With a Pinch of Salt: Leila Kabir Fernandes is No More

  •   Sat, May 17 2025
  •   By Hemacharya

May 17, 2025

I am sad to announce to the world that our dear Leila Kabir Fernandes, 88, has passed away on Thursday, May 15, 2025 at her Delhi residence after successfully fighting cancer for the last two years. Although she suffered for long, she decided that she will not be hospitalised. Her body was cremated in Green Park the following day.

According to the media, she imbodied the idea of India held by the original founders, with her relationship with Late George Fernandes defying definition.

She was known for many reasons. One, she was an active social worker and an assistant director in the Indian Red Cross, met the then politician, socialist leader George Fernandes during a conference meeting in Calcutta (the now Kolkata) and later married him on July 22, 1971. She was the illustrious daughter of the then Union Education Minister Humayun Kabir, who served in the cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru, but seldom anyone seen or read about her being a daughter or wife of illustrious personalities during her lifetime.

She was a vivacious reader of both of our ‘daijiworld English weekly’ and the website and was in touch with us. She even tried once to arrange my visit to the ailing George Fernandes after she was told by Aditya Jha, George Sirs personal biographer that I hail from the town he was born. I was on my way to Lucknow but alas George sir was diagnosed with Pneumonia and all the visitors were barred from entering his residence.

She even promised him to write a few pages about her marital life for the book I was supposed to write on George Sirs 95th birthday.

It was his former secretary Aneel Prasad Hegde, now a parliamentarian representing Janata (Dal) from Bihar (who represented the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar during the funeral of Leila Kabir) who promised me that he will write a few anecdotes for the book. Jaya Jaitley was the other person who agreed through a message to write about him although she wondered what to write. I even wrote to Michael Fernandes, the brother of George sir who now lives in Bangalore about my intention to write a book on his brother. I knew both Lawrence and Michael from the Emergency days, and translated some of their speeches when they came to my city back in 1977, but Michael for certain strange family problems chose not to respond.

Aditya Jha, who now works for School of Arts & Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi is the only person who promised to coordinate and support me and is a live witness to all the arrangements I made in last year. Yet I shelved the project after reading the book, ‘The Life and Times of George Fernandes’ by Rahul Ramagundam, winner of Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism which he has penned after 25 years of research work. Who will read my book now that the last person who could contribute to me has left the world.

I met George sir during many occasions and even translated his fiery speeches during the Emergency but could not meet Leilajee even once. I regret that I will never get such opportunity again on this earth. May be, we are destined to meet up there.

I remember once George sir left her behind at the Bombay International Airport and came to Mangalore without her. When the hullagulla happened to trace the lady, she was unperturbed and was wondering back at the Bombay Airport, “What if he is a politician, I met my journalist friends after many years and became busy with them.” Such was their marital bliss about which she was supposed to write in my book. But alas that is not going to be.

According to Neerja Chaudhury who knew her well, Leila left India just before Emergency and settled in Canada, then migrated to the US and met the leading newspaper editors, addressed the meetings, and worked in a group called ‘Indians For Democracy’ who looked after the young mother and son. She would brace herself for the tough questions and face the back-fires of Baroda dynamite case in which Fernandes had been booked. Although the Indira Government tried its best to get her back and find out from her the whereabouts of Fernandes who was underground by then, they failed. She in her own way fought the Emergency period but she was told by the Europe based Socialist International that they will pursue the case under their plank, ‘liberty and freedom’ and not to try to do the impossible. She came back from the US only when she realised that Fernandes is down with Alzheimer’s and he needs her attention. She stayed back and was by his side till he passed away in January 2019 after suffering for five years.

Although she belonged to an illustrious family she never once flaunted her profile for any reasons. She was the wife of a powerful defence minister of India during the time of A B Vajpayee government but never had we heard of her taking for the privileges.

She always lived like a common person as a poet, essayist, and novelist in the Bengali-language. She did not enjoy anything beyond her legal means. Even when the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi met her during the funeral of George Fernandes, she did not ask for any special privileges, although the prime minister himself asked her if he can help in any way possible. Even when the Dalai Lama, the best friend of her husband met her she was her own self. She lived on her terms and passed away quietly on her terms. According to V K Cherian who visited the house quite frequently, describes her as a lady who had her own fire in her belly for the country and people. But he remembers her last words as she was undergoing treatment for cancer – “For the first time in my life, I feel I have no one of mine around me……”

She even refused to meet Cherian at the last stage, although he used to visit her for the past 15 years. She wanted to go alone, peacefully the way she came to this world.

Sean, (Sushanto Kabir Fernandes) the only son of Leila and George, an investment banker, now settled in the US and married to a Japanese female flew down hours earlier was with her when she died. It can be an agony of life that his father fought for the US Corporate Giants, PepsiCo and IBM and was successful in shunting them away from India but the thespian leader had failed in settling his only son in India.

 

 

 


Photo courtesy: Aditya Jha, personal biographer of George Fernandes

 

 
By Hemacharya
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Title: With a Pinch of Salt: Leila Kabir Fernandes is No More



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