George Mathew Fernandes (3 June 1930 – 29 January 2019) was an Indian politician, trade unionist, statesman, and journalist, who served as the Minister of Defence (India) from 1998 until 2004. A veteran socialist, he was a member of the Lok Sabha for over 30 years, starting from Mumbai in 1967 till 2009 mostly representing constituencies from Bihar. He was the leader of the Samyukta Socialist Party and the Socialist Party, a key member of the Janata Party, the Janata Party (Secular) and the Janata Dal, and, finally, the founder of the Samata Party. Holding several prominent ministerial portfolios during his career, including communication, industry, railways, and defence, he was posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2020.
A native of Mangaluru, Fernandes was sent to Bengaluru in 1946 to be trained as a priest. In 1949, he moved to Mumbai, where he joined the socialist trade union movement. Becoming a trade union leader, Fernandes organised many strikes and bandhs in Mumbai in the 1950s and 1960s while working with the Indian Railways. He defeated S. K. Patil of the Indian National Congress in the 1967 parliamentary elections from the Mumbai South Lok Sabha constituency. As president of the All India Railwaymen's Federation, he led the 1974 railways strike. Fernandes went underground during the Emergency era of 1975, while challenging Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi for imposing a state of emergency, but in 1976 he was arrested and tried in the infamous Baroda dynamite case.
In 1977, after the Emergency had been lifted, Fernandes won the Muzaffarpur Lok Sabha constituency seat in Bihar in absentia. As industries minister, he revoked the licences for multinationals IBM and Coca-Cola to operate in India, due to investment violations. As railways minister from 1989 to 1990 he was the driving force behind the Konkan Railway project. As defence minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Second and Third Vajpayee ministry (1998–2004), he oversaw the outbreak of the Kargil War and the implementation of nuclear tests at Pokhran. Fernandes has been dogged by various controversies, including the Barak Missile scandal and the Tehelka affair. George Fernandes won nine Lok Sabha elections from 1967 to 2004. He died on 29 January 2019 at the age of 88.
George Fernandes was born on 3 June 1930 to John Joseph Fernandes and Alice Martha Fernandes (née Pinto), in Mangalore to a Mangalorean Catholic family. The eldest of six sons, his brothers are Lawrence, Michael, Paul, Aloysius, and Richard. His mother was a great admirer of King George V (who was also born on 3 June), so she named her first son George. His father was employed by the Peerless Finance group as an insurance executive, and headed their office of South India for several years. George was fondly called "Gerry" in close family circles. He attended his first few years of schooling at a government school near his house called "Board school", a municipal school and a church school.
He studied from fifth grade at the school attached to St. Aloysius College, Mangalore, where he completed his Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC).
In an interview with ETV, Fernandes described his decision to stop studies after matriculation despite his father wishing him to study and become a lawyer. His premise was that he did not want to become a lawyer and fight cases for his father who often evicted tenants from a patch of land that they owned on the outskirts of Mangalore. He was instead enrolled in a seminary for studies to become a priest. He went to St Peter's Seminary in Bangalore at the age of 16, to be trained as a Roman Catholic priest, studying philosophy for two and a half years from 1946 to 1948. At the age of 19, he left the seminary due to sheer frustration because he was appalled that the rectors ate better food and sat at higher tables than the seminarians. He later confessed that, "I was disillusioned, because there was a lot of difference between precept and practice where the Church was concerned."
Fernandes began work at the age of 19, organising exploited workers in the road transport industry and in the hotels and restaurants in Mangalore. For some time, he worked as an insurance agent and also tried wholesale businesses of shaving blades. His first guru was a Mangalorean activist and a freedom fighter Ammembala Balappa (1922–2014). Balappa identified and groomed a young Fernandes, who had taken refuge at places surrounding Nehru Maidan in Mangalore city, after being thrown out of the house. Initially, with Balappa's mentorship Fernandes gathered hotel workers and other menial labourers in the city. He was associated with Ram Manohar Lohia-led Praja Socialist Party (PSP) in its Mangalore division. Fernandes and few other union workers led Mangalore's earliest labour strikes on behalf of the workers of Canara Public Conveyance (CPC)in 1949. The strike was cracked down as the police resorted to lathi charge. After the strike, Fernandes came in contact with renowned Bombay-based Trade Union leader Placid D'Mello (1919–1958). Fernandes later left to Bombay in 1950 and faced tremendous hardships. Here again, he became a protégé of D'Mello, who was handling the arduous Dock unions. After D'Mello's death in 1958, Fernandes succeeded in managing dock Unions and other major labour force unions in the city that included Taximen unions, textile mills and Mazdoor Unions.
Brief history of participating in elections
He first contested Lok Sabha election in 1967 as a socialist, and defeated the Congress stalwart Sa Kaa Patil in Bombay in a famous upset, earning the sobriquet 'George the Giant-killer'. He contested from Muzaffarpur, Bihar in 1977 while still in jail as a Janata Party candidate, and won. He was made minister in the first non-Congress govt in India. In 1979, he resigned from Janata Party, joined Charan Singh's breakaway Janata Party (S), and won again from Muzaffarpur in 1980. In 1984 he fought from Bangalore on Janata Party's ticket but lost to Jaffar Sharif of Congress. He lost a bye-poll from Banka in 1985 and again in 1986. In 1989 and 1991, he shifted back to Bihar and won both times from Muzaffarpur as Janata Dal candidate. In 1994, he left Janata Dal after differences with Lalu Yadav and formed Samata Party which allied with BJP.
In 1996 and 1998 elections, he won from Nalanda as Samata Party candidate. Samata Party merged with Janata Dal (United) and he won again from Nalanda in 1999. In 2004 he won from Muzaffarpur. In 2009 he was denied ticket by his party, contested from Muzaffarpur as an independent and lost. Later he was elected to Rajya Sabha in 2009. In the 2010s he was afflicted for many years with Alzheimer's and died in January 2019.
Muzaffarpur: 1977, 1980, 1989, 1991, 2004. (Lost in 2009 as rebel)
Banka: Lost bye-polls in 1985 and 1986.
After leaving the seminary, Fernandes moved to Bombay in 1949 in search of a job. He went to the office of Socialist Party in Bombay and met Madhu Dandavate to ask him for staying there for some time but was not welcomed. His life was tough in Bombay, and he had to sleep on the streets, until he got a job as a proofreader for The Times of India newspaper. He relates to the beginning of his career by saying, "When I came to Bombay, I used to sleep on the benches of Chowpatty Sands. In the middle of the night policemen used to come and wake me up and ask me to move on." He came into contact with veteran union leader Placid D'Mello, and the socialist Rammanohar Lohia, who were the greatest influences on his life. Later, he joined the socialist trade union movement. He rose to prominence as a trade unionist and fought for the rights of labourers in small scale service industries such as hotels and restaurants. Emerging as a key figure in the Bombay labour movement in the early 1950s, Fernandes was a central figure in the unionisation of sections of Bombay labour in the 1950s.
In 1951, Fernandes joined Bombay Dock Worker's Union and worked to revive the publication of a newsletter The Dockman. When in August 1951, Placid D'Mello was arrested, he organised foot march of around two-hundred dock workers from Bombay to Poona to meet Chief Minister Morarji Desai for the release of D'Mello. As a labour organiser, he served many prison terms when his workforce engaged in fights with company goons. He served as a member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation from 1961 to 1968. He won in the civic election in 1961 and, until 1968, continuously raised the problems of the exploited workers in the representative body of the metropolis.