He got down from a grey Ambassador in his trademark crumpled kurta and his large glasses were still poring over the documents that he had been carrying on the campaign trail. In was the spring of 1995, and a small crowd had gathered in the sleepy town of Giridih to listen to George sahab, as he was fondly called. He had co-founded Samata Party a year ago and, along with Nitish Kumar, he was leading the party’s campaign in the Bihar Assembly elections of 1995.

He wasn’t an impressive orator but exuded an air of austere clarity in his husky voice. “Sangharsh kayee hain, uttar ho ya dakshin Bihar [there are many struggles, whether it’s North or South Bihar],” he said as the crowd grew curious about the thick file he had just opened. He was talking about Dhanbad, then a part of undivided Bihar, and was quoting statistics and reports that showed poor labour policies of the Janata Dal-led state government.

In a way, the moment blended the parallel political streams that defined George Fernandes: his Lohiaite socialist politics of post-Emergency and, later, the post-Mandal years with his trade union mobilisation politics from 50s to early 70s. But, that wasn’t all, a third stream wasn’t yet revealed.

He showed the most pragmatic side of his anti-Congress thrust in the later half of the 90s when he chose to ally with the political entity he had opposed in the Janata Party government formed in 1977. In making ideological adjustments to become part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and that too as its convener, Fernandes was more inclined to turn the terms of power politics against the Congress system. More than any other socialist poster boy of post-Emergency churning in the opposition space, Fernandes demonstrated an effective fight against the Congress power arrangement.

The challenge he posed to such arrangement predated Emergency. And it was as widespread as his leadership of the trade union movement in then Bombay to the Hindi heartland electoral stronghold of Muzaffarpur in north Bihar. His impactful steering of Railway employees strike across India in the seventies is also noteworthy.

Born in Mangalore on June 3, 1930 George Fernandes, who got his name from his mother’s admiration for King George V, went on to have one of the most eventful political journeys of our times. Having escaped the regime of formal education beyond matriculation and later rejecting the call of priestly life, he was a self-taught man. In retrospect, his early interest in organising transport workers in Mangalore had prepared him for a bigger role when he moved to Bombay.

After some tough early years as a poor young man sleeping on benches in the city, he made his mark as one of the most formidable labour organisers the city has ever seen. Influenced by trade union leader Placid D’ Mello and socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, Fernandes posed a stiff challenge to the efforts of Congress party to neutralise trade unionism in the city. Political commentators believe that the tacit support of Congress to the rise of Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena was a ploy to control the rising clout of trade unionism in the city.

Besides converting his trade union leadership into success in civic body polls, his moment of national reckoning came in 1967 Lok Sabha polls. He was fighting on a Samyukta Socialist Party ticket and unexpectedly defeated Congress heavyweight S K Patil from the Bombay (South) seat. This earned him the moniker of “George, the giant killer”.

The 1970s saw the waning of his trade union clout. However, his organisational appeal was still strong enough to make him one of the pivots of a three-week-long All India Railwaymen’s Federation strike in 1974. He brought the country to a standstill raising the long pending issues of Railways employees.

A year later, the Indira Gandhi government’s Emergency crackdown saw Fernandes emerging as one of the most talked-about faces of state persecution. After being jailed for the charges of smuggling dynamite for violent protests against the government, he was firmly entrenched as one of the key targets of the Emergency regime. In the aftermath of the Emergency, his stint as Union Industries Minister in the Janta Party government is remembered for his steadfast adherence to the 40 per cent foreign capital share rule under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA). The hard-line led to the exit of Coca-Cola and IBM from the Indian market.

It was also a period in which Fernandes became one of the vocal opponents of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) membership of Jan Sangh ministers in the government. Two decades later, he made peace with the dual membership issue under a different alliance.

His short stint as Railways Minister in VP Singh government (December 1989-November 1990) at the centre was remarkable. He was credited with infusing energy in the Konkan Railway project, widely believed to be the first major construction breakthrough achieved by Indian Railways after Independence.

However, it was his tenure as Defence Minister in the Vajpayee-led NDA governments (1998-99 and 1999-2004) that has left a divided legacy. He clearly remains one of the most remembered Defence Ministers and there are no parallels to his unwavering focus on strengthening the morale of defence forces, augmenting its preparedness and constant visits to different posts, including 18 visits to the Siachen glacier. However, Kargil infiltration and the consequent war exposed him to critical scrutiny.

But what was more damaging to his reputation for probity was a slew of Defence-related scams — Barak Missile scam, Coffin scam and Tehelka sting operation, which showed a fictitious arms company allegedly bribing his companion and general secretary of Samata Party, Jaya Jaitly. None of the charges, however, stuck with Fernandes. Besides inquiry committees under different regimes absolving him of charges, the popular perception continued to value his personal integrity.

He proceeded to merge Samata Party with Janata Dal ( United) in 2003 — a merger which was effective only in the section of the party controlled by him.

The fact that a Mangalore-born leader, who made his political career as a trade union leader in Bombay, had electoral stakes in north Bihar constituency of Muzaffarpur, and later invested his political capital in a Bihar-based part is in itself a testimony to George sahab‘s remarkable journey. Though largely seen as an outsider, he had the affection of his voters in Muzaffarpur for the greater part of the last three decades. He once promised to turn the sleepy Bihar town into the Mumbai of the east. The town saw a thermal power station in Kanti as a gift from their MP. It has been named after him, as an afterthought.

With his relevance significantly declining in JD(U) and equations worsening with his one-time ideological ally and confidante Nitish Kumar, Fernandes’ irrelevance in the party coincided with his bad health. As he faded away into political obscurity, the fight for his legacy and property between his estranged wife on the one side and his brothers and companion Jaya Jaitly on the other side attracted media attention. It’s a pity that a man known for his austere charm and frugal public conduct had his closed ones quarrelling for things he seemingly least cared for.

One always wonders what George Fernandes would have thought of the current decade in Indian politics. He was a perceptive observer — he wrote regularly, edited and revived weekly journals like The Dockman and looked back at his life, people and ideas sharply in books, including his autobiography.

A polyglot, he extended the grasp of his mother tongue Konkani to at least nine more languages including Latin and Hindi. The latter stood him in good stead as he made inroads into the Lohiaite turf of Hindi heartland politics.

Alzheimer’s was perhaps the worst disease that could have afflicted him since he was a repository of historical memory. George Fernandes was an authentic address for locating nuances of India’s body politic in the last four decades — its convictions and compromises, ideological vision and pragmatic accommodation.

In 2009, devoid of his party’s support, he decided to give electoral politics one last shot. A feeble Fernandes could not walk and had to be carried by two young men through a small crowd to the podium. He smiled as the young men affectionately said: “Humare aap hi hai George Sahab” (You are ours George Sahab). He lost the election, but being remembered in Muzaffarpur was quite a journey for the feisty Mangalorean. Nitish Kumar broke down in Patna yesterday recalling George Sahab. Evidently, the last few years of distance didn’t come in the way of accepting the loss for what it was — the years of silence of one of the most determined Lohiaite titans of our times is now invisible.