhi’s so-called “kitchen cabinet”) on joining as information advisor to the prime minister (in February 1966) was that the government was soon to devalue the rupee as part of a larger package of reform and aid. The...
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