June 25, 2026.
The Rashtriya Swayamseval Sangh (RSS) as the Gurukul (university) of Hindutva (the ideology that advocates India being a majoritarian theocratic state) specialises in regular training of their cadres at which truncated (read manipulated and selective) versions of history are dished out, ingrained. As the latest evidence of this, we find on the 51st anniversary of the Emergency [1975-77], a number of RSS-BJP leaders enlightening us Indians on “how the RSS opposed the Emergency, how valiantly its cadres challenged the dictatorial rule of Indira Gandhi and made great sacrifices during anti-Emergency movement” etc. The newspapers are filled with advertisements announcing ‘Samvidhan Hatya Divas’ in which none less than Prime Minister Modi is depicted bowing to the Constitution.
[The Indian Express, Delhi, June 25, 2026]
Only last year, the RSS English organ of the RSS, the Organizer (June 24, 2025) presented PM Modi as a singular symbol of the fight against Emergency and wrote:
“The lesson had been burned into public memory. The Emergency became more than a chapter in history. It became a warning. For Narendra Modi, it was not just a past event. It was part of his personal journey. As Prime Minister, he has often reminded the nation of those dark times…It was about imprisoning free thought, art, and expression. That period left behind not just scars, but reminders. It taught us that freedom is earned, not gifted.”
[‘National Emergency 1975: The murder of the Indian republic on June 25, https://organiser.org/2025/06/24/298840/bharat/national-emergency-1975-the-murder-of-the-indian-republic-on-june-25/]
Let us evaluate first, the claim that the RSS-BJP rulers are/have been committed to the liberal democratic values as a faith. The most prominent ideologue of the RSS, MS Golwalkar, also known as ‘Guru of Hate’ [whom PM Modi credits for grooming him into a political leader] while addressing the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS in 1940 declared,
“RSS is inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology is lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land.”
[Golwalkar, MS, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi), Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, nd., vol. I, p. 11.]
With such a philosophical love for totalitarianism the RSS has always balked against the sharing of power. It has also been in strong opposition to the federal structure of the constitution, a ‘Basic’ feature of the India polity. Golwalkar declared in 1961,
“Today’s federal form of government not only gives birth but also nourishes the feelings of separatism… It must be completely uprooted, constitution purified, and unitary form of government be established.”
[Ibid. vol. III, p. 128.]
So far as the claims of the outfit battling the Emergency is concerned the RSS, these “claims” need to be evaluated in the light of contemporary narratives including the RSS documents. In this connection two narratives one by a veteran thinker and journalist of India, Prabhash Joshi and the other by TV Rajeswar, former Intelligence Bureau [IB] chief who was the deputy chief of IB during the Emergency are of immense importance. Both, one a senior official of the government of India and the other, a senior journalist in the Hindi language, recounted the days of Emergency (or state terrorism) when RSS surrendered to the repressive regime of Indira Gandhi, assured her and her son, Sanjay Gandhi to enforce faithfully the draconian 20-point programme announced by the Emergency regime. They in fact negotiated surrender with the Indira Gandhi regime. A large number of RSS cadres came out of jails by submitting MAAFINAMAAS (mercy petitions). This account by Prabhash Joshi appeared in the English weekly Tehelka on the 25th anniversary of the Emergency.[1] According to him even during the Emergency “there was always a lurking sense of suspicion, a distance, a discreet lack of trust” about RSS’ joining the anti-Emergency struggle. He went on to recount that,
“Balasaheb Deoras, then RSS chief, wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi pledging to help implement the notorious 20-point programme 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. They were the first to apologize. Only their leaders remained in jail: Atal Behari Vajpayee [most of the time in hospital], LK Advani, even Arun Jaitley. But the RSS did not fight the Emergency. So why is the BJP trying to appropriate that memory?”
Prabhash Joshi concluded 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”[2]
Rajeswar in an interview with Karan Thapar also disclosed that Deoras:
“Quietly established a link with the PM’s house and expressed strong support for several steps taken to enforce order and discipline in the country. Deoras was keen to meet Mrs. Gandhi and Sanjay. But Mrs. Gandhi refused.”
[Ibid]
According to Rajeswar’s book,
“Sanjay Gandhi’s concerted drive to enforce family planning, particularly among Muslims, had earned Deoras’s approbation.”[3] Rajeswar also shared the fact that even after Emergency the “organization (RSS) had specifically conveyed its support to the Congress in the post-emergency elections.”[4] It will be interesting to note that even according to Subramanian Swamy during the Emergency period, most of the senior leaders of RSS had betrayed the struggle against the Emergency.[5]
The contemporary documents from the RSS archives also corroborate that the narratives of Prabhash Joshi and Rajeswar were/are accurate. The third supremo of the RSS, Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras wrote the first letter to Indira Gandhi within two months of the imposition of Emergency. It was the time when state terror was widespread. In letter dated August 22, 1975, he began with the following praise of Indira:
“I heard your address to the nation which you delivered on August 15, 1975, from Red Fort on radio in jail [Yervada jail] with attention. Your address was timely and balanced so I decided to write to you”.
[Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras, Hindu Sangathan aur Sattavaadi Rajneeti, Jagriti Prkashan, Noida, 1997, p. 270.]
Indira Gandhi did not respond to it. So Deoras wrote another letter to Indira on November 10, 1975. He began his letter with congratulating her on being cleared by the Supreme Court of disqualification which was ordered by the Allahabad High Court,
“All the five Justices of the Supreme Court have declared your election constitutional, heartiest greetings for it.” It is to be noted that opposition was firmly of the opinion that this judgment was influenced by the ruling party, the Congress. Deoras also also stated that
“The RSS has been named in context of Jaiprakash Narayan’s movement. The government has also connected RSS with Gujarat movement and Bihar movement without any reason…Sangh has no relation with these movements…”
[Ibid., pp. 272-73.]
Since Indira Gandhi did not respond to this letter either, RSS chief got hold of Vinoba Bhave who supported the Emergency religiously and was a favourite of Indira Gandhi. In a letter dated January 12, 1976, Deoras begged that Acharya should suggest a way by which the ban on RSS was removed.
[Ibid. pp. 275-77.]
Since Acharya too did not respond to Deoras letter, the latter in another letter without date wrote in desperation,
“According to press reports respected PM [Indira Gandhi] is going to meet you at Pavnar Ashram on January 24. At that time there will be discussion about the present condition of the country. I beg you to try to remove the wrong assumptions of PM about RSS so that ban on RSS is lifted and RSS members are released from jails. We are looking forward for the times when RSS and its members are able to contribute to the plans of progress which are being run in all the fields under the leadership of PM.”
[Ibid. p. 278.]
[All these letters in Hindi are being reproduced from a publication of the RSS at the end of this article.]
Even a prominent Hindutva ideologue Balraj Madhok who as an RSS whole-timer founded Bhartiya Jana Sangh (1951) on RSS command confessed:
“Sarsanghchalak of the Sangh Shri Bal Saheb Deoras was a MISA prisoner in Pune’s Yervada Jail…his life was full of comforts. Therefore, he wrote two letters to the jailed Indira Gandhi on August 22, 1975 and November 10, 1975 to change her attitude towards the Sangh and lift the ban on it. He also wrote a letter to Shri Vinoba Bhave and requested him to try to remove the feeling of opposition towards the Sangh from Indira Gandhi’s mind. These letters were leaked by the government, and they were published in many newspapers. This naturally had an adverse effect on the morale of the Sangh volunteers and the Satyagraha movement became almost dead.”
[Madhok, Balraj, Zindagi Ka Safar –3: Deendayal Upadhyay Ki Hatya Se Indira Gandhi Ki Hatya Tak (Journey of Life-3: From the Murder of Deendayal Upadhyay to the Murder of Indira Gandhi), Dinman Prakashan, 2003, pp. 188-189.]
It is also historically significant that former President of the Indian Republic, Pranab Mukherjee was invited by the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat as the chief guest at the graduation ceremony of its new recruits must be working over-time to convert India into a Hindu state. Pranab Mukherjee had been indicted as one of the top leaders of Congress for Emergency excesses by the Shah Commission.
Given this history, it is quite regrettable if not downright shameful that despite these facts thousands of RSS cadres continue to get monthly pension for their ostensible “persecution” during the Emergency. The BJP ruled states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra decided to award a monthly pension of Rs 20,000 to those who were jailed during the Emergency period for less than two months, and Rs 10,000 to those who were jailed for less than a month. This rule took care of the financial interest of those RSS cadres who submitted mercy letters completing only one- or two-months’ jail term. For securing this not insignificant amount in pension there was/has been no condition imposed that the beneficiary should have been in jail for the whole period of the Emergency!
Interestingly, in the case of anti-British freedom struggle there has not been even a single RSS cadre to claim the freedom fighter pension. It may be noted that nobody remembers hundreds of Communist youths, branded as Naxals killed in fake encounters during the Emergency. Interestingly, Maharashtra-based Shiv Sena, the Hindutva co-traveller of the RSS openly supported the Emergency.
Renowned senior journalist and one of the most widely read political commentators in India today, Coomi Kapoor evaluating the RSS-BJP over the past last 12 years forthrightly has observed:
“Increasingly, those in power believe they are not directly answerable to the people. The government’s radio silence over major mess-ups in the NEET and CBSE examinations, affecting lakhs of students, is a telling example. To respond to public complaints is perceived as a weakness by today’s regime. The lack of internal debate in the ruling party, too, is perturbing. The BJP parliamentary board rarely meets and when it does, it merely rubber stamps decisions taken elsewhere. The surprise elevation of inexperienced junior party persons as chief ministers, without any prior consultations, is yet another instance of the absence of inner-party democracy. No less concerning is the falling standard of independence and probity of constitutional bodies meant to uphold democratic values.
“The Election Commission’s blatant exclusion of over 90 lakh names from the West Bengal SIR rolls unnecessarily put a question mark over an election where the public mood was clearly against Mamata Banerjee…The crux of a true democracy is securing a majority in Parliament through an ethical recourse to the ballot box, not by winning over opposition legislators by whatever means, fair or foul, post elections. In the ongoing ruthless mission to secure a two-thirds majority, one recalls uneasily just how Indira Gandhi utilised her brute two-thirds majority to subvert our Constitution and push through Emergency rule.
“As the country marks the half-century anniversary of the Emergency, many ruling party supporters wax eloquent on Indira Gandhi’s Emergency excesses as a warning to future generations not to go down that discredited path and derail democracy. Ironically, many of the practices of the Emergency are actually being emulated today. Even the unnecessary sycophancy of rulers in advertisements, bill boards and at public events seems ominously reminiscent of that black period and recalls Congress President D K Barooah’s fawning slogan, ‘Indira is India and India is Indira’.’’
Coomi Kapoor, ‘Five decades after the Emergency, difficult questions, unheeded warnings’, reported The Indian Express.
So, the writing on the wall is clear. Indira Gandhi had imposed the Emergency, using Articles (352-360) of the Indian constitution; the same Indira Gandhi within 18 months announced general elections on January 18, 1977 and officially lifted the Emergency on March 21, 1977. Political prisoners who had been imprisoned were released and free to contest the elections that were held soon thereafter. Despite the robust opposition to the Emergency, there was never a question or doubt that the elections of 1977 would be free or fair. Under the present Modi regime (a minority government in its ‘third’ term), there is no question of withdrawing the state of undeclared emergency that has never been formally imposed. As institution after institution is sought to be, and is subverted, including the hitherto independent Election Commission of India, an unscrupulous regime continues with its agenda of snatching all democratic freedoms!
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.
[1] http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main13.asp?filename=op070205And_Not_Even.asp; this copy is available in libraries
[2] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/rss-backed-indira-gandhis-emergency-ex-ib-chief-264127-2015-09-21
[3] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/ib-ex-chiefs-book-rss-chief-deoras-had-backed-some-emergency-moves/
[4] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/RSS-backed-Emergency-reveals-former-IB-chief/articleshow/49052143.cms
[5] https://medium.com/@hindu.nationalist1/double-game-of-senior-rss-leaders-during-emergency-74abc07a4fa8
Related:
Syama Prasad Mookerjee: ‘Patriot’ or collaborator of British Rulers & Muslim League?