What does true power look like?
Not the kind that gets your calls answered at the police station or earns you a polite nod from a minister. Not even the kind that money buys—the private jets, the high-rise apartments, the hushed deference in expensive rooms.
Real power is different—the kind that bends the rules and lets you walk away unscathed. The kind that rewrites the story in your favour and makes everyone else believe it. In any society, this kind of power is usually reserved for the elite: the well-born, the well-educated, the impeccably pedigreed.
But then, in India, there’s this other group.
They managed to carve out an empire of influence without pedigree, degrees, or even a vote in their name. They didn’t inherit fortunes. They didn’t craft policies or command attention with original ideas. They weren’t even meant to be in the room. Yet somehow, they slipped through the cracks and rewrote their place in history. All because they had one skill that set them apart: they could type fast.
PP Madhavan was one of them. Sonia Gandhi’s trusted personal secretary for decades, Madhavan, who passed away at 73 on Monday, December 16, was among the last of this vanishing breed. His journey—from a modest home in Thrissur, Kerala, to the inner sanctum of the Gandhi family—mirrors the rise of figures like MO Mathai, RK Dhawan, and Vincent George—former aides to the Gandhi family and men who moved silently through history, navigating the corridors of power as typists, note-takers, and confidants.
The typist’s rise
Madhavan’s story begins humbly as an official in the Indian Postal Service. It was an unremarkable role in an unremarkable government office—until his brother, who went on to become a Home Ministry official, helped him secure a job as a typist in Indira Gandhi’s office. His diligence, discretion, and ability to anticipate what needed to be done earned him the family’s loyalty.
From there, he climbed higher, transitioning to Rajiv Gandhi’s team and ultimately becoming a pillar of support for Sonia Gandhi. Over the decades, he became more than a secretary. He was a gatekeeper, a confidant, and, when necessary, a strategist, recalled those who worked with him.
It wasn’t just about typing notes or answering calls. Madhavan, like his predecessors RK Dhawan and Vincent George, knew how to read the room—and the person sitting in it. “They were more than assistants; they were architects of access, custodians of secrets, and occasional fixers,” said a senior Congress leader who did not want to be named.
This archetype isn’t new. MO Mathai, Jawaharlal Nehru’s private secretary, wielded immense power, shaping access to India’s first prime minister. In his book Reminiscences of the Nehru Age, Mathai controversially claimed a 12-year affair with Indira Gandhi in a chapter titled “She.” Katherine Frank, Indira Gandhi’s biographer, noted that Mathai suppressed the chapter before publication, yet its existence lingered in political whispers. In 2015, TV Rajeswar, a former Intelligence Bureau chief, recounted how MG Ramachandran gave him a copy of the chapter in 1981, which he handed to Mrs Gandhi. According to Rajeswar, she accepted it in silence, never commenting on its claims.
The legend has it that RK Dhawan, Indira Gandhi’s typist and aide, once persuaded a defiant chief minister to resign in three days without ever leaving his hotel room. During the Emergency of 1975, Dhawan’s resourcefulness was on full display. Consider this—when the government decided to detain opposition leaders under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), a logistical hurdle arose: it required hundreds of arrest warrant slips to be prepared. The government machinery was ill-equipped for such a task.
They were racing against time—they needed to arrest the leaders on the very night the Emergency was declared, as by morning, word would spread, and the leaders would likely have gone into hiding.
Dhawan personally intervened, travelling between offices and commandeering outdated cyclostyle machines to churn out the necessary warrants. In the middle of the night, one machine broke down, he improvised with hand-cranked alternatives, working through the night to ensure the arrests could proceed by morning.
His involvement in Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti project highlighted his ability to navigate even the most chaotic of crises. The Maruti car project, Sanjay Gandhi’s pet initiative, was riddled with mismanagement, substandard engineering, and mounting public scrutiny. A prototype of the car famously failed during a test drive, with the steering rod detaching mid-journey, the brakes failing, and the vehicle crashing into a ditch.
Dhawan not only mitigated the fallout from these technical failures but also devised ways to protect Sanjay Gandhi’s political standing. Realising that the car itself was unmarketable, Dhawan helped Sanjay pivot to other ventures under the Maruti banner. One of these ventures involved attaching imported machinery to outdated rollers and tractors, branding them as new vehicles. These vehicles were sold to Congress-controlled state governments and government enterprises like the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).
Vincent George, a typist who rose to become Rajiv Gandhi’s closest aide, controlled who could meet the prime minister. Despite allegations of corruption and disproportionate wealth, George retained the family’s trust—and the access that came with it.
Madhavan, by contrast, kept a lower profile. He avoided public controversies for most of his career, focusing instead on serving the Gandhi family with unwavering loyalty. Even Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, who affectionately called him “Madhavan Uncle,” acknowledged his quiet influence. When he passed, Priyanka rushed to AIIMS in Delhi, and Rahul travelled to Thrissur to attend his funeral the next day—a rare gesture that spoke volumes about their bond.
End of an era
Like Dhawan, who managed Indira’s schedule and controlled access to her, Madhavan became a gatekeeper—the bridge between power and those who sought it. Srinivasan Krishnan, a former aide to Kerala Congress stalwart K Karunakaran, aptly described him as the “guardian of secrets,” trusted to manage delicate information and navigate the labyrinth of political intrigue.
The contrasts between the masters and the servants are stark: Dhawan’s father was a farmer; Indira Gandhi was born to a prime minister. Dhawan had to walk 400 kilometres on foot from Lahore to Delhi in the middle of Partition to pursue the best education he could afford—typewriting. Gandhi studied economics in Switzerland. Dhawan practically had no one to look after him when he arrived in Delhi except an uncle working in the city. Gandhi had the entire country waiting for her to be their ruler.
Similarly, Vincent and Madhavan had middle-class upbringings, far removed from their future masters. Madhavan was even born to a family of priests and is said to have dabbled with the RSS, the ideological arch-enemy of Congress, in his early years.
Yet, their uncanny ability to anticipate political developments also set them apart. For instance, Madhavan is said to have predicted Ashok Chavan’s defection to the BJP, alerting Congress leaders in a bid to prevent it, albeit unsuccessfully. Similarly, he is said to have given early warnings about potential defections in Himachal Pradesh.
Madhavan’s bond with the Gandhi family extended beyond politics. The family’s rare attendance at his son’s wedding in Kerala—a personal occasion marked by their participation in a traditional Kerala sadya—spoke volumes about their relationship. Yet, Madhavan’s career faced turbulence.
In 2022, he was accused of serious misconduct, including rape and criminal intimidation—allegations he denied as politically motivated. While the controversy marred his later years, it did little to diminish his legacy.
At an age when emails and digital tools have taken over, leaving little room for the typist’s artistry, Madhavan’s passing marks the end of a political archetype. He was not a politician, a policymaker, or a public figure. It wasn’t even about his formal role as a typist; it was about the instincts he honed. He could predict political shifts before they happened, anticipate defections, and manage crises—all without claiming the spotlight. That’s a skill no touchscreen can replicate.
Nidheesh MK is a journalist who writes on politics, crime and business