The Emergency: When democracy went silent
Yet another June 25th is here, and it is time to remember the Black Days of Internal Emergency proclaimed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In the interregnum between 24th and 35th June 1975, Indira slapped an internal emergency all over the country under the pretext of threats to India from within as well as outside. What the nation saw was the suspension of fundamental rights, civil rights, and freedom of expression. In a late-night sweep, Indira got all prominent opposition leaders arrested and sent them to various jails in North India as a mark of “caution and security”.
For 18 months, the country writhed in agony, pain, and suffering. A pain caused by the suppression of civil rights and blatant violation of fundamental rights, which were guaranteed under various provisions of Part III of the Constitution. Those arrested included octogenarian freedom fighter Morarji Desai, eminent Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan (a septuagenarian), and others on charges of plotting against Indira Gandhi. But the reasons for declaring an emergency were something different,
Raj Narayan, a political lightweight and socialist leader, had filed an election petition in the Allahabad High Court challenging the victory of Indira Gandhi in the 1971 general election from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh. His charge was that Indira violated the relevant sections of the Representation of the People’s Act during the election. Interestingly, she did not take the allegations seriously and laughed the charges away. Things took a serious turn when the High Court summoned Indira Gandhi, and she had to subject herself to examination and cross-examination. Raj Narayan was represented by an advocate by name Shanti Bhushan, a name hitherto confined to Uttar Pradesh.
Bhushan established before the court that Indira had utilized the services of the Rae Bareli District Collector in her election campaign. The rostrum for addressing the voters was constructed under the direct supervision of the DC, who also played a significant role in mobilizing the people for the public meetings addressed by the Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi utilized the special aircraft of the Indian Air Force and senior IAF pilots for her campaign meetings. Yashpal Kapur, who was her private secretary holding the rank of gazetted officer, acted as her election agent. She also spent more than Rs.35,000, the maximum amount of money which a candidate was allowed to spend. Indira Gandhi’s election symbol was a cow and calf, a symbol held in high veneration by the Hindus. The contention of Raj Narayan was that this was done with the sole aim of influencing Hindu voters.
Another issue that worked against Indira Gandhi was the announcement she made weeks before the election commission declared the schedule that she would be contesting from Rae Bareli. Bhushan argued that the moment she declared her candidature from Rae Bareli, she became the candidate and all election related regulations became operational in her case.
Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha, who heard the case, held in his verdict that Indira Gandhi had violated the Representation of the People Act then in force and had consequently lost the right to remain a Member of Parliament and to continue as Prime Minister. However, Justice Sinha granted her a fortnight to challenge the Allahabad High Court’s verdict before the Supreme Court. Once the Allahabad High Court pronounced its judgment, there was a flurry of activity within the Congress over the selection of the next Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi and members of her kitchen cabinet (also known as the coterie) began charting the next course of action, while senior Congress leaders such as Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Chandrashekhar, Mohan Dharia, Y. B. Chavan, Jagjivan Ram, Nandini Satpathy, and H. N. Bahuguna met several times to finalize the name of the next leader.
The Allahabad High Court was not the lone factor that haunted Indira. Her reputation had taken a beating due to a series of corruption charges ranging from the Nagarwala case to Maruti Ltd, the automobile factory set up by Sanjay Gandhi, her heir apparent, to manufacture a people’s car which could be sold for Rs.5,000/- apiece. Corruption has become a term synonymous with the Indira Gandhi government, and the Prime Minister belittled the allegations, terming them a global phenomenon. The period saw people in a Bihar constituency catching hold of their MLA, shaving off his hair, and parading him with a garland of footwear on his neck. Those were the days when the term satellite TV channels was unheard of.
Once the Internal Emergency was declared, the Government of India brought in press censorship. Orders were issued that no news, not even a single sentence, was aired through All India Radio or published in newspapers across the country. The Sarkari babus would decide what should be published and what should not. Many films that had anti-establishment dialogues were denied permission for public exhibition. The incident involving Amrit Nahata’s movie “Kissa Kursi Ka” (Tale of a Thorn) is worth mentioning. The movie was a political satire and portrayed the hunger for power of politicians. Nahata had also referred to Sanjay Gandhi’s plan to manufacture a people’s car. But the movie that was sent for censoring, along with its negative and copies, were taken to the Haryana plant of Maruti Ltd and was burnt. Nahata re-shot the movie after the Internal Emergency was withdrawn in 1977, after the Janata Party assumed power in 1977.
Besides these, a lot of anti-people misdeeds were committed by Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi. The demolition of Turkman Gate residential colony, forced sterilization as part of the two-kids norm, and arresting all political rivals under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) sent shockwaves across the nation.
Indira and her henchmen made the Constitution a scarecrow and distorted the provisions to suit their convenience. She amended the Constitution by incorporating clauses that incapacitated the people’s power to challenge the mistakes committed by the President and the Prime Minister in their election to the posts. This amendment saved Indira Gandhi from getting disqualified as a Member of Parliament. Though the Janata Party government that came to power in 1977 deleted this provision, the amendment made in the preamble of the Constitution, making India a sovereign, socialist, secular democratic republic, remained. These amendments were carried out by Indira Gandhi in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, even as all opposition members were incarcerated in prisons. India was a secular country even without amending the preamble. To date, the Congress, which shouts across the nation that the Constitution is in danger and is being “misused” by the NDA government, is incapable of giving a satisfactory explanation for incorporating the terms socialist and secular in the preamble. This act of tampering with the preamble itself was an act of subversion… Subversion of the verdict by the Constitution Bench in the Keshavananda Bharati Case, that though the Parliament is empowered to amend the Constitution, it should not tamper with its basic structure. Watching Rahul Gandhi eulogizing the Constitution looked like a devil quoting the scripture. Is there any family in the world that has misused the Constitution as the Gandhi-Nehru clan has done?
There are some more issues that need close scrutiny. When Rajiv Gandhi was asked in a press meet whether the Congress would bring back Emergency, pat came the reply: “If I feel that emergency should be brought back, I will certainly bring it back”. This means that the Congress or the Gandhi-Nehru clan has not learnt anything from the past.
Some of the professional intellectuals in India shout from rooftops that there is no freedom of speech or expression in India under the Narendra Modi regime. “There is an undeclared emergency here, and the media is held to ransom by the powers that be,” they lament. Their allegation itself is an oxymoron in nature. If there is no freedom of expression, if there is no press freedom, how is it that all the newspapers and TV channels carry these allegations as main headlines and lead news? A cartoonist by the name Ambikesh Mahapatra of the University of Jadavpur was arrested by the Bengal government in 2012 for lampooning the chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee. Mahapatra had to spend 10 years in jail before he was acquitted by the Court in 2023. Who is responsible? Siddique Kappan, a Popular Front of India office bearer masquerading as a journalist, was arrested in Mathura while he was on his way to Hathras, where a Dalit girl was gang raped. The police seized many deadly weapons from the vehicle he was traveling in to report about the incident. The secular brigade and the liberal mob created a furor over Kappan’s arrest and described it as a violation of press freedom. But they do not have any answer when asked why the journalist who was on duty was carrying deadly weapons in his vehicle.
Those who accuse the Government of India of throttling the press are ignorant about the misdeeds perpetrated on the media by the then Government of India during the dark days of the Emergency. It is always better to bear in mind the adage “Freedom is Not Free” (copyright to Shiv Khera, the management guru).
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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