Putting Emergency in perspective

Sandeep Sinha

The Emergency marks a watershed in independent India’s history. The democratic traditions, cherished and assiduously incorporated into the Constitution, faced a major test, ironically at the hands of a Prime Minister, who had herself been privy to liberal values and traditions, epitomised best by her father and the first Prime Minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru.

The author, a professor of history at Princeton University, argues that the Emergency was as much Indira’s doing as it was the product of Indian democracy’s troubled relationship with popular politics. The fine balance between the State’s power and civil rights was upset by the unfulfilled promise of democratic transformation. The growing unrest disturbed the regime of Indira Gandhi, making her turn to the law to suspend the legal rights of the people, damaging the political system.

Despite being Nehru’s daughter, the journey was not smooth for Indira for she had to face resistance from the old guards — the Syndicate — which made her split the party. It also strengthened in her the tendency for centralisation of power, unhindered by institutions. The Allahabad High Court judgment that set aside her election in a case filed by Raj Narain, an opposition candidate, on the ground that she was guilty of corrupt electoral practices only strengthened this resolve.

With her back to the wall, the contest for the people began between Indira and her rivals.

The makers of the Indian Constitution were in favour of a tendency towards the centralisation of powers and how the very problems that we were expected to surmount, kept surfacing again and again, making the apprehensions come true. Caste and dominant leaders did not disappear from society or the parties. Even the new Congress began to look like the old one. The constant threat from factional fights made intense the competition to cling to power.

The book also describes the dilemma of President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, who was asked to sign the proclamation of Emergency, done ostensibly without the advice of the Council of Ministers, which was informed only the next day. Even as the President’s officials were deliberating on the constitutionality of the measure, RK Dhawan got the President to sign it, who then swallowed a tranquiliser and went to bed.

The PM House, a euphemism for Sanjay Gandhi and his cohorts, became the centre of power. Sanjay Gandhi was different from his brother Rajiv, who was more practical, according to his mother, making her worry for her younger son. Both mother and son shared one common thread, of regarding institutions as obstacles.

In Sanjay’s case, it was exemplified in the way he set up the Maruti plant in India. It was a great move, circumventing the controlled economy of the Nehruvian era and revolutionising the automobile sector in India, by manufacturing a ‘people’s car’. That Maruti is flourishing is a grudging tribute to Sanjay Gandhi, but the norms went for a toss in pursuit of it. The liberalisation of economy in the subsequent decades only put a legal stamp to that impatient initiative.

The excesses of the Emergency, the forced sterilisation, the incident at Turkman Gate, preventive detentions and the wielding of power of Sanjay Gandhi’s coterie — comprising Bansi Lal, RK Dhawan, Jagmohan, BR Tamta, the then LG of Delhi Kishan Chand and DIG Pritam Singh Bhinder, are well known.

The best thing about the book is that it puts Emergency in perspective. Nobody was more aware than Dr BR Ambedkar that Indian society lacked democratic values. Therefore, he put his faith in political sphere, making him endow the state with extraordinary powers. He expected that the state would accomplish from above what society could not from below. It was a reflection of lack of full popular consent for the nation’s elite power. The “grammar of anarchy” of popular politics also worried Babasaheb, borne out by street protests led later by Jaiprakash Narayan. 

The pulls and pushes of society made machinations and manoeuevres the order of the day and the Emergency was but a culmination of it. Also, as is the wont these days, the author draws a parallel between 1975 and Narendra Modi’s government, cautioning that the same authoritarian streaks are visible now as it was then, without a declaration of Emergency. 

The author quotes John Stuart Mill to caution people against placing their liberties at the feet of a great leader. Indians are susceptible to bhakti. This is fine in religion but in politics, it is a “sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship.” 

Hopefully, the state election results declared on December 11 have showed that people in India have heeded Mill’s advice, the same way they had done in 1977.