The curious case involving Indira Gandhi, IK Gujral, the head of the Soviet Union and a HMT watch!

In the year 1975, IK Gujral, who would go on to become the 12th Prime Minister of India, was sent on a diplomatic mission to Russia in a rather unseemly effort to be kept away from New Delhi.

A man of high principles, Gujral had managed to upset Sanjay Gandhi during his tenure as the minister of Information and Broadcasting by not covering a Congress rally on Doordarshan. Soon after, he was sent abroad as the Ambassador of India to Moscow.

It is here at the grand event organised at the Kremlin to welcome him that Leonid Brezhnev, the then head of the Soviet Union, first laid eyes on the HMT watch that adorned the wrists of Gujral. Rashid Kidwai even chronicles the incandescent HMT watch in his book, 'Prime Minister of India'. 

After Indira took notice of Brezhnev's non-stop fascination with the watch, she said to Gujral, ‘Isko Dega Na…Uttar Kar!’ Despite multiple requests by Indira, Gujral did not comply. He cited diplomatic etiquette and refused to give the watch to the Russian Chief. Instead, he took it off his wrist and promised to bring him a similar one.

And oh how principles indeed are the spring of our actions! Later, not one but several such watches were presented to Brezhnev and Gujral managed to keep his promise.