With co-accused in Baroda dynamite case, 1976He is Indian Politics' enduring enigma. In 1998, pushing 68, he still looks like the quintessential '60s student.Crumpled kurta, chappals,unkempt hair, an archetypal activist.But for most of the past 30 years and more, he has been one of India's most enduring politicians - elected seven times to the Lok Sabha - and is now in his third tenure as a member of the Union Cabinet.None of this seems to have rubbed off on him. He has turned down the most important perk of his ministry: the plush official Boeing 737. He prefers commercial flights wherever available. Such behaviour would be an affectation were it not for its sheer consistency.At Rajghat after taking oath as minister, 1977Fernandes began his career as a trade union leader in Mumbai in Ram Manohar Lohia's Samyukta Socialist Party. He was elected to Parliament in 1967, defeating the redoubtable S.K. Patil. He led the great railway strike of 1974, which was crushed by Indira Gandhi with great brutality.When Emergency was imposed, Fernandes went underground and got involved in a project to blow up railway tracks. He was charged with sedition in the Baroda dynamite case and became something of a folk hero. The photograph of Fernandes in chains remains one of the most vivid images of the Emergency.With Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter,1978After reluctantly contesting the 1977 polls from prison, Fernandes was shanghaied into becoming minister for industry. He lived up to his flamboyant reputation by showing IBM and Coca-Cola the door. He also justified his maverick streak by defending Morarji Desai with great passion in Parliament and then promptly defecting.A casualty of the 1984 Congress wave, Fernandes bounced back with the Janata Dal in 1989 and was made railway minister in the V.P. Singh government. He stuck to the party till 1995 when compulsions in Bihar led him to team up with the BJP. Between parties, Fernandes picks up causes - Tibet, Myanmar, Kashmir and multinationals' perfidy.Published By: AtMigration Published On: May 18, 1998--- ENDS ---
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