India, June 20 -- Looking back, the programmes of Sanjay Gandhi were not unreasonable.

New Delhi: Forty summers ago, on 23 June, an aircraft accident changed the trajectory of India's politics. Sanjay Gandhi, the hated face of Emergency, who had transformed from a privileged yuvaraj to a street fighter during the Janata government days and had been instrumental in Congress returning to power in less than three years after the 1977 drubbing, had taken a wrong somersault while doing aerobatic flying over high security zone of Lutyens' Delhi and crashed into the trees adjoining the Kushak Nala. In death, as in his life, he had defied rules. His penchant for fast driving and rash flying had taken its toll. He went in his hour of triumph: no...