Kripashankar Choubey, Senior Journalist
The account of Emergency which is available in the literature written at that time, gives an introduction to the excesses and autocracy of the power of that time. The contemporary literature opposed that autocracy of power. In the year 1975, when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared Emergency, Nagarjuna wrote a poem addressing her:
What happened to you? What happened to you?
Forgot the father in the fun of power?
Indu ji, Indu ji, what happened to you?
Wired the son, bored the father!
What happened to you? What happened to you?
Bhavani Prasad Mishra wrote a poem titled ‘Char Kauwe aka Char Hauwe’ satirizing the imposition of Emergency on the country. In it he said:
there were not many only four crows were black
they decided that all the fliers
fly, stay, eat and sing their way
Whatever they call a festival, everyone should celebrate it.
sometimes magic happens in the world
Qualities from all over the world are visible in Augunia
These Auguniye have become four big kings.
His servants became eagles, eagles and eagles.
Emergency was imposed in the country on the night of June 25, 1975. For that, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had shielded Jayaprakash Narayan’s speech. In her message to the nation on June 26, 1975, Indira ji had said that a person was inciting the army to rebel. This is not good for the internal security of the country. That’s why the President has imposed emergency in the country. On June 25, 1975, at a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, JP demanded the resignation of Indira Gandhi. In this rally, Dinkar’s poetic line ‘Evacuate the throne that the public comes’ echoed. Jayaprakash Narayan, who was leading the movement going on in different parts of the country, had given the slogan of complete revolution. Dinkar wrote for him:
Now Jayprakash is the name of country’s eager, stubborn youth.
He is called Jayaprakash who is not afraid of death,
Yes, Jayaprakash is the name of the turn of time, of Angdai,
Earthquake, of a youth full of whirlwind dreams.
Jayaprakash is the name that history honors,
Whose footprints are marked on ur by increasing.
To whom the wise salute, sacrifice their lives,
To increase the organ of speech, whose praises are sung by the singers.
As soon as he comes, whose attention is bright, talent spreads its wings,
Kalpana trembles on the shore of Manas stirred by the tide.
Listen to him, the future is calling, he is the protector of the downtrodden country,
Jayaprakash, the seer of dreams, is the creator of India’s destiny.
The police lathi-charged in the Patna rally of that god of fortune of India and a picture of Raghu Rai was published in the newspapers in which the police were taunting JP with lathis. Seeing that picture, Dharamveer Bharti wrote a poem titled Munadi. In it Bharati said:
God’s Khalk, country of Bashsha
Hukum City Kotwal’s
Everyone is hereby warned that
be careful
and your doors from inside
latch up
roll down the curtains
and don’t send kids out into the street because
a seventy two year old man
in your trembling weak voice
He has come out on the streets speaking the truth!
Dushyant Kumar wrote about the same seventy-two year old man:
There is an old man in the country or so to say,
There is a skylight in this dark room.
Indira ji arrested JP, whom Dushyant called the light of the dark cell, from the Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi on June 25, 1975 and put him in the dark cell of the jail. Several leaders including Chaudhary Charan Singh, Morarji Desai, Rajnarayan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani and the then Congress Working Committee members Chandrashekhar and Ramdhan were also jailed.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrote a book of poetry titled ‘Kadi Kavirai Ki Kundliyan’ after going to jail during emergency. Atalji had said in a horoscope:
Why is Ramdhan arrested, why is Shekhar locked up
explain to me, i’m crazy
In another horoscope titled ‘Hua Jab Ballia Baghi’, Atal ji wrote:
Blessed are blessed Ramdhan, inhabited by Krishna land
Good luck with Chandrashekhar, remember forty two
Remembered forty-two when Ballia rebel
When Vinoba Bhave called the Emergency a festival of discipline, Atalji wrote in a horoscope with the same title:
It is a festival of discipline, Baba’s advice
The air of lockup also gives this message
Gives this message, rule runs with a stick
When going to perform Haj, the law changes everyday.
Where is the prisoner poet, the noise of discipline
But the emphasis is visible on misrule
Not only in poetry, various aspects of emergency found expression in different genres of prose as well. Two diaries are important in understanding the period of emergency. The first diary is of JP and the second is of Chandrashekhar. JP started writing the jail diary on July 21, 1975 and continued till November 4, 1975. JP’s health was not taken care of during his imprisonment. He has indicated this in his jail diary ‘Karawas Ki Kahani’. The jail diary of former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar also describes those days. Similarly, in Narendra Modi’s book ‘Emergency in Gujarat’, Manohar Puri’s book ‘Aapatnama’ and Naval Jaiswal’s book ‘Second Independence’, description of many incidents of excesses by the government is found. Apart from this, Rahi Masoom Raza’s novel ‘Katra Bi Arju’, Gopal Vyas’s novel ‘Satyamev Jayate’, Yadvendra Sharma ‘Chandra’ novel ‘Prajaram’, Nirmal Verma’s ‘Raat Ka Reporter’ and Shravan Kumar Goswami’s ‘Raat Ka Reporter’ The complete reality of the violation of democracy has been expressed in ‘Jungle Tantram’. On the Emergency itself, Dinanath Mishra recorded the efforts of the underground journalists and the events of that era in a book titled ‘Emergency Mein Gupt Kranti’.
Novels were also written on Emergency in English. Salman Rushdie in his novel ‘Midnight’s Children’ described the Emergency as a 19-month-long night. Vinod Mehta wrote in detail on the Maruti car project and its scams along with the excesses done during that period on the pretext of his book ‘The Sanjay Story’. Former President Pranab Mukherjee wrote in the book ‘The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years’ that the Emergency could have been avoided. Shridhar Damle’s book ‘The Brotherhood in Saffron Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revolt’, Tapan Basu, Pradeep Dutta, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar’s book ‘Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags’, Kumi Kapoor’s book ‘The Emergency: A Personal History’, PN Dhar’s book ‘Indira Gandhi: The Emergency and Indian Democracy’, Kuldip Nayar’s book ‘Emergency Retold’, ‘Kalchakra’, a handwritten prison book by MISA convicts, A Suryaprakash’s book ‘The Emergency: Indian Democracy’s Darkest Hour’ Many unknown facts are also revealed from this.
(The writer is professor at Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha)