The Undying Light: A Personal History of Independent India
By Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Aleph Books, 624 pages, Rs 999

Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s unusual memoir, published in April this year, has been praised everywhere for its insights in India’s history since Independence. Among the year-wise chapters, the one on 1975 of course deals with the Emergency, proclaimed on June 25.

For more on the book, also see: https://www.governancenow.com/news/regular-story/better-than-the-entire-world-heres-the-india-book-for-ages

On the fiftieth anniversary of that catastrophic event, here is an excerpt from that chapter:

‘LIFE NORMAL IN DELHI’

The Hindu reported the promulgation of the Emergency only on 27 June. Rereading that page nearly forty-nine years on, I can see how odd the reportage was. G. K. Reddy (1923–87), master reporter and then chief of bureau at The Hindu’s New Delhi office, had a banner-headline front page story that said blandly ‘President Proclaims National Emergency’ with a smaller line that said ‘Preventive Arrests: Press Censorship Imposed’, leaving everything to the readers’ imagination. A ‘deep and widespread conspiracy’ was mentioned by Reddy as the cause for the measure. A box item said, ‘Life Normal in Delhi’. […]

Another small front-page story in The Hindu of 27 June said ‘Press Censorship for the First Time’ with the first line inside saying it all: ‘The Press in India has come under censorship for the first time since Independence’.

But it did not take long for bits and pieces of news to trickle in. JP, having been woken up at 3 a.m. and marched off to a waiting jeep, came to be known as did his now famous parting words: Vinash kale viparit buddhi (As one’s nemesis nears, the intellect turns turtle).

Kamaraj was shaken. At Sholinghur, on 27 June, he said, ‘I am shocked… leaders have been arrested…The radio does not give correct news… newspapers also are not giving correct news…Such an event has no parallel even under British rule…’ The next day at Tiruvellore, he continued in the same strain ‘…I feel as though I have been left in the jungle blindfolded. I cannot visualize the consequences of the Emergency....’

Tamil Nadu was ruled then by the DMK, and its chief minister Karunanidhi had fought the 1971 elections, as we have seen, as an ally of the Indira Congress. But now, things had changed for the DMK chief.

On 12 July, he addressed a mass meeting on the Marina sands in Madras and, saying there was neither an internal nor external threat to India and, therefore, no cause for an emergency, called upon his audience to defend the nation’s freedom.

On 2 October, in Delhi, took place a little play of power. It was the first Gandhi Jayanti in the India under Emergency. As usual, the state’s dramatis personae—the president, vice president, and prime minister dutifully and artfully went to Rajghat and offered their genuflections to the spirit of the Father of the Nation. A small group of independent-minded persons sought permission to hold a prayer meeting that afternoon at the same site. This was to be a prayer meeting; no politics was involved, they said, and got the permission to so meet. Those attending included the intrepid Acharya Kripalani, the Gandhian leader Dr Sushila Nayar, and my brothers Rajmohan and Ramchandra.

Permission had been granted, but police were taking no chances. They kept vigil as the prayer proceeded. Towards its close, Kripalani turned to face the gathering and speak a few words about the Mahatma. Police immediately came up to him and asked him to stop.

‘Why, why?’

‘No speech allowed.’

‘But I am not going to make a speech, only a discourse on Bapu…’

‘Not allowed…’

Unfazed, he continued. Police moved to intervene physically. Sushila Nayar then spoke up.

‘I am a doctor…I am telling you Kripalaniji is an elderly person…You should not touch him…’

The police hesitated. And then began picking up others, starting with my brothers. As Rajmohan and Ramchandra were being marched off, Kripalaniji was heard muttering… ‘There is a saying in Sindhi that when a witch goes through a street destroying everything, she leaves one house untouched so as to have something for her next visit…I am that one being left out…’

Mohan and Ramu were taken to the Daryaganj police station. They had no idea then as to how long their detention was to be. Maybe hours, maybe years. Ramu recalled that among others detained, there was a small-time trader. He pleaded with the daroga to be let off. ‘I was only watching…I am a supporter of Indiraji…Not only a supporter but a funder…I met Bhagatji only the other day and handed over a thaili....’

The news managed, despite all censorship, to spread. Our cousin Sumitra Kulkarni (b. 1929), then a Congress (I) MP, heard it and, with her family-bond pulsing in her veins, rang Om Mehta (1927–1992), the minister of state for Home Affairs. ‘Om, you have to release my brothers. And right now.’ He must have consulted madam, who must have sensed that arresting the grandsons of Gandhi from the site of cremation was not exactly in her interest. They were freed later that evening.

But Madras experienced something it had not expected. Kamaraj, like so many, heard the news, and it did something to him, something deep and unfathomable. He was silent for a long time, and then, tired and troubled, turned in. Within a short while, a heart attack carried him away, in his sleep, to the sleep that knows no waking.

Amma and I, accompanied by Periamma, motored at once to his home. The stalwart Congressman, loyal Gandhian, amazingly efficient administrator and the man who had on two occasions saved India from the jaws of political insecurity caused by the deaths of Prime Minister Nehru and Shastri was laid out on the simple red oxide floor of his austere home. A garland of hand-spun yarn had been placed on his chest. People were just coming in with flowers. Some incense was sending out a gentle aroma. Lakshmi, the late great S. Satyamurti’s daughter, who had been snapped in the famous photograph in Avadi with Nehru and later fought unsuccessfully on a Janata Dal ticket from south Madras for the Lok Sabha, was there, stunned. The coincidence of Kamaraj’s going on the Mahatma’s birth anniversary was spoken of as sublime.

But the conversation was soft, almost in whispers. We were under an Emergency.

[The excerpt reproduced with the permission of the publishers.]
Photo: Courtesy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indira_Gandhi_1977.jpg