Truth & Emergency
A. G. NOORANI
A new book on Jayaprakash Narayan's days as a prisoner in Chandigarh
fills a major void in the literature on the Emergency.
THE Emergency which Indira Gandhi imposed on the country on June 26,
1975, was much more than an assault on the Constitution, on democracy
and on the rule of law. It was, in truth, a war on her own people. She
refused to face their mounting resentment at the corruption and
arbitrary governance she promoted actively. Her opponents, bar one, were
small men who detested one another more than they did the Prime
Minister. Small wonder that they fell apart once they came to power in
1977 under the flag of the Janata Party. Credit for that accomplishment
in unity belongs to the solitary exception, Jayaprakash Narayan.
It was an important phase in our recent history. Not surprisingly, not
one definitive and objective account has yet been written. What we have,
instead are denunciations by opponents and, after a period of recovery
of nerve, apologias by supporters. JP himself has been either lauded or
denounced. This truly great man can well do with a careful scrutiny of
his record since 1971, to go no further. He did not understand Indira
Gandhi. She had little respect for him or, for that matter, for any one
else. Her insecurities made her reckless and callous. But, JP's
mistakes, ideological and tactical, were enormous. He did not understand
the political situation or the forces that were at play. Some people
exploited him. He drifted and could not direct, let alone control, the
forces he had let loose. A sensitive man, JP was stricken with remorse.
He acted as his conscience dictated, but did not reckon with the
realities. Devasahayam's book fills a major void in the literature on
the Emergency.
He was District Magistrate and Inspector-General, Prisons, in
Chandigarh. JP was lodged in the Post Graduate Institute of Medical
Education and Research (PGIMER) there after his arrest in New Delhi.
Like Gandhi and the Congress leaders in 1942, no one anticipated the
arrests. A warm relationship developed between the prisoner in PGIMER
and his custodian. JP confided freely to the author. Texts of JP's
letters to the Prime Minister and to Sheikh Abdullah are appended. We
have a record of the olive branches JP held out. More, we have an
authoritative account of the deterioration in JP's health from which he
never recovered. He died in 1979. Indira Gandhi showed less concern for
JP's health than Amery and Linlithgow did for Gandhi's.
There are useful nuggets of information, such as this: "When I told him
that many RSS/Jan Sangh activists detained under MISA [Maintenance of
Internal Security Act] were tendering unconditional apology and were
resigning from their party in order to get released, he said that they
must be gutless and dishonest persons and whatever party they may join,
they would only end up as traitors." Baba Adhav witnessed the same
betrayal by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh men in Maharashtra. Its
supremo, Balasahab Deoras, wrote cringing letters to the Prime Minister
and to the Sarkari saint Vinoba Bhave.
B.N. Tandon, then Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister's Secretariat,
battered his credibility by what he wrote in the first volume (vide the
writer's review, "The betrayal of India"; Frontline, January 17, 2003).
R.K. Dhawan's publication on November 22, 2002, of Tandon's letter to
him on June 8, 1982, seeking re-employment by a Prime Minister he
detested, destroyed what little was left of it. There were some useful
disclosures that were true - P.N. Haksar's improper effort to suborn
Judges of the Supreme Court in the election case. His evidence was
disbelieved by Justice J.M.L. Sinha. This volume has its own bits of
information to impart. They must be assessed with care. Professor
Amalendu Guha, a historian, published the first edition of this work in
1977. Before long it went out of print. The publishers deserve thanks
for bringing out a revised edition. In his Introduction to the revised
edition, the author replies to critics of the first edition but makes it
evident, as he did in large parts of the first edition, that he finds
emotional polemics irresistible. Sample this: "Rather than the Congress,
it is the Socialists and Communists who are to blame for their
inability, so far, to head a coalition of the toiling classes to usher
in a people's democracy in India." This is politics, not history. The
volume is useful for the material it contains.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20060505001107700.htm
More on the book "JP in Jail":
https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no44318.htm
http://www.indiainfoline.com/news/news.asp?dat=75466
~(^^)~
Avelino
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