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India.com
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- India.com
The Films That Shook The Emergency: How Satire Put Sanjay Gandhi Behind Bars
New Delhi: In 1975, India slipped into one of the darkest chapters of its democratic journey. The Emergency, declared by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, brought with it a ruthless suppression of dissent. In this turbulent atmosphere, Sanjay Gandhi emerged as a powerful person, his name tied to a trail of allegations – forced sterilisations, direct interference in government functioning and the controversial Maruti project. But amid all the chaos and legal battles, it was a film that finally led to his imprisonment. 'Kissa Kursi Ka' Then Member of Parliament Amrit Nahata dared to make a political satire called 'Kissa Kursi Ka'. It poked fun at the establishment and caricatured Sanjay Gandhi and his coterie. The film never saw the light of day. Instead, the negatives were seized and burned, allegedly on Sanjay Gandhi's orders. The Shah Commission, formed post-Emergency to investigate abuses of power, found him guilty. A court convicted him. Jail followed. The sentence was eventually overturned, but the damage had been done. Satire had cracked the shield of political impunity. The film had powerful symbolism. Actor Shabana Azmi played the silent and suffering public. Utpal Dutt embodied the manipulative godman. Manohar Singh portrayed a politician intoxicated with power. More than a movie, 'Kissa Kursi Ka' was a cinematic rebellion. 'Nasbandi' Two years later, another filmmaker took the risk. In 1978, I.S. Johar released 'Nasbandi', a spoof on Sanjay Gandhi's controversial sterilisation drive. It featured lookalikes of major Bollywood stars. The songs were razor-sharp in their criticism. One of them, sung by legendry Kishore Kumar, questioned the very soul of democracy: ' Gandhi tere desh mein, ye kaisa atyachar .' The song disappeared from All India Radio. Kumar had earlier refused to perform at a Congress rally. That one act of defiance had cost him dearly. Another song from the movie, sung by Manna Dey and Mahendra Kapoor, asked, ' Kya mil gaya sarkar Emergency laga ke? ' These tracks echoed the voice of a stifled nation. 'Sholay' Even India's most iconic film was not spared. In its original version, 'Sholay' ended with Thakur killing Gabbar Singh using boots spiked with nails. Censors rejected the ending. The board did not want to glorify vigilante justice. Director Ramesh Sippy fought to retain the original climax. He lost. The scene was reshot. Sanjeev Kumar returned from the Soviet Union just for that. Even Ram Lal's scene – where he hammers nails into the boots – was removed. The censors thought his eyes reflected rebellion. 'Sholay' was released on August 15, 1975. What hit theatres was not the film Sippy had envisioned. 'Aandhi' Gulzar's 'Aandhi' stirred further controversy. The story resembled the life of Indira Gandhi. Audiences drew parallels. The government responded with a ban. The Emergency had no tolerance for metaphors. Dev Anand's Political Detour Some from the Bollywood took it beyond the screen. Dev Anand did not stop at protest. He founded his own political outfit – National Party of India. A massive rally at Shivaji Park followed. In his autobiography, he wrote of feeling hounded by those close to Sanjay Gandhi. His act of defiance came with risk. But he never backed down. Cinema in Chains The Emergency redefined how India looked at cinema. Films were no longer entertainment alone. They became vessels of protest and tools of resistance. Satire turned into a weapon. Despite all the accusations against him, Sanjay Gandhi went to jail because of a reel. That singular fact underlined the power of storytelling. Decades later, those films still speak. 'Kissa Kursi Ka', 'Nasbandi', 'Aandhi' and 'Sholay' – each of them captured a moment of resistance. They remind India of a time when humour frightened the powerful, a lyric became a threat and a scene could be a revolution. Cinema bled in those years. But it also fought back. And won.
The Print
a day ago
- Politics
- The Print
Newspapers were strangled during Emergency, but stayed alive. Now, they're not even breathing
Be that as it may, this article would like to draw a parallel between the media landscape during the Declared Emergency of the 1970s and the present-day 'Undeclared Emergency'. We will be dealing with the print media because, barring government-owned Doordarshan, there were no electronic, digital or social media during the Declared Emergency. The excesses committed against the print media during that regime have been codified by two commissions set up by the subsequent Janata Party government. The Shah Commission's findings pointed to planned and unabashed government interference to suspend media freedom. Salient highlights of the report were listed by academic Jhumur Ghosh in his paper on press freedom during the Emergency. They are as follows. To drive home the point that the Sangh Parivar are the 'Defenders of Democracy', they went to the extent of declaring 25 June as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas (Murder of Constitution Day). It was a move meant to 'pay tribute to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of emergency, and to recommit the people of India to not support in any manner such gross abuse of power in future.' Today is the 50th anniversary of the infamous Emergency era. The present ruling establishment, which is the beneficiary of this era, has been ruthlessly flogging it and has been claiming all kinds of credit for bringing it to an end. So much so on 26 June 2024, the Lok Sabha speaker, Om Birla, condemned the Emergency in Parliament and appreciated those who opposed it: 'The Emergency had destroyed the lives of so many citizens of India, so many people had died. This House strongly condemns the decision to impose Emergency in 1975. We appreciate the determination of all those people who opposed the Emergency, fought and fulfilled the responsibility of protecting India's democracy…We also believe that our young generation must know about this dark chapter of democracy.' Prime Minister Modi strongly endorsed this action and took this onslaught to the Rajya Sabha also. The government resorted to cutting off the electricity of newspaper offices on 26 June 1975, the day after the Emergency was proclaimed, in order to buy time to set up the apparatus of censorship. Three days later, when the censorship machinery was in place, the power supply resumed. (This was specific to Delhi) The Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting designated newspapers as either hostile, friendly or neutral and issued instructions to withhold or reduce advertisements from hostile and neutral newspapers and to increase advertisements in friendly newspapers The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ordered a study of the newspapers over the six-month period preceding the Emergency in order to determine each newspaper's attitude to the government and to penalise it accordingly. The government tightened its control over newsprint supply through state monopoly, i.e., State Trading Corporation. This was the general picture across India. But in Chandigarh, the capital of the vibrant states of Punjab and Haryana, we had a different kind of experience with The Tribune and The Indian Express. Also read: JP wasn't a saviour of Constitution. He called Mao his guru The Emergency in Chandigarh Even before the ink dried in the Emergency declaration, Giani Zail Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab, called up NP Mathur, Chief Commissioner of Chandigarh Union Territory, directing him to severely discipline the press. He was specific that The Tribune, a household name in the northwestern states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, should be sealed and shut down. Zail Singh even wanted to arrest Madhavan Nair, the Editor of the newspaper. Mathur was in a fix. He did not want any formal orders to be issued. So, he called Senior Superintendent of Police SN Bhanot and passed on the instructions of Zail Singh. But Bhanot declined, saying he would not do anything unless he received written orders from the District Magistrate, which happened to be me! Nevertheless, Bhanot went to The Tribune premises and advised those on duty not to print any news unpalatable to the 'powers-that-be'. He also posted a small posse of policemen to keep a watch. Obviously, this did not have any impact on The Tribune, and the morning paper came out as usual. This infuriated another Chief Minister living in Chandigarh—Chaudhary Bansi Lal of Haryana. In his inimitable style, he threatened that if the Chandigarh Administration was not willing to raid The Tribune, seal its premises and arrest its editor, he would get it done through the Haryana Police. But that threat did not work because we, as civil servants, stood our ground and refused to comply with their orders to shut down the newspaper. All we did was appoint a Censor Officer by invoking the provisions of the Defence of India Rules. The experience of The Indian Express was unique. The newspaper did not have a Chandigarh edition and had applied for a license. This was pending with me when the Emergency was promulgated. Considering the foul atmosphere, I kept it in cold storage instead of rejecting it. As soon as Emergency was defeated in March 1977, I took it up. I was on the verge of clearing the file when RK Mishra, General Manager of the Group, stormed into my office and demanded immediate approval. He said he has come 'walking on the dead body of Indira Gandhi'. That was too much, and I told him so. I added that he can now forget the Chandigarh edition of the newspaper. I thought the matter ended there, but there was a big surprise. Within 24 hours, Ramnath Goenka, the supreme boss, called me not to seek an appointment at my office but with a request to host him for a south Indian breakfast at my residence. I could not deny the old war horse. I knew he was very close to Jayaprakash Narayan, with whom I had established a father-son relationship during his imprisonment at Chandigarh. At the breakfast table, he was all charm and mostly spoke in my mother tongue, Tamil. While departing, he casually mentioned the pending request of The Indian Express. Needless to say, it was cleared immediately thereafter! Shekhar Gupta, now founder and Editor-in-Chief of ThePrint, was among the first set of young and dedicated journalists who put the newspaper on an even keel. Also read: Gandhi wanted limits on media freedom. Not through law, but public opinion A comatose state During the Declared Emergency, all newspapers were published with bland, censored news. Hindi and Urdu newspapers from Jalandhar were published with blank pages, with the words 'Censor ki bendh' (Gift of the Censor) printed on all of them. The Hindustan Times from New Delhi left the entire editorial column blank, reminiscent of the struggle during pre-Independence days against alien rule. Veer Pratap, a Hindi daily from Jalandhar, was more poignant. On the 26 June issue, the editorial page was blank with only an Urdu couplet rubber-stamped all over—'I can neither anguish nor petition; it is my fate to choke and die.' But despite the censorship, the newspapers kept breathing. As soon as the 1977 General Election was announced and Emergency was relaxed, they came back to life and ripped apart the ruling dispensation and its autocratic ways. The Indian National Congress had to pay a heavy price and was soundly defeated at the polls. Rest, as they say, is history! But in the Undeclared Neo-Emergency of the present day, independent media does not even appear to be breathing. Senior Journalist Pamela Philipose calls it 'virtual strangulation'. This is exactly what is happening to the free media now, when the free flow of information is arrested. It slowly loses its ability to exercise agency, and over time, is rendered comatose, much like the human body. This is the landscape of India's media now. Democracy, which the ruling establishment is claiming to defend, is the tragic casualty. Though fifty years is not a very long period historically, shall we exclaim in despair, 'O Tempora! O Mores!' in the manner of Marcus Tullius Cicero. The author was the District Magistrate of Chandigarh and custodian of JP in jail. He had a ringside view of Emergency and has recently written a book titled Emergency and Neo-Emergency: Who will defend Democracy. Views are personal. (Edited by Theres Sudeep)
The Hindu
a day ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
50 years after Emergency: Encounter killings and a saga of silence
Home Minister Kasu Brahmananda Reddy reached the residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at 10.15 p.m. on June 25, 1975. Within 15 minutes, he drafted a letter with the minutes of the earlier meeting between the PM and the President and appended a draft proclamation for State of Internal Emergency to be signed by Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. By midnight, the proclamation of emergency was out. On June 22, 1975, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister J. Vengal Rao was summoned to Delhi by then personal secretary to Prime Minister, R.K. Dhawan in time for the verdict on Indira Gandhi's election from Raibareli in Uttar Pradesh. The stage was set in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. A different face While it was midnight knocks and detention of political leaders elsewhere in the country, the iron fist of Emergency was felt by student leaders and Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh. According to the Shah Commission, which inquired into the Emergency period, Andhra Pradesh had 1,135 détenus under Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), 45 under Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA) and 451 under Defence and Internal Security of India Rules (DISIR). These figures also prove that the brunt of the Emergency was felt by those outside the political framework — 512 belonged to banned organisations (350 from CPML) and only 210 were political prisoners while 413 constituted criminals and anti-social elements. 'The bulldozing of shanty towns, encroachments and forced sterilisations happened in the northern part of the country, in Andhra Pradesh however, there were a series of encounter killings. In 21 months, there were 70 encounter deaths. After the 1977 elections, Tarkunde Commission and Bhargava Commission inquired into these killings,' informs journalist and activist N. Venugopal, who had a ringside view of the events due to the detention of his brother-in-law poet Varavara Rao on the eve of Emergency. Within 24 hours of declaration of Emergency, civil rights activist and lawyer K.G. Kannabiran began receiving calls at his Narayanaguda residence. The first call being that of Pattipati Venkateswarlu, who was the secretary of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, about a raid on his home and detention. 'The calls didn't stop. Our home became an open house as PDSU students, political leaders would turn up at all hours of the day and night seeking help. Either it was a calling bell or the ring of the phone. We knew no privacy,' says Kalpana Kannabiran, sociologist and lawyer who translated the memoir of her father K.G. Kannabiran. Killing fields One of the first encounter killings was what became known as Girayapalli encounter. 'Four youths, one of whom was a student of Regional Engineering College, Warangal, were taken in a police van to the Girayapalli forest in Medak district, tied to trees, blindfolded and shot dead on the night of July 25, 1975,' recounts Mr. Venugopal. After the elections, the Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights sent a list to President B.D. Jatti containing 134 names of persons who were killed in encounters or as the organisation called it 'cold blooded murders'. Among them were Vempatapu Satyam, Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Panchadi Nirmala, Dr Bhaskar Rao, Dr Mallikarjun and Neelam Ramachandra, among others. Home Minister Charan Singh on the floor of Parliament accepted that 50 persons died while being detained under the Maintenance of Security Act across the country but only one from Andhra Pradesh. Socialists, members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Ananda Margis and Naxalites were targeted in Andhra Pradesh during the 21-month Emergency period. Girayapalli encounter was followed by Chilakalgutta incident where Ramanarsiah was picked up from a house in Old Malakpet and killed. It was followed by the Yellandu case where Neelam Ramachandriah and Jampala Chandra Sekhar Prasad were killed. Months after Emergency was lifted, an independent fact-finding committee under former judge V.M. Tarkunde was constituted with eight other members. This report led to the Union government appointing the Bhargava Commission of Inquiry. 'When Chenna Reddy became chief minister, he wanted the hearings to take place in-camera. This was not acceptable to Bhargava who did not complete the inquiry. Even a request for an interim report was not accepted,' says Venugopal. With the inquiry into encounter killing scotched, the deaths of so many young men became a statistic that is not logged in the notorious history of Emergency. Warning on demolitions In the first year of Emergency (1975-76), Andhra Pradesh underperformed in the sterilisation sector with 1,65,163 operations against a target of 2,94,200 set by the Government of India. The next year, it outdid with performance of 7,41,713 sterilisation operations against a target of four lakh. However, there were 25 complaints about use of force for the FP operations. Even with demolitions, A.P. accounted for only 1.8% of total with 75 complaints. In contrast, Delhi had 1248 complaints. The Shah Commission concluded about the excess during Emergency: 'The vast majority of demolitions were carried out by a complete disregard for the sufferings of persons in very humble walks of life and the government could take immediate steps to remedy the wrong and also to ensure that the conditions in the resettlement colonies are rendered safe, clean and convenient.'
News18
21-04-2025
- Politics
- News18
'Congress Must Know Its Past': BJP Shares Old Video Of Indira Gandhi Amid Nishikant Dubey's SC Remark Row
The video dates back to Indira Gandhi's response to the Shah Commission, set up in 1977 to probe the excesses during the Emergency. Amid the political row over BJP MP Nishikant Dubey's recent criticism of the Supreme Court, the saffron party on Monday shared a decades-old video of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi questioning the Indian judiciary system. Last week, Dubey stirred a controversy by saying that if the Supreme Court continues to act like a legislative body, then parliament should not exist in the country. The comment triggered criticism from the opposition, with the BJP distancing itself from the comments. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya posted a clip from an interview on X, saying: 'Indira Gandhi — the Congress must know its own past". In the video, Gandhi could be heard questioning a top court judge's competence to assess political dynamics and economic threats. Indira Gandhi — the Congress must know its own past. — Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) April 21, 2025 'How does Mr. Shah know what is happening in the political world? What are the forces at work which want to destroy a developing economy? Is a judge competent to decide that? Then why have democracy? Why have elections? Why have political people in power? How does Mr. Shah know what is happening in the political world? What are the forces at work which want to destroy a developing economy? Is a judge competent to decide that?" said Indira Gandhi in the video shared by the BJP leader. The video dates back to Indira Gandhi's response to the Shah Commission, set up in 1977 to probe the excesses during the Emergency. Headed by Justice JC Shah, the commission had criticised the concentration of power under her leadership and investigated issues like censorship, police brutality, and forced sterilisation drives. Dubey also posted his ANI video clip on X in which, while responding to a question on the Waqf law and the recent violence in West Bengal, he said: 'Iss desh mein jitne grih yuddha ho rahe hain unke zimmedar kewal yahaan ke Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna Sahab hain (CJI Sanjiv Khanna is responsible for all civil wars in this country)."
