Indira Gandhi’s final moments through the eyes of a pioneering woman doctor

Not much on the life of Sneh Bhargava seems ordinary.

In 1984, she became the first woman to direct the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) of the capital Delhi – one of the best medical institutions in the country – and in her 70 years of history, remains the only woman to have done so.

At 90, Dr. Bhargava – one of the pioneering radiologists of India – began to write his memories, The woman who ran aiims, Who was published earlier this month and, at 95, continues to remain an active member of the medical community.

From the choice of radiology while it was still emerging in the 1940s, India to become one of its best known practitioners, the heritage of Dr. Bhargava is simply extraordinary.

Unlike his first day of work as director of the AIMS, who was nothing less than a fire trial.

It was the morning of October 31, 1984, and a meeting was underway at the hospital to confirm his appointment after the Indian Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, had selected him for the role.

Dr. Bhargava was not part of the meeting, but was in his office in review of medical affairs for the day. She remembers that in her memoirs hearing a colleague who calls him frantically, asking him to rush into the victims’ district.

There, lying on a fur, there was the same woman who had selected Dr. Bhargava to lead the hospital – Indira Gandhi. Her Sari saffron was soaked with blood and she had no pulse.

“At the time, I did not focus on the fact that it was the Prime Minister who was lying before me,” Bhargava told BBC. “My first thoughts were that we had to help her and also protect her from additional damage,” she said.

Dr. Bhargava feared that a crowd took the victims’ district, because a large crowd had already started to come together outside the hospital.

The news began to take place: Gandhi had been shot down by two Sikh bodyguards in revenge for Operation Blue Star, the military raid on the Golden Temple of Amritsar in June to eliminate activists.

The assassination of Gandhi sparked one of the deadliest riots that India has seen, whose beginnings, whose Dr. Bhargava began to hear when she hastened the Prime Minister to one of the best floors of the building.

There, in the operation, a Sikh doctor fled the room as soon as he heard how Gandhi was dead.

The news of her death had to be held under the Wraps until his son, Rajiv Gandhi, was sworn in as Prime Minister.

“Until then, our work, for the next four hours, was to keep the Charade that we were trying to save her life, when in fact she had died when she was brought to Aiims,” ​​wrote Dr. Bhargava.

She also described the heartbreaking process of embalming the Prime Minister’s body, which would reside in the state in the capital for two days before cremation.

“The embalming chemical, when we injected it into different main arteries, continued to ooze,” writes Dr. Bhargava. A ballistic report would later reveal that more than three dozen bullets had perforated Gandhi’s body.

But it was not the only remarkable episode in the long and illustrious career of Dr. Bhargava in Aiims.

In the book, she shares fascinating anecdotes from her interactions with other eminent politicians, including the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

She also remembers that Sonia Gandhi brought her son, a young Rahul in Aiims after an arrow struck his head while he was playing.

“Sonia Gandhi told me that she had to bring us Rahul because Rajiv (her husband) met the king of Jordan and that the latter had offered her a fantasy car as a gift, which her husband wanted to drive,” she wrote in the book.

Rajiv Gandhi wanted to lead Rahul to Aiims himself, without security, like a surprise – but Dr. Bhargava firmly stopped him, citing security problems.

But every day was not as exciting.

Dr. Bhargava remembers political pressure, including a deputy who threatened him not having selected his son -in -law for a job at Aiims.

On another occasion, two high politicians, including the Federal Secretary of Health, tried to choose the dean of the AIMS – although the decision is his.

Dr. Bhargava says that she kept firm against pressure, always prioritizing patient care. She worked to establish radiology as a fundamental part of diagnosis and treatment in AIMS.

When Dr. Bhargava joined the 1960s, Aiims had only basic imaging tools. She formed her colleagues to read subtle signs in the X -rays in black and white, always in context with the patient’s history. Later, she put pressure for better equipment, helping to build one of the main radiology departments of India.

Dr. Bhargava has always been pulled to make a difference.

Born in 1930 in a wealthy family in Lahore in individual India, child, she liked to play the doctor of her dolls and her brothers and sisters. During the partition of India and Pakistan, Dr. Bhargava’s family fled to India and later, they would visit refugee camps with her father to help people.

At a time when few Indian women continued higher education, Dr. Bhargava studied radiology in London – the only woman in her class and hospital department.

She returned to India in the 1950s after hearing her mentor that the country needed qualified radiologists.

Dr. Bhargava often attributes his family, and her husband’s release of mind to help her realize her dreams, and she hopes that other Indian women will find the same support.

“It starts with childhood,” she said.

“Parents should support their daughters in the same way that they support their sons. It was not until that time that they will be able to break the glass ceilings and reach the stars.”

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