Bipan Chandra, a historian of eminence,
appears to have had a preconceived plan of
performing a balancing act when he set about
writing this book. For when he indicts
Indira Gandhi for imposing the much-reviled
Emergency in India, he takes care that
opposition leader Jayaprakash Narain, whose
protest movement was in large part
responsible for provoking this extreme
action, received an equal dose of reprimand.
In measured and carefully-chosen words, he
chastizes the two because, in his
estimation, both had imperilled democracy,
one by suspending the functioning of
democratic order, the other by rising in
revolt, even though democracy it was in
whose name they had taken their actions.
But the author refuses to be so blunt as to
say that either the JP movement, named after
Jayprakash Narain, or the Emergency (imposed
in June 1975) were intrinsically fascist
actions. The point he belabours is that both
had the potential to become one.
Both represented watershed developments,
which were bound to remain in the eye of
India's political history. Mr Chandra
emphasizes that a critical look at the JPM
does not exonerate Mrs Gandhi of what
happened during the Emergency, nor do the
excesses of the Emergency and the loss of
citizens' liberties scale down the major
weaknesses of the JP movement.
Before the JPM was started in Bihar, the
Gujarat state had already witnessed a
turmoil, fed on popular discontent over
recession, unemployment and inflation. But
it was JPM, which spread outside the state,
especially in North India.
Encouraged by the two movements, JP came to
believe that, with people's disillusionment
with Mrs Gandhi and the government, a
revolutionary situation had arisen in Bihar
and was building up in India as a whole,
that only a spark was needed to ignite it,
and that the Bihar movement would provide
this.
When he agreed to lead what was initially a
student movement, powered by such fire brand
rabble-rousers as Laloo Prasad Yadav, he was
confident that conditions were ripe for a
"total revolution" and the movement he was
leading had the potential to become one.
Jan Sangh, Congress (O), Bharatiya Lok Dal
and Akali Dal had banded together to use
JP's charisma to their own political
advantage. But they had no interest in JP's
grand ideas who had stated that he will
fight corruption, misgovernment and
profiteering, and that he will wage a
struggle for the overhaul of the educational
system and for a real people's democracy.
This gives the author reason to believe that
JP was a "sincere romantic, a Don Quixote,
who like Cervantes' hero, was constrained by
his illusions, had an inadequate
comprehension of the reality but was
unwilling to look critically at himself or
the world beyond."
Even though JP had also made it explicit at
the very outset that he was not interested
in changing the government, for "that would
be like replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee",
his movement, nevertheless, evolved into a
clamorous call for Indira's ouster.
By early 1975, though, the movement ran out
of steam, leaving JP a bitter man. Most of
the votaries of total revolution went quiet
and the JP movement just 'melted away'. This
was reflected in JP's despair at the lack of
public protest and the manner in which the
people had meekly accepted the Emergency.
By the end of 1974, most of JP's student
followers had gone back to their classes,
ignoring his advice to devote a whole year
to taking the movement to the villages and
helping restructure rural society.
Seeing that the opposition was now in
disarray, Indira challenged JP to fight her
in the constitutional arena. JP began
working towards that end. Just then
Allahabad High Court handed down a verdict
disqualifying her as an MP, which was to
upset the course of events. And the movement
which had faltered half way through its
course received a much-needed shot in the
arm in consequence. Now the opposition was
baying for Mrs Gandhi's blood.
While the Supreme Court was to hear Mrs
Gandhi's appeal against the Allahabad
judgment on July 14, Justice Krishna Iyer,
the vacation judge of the SC, created
further confusion by a ruling delivered on
June 24. Mrs Gandhi had asked for an
absolute stay of Sinha's order. But Krishna
Iyer held that Mrs Gandhi had not been
convicted of 'any of the graver electoral
vices'. Hence he gave her only a conditional
stay saying the High Court ruling held good,
however weak it may prove. He decided that
till the final disposal of her appeal by the
full bench of the Supreme Court her
electoral disqualification 'stands eclipsed'
and she could continue as prime minister and
participate in the parliament's proceedings
but she could not vote or draw her salary as
an MP. Both the opposition and the Congress
claimed Iyer's decision as a victory.
Both the judges received Mr Chandra's
scathing criticism, with one's judgment
being dubbed frivolous and the other's
non-committal. He notes that few judges on
record have managed to create a national
crisis as the two did.
In the author's assessment, the Emergency
was not prompted by any fascist or
totalitarian bent of mind. Indira clamped it
because she wanted to stay in power, and
Justice Sinha's judgment had left her with
no choice but to act the way she did. The
author calls it just a derailment of
democracy.
Mr Chandra reports that Indira was convinced
that JP was personally hostile to her, had
been jealous of Nehru, and resented the fact
of not becoming the prime minister. He
quotes her as telling Papul Jayakar later in
July 1975: 'Jayaprakash and Morarjibhai have
always hated me... Jayaprakash has always
resented my being prime minister.' And in
remarks which smack of an ego clash between
the two, JP told his socialist comrade Ganga
Saran Sinha at the time: 'What does Indira
think of herself? Does she think she can
ignore me? I have seen her as a child in
frocks.'
A significant feature of the Emergency was
that Indira's younger son, Sanjay, assumed
importance from the outset. He was regarded
as the second most important person in the
country by dint of being a strong influence
on his prime minister mother. She, as
rumours had it, could not dare ignore his
advice in matters personal or governmental.
But, surprisingly, when it came to lifting
the Emergency, Indira did ignore her son's
advice. The question is, if Sanjay was such
a strong influence on Mrs Gandhi that she
could not prevent him from encroaching upon
the official terrain he was not supposed to
step into, how did she manage to summon up
enough courage to disregard his word ('don't
lift Emergency') in so crucial a matter. Mr
Chandra has not come up with a convincing
answer to this question. |
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