This June (2025), the country did observe the 50th year of the Emergency which was imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975. Long columns have been written about this period when many democratic liberties stood suspended, thousands were jailed and the media was muzzled. This period is seen very differently by some Dalit leaders who recall the radical measures taken by Indira Gandhi in the previous decade like nationalisation of Banks and abolition of privy purses. Enough has already been written and analysed.
On this occasion the Union Cabinet passed a resolution condemning that period and praising those who sacrificed opposing this event. It was resolved to “commemorate and honour the sacrifices of countless individuals who valiantly resisted the Emergency and its attempt at subversion of the spirit of Indian Constitution, a subversion which began in 1974 with a heavy-handed attempt at crushing the Navnirman Andolan and Sampoorna Kranti Abhiyan.” The BJP is putting heavy emphasis on its great role during the 21 months of that period. This matches with the claims of RSS that it was they who were the major force opposing the emergency. Like most of the outfit’s other claims this one is also devoid of any element of truth.
Some work in independent media tells a different tale. Prabhash Joshi, one of the doyens of journalism wrote, “Balasaheb Deoras, then RSS chief, wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi pledging to help implement the notorious 20-point program of Sanjay Gandhi. This is the real character of the RSS…You can decipher a line of action, a pattern. Even during the Emergency, many among the RSS and Jana Sangh who came out of the jails gave mafinamas (mercy petition). They were the first to apologise… Atal Bihari Vajpayee was [most of the time in hospital]… But the RSS did not fight the Emergency. So why is the BJP trying to appropriate that memory?” He concludes that “they are not a fighting force, and they are never keen to fight. They are basically a compromising lot. They are never genuinely against the government”.
TV Rajeswar, who served as Governor of Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim penned a book, ‘India: The Crucial Years” [Harper Collins] corroborated the fact that “Not only they (RSS) were supportive of this [Emergency], they wanted to establish contact apart from Mrs. Gandhi, with Sanjay Gandhi also”.
While many socialists and communists were undergoing the prison sentence, the RSS cadres were restless to get released from jail. Subramanian Swami of BJP in an article in The Hindu narrated the emergency story. (June 13, 2000) he claimed that RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras and former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee betrayed the anti-Emergency movement by writing letters of apology to India Gandhi. “It is on the record in the Maharashtra Assembly proceedings that the then RSS chief, Balasaheb Deoras, wrote several apology letters to Indira Gandhi from inside the Yerawada jail in Pune disassociating the RSS from the JP-led movement and offering to work for the infamous 20-point program. She did not reply to any of his letters.” (The 20-point program and Sanjay Gandhi’s five-point are cited by the Congress regime to justify the imposition of the Emergency, in its endeavour to Regenerate India).
One of my friends, Dr. Suresh Khairnar, ex-President of the Rashtriya Seva Dal was also in jail during this time. When he saw the RSS cadres signing the mafinama (mercy petition), he was furious at this act of betrayal and confronted them. As per their style they said what they are doing is as per the path which was taken by Tatyarao (V D Savarkar). So true of the strategies of the Hindu nationalists!
One also remembers that when A.B.Vajpayee was arrested in Bateshwar near Agra while overlooking the procession participating in Jungle Satyagraha, which pulled down the Union Jack from the government building and hoisted tricolor. Vajpayee immediately wrote a letter and disassociated from the 1942 Quit India Movement. He got his release immediately. The followers of this ideology have been well characterized by Prabhash Joshi above.
While the verbal aggressive language of theirs is so loud, their practice is different. When Vajpayee led the NDA Government in 1998, human rights activists did feel the difference. Until then, several committed human rights workers had regarded Congress and BJP as two sides of the same coin. The Vajpayee’s period, however, opened the eyes of many to the fact that BJP is a party with a difference. That was despite the fact that BJP on its own did not have the full majority that time.
Now Modi has been in the saddle for nearly eleven years. In 2014 and 2019 he got full majority. And with this full majority; the true colours of their credentials are loudly apparent. While the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi followed a laid down procedure in the Constitution, however manipulated, what we are now witnessing an ‘undeclared emergency’. In 2015, in an interview with Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express, none other than Lal Krishna Advani said, “Today it has been 40 years since the declaration of Emergency at that time. But for the last one year, an undeclared Emergency has been going on in India. (‘Indian Express’ dated 26-27 June 2015.)
Freedom of expression has been totally muzzled. Many have been imprisoned for daring to speak the truth. Freedom of religion is going for a freefall. Justice is being overtaken by bulldozer justice. The intimidation and torture of minorities on the pretext of love jihad, cow-beef is abominable. Many eminent social activists have been put behind the bars in the Bhima Koregaon case. Muslim activists like Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima are incarcerated even though their cases are not coming up for hearing. Corporate controlled media is ever ready to plead for the government’s policies and suppress the dissenting voices.
While the Union Cabinet and RSS and other linked organisations are taking all the credit for resisting the emergency of 1975, the present regime has been imposing the same by other means. The index of democracy on the global scale is constantly on the decline. There is a need to introspect and overcome the undeclared emergency which India is undergoing at present.
Related:
How RSS betrayed the struggle against the Emergency, from its archives
RSS as worshippers of brute power did not oppose 1975 Emergency