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Indian Express
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Durga, dictator, democrat. How the 3 veins ran parallel in Indira Gandhi
Fifty years after the Emergency, as fresh material and new books throw more light on a dark chapter in India's history, it is still tantalising how Indira Gandhi, the central character around whom the events of the 1970s revolved, could be a 'Durga' in 1971, a dictator in 1975 – and even as a dictator, call for elections in 1977, displaying a democratic streak in her — all within a timespan of five-six years. Mrs Gandhi's opponent Atal Bihari Vajpayee had hailed her as 'Durga' after she helped split Pakistan to create Bangladesh, changing geo-political realities. In a preemptive move, she signed a Treaty of Friendship with the then Soviet Union (now Russia), to counter the new Pakistan-China-America axis that was being formed. Displaying her steely side, she did not wilt when then US President Richard Nixon sent the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal in a show of strength. Early on in life, Indira Gandhi had learnt not to panic in a crisis. There is a story about a trip to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with her parents, when the jeep in which they were travelling skidded. The 14-year-old Indira, who was sitting in the front, jumped out. The driver prevented the vehicle from going over the precipice, but Jawaharlal Nehru was furious with his daughter and admonished her for what she had done. After that she rarely lost her cool in a crisis, which came in handy in the 1971 Bangladesh War. Actually, even before the opposition to her began internally, Mrs Gandhi's woes started, with the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur war in the Middle East in 1972 – rather like the crisis in West Asia today. It led to spiralling inflation in India, creating a fertile ground for the rise of the Navnirman Movement in Gujarat, followed by the Jayaprakash Narayan-led movement against corruption and rising prices in 1973-74. The two agitations brought Opposition forces together to demand Mrs Gandhi's resignation. But, even as she kept her cool, her instinct was to 'choose order above democracy' when faced with situations that spelt conflict or instability. According to her biographer Katherine Frank, she did not share 'Nehru's faith that democratic institutions would survive unstable circumstances'. (In 1959, as the Congress president, she had prevailed on a reluctant Nehru to dismiss the Communist government in Kerala when there was unrest in the state.) In 1975 again, Mrs Gandhi chose so-called 'order' over democracy in imposing the Emergency on the night of June 25-26. This was 13 days after Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court unseated her as MP, holding her guilty of electoral malpractices. She toyed briefly with the idea of resigning while hoping for reprieve from the Supreme Court, and appointing someone of her choice as PM. But very quickly she abandoned the idea – it was too risky and might jeopardise her kursi. Ultimately, Mrs Gandhi imposed the Emergency even without calling a meeting of the Union Cabinet (which was informed at 6.30 the next morning – and not consulted). A compliant President, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, just signed on the dotted line. The Congress government then went about arresting leading Opposition figures – including JP, Vajpayee, L K Advani, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar – as well as thousands others opposed to her politics. The families of many did not know for three-four months where they had been taken. There were allegations of torture in prison. What followed is now well-known – the suspension of fundamental rights, press censorship, amendments to the Constitution, the strengthening of the Executive's powers, the weakening of the Judiciary. Besides, the forcible sterilisation of thousands, in one of the worst exhibitions of Sanjay Gandhi's 'extra-constitutional authority' in his mother's government. In 1976, I worked with the news magazine Himmat in Mumbai, which resisted Mrs Gandhi's authoritarian rule. (Many small papers similarly put up a valiant fight.) Himmat was first required to submit to 'self-censorship', then to pre-censorship when the authorities claimed 'violations', and finally pressure was mounted on the printing press, till it succumbed and refused to print Himmat. Chief Editor Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, put out an appeal for funds to buy a small printing press so that Himmat could continue publication. It was so exciting to see the money orders – worth Rs 10, Rs 5, even Re 1 – come in, demonstrating a will to freedom. Finally, with around Rs 60,000 in, Himmat could buy its own press. Not long after that, Mrs Gandhi announced elections, to be held in March 1977. It is one of those supreme ironies of politics that 'dictator' Indira announced polls when she need not have done it. There were no external pressures like sanctions (though there were critical voices in the West). Most importantly, the elections held were free and fair – or the Congress would not have been routed all over North India. Later she also admitted to 'excesses' during the regime. Mrs Gandhi pressed ahead with polls even in the face of Sanjay's opposition. Then Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal, a member of Sanjay's core team, had stated publicly: 'Get rid of this election nonsense. Just make our sister (Mrs Gandhi) President for life, and there is no need to do anything else.' The debate continues to this day as to why Mrs Gandhi called for elections (which finally led to the lifting of the Emergency)? Was it because she was more democrat Nehru's daughter than Sanjay Gandhi's mother, as some would like to believe? Had Nehru and the freedom movement profoundly influenced her thinking in the early years? Or did she want to win back the approval of her friends in the Western world whom she had antagonised? Or was it a 'spiritual' impulse which goaded her, given J Krishnamurti's influence on her? Or, and this is more likely, did she hope to legitimise, nationally and internationally, Sanjay as her successor through elections, allowing him more time to work under her – and build a new team around him? Mrs Gandhi may have also calculated that elections would restore her weakening grip over the government. She was worried about the power Sanjay had come to wield, often going above her head and taking decisions on his own. He and his coterie wanted to move towards a Presidential form of government – and had even got four state Assemblies to pass resolutions to set up a new Constituent Assembly. As for Opposition leaders, she had managed to soften some of them in 1976 – and thought she would win. The balance of advantage, she would have calculated, lay in going for elections in early 1977. She had not foreseen Opposition leaders getting together to form a unified Janata Party within a few days of being released. Or on Babu Jagjivan Ram quitting the Congress soon thereafter, which hampered her efforts to induct new faces. Whether as Durga, dictator, or displayer of democratic sensibilities, Indira Gandhi understood the nature of power – and how to capture it at any cost. Successive generations of politicians across party lines studied and emulated her model of saam, daam, dand, bhed (using any means necessary to meet one's goals) – which de-institutionalised politics as also de-ideoligised it. Indira Gandhi (and Narendra Modi) have shown that the more powerful and popular a prime minister, the greater the likelihood of power getting concentrated in his or her hands and of democratic institutions coming under stress. The weaker the leader – as seen in coalition governments – the more the chances of safeguards against excesses of power. Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide
NDTV
15 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
50 Years Since Emergency: What Really Fuelled Indira Gandhi's Insecurity
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of June 25, the day in 1975 when, setting aside all norms, the Emergency was imposed, it may be worthwhile to recapitulate the events in the fortnight preceding that day as well as the events of the two years that preceded it. Gujarat's Navnirman Movement (December 1973-April 1974) was spurred by high mess bills in college hostels. This inspired the Bihar movement (from March 1974), which ultimately was led by Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) on the plank of 'Total Revolution', seeking change in polity. An all-India strike by railwaymen in April-May 1974, led by George Fernandes, the head of the National Coordination Committee of Railwaymen's Struggle (NCCRS), added to the chaos preceding June 1975. In January 1975, Railway Minister Lalit Narain Mishra was killed in a bomb blast on the platform of the Samastipur railway station in Bihar. This case is yet to be solved - a petition filed by his grandson, Vaibhav Mishra, seeking the reopening of the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was admitted by the Delhi High Court recently. Poverty, food shortages and unemployment fanned these tensions and shook the Indira Gandhi regime, which till 1972 had been basking in the glory of victory over Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. The roots of the political crisis that led to Emergency lay in the factional politics of Congress. In 1964, the political ambitions of Morarji Desai and Jagjivan Ram to succeed Jawaharlal Nehru were thwarted by the popularity of Lal Bahadur Shastri, whom Nehru had covertly groomed. Shastri made Gandhi a minister as he wanted to have the tag of 'Nehru legitimacy'(initially, Gandhi had been reluctant, but faced with the prospect of Shastri opting for her aunt, Vijayalaxmi Pandit, instead, she agreed). When Shastri passed away in Tashkent in January 1966, the choice fell upon Gandhi. Morarji lost out yet again. He challenged her again after the 1967 general election, which saw the Congress retain the Lok Sabha by a slender majority and lose power in the entire Indo-Gangetic plains to Opposition coalitions. Yet again, Gandhi prevailed. Morarji was a pivot of the Navnirman Movement and a prominent face of the JP agitation. He replaced Gandhi as Prime Minister in March 1977. The Congress split in 1969 began with her dropping Desai from her cabinet. The internal bickering in the Grand Old Party led to its split in 1969. A veneer of ideology was sought to be put on the split, but the intrinsic reason was a clash of personal ambitions. A section of the party wanted to throw off the Nehru yoke. The 1969 split made Gandhi lose the majority in the Lok Sabha, though she survived, thanks to the support extended by DMK and CPI leaders. To overcome this handicap, Gandhi called for elections one year before they were due, in 1971. Opposition united in what came to be known as the 'Grand Alliance' to challenge her. But the Congress, which had a slender majority in 1967, returned with over 350 seats in 1971. Irrepressible socialist leader Raj Narain, who had later defeated Gandhi in 1977, lost to her at Rae Bareli in 1971. He challenged the result in a petition before the Allahabad High Court on the grounds that Gandhi had used unfair practices to win. Raj Narain was represented by Shanti Bhushan, while Gandhi was defended by eminent jurist Nani Palkhivala. The latter had to take the witness stand in this case, which she lost on June 12, 1975. Palkhivala quit the case in protest when the Emergency was imposed as a consequence. Judge Jagmohan Lal Sinha dismissed charges of bribery but held that Gandhi had misused official machinery as her aide, Yashpal Kapoor's resignation had not been formally accepted when he began campaigning (Kapoor had resigned before leaving Delhi, but the formality of acceptance was pending). Justice Sinha gave the Congress 20 days to elect someone to discharge Gandhi's duties. Her resignation was demanded overtly by the opposition parties, but there were murmurs within the Congress as well. Initially, Gandhi toyed with the idea that Sardar Swaran Singh, who had been a minister since Nehru's days in 1952, be sworn in as Prime Minister while she stepped down and got herself cleared by the Supreme Court. Babu Jagjivan Ram, who was minister since his induction in the Interim Government of 1946, felt he should be chosen instead, though Gandhi was not confident that he would step aside when she won her case. This despite the fact that in 1969, she had relied upon Jagjivan Ram to head her faction of the Congress. The Election Commission's 1971 results record two Congress parties - the Indira faction's overwhelming 350+ results are credited to Congress (Jagjivan Ram), and 16 seats are credited to Congress (Organization). After the Emergency was imposed, on July 5, Jagjivan Ram moved the official resolution in Parliament for its approval. And after Gandhi relaxed Emergency on January 20, 1977, to hold elections, Jagjivan Ram on February 2 walked out of the Congress to form Congress for Democracy (CFD), which became an ally of the Opposition combine that ousted the Indira regime in March 1977. Apart from Jagjivan Ram, the then Congress President, Dev Kanta Barooah, who later was to be remembered for his 'India is Indira' slogan, raised Gandhi's suspicion by suggesting that till she is cleared by courts, she could swap places with him, making him the Prime Minister with she heading the party. This suggestion apparently had gained currency at a meeting of MPs held at 12 Safdarjung Road, the residence of Minister Chandrajit Yadav. Indira Gandhi's Principal Secretary, Prof PN Dhar, has recorded in his memoirs that the then Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director, Atma Jayram, had submitted a report suggesting that not more than 159 of the 350 party MPs would support Gandhi if there were to be a show of strength. The rest of the MPs' loyalties were divided - with Yashwant Rao Chavan heading the list with 17 supporters, and others having even less. In 1972, in the Shimla session of Congress, 'Young Turk' Chandrashekhar created history by getting elected to the Congress Working Committee despite Gandhi's opposition. The IB's report to Dhar stated that Young Turks had the biggest block - of 25 MPs - opposed to Gandhi's continuation. Chandra Shekhar was arrested as Emergency was imposed. When the Janata Party was launched on May 1, 1977, he became its President. He also briefly served as Prime Minister in 1990-91 after the fall of the VP Singh government. Thus, it was not merely JP's call to the army, police and government servants on June 25 from the Ramlila Ground - ' Aap roti ke tukdo par bikey nahin hain,aapne imaan nahin bech diya hai ' - which prompted the Emergency, as was cited by Home Ministry documents placed before Parliament on July 21, 1977, to justify the action. Internal threat to her leadership from within the Congress also played a part.
