Milan Kundera, the Czech-French novelist once said: “The struggle of Man against Power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” MG Devashayam’s book, titled is a brave attempt to ensure that this lesson is not forgotten in these days of tampering with history by all political parties and an effete media.
Indira Gandhi declared the internal Emergency in June 1975, and two generations have since been born and grown to maturity in India; they have the right to know what transpired in that year and the days leading up to it, without misinterpretations, redactions or deletions. But that is only half the book, the other half is a documentation of the undeclared Neo-Emergency since 2014, leaving the reader to wonder (as intended by the author, no doubt): is there any difference between the two?
In between are chapters on what is a central pillar of the book, the venerable Jaiprakash Narayan (JP), the “moral heir of Mahatma Gandhi” and arguably the final trigger for the imposition of Emergency by a rattled Mrs. Gandhi.
Devasahayam, as the legal custodian of JP by virtue of being the District Magistrate of Chandigarh where the latter was imprisoned in a hospital, had a ringside view of events in those troubled days. Not only did he spend countless hours with JP as “the son he never had” and gained his total trust and confidence, he was also in constant touch with key players in Delhi and privy to the goings-on.
Cover of ‘Emergency and Neo-Emergency: Who Will Defend Democracy?’ by MG Devashayam. Photo: Avay Shukla/View from [Greater] Kailash
Recounting the career of JP in great detail, Devashayam’s admiration and respect for him, his moral fervour and integrity, comes through clearly, but he holds JP responsible for legitimising the RSS by inducting it into his movement of “Total Revolution”, and for forcing Mrs. Gandhi’s hand by his intransigence and refusal to compromise: in the author’s words: “Both JP and Indira Gandhi failed democracy and betrayed their lack of faith in the rule of law.”
His concern for JP’s deteriorating health in captivity made him an indefatigable interlocutor between JP and the powers in Delhi, an effort which finally succeeded on the 15th November, 1975, with his release by a panicked Delhi.
The book provides a lot of insights into the events leading up to the proclamation of Emergency on the night of 25th June 1975, something which caught by surprise the entire cabinet, the defence forces and the state administrations; the midnight arrests, the blanking out of the media. But he also addresses some of the questions that have bedeviled us for 50 years: would Mrs. Gandhi have resigned after the Allahabad High Court set aside her election on 12th June 2025 if Sanjay Gandhi had not intervened?
Did the Opposition and JP force her hand by their rallies and demand for her resignation even though the Supreme Court had allowed her to continue as PM (though without voting powers in Parliament)? Was the Allahabad High Court judgment the only trigger for the Emergency or did the Nav Nirman Andolan in Gujarat, the railway strike led by George Fernandes, the Samoorna Kranti Andolan of JP also contribute to it? Was there any evidence to support the ostensible reason for invoking Article 352, viz. that law and order had broken down throughout the country?
Also read: Emergency: Declared Versus Undeclared
Were the arrests of more than 100,000 people her work or that of the coterie led by her son? Was this same coterie responsible for causing JP’s health problems and for blocking any reconciliation between him and the Prime Minister? Why were no serious efforts made by the Janata government to determine how JP’s kidneys were allowed to fail during his imprisonment at PGI Chandigarh, condemning him to a certain death? Why is the original letter from Mrs Gandhi to the President recommending the imposition of Emergency not available in the official records?
Devasahayam provides all the known (and some unknown) facts and leaves the reader to decide for himself.
Mrs. Gandhi, probably inspired by faulty intelligence reports, called for fresh elections which were held in March 1977, and was roundly defeated by the newly formed Janata Dal, helmed by the still fighting-fit septuagenarian leader. It didn’t last, of course, torn apart by its own internal and ideological contradictions and machinations by the Jana Sangh. But it set the stage for the rise of the BJP. For all his veneration and deep, even personal, regard for JP, however, Devasahayam states that JP’s biggest “blunder” was coopting the Jana Sangh and the RSS into his movement, giving them the launching pad for grabbing power.
He concedes that JP had sound reasons for entering into this “Devil’s bargain” with the Jana Sangh- the need for their organised cadres, the fact that the Communists, Socialists and people like Vinobha Bhave sided with Mrs. Gandhi, the South’s indifference to the excesses of the Emergency since it was hardly evident there.
In addition, top leaders of the Jana Sangh and RSS – Advani, Balasaheb Deoras, Vajpayee- had all given him assurances that they would give up communal politics, that the Jana Sangh would merge with the Janata Party and give up its links with the RSS. They reneged on all of them, and as a consequence have now captured absolute power in the country. The leader of India’s “second freedom struggle” died of a “broken heart” on 8th October, 1979.
The latter half of the book covers more familiar territory for most of us – the post 2014 period, what Devashayam terms the Neo-Emergency. He feels – and many would agree with him – that Modi’s undeclared emergency is much more dangerous for the nation than the 18 month Emergency of Mrs Gandhi; in his words: “the present Neo-Emergency processes are far more insidious and systemic and are likely to undermine our collective being as a society for a long time to come”.
Also read: The Day After June 4
With brutal honesty and objective arguments, he goes on to validate his assertion by listing out the BJP’s “achievements” during this period, dissects their exaggerated claims with a scalpel and pulverises them with a sledge hammer: demonetisation (“a state sponsored money laundering operation of gigantic proportions”); the Covid lockdown which knocked 4% off the country’s GDP, collapsed 650000 SMEs and rendered 45 million migrant labour jobless; the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) along with NPR (National Population Register) and NRC (National Register of Citizens) – all part of the process of making India a Hindu Rashtra; the new criminal laws (designed “to reduce the people of India from ‘citizens’ to ‘subjects’).
Each and every assertion is backed up by data, analysis, reports and the government’s statements, and is difficult to repudiate.
Chapter 18 (Emasculating Institutions of Democratic Governance) is a must-read, it is written with a lot of passion and based on meticulous research. Devasahayam spares no office in demonstrating how all constitutional institutions intended to protect democracy have been defenestrated and weaponised since 2014, how they are now like an auto-immune disease, consuming the very body they were supposed to defend.
He spares no office – parliament, the President, the civil services, Union Public Service Commission, CAG, NHRC, minorities commission, central information commission, SEBI, the PMO. He details the hounding of NGOs, the terrorising of civil society by reproducing parts of actual case studies of three prominent NGOs.
True to his efforts to clean the Augean stables of electoral processes, the author devotes a whole chapter to the Election Commission of India, terming it “partisan and prejudiced” and asserting that it has “abdicated its constitutional role” and “has lost control of the elections. “This Neo-Emergency,” according to the author, is replacing our democracy with “a system of top-down kleptocracy/kakistocracy”.
Mrs. Gandhi’s Emergency was not even a trailer compared to what is happening now.
To conclude, this is a book which had to be written, but there are not many left in this country who have the scholarship, conviction and courage to write one. The book is a cry of pain by someone who has spent all his adult life in the service of the nation, first in the army, then in the civil services and now as an active member of civil society.
It is a plea to remember the past, worry about the present, and act boldly for the future. History rarely offers a second chance.
This article was originally published on the author’s blog, View from [Greater] Kailash. It has been edited slightly for style.
