Malayali dramatist Omchery N N Pillai, man behind Indira Gandhi's iconic 'Garibi Hatao' campaign, passes away

It was during his stint in IIMC in 1971 that Pillai was drafted into conceptualising the campaign for Congress in an unofficial manner. He did the job in “secret” as government employees were not allowed to get involved in political activities.

New Delhi: Since the 1970s, ‘Garibi Hatao’ has acquired a special place over other election slogans and the government official who “secretly” conceptualised this campaign for the Congress, after picking up a line from Indira Gandhi’s speech, has passed away in Delhi at the age of 101.

Omchery N N Pillai, a Malayali dramatist and winner of Sahitya Akademi awards at the national and state levels who designed the campaign, breathed his last on Friday. He is survived by a son and a daughter while wife Leela Omchery, a musicologist, predeceased him.

Starting his career in All India Radio in 1951 and later working as Editor in their publication department, Pillai also spent time as faculty at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication after pursuing Mass Communications in Pennsylvania University, Watten school, and New Mexico State University.

He also worked in the Chief Censors Office during the Emergency and the Food Corporation of India before retiring from service in February 1989.

It was during his stint in IIMC in 1971 that he was drafted into conceptualising the campaign for Congress in an unofficial manner. He did the job in “secret” as government employees were not allowed to get involved in political activities.

He recalled in his memoirs Aakasmikam (By Chance) on how he landed the job after a friend, K C Nair, who was associated with him in a theatre group, approached him saying that the Congress was looking for someone to do the job and he has Pillai in mind.

Pillai insisted that he may land in trouble but Nair assured him that it would remain a secret and arranged a meeting between him and Congress Joint Secretary Mukul Banerjee, who asked him to design a national campaign.

He started working on an idea after listening to his colleagues' disdain over Indira’s speech where she spoke about ‘Garibi Hatao’. He felt that ‘Garibi Hatao’ can be the “big idea”, as advertisers would call it, and started working on it.

To test whether he was right, he prepared various thematic campaigns on superstitions, economic development, and rural development along with ‘Garibi Hatao’ and set out for a survey in a village, 40 km from Delhi, where the one on removal of poverty ranked higher.

On this basis, Pillai wrote in his book that he prepared the campaign by bringing in a DAVP official, Makhan Dasgupta, to do artworks. He had prepared three-four campaigns – one was ‘Indiraji says ‘Garibi Hatao’, Opposition says Indira Hatao. Who will you choose?’ while another was ‘Opposition 10-point programme ‘Indira Hatao’, Indira’s one-point programme – ‘Garibi Hatao’.

Dasgupta was impressed and told Pillai that they never expected such a spin to Indira’s remarks. He was offered money by Congress for the work but Pillai wrote that he never took money for it. He said there were studies, including by a Psychology Professor, on the campaign but people did not know that he was the creator and when it started getting out, very few came to know.