Memory is an unreliable tool, and 40 years is long enough to forget. That is why a book like The Emergency: A Personal History , is so important. And journalist Coomi Kapoor does a fine job of recalling this dismal chapter in India’s recent history when the basic freedoms of citizens were not simply curtailed, they were brutally denied in acts of systematic, state-sponsored terrorism.

The summer holidays of 1975 were ending when the announcement came that a state of Emergency had been declared. With the press muzzled and monitored by censors — as was famously said, when asked to bend it crawled, with a couple of honourable exceptions — the truth about what was happening was hard to come by.

The darkness of the reality dawned through bits and pieces of information disseminated clandestinely: midnight knocks and raids, the disappearing of people, the choking of opposition, imprisonments without charges or trial.

In our classroom, a couple of professors threw the syllabus (and caution) to the wind to draw us into discussions about freedom and democracy, even as the government exhorted us not to listen to rumours, but to All India Radio.

Firsthand account

Kapoor writes with firsthand knowledge, both in her professional capacity and in her personal life. She was working with the Indian Express at the time, her husband was an activist, and her brother-in-law is the maverick politician, Subramaniam Swamy. That puts her in a vantage spot, and what she experienced, saw, heard and was privy to, she documents in clear-eyed prose. The personal angle does not sentimentalise the telling or throw off objectivity, which is testimony to her solid credentials as a journalist.

As to why a book on the Emergency now, Arun Jaitley, the current finance minister and a targeted student leader then, provides the answer when he observes in the foreword: “The most alarming aspect of the Emergency…was that Indira Gandhi managed to demonstrate how easy it was to misuse the Constitution and convert democracy into a constitutional dictatorship.” Instances from around the world, and recent events in India, demonstrate, that although the Constitution is intended to be inviolable, it is always under threat. This book serves as a timely reminder.

Smart structure

The well-structured book offers a smart timeline which recaps how the events followed each other, beginning with Indira Gandhi being re-elected Prime Minister in March 1971, and ending with Morarji Desai taking oath as Prime Minister in March 1977.

The first chapter begins in the middle of the action in the capital, literally hours before the Emergency is promulgated, with the power deliberately cut off to newspapers (many of them located on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg).

Kapoor keeps the narrative on a tight leash through all 14 chapters, sometimes presenting incidents from different angles for a nuanced, unbiased, unambiguous, easy read. In many ways, the Emergency plots like a political thriller. There is a telling passage at the end of chapter 14, as the Gandhi family awaits news of the impending election defeat: “At the dinner table Sonia was crying quietly. Rajiv was grim and tight-lipped. Sanjay had still to return from Amethi, where he too had lost the election. As Jayakar (Pupul) was leaving around midnight Rajiv said to her, ‘I will never forgive Sanjay for having brought Mummy to this position. He is responsible…’”

Chapter 15, which is the epilogue, brings the narrative to a close with notes on what followed: the short-lived success of the Janata government, and updates on key players. An appendix and index round off the book. It must be mentioned, too, that the jacket of the book, in bright yellow showcases to great effect the well-chosen black and white photograph of Indira Gandhi and Sanjay.

Courage and after

Kapoor documents how information flow was kept going during those fearful months, and action plans were made and implemented despite the close watch maintained by the police and their informants. Many well-known personalities either acquiesced to the demands of the leadership or were forced to acquiesce by signing what was known as the government’s Twenty Point Programme: it was “a way to declare that you had disassociated yourself from oppositional activity and now supported the government”.

But there were several courageous souls, and Kapoor speaks of them, such as actor Snehalata Reddy and George Fernandes’ brother, Lawrence. Today, George Fernandes lies lost in his own world, but during the Emergency he was “a romantic symbol of resistance”.

His leadership of the 1974 railway strike (seeking redressal of decades’-old grievances) which brought the railways to a standstill and invited the ruthlessness of government forces to end it, is legendary, as also his untiring underground resistance efforts.

Those who remember, cannot forget the image taken during his trial of Fernandes holding up his chained hands. Acronyms such as MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act), FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act), COFEPOSA (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act), DIR (Defence of India Rules) became well known; Lalu Prasad Yadav even named one of his daughters, Misa.

When Swarajya magazine was launched, in 1956, freedom fighter, statesman and India’s last Governor-General C Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) wrote in the editorial: “Great governments benefit by criticism, without which they are bound to deteriorate in self-complacency and unchecked self-will.”

Kapoor has done a grand job of reminding us how easily self-complacency and self-will can seep into our body politic. The Emergency should be required reading.

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