Of Emergency and censorship

The vacuum left behind in the Indian media fraternity after the demise of veteran journalist, author, and ex-member of the Rajya Sabha, Kuldip Nayar, is one that cannot be replaced anytime soon—if not never.

In the wee hours of Thursday, Nayar, 95, breathed his last at Delhi’s Escorts Hospital. Born in Sialkot in 1923, he was one of the first journalists to be put in jail when the Emergency was declared. During the Emergency, he documented and reported on the various Human Rights violations committed by the State.

It comes as no surprise that the news of his death has evoked immense grief in the media fraternity and the highest rung of politicians.

His column ‘Between the Lines’ was widely acclaimed for its stance in favour of freedom of the press. His autobiography “Beyond the Lines,” published by Roli Books in 2012, provides a deeper insight into the interactions Nayar had over his long career span.

Here’s an edited excerpt from the chapter “The Emergency and After.”

‘Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha debarred (12 June 1975) Indira Gandhi from occupying any electoral post for six years, holding her guilty of corrupt practices during the elections. He was pronouncing his judgement on the petition that Raj Narain, a socialist leader, had filed against Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha in 1971.

The petition was allowed on two counts. The first was that she had used Yashpal Kapoor, officer on special duty in the prime minister’s secretariat, to ‘further her election prospects’. Sinha said that although Kapoor had begun electioneering for Indira Gandhi on 7 January 1971 and tendered his resignation only on 13 January, he had continued in government service until 25 January. Indira Gandhi, according to the judge, had ‘held herself out as candidate’ on 29 December 1970, the day she addressed a news conference in New Delhi and announced her decision to stand for election.

The second impropriety was that she had obtained the assistance of government officials in UP to build rostrums from which she addressed election rallies. The officials had also arranged for loudspeakers and electricity.

However strict the electoral law, I felt that the judgement was like using a hammer to kill a fly. Sinha gave her a fortnight to file an appeal against his judgement in the Supreme Court. Indira Gandhi had never expected such a verdict and therefore had designated no one to file an appeal against it. A local loyalist, V.N. Khare, a lawyer who was subsequently appointed chief justice of India in 2002, submitted an application for appeal in a personal capacity.

The Supreme Court was on vacation and the judge for the period was Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer. In the judgement he pronounced, he allowed her to continue as prime minister till the disposal of her appeal but forfeited her right to vote in the House. I met Iyer soon after he had delivered the judgement to find out who had met him before he gave his verdict. He named S.A. Dange, a communist leader from Maharashtra and the then serving Supreme Court judge P.N. Bhagwati. The latter reportedly told Iyer: ‘Brother, you must consider all aspects before giving your judgement.’

Justice Krishna Iyer told me as recently as November 2009 that the people considered him responsible for the Emergency that Indira Gandhi imposed a few days after the judgement. What Justice Iyer said had a grain of truth and I told him so. I suspect that being a leftist in his leanings he had a soft corner for Indira Gandhi who was said to be left-of-centre. The Left generally supported her because of her nationalization of banks and insurance companies. Some responsibility for what happened during the Emergency rested on the shoulders of Justice Iyer because he gave her the stay.

When I met Justice Sinha at his residence in Allahabad many months after he had delivered the judgement, he told me how a Congress MP had tried to bribe him and how a colleague on the bench told him that he could be elevated to the Supreme Court if he gave the judgement in Indira Gandhi’s favour (the judge who said this to Justice J.L. Sinha had to resign when the Janata Dal government came to power after Indira Gandhi’s defeat in 1977). How to keep the judgement secret was Sinha’s predicament. He wrote the operative part by hand and sent his stenographer on leave. Even so, every government intelligence agency attempted a variety of stratagems to learn about the judgement. Even sadhus were used because Justice Sinha was said to be prone to their influence.

After the Allahabad High Court judgement, Indira Gandhi had thought of stepping down. My guess is that if she had done so and had gone back to the people for a verdict on her electoral offence, offering her apologies, she would have got re-elected. However, two persons dissuaded her from submitting the resignation. One was her principal advisor and son, Sanjay Gandhi, who completely ruled out resignation. The other was Siddhartha Shankar Ray, then West Bengal chief minister, who advised her to impose Emergency. She reportedly told him that India was already under an Emergency following the Bangladesh war. He said what he meant was an internal Emergency He said what he meant was an internal Emergency which would enable her to suspend fundamental rights and allow her to rule as she wished.

A dropout from the Doon School and an apprentice motor mechanic with Rolls Royce in England, Sanjay had no educational qualification but was keen to enter politics. Indira Gandhi’s predicament after she had been unseated by the Allahabad High Court provided him with the oppor tunity he sought. What fascinated him was money and power, and he could see them within his grasp through his mother. Long before the Emergency she would discuss politics with him rather than her elder son Rajiv Gandhi who later became India’s prime minister. She would even remark at the dining table that Rajiv, who was an airline pilot at that time, had no understanding of politics whatsoever.

Sanjay was Indira Gandhi’s refuge. She was confident he would help her in her hour of need. He is credited with having given her the election-winning slogan in 1971: ‘They say Indira Hatao [oust Indira] but I say Garibi Hatao [oust poverty].’ Now he had to do more than just coin a slogan. He had to tell her how to extricate herself from the legal tangle in which she was enmeshed. Sanjay knew his mother was not one to throw in the towel easily, but at that time she was on the verge of doing just that. She had already informally sounded out Kamalapati Tripathi about his stepping in until her appeal at Supreme Court had been disposed of.

Sanjay knew that he had to convince her that she was needed by the country and had to rise above the obligations under the judgement. His chief aide was the thirty-five year old R.K. Dhawan, additional private secretary in the prime minister’s secretariat. Sanjay used him to manipulate the entire government machinery. He had yet another friend in the ruthless Bansi Lal, chief minister of Haryana, who too had no scruples. Helping Sanjay from the wings was Congress president Dev Kant Barooah who ‘proclaimed that India was Indira and Indira was India’ (reminiscent of the oath administered to the Nazi youth by Germany’s Adolf Hitler).

JP received an urgent message from the opposition parties to come to Delhi to lead their rally. He however declined, being in favour of awaiting the judgement of the Supreme Court on Indira Gandhi’s appeal. Little did he suspect that Indira Gandhi had completely different plans.

Within 24 hours after Justice Krishna Iyer’s judgement, Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency on the night of 25 June 1975.

She did not consult the cabinet and wrote straight to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, beholden to her for the office, that she would have liked to take up the matter with the cabinet but unfortunately it had not been possible that night. She also wrote that ‘there is an imminent danger to the security of India being threatened by internal disturbance’.

If a cabinet meeting could be convened at 90 minutes’ notice, as was actually the case on the morning of 26 June, there was no reason why a cabinet meeting could not have been held at any time between her first visit to the president at 5 p.m. on 25 June and the actual signature of the proclamation at about 11.00–11.30 p.m. There is sufficient evidence to prove that Indira Gandhi had planned the imposition of the Emergency at least as early as 22 June. She had also shared the idea with some of her political confidants on the morning of 25 June.’

“There was no doubting the mood of triumph in the prime minister’s house. The entire operation on the night of 26 June was painless. George Fernandes, the labour leader; Nanaji Deshmukh and Subramaniam Swami, both Jana Sangh members; and a few others went ‘underground’ but all the important leaders were arrested.

‘I told you nothing would happen,’ Sanjay chided his mother. Bansi Lal said he had expected that no one would dare to rise against them. Word was sent to Allahabad to ‘fix’ Justice Sinha. All the papers relating to his career were screened, his family members harassed, and he was shadowed by the police all the time.

Shukla was as enthusiastic as Sanjay Gandhi to get the censorship machinery going. Till then the publication of the local newspapers was stopped by cutting off power supply to their offices and presses. The censorship rules were hurriedly copied from the home ministry manual which had been prepared after the 1962 India–China war. I, as information officer had participated in the meetings when the manual was finalized. Little did I anticipate then that the same manual would be used for purposes of censorship.

Indira Gandhi was initially nervous, and felt it was too early to say that all had gone well. Most chief ministers, however, reported that ‘the situation is under control’. On the streets of Delhi, the pall of fear hung heavy. Life was otherwise outwardly normal. The Statesman published a photograph by the gifted photographer Raghu Rai that told all: it showed a man peddling a cycle with two children on it, a woman walking behind, and scores of policemen standing all around. The caption said that life was normal in Chandni Chowk. A censor official, without realising the message the photo conveyed, ‘passed’ it and was transferred the very next day.