Death Spares No One
Man is completely at the mercy of God. However, at the very zenith of his progress, death stops him short, as if negating the very efforts that carried him toward success.
After acquitting himself well in his studies, Mr J.A. Deo, an I.A.S. officer who was formerly Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Defence, entered the Indian Administrative Service, the most prestigious of the country’s service. Born in Shimla in 1923, he would have expected to retire in 1981 when he was at the peak of his career. However, barely a year after his promotion as Secretary of Defence, he expired on April 10, 1980, at the age of 57. He was cremated at Nigam Bodh Ghat, with the three Chiefs of Staff of the Indian Armed Forces attending to pay him homage. How ironic that the senior-most officers of India’s land, sea, and air forces, invested as they are with full powers to inflict a crushing defeat upon any enemy who dares assail this country of crores of population, were helpless when it came to saving Mr Deo from the jaws of death.
Another even more prominent figure snatched away by death while he was still in his prime was Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of the former prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi. In the 1980 elections of the parliament and state assemblies, her party had an extraordinary success, and it was widely accepted that Sanjay Gandhi would eventually succeed his mother as Prime Minister. However, on the brink of assuming this high office, when he was still 33, he met his end in the most sudden and drastic ways. On the morning of June 23, 1980, he wanted a joy ride in a new two-seater American aircraft and accompanied by Captain Saxena, he took off from Safdarjung airport in New Delhi. Unfortunately, the aircraft was only a short distance from the runway when it went out of control and crashed due to a sudden engine failure. Both Sanjay Gandhi and his unfortunate passenger, Captain Saxena, were killed instantaneously, and when their bodies were recovered from the debris, they were found severely mutilated.
Just one day before this fatal accident, when Sanjay Gandhi had been travelling in a car along with Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Jag Mohan, he had exuded confidence when he said, “There is no need to worry, be it a car or an aeroplane, nothing can go wrong while I am at the wheel.” He did not know that the following morning’s events would forever stifle that feeling of confidence. In the context of the brightness of his prospects, the Times of India, on June 24, 1980, observed, “What an irony that he should die so soon.”
When a man is at the very zenith of his progress, death stops him short, as if it were negating the very efforts which had carried him towards success.
