Another difficulty to be surmounted is the human being’s tendency to label events negative or positive, according to limited frameworks. In this regard, we may take Indira Gandhi’s assassination as an example.
In a more integral vision of events transpiring in time, a vision this new cosmology offers, death is simply the result of what I have called a conspiracy of circumstances. Be the cause illness, accident, old age, suicide or a volley of bullets, the only common denominator is this conspiracy of circumstances. Indira Gandhi’s demise was no exception.
[Return to Part I or Part II or Part III of ‘The Nehrus, a Phenomenon of India’s New Cosmology by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, originally published in The Vishaal Newsletter, Volume 0, Number 1, October 1985, © Aeon Books]
But the field in which this circumstantial development or conjunction organises and plays itself out is time. However, the circumstances are not limited to present or past. Nor are they cut off from the future. The contemporary human being should not have any difficulty with this fading of the time barriers, in view of the way modern physics has conditioned us to a new understanding in these matters. Nonetheless, in this area we approach the most baffling enigma the human mind has ever dealt with, an enigma which remains unsolved but which continues to intrigue us all: the question of destiny, of predetermination, covering the arc of our collective and individual lives. Thus, to return to our example, Indira Gandhi’s assassination, as all other deaths, was a conspiracy of circumstances. That is, the totality of conditions prevailing and focussed on her at that given moment determined the nature of her death. And those conditions, belonging to the past and present, extend as well into the future. Consequently if the succession of the fourth Nehru is an event that already exists (in the same way as the future is indistinguishable from the present and past in particle physics) in the future of India, it stands that her demise, which is a temporary nexus of the prevailing circumstances in the nation’s web of time (its destiny pattern), will conform to the future and will moreover facilitate the emergence of that future into the nation’s experience of the present.
A result of Indira Gandhi’s assassination was therefore the smooth succession of Rajiv, fulfilling the cosmological pattern to perfection. It is evident that the circumstances of her death were the elements that allowed for this smooth transition and her son’s subsequent overwhelming victory at the polls. In keeping with this vision, one of Indira’s final public utterances, the day before her death, was that every drop of her blood would invigorate the nation.
These cosmic harmonies focussed on the destiny of India find their ultimate resolution in the number 9, last in the series. The number scale of 9 corresponds to our present vision of the solar system consisting of 9 planets plus the sun (the zero). This has its correspondence in our method of demarcating time. Thus one of the principal features of this new cosmology is the cycle of 9 years. This represents a period of wholeness and allows for the completion of a process, even as the human gestation period is also a measure of 9 and results in the completion of a living, mental creature. We have then cycles of 9 months, 9 years, and even 99 years. Indeed, a particularly sensitive cycle is the final 9 years of a 99 year span. In the nation’s political life, let us focus our attention on the Congress Party which has served as a vehicle for the Nehrus’ succession, and which, at this very time has completed 99 years of age. All four members of the Lunar Line have been president of the party, starting with Motilal Nehru.
In my book, THE NEW WAY, written in the 1970’s, I discuss the Congress Party and the very important phase it entered in 1975. The party was formed in the winter solstice of 1885 and therefore in 1975 it was 90 years old. I wrote that during the following nine years – that is, from December, 1975 to December, 1984 – a complete remaking or transformation of the party would ensue, for this is the nature of that particular time cycle. In conjunction with this, we must consider what has been written here concerning the critical midway point in the 9 cycle, its 4.5 point. We may, and indeed we must, apply this knowledge to what has transpired in the party during this period and in particular at those critical points, in this case the party’s 94.5th year, or the last week of June, 1980. Moreover, it is to be noted that the ‘answer’ to the stress engendered in that period of intense shattering or disintegration is provided by the fourth power, according to this cosmology. In the case of the Lunar Line and the Nehrus, that power is offered by either of Mrs. Gandhi’s sons, Sanjay and Rajiv. In the following I will show how both her sons collaborated to provide, in life and in death, this crucial ingredient in a unique and unmistakable manner.
It was precisely between the party’s 90 and 99th years that the two fourth powers attained exceptional prominence, and only during that period. Before that time, neither of the sons took any major interest in politics. Indeed, it was at the Congress Party’s 90th birthday session in Gawhati, in December of 1975, that Sanjay Gandhi came fully to the fore in the party’s organisation. Let us then examine closely the nature of subsequent events according to the new vision of time.
The really critical period for the Congress (and the nation) was its 94.5th year reversal point, which fell on or about 23 June, 1980. This was the very day Sanjay was killed in an airplane crash. From that point onward in the cycle, the remaining 4.5 years are characterised by a reassembling around a remaining solidly forged core, the result precisely of such a crushing experience or collapse of energy in a cosmic process. On this basis unity is strengthened and eventually comes into being. This cycle for the Congress ended at the winter solstice of 1984. At that very time Mrs. Gandhi’s other son – who entered politics precisely because of Sanjay’s death – went to the polls. The overwhelming majority he secured has assured his supremacy in the party.
As stated, this 9 upon 90 year span of the Congress signified a remaking, a transformation, the forming of a new body as it were. An assessment of these last 9 years in the life of the party amply reveals that an entire reorganisation has been in progress. And the period was neatly marked off by the contributions of Mrs. Gandhi’s two sons, starting in December, 1975, reaching the critical stress point at the exact midway period in June, 1980 (Sanjay’s death), and culminating in the completion of the process at the winter solstice of 1984 with Rajiv’s tremendous victory. More than that. The entire political body of the nation has experienced an upheaval and a remaking during this important period. For in the final analysis, in India’s new cosmology no division is seen between competing political bodies in stark opposition. There is only one process and one goal; and all energies offered by the victors or the losers are collected in a cauldron that is the single destiny of the nation. Therefore the so called opposition parties cannot be excluded from this reorganisation. In consequence, we observe that the new Lok Sabha, the result of these elections, in its entirety presents a bold new face: Indira Gandhi, even in her death, fulfilled her allotted role, for the old has given way to the radically new.
The opposition stalwarts, most of whom formerly belonged to the Congress, have been swept away. A homogeneous field is left ready to serve as the transformed vehicle for the exciting times that await India.
To conclude this extravaganza of time, number, and measure on a lighter though no less significant note, I would like to point out that the third position in the descending scale of the Lunar Line, occupied by Indira Gandhi, corresponds to the third orbit of our solar system, the Earth and its satellite, the Moon. Mrs. Gandhi embodied that lunar essence in her lifetime, serving India (the Earth’s soul) as the Moon does in its protective spin around the planet, like a mother nurturing her child until she is ready to embark alone upon her awesome journey through the world’s future time. She left India ready for her new future, leader of nations on the path to a different world order, of a harmonised diversity in unity. This article is an homage to that great woman who served India in death no less than in life, and who, in her intimate circle of family and friends, was always known simply as Indu, – a Sanskrit name of the Moon.
P.N. B.
© Aeon Books 1985