June 26, 1975, is being brought back into the minds of people of India. No doubt, that was a black day when the late Mrs Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency. Indians recognised it as a day when democracy was mortally wounded.
For nearly 19 months, a few thousand people were incarcerated in prisons across the country, print media was openly muzzled and a general atmosphere of mistrust and fear prevailed all over. On the other hand, Indira supporters went gaga pointing out how trains were operating punctually, how government officers were in their seats on time and how general corruption had decreased.
Interestingly, because of the prevailing atmosphere, even road side petty criminals hid themselves. They were terribly scared of MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) and DIR (Defence of India Rules) being slapped on them.
Gradually, the scenario changed and so did the atmosphere. The biggest fun, as is always very obvious, was had by the bureaucracy. The Police became the unquestioned arbiter of justice. They could easily put a few anti Indira or anti Emergency leaflets in the house of any one they wanted to target and arrest anybody and everybody.
No one dared question them. The Inspector Raj came to the fore with vengeance. Senior bureaucrats called all the shots and the voice of the people became weak and feeble and was finally silenced.
All the great propaganda and myths spread initially turned into blatant lies. Personal lives of people were hampered under the garb of order and fear settled into the hearts of the populace. The Army was all in favour of Indira, so was the Research & Analysis Wing under a Kashmiri called RN Kao.
R&AW and the IB spared no one that they thought opposed Indira’s fancy regime. The emergence of Sanjay Gandhi created a new situation. Most Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers were rumoured to have had joined his goon gangs across India. It was also murmured at that time that the RSS workers were solely responsible for the Turkman Gate incident at old Delhi.
In that incident, hutments of poor Moslem families were mercilessly razed to the ground. The evil of Sanjay came to the front when the nation woke up to the forced sterilization campaign (‘Nussbandi’ in Hindi) launched by the Youth Congress. Though no one spoke up and most Opposition political leaders and workers were over eager to somehow patch up with Indira-Sanjay’s henchmen to avoid harassment, the real people of India felt suffocated.
Then, after what seemed like a long time, came the delayed-by-a-year general elections of 1977. The rest is history that many may or may not have memories of.
Fast Forward to 2017. The Gau Rakshaks of today resemble the Youth Congress goons of the Emergency. Killing innocent people and inciting riots and violence is a staple diet of criminals of any society. Once the authorities and the Establishment support such elements, their influence increases through muscle power.
The moment the lid is lifted and those people think they are safe to emerge from dark shadows and carry out their pogroms, total destruction becomes inevitable. If forced sterilization was not tolerated, who can say what people will opine about Demonetization or the compulsion of Aadhaar.
If media muzzling (mostly print media, since television or social media was not as widespread then as today) during Emergency was stinking, then the blatant attack on NDTV by the CBI on a loan issue smells no better.
If the CBI was continually used by Indira to suppress her detractors, the CBI does not enjoy any better image even today. If the Supreme Court bent over backwards to please Indira, it is doing something similar today, too, especially in Aadhaar related judgements. So on and on goes the list.
This land is one very young country. Prior to 1947, India was not Kashmir to Kanyakumari as we see today. If Jawaharlal Nehru lost out on the area called Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Narendra Modi is constantly losing hundreds of square miles of Indian territory to China each year.
Everyone does not speak Hindi. Everyone is not an Aryan. Hindoos too are not the same through the length and breadth of this nation. Our habits cannot and may not be controlled by New Delhi. Oriyas are from the land of Lord Jagannath where tolerance and acceptance of the neighbour is the keyword.
No Bhakt or Troll can ever kill this culture by shouting us down. Emergency was not in force just during 1975-77. Efforts are on even today for creating a similar situation.
Some of us saw 1977 and admired the vision of the average (and highly underrated) voter of India. If Lord Jagannath permits us to survive, we may see 2019 too.