Since the third coming of the Modi government, the BJP has been trying to portray itself as the guardian of Constitution by demoralising the Congress’s claim to it by invoking remembrance of the Emergency.
While the optics of the first day of the 18th Lok Sabha were completely dominated by the INDIA bloc, which paraded the constitution and raised slogans in unison for its protection, the BJP-led NDA resorted to extraordinary measures to have a resolution against the Emergency by having the newly elected speaker, Om Birla, introduce it.
That was even the first act of the re-elected speaker in the 18th Lok Sabha. This may very well hint at the way the tone and tenor of the new Lok Sabha will be in the coming days. By doing this, the Modi government wanted to regain the ground it lost during the election with regard to who the real protector of the constitution is.
As the perception that it could attack the constitution was one of the more important reasons behind the BJP’s huge losses in its own Hindi belt, especially among Dalits and EBCs, its focus on and optics against the Emergency as well as the autocratic rule by Indira Gandhi that ensued, are likely to continue for some more time.
But the BJP’s optics and claims of being the real democrats who fought against the Emergency are hypocritical and double-tongued on two counts.
For one, the last ten years of BJP rule could well be described an ‘undeclared Emergency’. The democratic backsliding; the autocratic control over all organs of democracy; and the hegemony of communal Hindutva aided by state-supported vigilante violence against Muslims, Christians, Dalits, universities, slums, mohallas and all forms of dissent are all well-documented.
Thus, while the Emergency ended in two years, Modi’s autocratic rule has successfully stepped into its eleventh year. One can definitely conclude that the present Modi regime is not only more autocratic than the Emergency, but also more pervasive and draconian.
But the BJP’s and the Sangh’s claims to championing anti-Emergency resistance and democracy is flawed also because their fight against the Emergency is not as real as they portray it to be.
Many historical accounts of the way the top leaders of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) – the erstwhile avatar of the BJP – like Atal Bihari Vajpayee sought mercy, and the way the top leaders of the RSS, including its then-sarsanghchalak Balasaheb Deoras pleaded with Gandhi for their release by offering their complete cooperation in implementing the Emergency’s goals, completely betray their hypocritical claims over their credentials.
Also read: If Not Fought, India’s Neo-Emergency Will Reduce Citizens to Subjects
Why and how Vajpayee obtained mercy
Even though thousands of activists and leaders belonging to communist, socialist and Naxalite streams were incarcerated during the whole period of the Emergency, while hundreds were tortured and several others killed, the same cannot be said about the top leaders of the Sangh and the BJS.
For example, Vajpayee, the leader of the BJS and a decorated leader of the anti-Emergency movement, spent only a few days in jail and remained outside, on parole, for almost the entirety of the 20 months of the Emergency.
This was brought to light by none other than senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. In an article titled ‘The Unlearnt Lessons of Emergency’ published in The Hindu on June 13, 2000, Swamy revealed in detail how several RSS and BJS leaders held covert talks with Gandhi.
Swamy wrote that within a few days of being jailed, Vajpayee came to an agreement with Gandhi. He gave an undertaking that if he was released on parole, he would not participate in activities against the government. Swamy said Vajpayee did what the government told him to do for the duration of the time he spent outside on parole.
The RSS’s surrender
In the same article, Swamy also details how RSS leaders, around December 1976, made the decision to sign a document declaring their full and open support to the Emergency.
After the Emergency was declared, senior RSS leader Madhavrao Mule was tasked with the responsibility of carrying out organisational activities without opposing the government, while Eknath Ranade was asked to reach an agreement with the government.
Swamy himself, meanwhile, was told to garner support for anti-Emergency movements from the governments of other countries, including the United States.
But in November 1976, Mule advised Swamy to stop his efforts, because “the RSS had finalised the document of surrender to be signed at the end of January”.
The then-head of the Intelligence Bureau, T.V. Rajeswar, has chronicled the RSS leaders’ decision to surrender in his book India – The Crucial Years. Ravi Visveswaraya Sharada Prasad, the son of Gandhi’s then-information adviser H.Y. Sharada Prasad, also documents these developments in an article for ThePrint.
The sarsanghchalak’s sorry letters
Even more important are the letters that the RSS’s highest leader, Deoras, wrote to Gandhi from Yerwada jail. He had also written to Vinobha Bhave, pleading with him to persuade Gandhi to consider his release.
These letters help us understand the truth of the role played by the RSS and the BJS during the Emergency, and their subsequent hypocrisy.
These letters are attached as appendices at the end of the book Hindu Sangathan aur Sattavadi Rajneeti, which Deoras himself wrote in Hindi. Scholar and political activist Yogendra Yadav has provided links to the book on his X account.
Full text (from his book) of two letters written by RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras to Indira Gandhi during emergency.
Note he appreciates her speech (for emergency), congrats her on (infamous) SC verdict!
Do you notice any criticism of emergency, any defence of democratic rights? pic.twitter.com/rJhQZFQZoY— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) October 9, 2018
The English translations of these letters can be found in a book titled Five Headed Monster: A Factual Narrative of the Genesis of Janata Party by Brahm Dutt, then leader of the Bharatiya Lok Dal. They are also available in the 2021 book India’s First Dictatorship, authored by Pratinav Anil and Christophe Jaffrelot, a scholar who has studied and published several books on India’s socio-political trajectories at the grassroots level.
Sorry letter no. 1
Gandhi declared the Emergency on June 25, 1975. During the Independence Day address delivered from the Red Fort, she said, like all dictators do, that her actions were necessary for the country’s security and that those opposing them were traitors. All across the country, pro-democracy activists condemned both her speech and her authoritarianism.
However, in his first letter to Gandhi on August 22, 1975, Deoras openly praised her August 15 speech!
He went even further, lauding the speech for its timeliness and balance. He also said that he was writing to her to dispel misconceptions about the RSS and assured her that it was trying to build an organisation of Hindus but was never against her government.
Towards the end, he said: “I request you to keep this in mind and revoke the ban on the RSS. It would give me great happiness to meet you in person if you deem it appropriate.”
Thus, in the first letter, he not only expressed his agreement with the imposition of the Emergency, but towards the end, he was seeking an end to the ban on the RSS and not to the Emergency.
Sorry letter no. 2
Gandhi never acknowledged Deoras’s letter. In the meantime, the media was prepared to crawl when she asked them to bend, and the Supreme Court did as she asked.
Due to this, a five judge-bench of the Supreme Court overturned the Allahabad high court’s order invalidating Gandhi’s election. Calling this sorry state of an independent judiciary an extension of authoritarianism, pro-democracy activists across the country – in jail and outside – roundly condemned this development.
And what did the sarsanghchalak do?
In his second letter to Gandhi dated November 10, 1975, Deoras began by congratulating her on the Supreme Court victory: “Let me congratulate you as five judges of the Supreme Court have declared the validity of your election.”
Throughout the letter, he proceeded to try and convince her that the RSS was not against the government or the Emergency. Towards the end, he once again asked her to lift the ban on the RSS: “The selfless endeavours of lakhs of RSS workers can be used to further the government’s development programmes.”
This was a blatant assurance that RSS workers would join hands with Gandhi’s authoritarian government if the ban on them was lifted.
Also read | Review: A Comprehensive Look Back at the Emergency Which Holds Important Lessons for Today
Sorry letter no. 3
Gandhi ignored this second letter too. She was scheduled to visit Vinobha Bhave’s ashram towards the end of February, when Deoras wrote a third letter begging Bhave – who was both a friend of the RSS and held some influence over Gandhi – to intervene in favour of the RSS and persuade Gandhi to lift the ban.
If this happened, “a condition will prevail as to enable the volunteers of the Sangh to participate in the planned programme of action relating to the country’s progress and prosperity under the leadership of the prime minister”.
This was the true face of the RSS during the Emergency. While Gandhi was systematically trampling on people’s rights and when democracy was being killed, the RSS and the BJS were trying to secure their release from jail by giving an undertaking stating they would covertly participate in that clampdown.
As an extension of this, the Uttar Pradesh BJS announced total support for the Gandhi government on June 25, 1976 – the first anniversary of the Emergency’s declaration – and also pledged not to participate in any anti-government activities. As many as 34 leaders of the BJS in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh joined the Congress.
All this culminated in the RSS reaching an agreement with the government and deciding to sign a surrender document at the end of January 1977. But since Gandhi withdrew the Emergency before that, the necessity of actually signing the surrender document did not arise.
It is also well documented that the RSS was all praises for Sanjay Gandhi’s five-point program during the Emergency aimed at Muslims, which involved mass vasectomies and the Turkman Gate massacre.
Thus, neither the BJP nor the RSS have the moral credentials to claim to be anti-Emergency democrats. They were meek and submissive against Indira Gandhi’s autocratic rule and even offered to extended full support for her ruthless oppression of the protesting masses.
The Congress party has at least apologised, though half-heartedly, for imposing the Emergency on the nation and for the subsequent autocratic rule.
But the BJP and the RSS have not apologised before the country for their betrayal. Rather, in a most heinous way, they continue to claim they championed the fight against the Emergency by unashamedly pulling the curtain that is the submissive media over their treason.
The BJP’s bluff should be called in a big voice at a time when it is preparing to trample over democracy once again.
Shivasundar is a columnist and activist in Karnataka.
