'She Can Be Picked Up Anytime': How Indira Gandhi's Cousin Faced Backlash During 1975 Emergency

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During the 1975 Emergency, Nayantara Sahgal, Nehru's niece, faced censorship for criticising Indira Gandhi's regime but continued to speak out against authoritarianism
During the dark days of the Emergency in 1975, when the Constitution was bent to serve autocratic power, one woman stood firm against the tide – Nayantara Sahgal, acclaimed author and niece of Jawaharlal Nehru. What she faced in return was an orchestrated campaign of censorship, social isolation, and political intimidation.
Sahgal, also a aunt to Sanjay Gandhi and the daughter of India's first female ambassador, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, had long been a critic of the establishment. But the Emergency, declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in June 1975, marked a turning point in the state's response to dissenting voices. While she had previously crossed swords with the ruling government back then, what followed during the 19-month Emergency period went beyond mere ideological clashes; it became personal, institutional, and coercive.
Suddenly, editorial doors began to shut. Newspaper editors who once sought her columns stopped returning calls. Publishers who earlier queued for her manuscripts now declined them with polite apologies. Even a foreign filmmaker who had earlier expressed interest in adapting her novel This Time of Morning into a film quietly withdrew from the project – fearful, reportedly, that any link with Sahgal might cost him his access to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
It was clear that an invisible cordon had been drawn around her. And it wasn't just professional isolation. In one of the most chilling moments of her life, she later wrote, she began to suspect that her phone was being tapped and her movements monitored.
Despite pressure, even from her own mother, to steer clear of politics, Sahgal refused to remain silent. In December 1975, at the height of the crackdown, she authored a pamphlet sharply critical of the regime. She condemned the jailing of political dissidents and the authoritarian drift of the Congress.
Her outspokenness, however, came with consequences. Thousands were imprisoned under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), many without formal charges. While Sahgal narrowly escaped arrest, those close to her were warned of looming threats. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, then West Bengal Chief Minister and a key figure in the Emergency-era apparatus, allegedly told Sahgal's sister that Nayantara could be picked up 'any time".
Yet she remained undeterred. In her 1977 book A Voice for Freedom, she recalled being asked to present her manuscript for A Situation in New Delhi to the Chief Censor, Harry D'Penh. He suggested she obtain permission from the Home Ministry. She refused. 'I brought my manuscript home and forgot about it," she wrote, adding, 'It had no importance in the face of the pain… of those thousands of anonymous people who were not even in a position to protest."
The state's grip extended to literary freedom itself. Vidya Charan Shukla, then Minister of Information and Broadcasting and a key figure in Indira Gandhi's inner circle, allegedly told Sahgal's mother that her daughter would no longer be able to write about politics. Vijayalakshmi Pandit shot back, asserting that politics was hardly the only subject her daughter could write about, though the remark did little to blunt the censor's blade.
What stung even more was the betrayal within her own political lineage. With the Congress increasingly resembling a personality cult around Indira and Sanjay Gandhi, Sahgal began to drift toward opposition voices. She surprised many by expressing openness to the Jan Sangh, a party previously considered taboo in liberal Nehruvian circles. At one public event, she reportedly told Jan Sangh leader Subramanian Swamy, 'People need to be told that the Jan Sangh does not have three horns and a tail."
Meanwhile, in Parliament and government, a different spectacle was unfolding – a grotesque competition in sycophancy. With the 42nd Amendment, Indira Gandhi's regime extended the life of the Lok Sabha and attempted to curtail judicial review. Congress leaders vied to outdo one another in praise.
Devakanta Barua famously declared, 'India is Indira, Indira is India." But AR Antulay pushed the envelope further, hailing Indira as 'the daughter of Nehru, the daughter of Bharat, the daughter of the past, present and future," and praising her for cleansing the party of Nehruvians, the very tradition Sahgal held dear.
Not to be left behind, Defence Minister Bansi Lal went as far as to suggest that elections were unnecessary altogether. According to a revealing conversation with BK Nehru, Indira Gandhi's cousin, Bansi Lal reportedly said, 'End all these electoral hassles… our sister should be made Prime Minister for life. Make her President and then there is no need to do anything."
All signs pointed to Sanjay Gandhi, the unelected and constitutionally unaccountable power centre, as the shadow orchestrator of much of this excess.
In bureaucrat BN Tandon's PMO Diary: The Emergency, published much later in 2006, an entry dated 28 May 1976 exposes the pettiness that defined the Indira Gandhi regime. It recounts how Indira vetoed a proposal to allot an LPG agency to the poverty-stricken sister of K Kamaraj, a veteran Congress leader, simply because she remained loyal to the 'old Congress" and refused to shift allegiance to Indira's faction.
This quiet cruelty, dressed in administrative decisions, was the defining trait of the Emergency. And for people like Nayantara Sahgal, the cost was personal, professional, and emotional. Yet her resolve remained. In defiance of silence, she chose to write.
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First Published:
June 25, 2025, 14:37 IST