Mangalorean Legend, George Fernandes is 81 on June 3

Mangalorean Legend, George Fernandes is 81 on June 3

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, June 4, 2011: A trade unionist, activist, politician and journalist all rolled into one. That is George Fernandes, former NDA- Convenor, MP (Lok Shabha), former Union Defence Minister and undoubtedly the most popular Defence Minister that India has ever seen, turned 81 0n June 3.

 

A towering personality and a great socialist leader, George, the son of the soil has always been loved and adored by the people of his home town and district. His ever lasting gift to the region has been the Konkan Railway, a gift of the century, during his brief stint as union railway minister. Born in Mangalore on June 3, 1930 to John Fernandes and Alice Fernandes, George is the eldest of the family of six boys and was fondly called ‘Jerry.’

Though he was labelled as a fiery activist and orator, George was a soft-spoken student and teenager.  His childhood was spent in his paternal ancestral house on Dr CV Mathias Road. He is an alumnus of St Aloysius School in Mangalore where he studied upto SSLC.  Though he later on joined St Peter’s Seminary in Bangalore for priesthood, a rebel that he was, George towards the fag end of the studies had clear inkling that he was not cut out for the holy vocation. He quit the Seminary on his own with courage and conviction. Back in Mangalore, he underwent a period of turbulence and turmoil. It was during this period that he came into contact with the great socialist leader and freedom fighter Ammembal Balappa who gladly accepted him as his disciple and moulded the young Fernandes into a crusader of socialism. It was Balappa who introduced George to the late Dr K Nagappa Alva, a Congress leader with socialist leanings.

Later on, George came into contact with Placid D’ Mello a DK man who was a famous labour leader in Mumbai. Placid and George together organized the first ever strike in Mangalore - beginning with the Canara Public Conveyance Company. Trade Unionism and strikes were fairly new concepts then. Moving to the national level, George rose to be the most formidable railway labour union leader in India. He came to be actively associated with the late Dr. Ram Manohar  Lohia of the Samyukta Socialist  Party, who had given the ruling class and dynasty sleepless nights with his campaigns and crusades.

In 1967 he was elected to the fourth Lok Sabha and was termed a giant killer when he defeated Sadobaji Kanhoji Patil, a powerful minister in the Indira Gandhi cabinet in a keenly fought parliamentary election from Mumbai. He married Leila Kabir, daughter of the late Humayun Kabir, a veteran Congressman and erstwhile union cabinet minister on July 21, 1971 and is blessed with a son.

As President of the All India Railway men’s Federation George led the Railway strike involving 1.5 million workers in 1974, resulting in thousands being sent to jail. This was one of the events that led to the imposition of the Emergency in June.

 

1975. During the Emergency he went underground and fought the existing rule. George was arrested in June 1976 on the charges of overthrowing the Government in what came to be known as Baroda Dynamite conspiracy case. He fought and won the 1977 elections from jail. The charges against him however, didn’t stop him from becoming India’s railways minister 13 years later. Earlier, as industries minister in the late ’70s, he tangled with the multinationals, kicking Coca-Cola and IBM out of India.

Fernandes was brilliant as a railway minister during 1989-90 - the Konkan Railway, undoubtedly the most illustrious of railway projects in independent India, was his brainchild. It was the grit and determination of George Fernandes that laid the firm foundation for this project which in itself is a marvelous engineering feat.

Fernandes founded his own Samata Party in 1994. He was the only Christian minister in Prime Minister Vajpayee’s cabinet and has held several ministerial portfolios including communications, industry, railways and defence. After appointment as Defence Minister in March 1998, Fernandes won the soldiers’ respect for his honesty, administrative savvy and frugality. During the Kargil conflict, Fernandes set new standards as Defence Minister by braving the inhospitable Himalayan heights to visit troops on the battlefront, and rightly became the darling of the jawans and a good number of average citizens. 

Considered the patron saint of nearly lost causes, Fernandes is a supporter of human rights and civil liberties movements all over the world and anti-nuclear and environmental campaigns. He backs the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka and supports the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. He is also a supporter of the people’s movement for democracy in Myanmar. Fernandes is famous for his remarkable ability to establish instant rapport with any audience. Supposedly fluent in 16 languages, Fernandes is literarily gifted and has published numerous books including - “What Ails the Socialists”, “Railway Strike of 1974” and “George Fernandes” (his autobiography). He is also the editor of “The Other side” (an English monthly) and the Chairman on the editorial board of “Pratipaksh” (a Hindi monthly).

 

 

 

George is the Founder Chairman, the New India Cooperative Bank and Co-Chairman, Indo-Libyan, Indo-GDR and Indo-Hungarian Joint Commissions, 1977-79. He was the Chairman, India Development Group, London (1979) and Schumacher Foundation, (1979). He has even served as member of Hind Mazdoor Kisan Panchayat;   Amnesty International; Press Council of India; and People’s Union for Civil Liberties. He is associated with Samajwadi Abhiyan—a platform for Socialist Campaigns and is the Convenor, National Democratic Alliance of the Parties of the ruling coalition.

George Fernandes is one of the most influential of India’s political leaders of the last four decades. His entire life was dedicated to fighting tyranny, oppression, corruption, and for the upliftment of deprived sections of our society. His battles for equality, democracy, a free media, human rights and against all forms of injustice are well known. 

Mangalore Today honoured this great son of the soil with “Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2008

Positions held by George Fernandes - Since 1967
1967: Elected to 4th Lok Sabha
1967-70: Member, Committee on Petitions
1969-73: General Secretary, Samyukta Socialist Party
1973-77: Chairman, Socialist Party, President, All India Railway men’s Federation
1977: Re-elected to 6th Lok Sabha (2nd term)
March-July 1977: Union Cabinet Minister, Communications
1977-79: Union Cabinet Minister, Industry
1980: Re-elected to 7th Lok Sabha (3rd term)
1989: Re-elected to 9th Lok Sabha (4th term)
1989-90  Union Cabinet Minister, Railways
March-May 1990: Minister of Kashmir Affairs (Additional charge)
1990-91: Member, Railway Convention Committee
1991: Re-elected to 10th Lok Sabha (5th term)
1993-96: Member, Committee on Finance, Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs
1994: onwards President, Samata Party
1996:  Re-elected to 11th Lok Sabha (6th term)
1996-97: Member, Committee on External Affairs, Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Human Resource Development
1998: Re-elected to 12th Lok Sabha (7th term)
1998-99: Union Cabinet Minister, Defence Member, General Purposes Committee
1999: Re-elected to 13th Lok Sabha (8th term), Leader, Janata Dal (U), Parliamentary Party, Lok Sabha
13 Oct. 1999: Union Cabinet Minister, Defence
16 March 2001: Member, General Purposes Committee
15 Oct. 2001: Union Cabinet Minister, Defence
2004: Elected from  Muzaffarpur, Bihar to Lok Sabha