24 Akbar Road: From a home for young Aung San Suu Kyi to a centre of revival for Congress

Some disgruntled party men went a step further, drawing a parallel between the fallen tree and the Congress, claiming that the tree and the party were probably of the same age. The tree had appeared invincible till it had suddenly collapsed without warning. The Congress under Sonia Gandhi in 1999 looked good, but its roots were decaying as the party was then precariously placed in big states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

However, 24, Akbar Road proved cynics wrong when the Congress proceeded to march forward thanks to two back-to-back electoral successes in 2004 and 2009. The address was not Indira Gandhi’s choice. On January 1, 1978, the then Congress president, K Brahmananda Reddy, announced that Indira Gandhi had been expelled from the party. Reddy had the support of many powerful leaders such as Y B Chavan, Vasant Dada Patil and Swaran Singh.

D K Barooah, who had coined the slogan, “Indira is India, India is Indira”, was nowhere to be seen. The CWC met at the residence of Maragatham Chandrasekhar at 3 Janpath. Twelve out of 24 members sided with Indira Gandhi but the AICC chief was not in an accommodating mood. Buta Singh, A P Sharma, G K Moopanar, Syed Mir Qasim, Chandrasekhar and Budh Priya Maurya, all members of the CWC then marched to Reddy to challenge the expulsion. Buta Singh, who was formerly with the Akali Dal, spoke harshly to Reddy, demanding to know how Nehru’s daughter could be expelled from the Congress. “She is the Congress,” he said, before walking out of Reddy’s residence.

At another level, Indira Gandhi’s zeal to move with the times was also evident in the manner in which she had earlier given up the party office – 7, Jantar Mantar. Though she was greatly pained to lose her party’s invaluable archives, when she returned to power with a thumping majority in 1980, she refused to stake claim on 7 Jantar Mantar. “I have built the party from scratch, not once, but twice. The new office premises will rejuvenate the party rank and file for decades,” she told Sanjay, when her politician son broached the subject of returning to 7, Jantar Mantar.

Incidentally, this was not 24, Akbar Road’s first brush with history. For two years, beginning 1961, it had played host to Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and Burmese political leader (the erstwhile Burma). Suu Kyi was barely 15 when she arrived at 24, Akbar Road with her mother, Daw Khin Kyi, Aung San’s widow, who was appointed Myanmar’s ambassador to India. 24, Akbar Road was named Burma House by Jawaharlal Nehru in recognition of Daw Khin Kyi’s special status. The house built by Sir Edwin Lutyens between 1911 and 1925 was regarded as a singularly fine example of British colonial architecture and a masterpiece of early modernism.

The young Aung San Suu Kyi’s room was later occupied by Rahul Gandhi in his capacity as general secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). She picked the room because it had a huge piano. Every evening, a teacher would come to give her piano lessons. She quickly developed a penchant for the nuanced subtleties of Western classical music. Years later, while under house arrest in a dilapidated lakeside habitation on University Avenue in Rangoon, Suu’s fondness for the piano provided her much relief and she often played for long hours to relieve the depression of her confinement.

Suu loved 24 Akbar Road, which she found imposing on the outside and wondrously cool inside, with its large, elegant rooms. Biographer Justin Wintle observes that it was at 24, Akbar Road that Suu experienced luxury for the first time in her life, “even if her mother did her best to replicate the frugality that had characterised their life in Rangoon”. At 24, Akbar Road, Suu learnt to make Japanese flower arrangements. She played with Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi in the extensive and “magnificent” garden. Both Sanjay and Rajiv were her contemporaries, one born a year before her and the other a year later. She was often seen in their company at Rashtrapati Bhawan, where they took riding lessons from the presidential bodyguards.

At another level, 24 Akbar Road “reunited” the Nehru-Gandhi links to the Mughals, even if only through a road named after the greatest Mughal emperor. The Nehrus were initially Kauls of Kashmir, who were invited to Delhi in 1716 by the Mughal king, Farrukh Siyar, who had a sense of scholarship and was known to include poets and men of letters in his grand durbar.

During Narasimha Rao, Sitaram Kesri and Sonia Gandhi’s tenure as AICC heads, 24, Akbar Road changed dramatically in appearance. Its eight rooms have expanded to 34. While the main bungalow remained more or less intact, it had five ancillary portions added to it. Office-bearers lounge about by a nearly-depleted library. At the back of the house stands a row of more than a dozen rooms constructed during the P V Narasimha Rao regime. Then there are two blocks of outhouses, a square of 10 rooms that accommodates most of the secretarial staff, and the residential block, which has dozens of low-roof structures that house the party karamcharis and their families. Each of these subsequently got fitted with an electric meter, a satellite dish, a refrigerator, an air-conditioner and an air cooler.

Most of these constructions should have been declared illegal, but successive political regimes have looked the other way. In fact, each time the Congress ruled Delhi, the urban development or housing minister made it a point to prove his loyalty by bending and flouting rules even further to let 24 Akbar Road expand from within.

Buta Singh, who served as works and housing minister under Indira (1983–84), and Sheila Kaul, Rajiv Gandhi’s maternal aunt, who was the works and housing minister under Narasimha Rao, used to visit 24, Akbar Road with dozens of officials in tow. These ministers were often seen supervising and consulting Central Public Works Department (CPWD) engineers on how to construct more rooms. The CPWD officials readily suggested the construction of false ceilings, tin sheds and other means, against the rules in most cases, flagrantly violating the spirit of urban development by laws.

The period between 1978-1980 was tough. The party was beginning to feel the lack of power. But Buta Singh’s innovative thinking helped. As a matter of practice, all visiting party leaders were requested to “donate” money to the new party. The South Indian MPs and leaders always obliged with a hundred rupees and more. Those from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar gave somewhat more stingily – Rs 10 or 20 – but Buta Singh accepted all the donations with humility and grace.

He also took the lead in organising meals when visiting party members were hungry. If Buta Singh was short of cash, he would quietly leave for Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and bring langar, the free community food served there. For the hungry Congress members, the simple daal, roti and halwa seemed a godsend.

Often, Buta Singh would walk across the road to 2, Motilal Nehru Marg, the residence of Khurshed Alam Khan, son-in-law of former president Zakir Hussain and father of Salman Khurshid, who later served as AICC office-bearer at 24, Akbar Road. This mild-mannered, suave, management graduate from Pennsylvania University and his family were always generous and willing to help Buta Singh. Normally, they had elaborate, non-vegetarian meals, with kebabs, stews and shorbas. But they would add vegetables freshly grown in their kitchen garden to cater to the vegetarians.

Kidwai is a journalist and author of 24 Akbar Road