“This Too Shall Pass”: 1975’s Emergency Veterans See Chilling Parallels Today

Eighty-one-year-old civil rights activist and lawyer, Narain Dass Pancholi, vividly remembers the announcement of the Emergency on 25 June 1975 around midnight. By 3 am, Jayprakash Narayan—or JP as he was popularly called—was picked up from Gandhi Peace Foundation at ITO, where he stayed when in Delhi. Pancholi, who was the Secretary of the Citizens for Democracy, a non-political platform founded by Jayprakash Narayan to promote democratic values, recalls that despite several Opposition leaders being arrested, he and his fellow activists stepped out the next morning to protest. While he headed to the Gandhi Peace Foundation, those that sat in dharna at the Gandhi Samadhi at Raj Ghat were promptly arrested. A blanket of palpable fear had gripped the country. June, Emergency, and Economics: The Roots of Indira Gandhi's 1975 DecisionThe Emergency was undoubtedly one of the darkest periods in the world's largest democracy. Imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi citing “internal disturbances” under Article 352, it was in fact a means to stall her disqualification as an elected MP and enable her to cling to power.The Allahabad High Court had invalidated her 1971 election, finding her guilty of electoral malpractices. For 21 months, civil liberties were suspended, opponents jailed, and the press censored. To counter the censorship and restrictions on free speech, Pancholi and his colleagues started an English news periodical Satya Samachar, on cyclostyled sheets— collecting news of the excesses, oppressions, and protests from across the country that were not to be found in daily newspapers.Within two to three issues, the paper’s editor was detained and the paper shutdown. “For the countless detainees in jail, we worked to support their families’ collecting funds and all forms of support. Significantly, the Supreme Court rejected the right of the detainees to challenge their detention since Fundamental Rights itself were suspended,” reminisced the activist-lawyer, who is also a long-serving member of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).Pancholi recalled how Indira Gandhi’s bête noire—Jayprakash Narayan’s rousing speeches—drew lakhs of common people to his rallies at Ramlila Maidan. “In these past 50 years, I have never seen such large crowds and such spontaneous participation,” he said. Even Indira Gandhi’s government’s ploy to telecast the popular Hindi film Bobby on Doordarshan to deter the masses from attending the joint Opposition rally in February 1977, soon after elections had been announced, failed. When the government stopped the buses at the Delhi borders, Pancholi said, the resilience of the masses was such that they walked all the way to the Ramlila Maidan.The 50th anniversary of the Emergency is particularly relevant for the veteran activist in today’s India. “Atleast that period in 1975 was a declared Emergency. What we are experiencing since 2014 when Modi came to power, is clearly an undeclared Emergency. Remember, the March 1977 elections were conducted while the Emergency was still in force and despite that the polls were not manipulated or rigged by the Congress government in power. It is critical to point out that it is only after Indira Gandhi lost that the Emergency was lifted on March 21. Unlike that era, elections today are rampantly rigged and manipulated by the ruling party.”Narain Dass PancholiPancholi spoke with awe of stellar jurists like VM Tarkunde, former High Court judge, a fearless stalwart of the Citizens for Democracy movement, and lamented on how the judiciary today has largely capitulated. The 1975 Emergency Retold in 180 SecondsWhile activists like Pancholi challenged Gandhi’s authoritarianist rule on the ground, others like former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor Anand Kumar worked fearlessly to generate public opinion against the Emergency abroad. Kumar, a student activist in JNU, inspired by JP’s clarion call against authoritarianism in 1974, joined the resistance movement. It was while pursuing his doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1975 that he actively started establishing a solidarity network in the US as part of the ‘Indians for Democracy’—visiting 35 American cities, lecturing on the citizen-based initiatives of the JP movement, and creating awareness about the suppression of personal liberties in India.“After JP was arrested in June, we mobilised international support for JP’s release and that of all political prisoners—even engaging American opinion-makers like Noam Chomsky. We organised protests outside the Indian High Commissioner’s residence at Washington DC, organised a 100 km march to the United Nations headquarters in New York, and published a bi-monthly in the US titled Indian Opinion."Anand KumarUnsurprisingly, Indira Gandhi’s Congress government cracked down on him and cancelled his government scholarship to the US. It was the student union and the University of Chicago, that chipped in and enabled him to complete his PhD. Other Indian activists alongside him had their Indian passports impounded. Kumar later joined the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, hopeful about its promise of alternative politics, but quit soon after disillusioned by their activities. Reflecting on the present times, Kumar said, “There has been a 50-year gap but there are striking parallels in India post-2014 under Narendra Modi and that during the Emergency.” What makes the present authoritarian regime distinct from Gandhi’s Emergency, according to Kumar, is its underpinning of Hindutva.“Democracy is under serious threat in India today, much more than 1975, and the forces of democracy aren’t as strong as they were back then. Unlike Gandhi’s authoritarian regime of 1975, which had no ideological basis, Hindutva provides the present Modi government an ideological legitimacy. That’s what makes it so dangerous."Anand Kumar1975 Emergency: A Graphic Novel Revisits the Dark Age of DemocracyAdvocate Tajinder Singh Ahuja was a youthful 20-year-old student activist back in 1975. His direct brush with the repressive machinery of the State occurred a year after the imposition of Emergency.“A few of us were putting up posters depicting Indira Gandhi behind jail bars captioned “Tanashah ki aakhri jagah” (final resting place of the dictator) to mark the first anniversary of the Emergency. We also were in the process of dispatching inland letters opposing the Emergency, when there was a sudden police raid on us at Vithalbhai Patel House at Rafi Marg."Tajinder Singh AhujaThey were arrested on June 23 1976 for anti-India activities under Defence of India Rules.“Thereafter, I was subjected to intense physical torture at the Parliament Street police station since the police wanted to know where the posters had been cyclostyled."He was imprisoned in Tihar jail and got bail only after elections were announced in January 1977. Ahuja, who continues his fight for civil liberties, said it was his experience of police torture that steeled his lifelong resolve to fight against authoritarianism. “In the present times, just like during the Emergency, we see unbridled power concentrated in the hands of one individual, a media that is penalised for being critical of the government, and journalists being jailed. If you ask me, the situation is worse than the 1975 Emergency."Tajinder Singh AhujaHighlighting the present government’s pincer-like hold on the press, Ahuja said that unlike 1975’s overt censorship, the media today is largely pro-government since media houses have been strategically taken over by corporates close to the Modi government.Harassment of dissenting voices, be it students or intellectuals like Amartya Sen, is routine. The attempt to subvert all constitutional authorities, from the bureaucracy to the judiciary, is what makes the Modi regime so dictatorial, Ahuja said.mcmWriter and activist Sohail Hashmi was a student leader in JNU (Secretary of the Students' Federation of India) when the Emergency was imposed. Student activists like him resorted to several means to outrun the authorities, but his luck ran out and he was arrested briefly for 15 days in July 1975. Hashmi is forthright in his condemnation of the Modi government’s authoritarian regime and likens it to the Emergency. “This current government is far more adept at spreading lies, pushing fake narratives, and spreading the poison of communalism.”Sohail HashmiLike his fellow activists who resisted the dictatorial actions of the Emergency, Hashmi sounded a note of optimism amidst the gloom, “Remember that the people have not tolerated authoritarian regimes for long and there will come a time when people will resist. This too shall pass.” The clarity with which these veterans recount the events of 50 years ago, almost as if they occurred just yesterday, reveals their resilient spirit and acute awareness of the perils of losing civil liberties. Their fight to restore democracy came at great personal cost, and their anguish at reliving the authoritarianism of the Emergency now is almost palpable. (The author is an independent journalist and an Adjunct faculty at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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50 Years After Emergency, Those Who Fought it Find its Echoes in Modi Era

The Emergency is particularly relevant for the veteran activists who have a sense of watching history repeat itself.

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Topics: Narendra Modi Indira Gandhi Emergency