Address of Vice President of India M.Venkaiah Naidu at the release of Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Gujarati versions of the Book ‘Emergency: Indian Democracy’s Darkest Hour’
New Delhi: During the last ten months, I have associated myself with the release of quite a few books on various themes and issues and each such occasion was a joyous one. But today, I am doing so with a heavy heart. The reasons for the same are obvious as all of you would have known by now. All of us would have been happy if there was no need and occasion like this. But it was not to be. The reasons for our coming together this evening are too compelling and cannot be ignored.
For more effective appreciation of the context of this event, I would like to give a brief narrative of India that prevailed for 21 long months. It was an India, wherein;
1.The Government of India through it’s Attorney General informs the Supreme Court that a Police Officer can shoot down a person on the ground of personal enmity and there would be no recourse to justice as no court can intervene in such matters;
2. The Prime Minister of the day strongly feels the need to give a ‘shock treatment’ to the people of the country, just a few days after an adverse High Court Judgment in an election related case holds the said Prime Minister guilty of electoral malpractices during the LokSabha elections;
3. The Prime Minister of the day asks the President late at night tosign a Proclamation that was not approved by the Union Cabinet saying there was no time to call the Cabinet;
4. The Prime Minister writes to President on a plain white sheet seeking to issue such a proclamation instead of the official letter head;
5. The President of the day signs on the dotted line on June 25, 1975 without any consideration of the disastrous implications of such bizarre surrender and without insisting on the Cabinet Decision on a very major issue; Thousands of opposition leaders woken up from sleep and were taken to the nearest jails;
6. Prime Minister sends a revised letter to the President giving reasons for issuing such a proclamation a day after the said proclamation was issued;
7. The very next day, the President suspends the citizens of their right to move courts to defend their Fundamental Rights guaranteed by the Constitution;
8. President of India was empowered to amend the Constitution at will through executive orders;
9. The Law Minister, the Cabinet Secretary and the Home Secretary and almost the entire Cabinet come to know of such a very major decision only the next day;
10. The top bureaucracy of the day conducts in a pathetic manner and without spine becoming a party to the blatant violation of the provisions of the Constitution of India;
11. The Government brazenly tells the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) that papers relating to the context of decisions taken will not be given to the CAG;
12. An extra constitutional coterie emerges and runs the affairs of the State with no accountability but will full powers; This coterie directs Jail Superintendents to build prison cells with asbestos roof for political prisoners and also asks them to send some of the political prisoners to the Lunatics Cells;
13. Inspectors-General of Police become the Chief Editors of news papers censoring the news and deciding which news would be published and not;
14. Electricity supply cut off to news papers to prevent their publication;
15. Journalists with integrity and honesty were arrested, jailed and police was set after them and their family members harassed. The author of these books Shri Surya Prakash was warned of dire consequences by the Karnataka Government after he published the news of harassment of Lawrence Fernandes and other reports of excesses by the state machinery and his parents constantly worried about his safety;
16. News paperscategorised as friendly, neutral and hostile and were dealt with accordingly; Accreditation of non-complinant journalists gets cancelled;
17. Advertisements stopped to news papers that were critical of the government of that period;
18. News papers banned from publishing quotations of Tagore, Gandhiji and even Nehru on freedom, democracy and fundamental rights;
19. Journalists come under the surveillance of Intelligence Bureau and the Press Council was abolished by the Government;
20. Broadcast of BBC and Voice of America stopped;
21. Screening of films like KissakursiKa, Aandhi, Andoalan and All the President’s Men banned
22. The government sets of a Committee to review the Constitution under late ShriSwaran Singh which within ten days submits a Report recommending radical changes in the Constitution amounting to destroying the sacred law of the land and abrogating the basic features of the Constitution.
These perversions that happened with regard to the Executive, one of the three constitutional organs were indicative of the subversion that took place during those 21 months. That was how the executive became authoritarian and dictatorial. Now let us look at how the Parliament conducted during that forgettable period.
23. The Parliament enacts five major Constitution Amendments virtually destroying the Constitution and abdicating it’s responsibility to the Executive;
24. Through 38th Constitution Amendment, the disastrous proclamation of June 25, 1975 was taken out of the purview of the Judicial Review;
25. The Parliament prohibited the Supreme Court from hearing the Election Petitions against the high constitutional functionaries including the Prime Minister;
26. Parliament became a party to suppression and oppression of media by placing the anti-media laws in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, thereby taking them out of the pale of Judicial Review;
27.The apex legislature of the country made laws strangling the media; The Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Act, famously known as the Feroze Gandhi Act that protected the press from defamation and libel while reporting on the proceedings of the Parliament was repealed; The Prevention of Publication of Objectionable Matter Act,1976 was passed that empowered District Magistrates to barge into news paper offices and seize the press on mere suspicion of publication of objectionable news;
28. RajyaSabha passed within a few hours theBill that shielded the top constitutional functionaries including the Prime Minister from penal action for acts committed before entering the office and while in office barring civil proceedings against them. This meant that if the Prime Minister defaulted on a personal bank loan, no action could be taken;
29. Through the bizarre 42nd Constitution Amendment, Parliament took out any Constitution Amendment including depriving the Fundamental Rights of Citizens from Judicial Review; Parliament assigned to itself unlimited powers to amend the Constitution; Courts were prevented from hearing election petitions and disqualifying MPs on the ground of corrupt electoral practices and the Constitutional provision of requirement of quorum in the Legislatures was removed; and
30. Parliament also amended Election Laws thereby allowing government officials to assist contestants in the elections.
Then the Judiciary, the custodian of the Constitution did not cover itself with glory either. The Apex Court sank to its lowest. How?
31.Giving a go by to the doctrine of ‘Basic Features of the Constitution’ propounded by the Supreme Court in the famous Keshavananda Bharti Case in 1973, the Apex Court did not question the said Constitution Amendments that destroyed the Constitution;
32. The Supreme Court went along with the Government’s view that citizens had no right to seek remedies to violation of Fundamental Rights like the right to life and liberty. This meant that a police officer can kill a person on the ground of personal enmity;
33. The Apex Court upheld the election of the then Prime Minister to the LokSabha without questioning the law made just to save that Prime Minister, there by upholding the validity of the 39th Constitution Amendment with retrospective effect.
Equality before law is enshrined in the saying “Be you ever so high, the law is above you”. But during those 21 months, it was brazenly violated with the Supreme Court becoming a mute party to placing some individuals above the law. Real bad days for the judiciary. It was only Justice H.R.Khanna that dared to differ with the Government’s position in the ADM, Jabalpur Vs.Shiv Kant Shukla case and asserted that “The Constitution and the law of India does not permit life and liberty to be at the mercy of the absolute power of the Executive”. He paid a price for his conscience by losing out on the office of the Chief Justice of India. I see him as one of the great heroes of what I call the second freedom struggle. The other beingRamnathGoenka of the Indian Express.
Virtually, during those 21 months, the democracy in our country was sterilized, sapping it of it’s profound energy and vitality. It was the the infamous “Emergency: Indian Democracy’s Darkest Hour” and the title of Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Gujarati versions released today. The original in English was also authored by veteran journalist Shri A. Surya Prakash. The 33 aberrations that I have highlighted, spanning the Parliament, Judiciary and Executive holda mirror to what had happened in our country during June 25, 1975 and March 21, 1977. The Emergency had to be revoked following the democratic revolt by the people of our country in the General Elections of 1977. The poor and illiterate people of our country stated profoundly that they don’t just live by bread alone and they cherish their right to life and liberty and would not accept authoritarianism and dictatorship.
I have illustrated these 33 aberrations on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of Emergency today for the benefit of those borne during the 1970s andlater to help them get a view of the extent of subversion of the Constitution and it’s principle organs. These books tell us about the terrible consequences that follow when democracy gets derailed.
That is why I say, the term ‘Emergency’ should not be bandied about casually or irresponsibly. Emergency means dictatorship and the worst abuse of executive power.
Talking vaguely about the Emergency would not help Young India understand it’s impact and reach. I thought a detailed account would make them understand and appreciate better the extent and sweep of the perversion that guided the State apparatus during those dark 21 months. It would also help the present generations to be more aware of the importance of personal freedoms and fundamental rights.
It would be in order to know as to how did it all happened?
On June 12, 1975 came the Judgment of the Allahabad High Court against the election to the LokSabha of the then Prime Minister. On the 24th of the same month, Justice V.R.KrishanIyer of the Supreme Court stayed the High Court verdict but directed the then Prime Minister not to participate in the debates and not to vote in the Parliament. This made the position of the then Prime Minister untenable and the opposition immediately sought the resignation of Prime Minister. Anti-corruption agitations were spreading across the country. Jai Prakash Narayan gave the call for SampoornaKranti. The rulers of the day became insecure and decided to give a ‘shock treatment’ to the people of the country. So called ‘growing internal disturbance’ was presented as a threat to the national security and Emergency was clamped overnight. A small coterie was responsible for this dark age of Independent India. Internal disturbances were presented as the cause for abrogation of the freedoms and rights of the people even though the regular reports of the Governors and the Chief Secretaries of the States did not report any such law and order incidents in any part of the country.
Our country had passed through the dark medieval era of about a thousand years. This was followed by about two hundred years of colonial rule. As the Independent India was finding its feet, then came the dark era of the emergency. While our history books and text books talk of those medieval dark days and the British Raj, the fallacious causes and consequences of Emergency is not made a part of the learning of the young. It is time, the dark sage of Emergency becomes part of the curriculum so that present generations are sensitisedto the dreaded events of 1975-77 and they learn to value the democratic freedoms they enjoy today. They must also learn to pay homage and respect to all those who fought to bring democracy back on the rails.
I compliment Shri Surya Prakash for chronicling all the major details of that darkest age of our democracy in a very lucid manner and in great detail in these books. I particularly appreciate him and Meghnirghosh Media for bringing out these Indian language versions. I am told that this book will be brought out in more Indian languages. Various aspects of the Emergency, the intrigues, the State of the Nation, the insecurity of the then leadership and the manifestation of that perversion, the villains and the heroes etc., have been included in fourteen chapters. It makes a compelling reading and the present generation shall read it. The author says in the introduction to the book and I quote “The purpose of this book is to keep the eternal flame of vigilance alive”.
In the name of internal disturbance, those who were found a threat to national security and thrown into jails include; Jai Prakash Narayan, AtalBehari Vajpayee, LalKrishanAdvani, Chandrasekhar, Charan Singh, MadhuDandavate, Ramakrishna Hegde, Morarji Desai, BijuPatnaik, NanajiDeshmukh, SikanderBakht, BalasahebDeoras of the RSS, H.D.DeveGowda, Ram BilasPaswan, Nitish Kumar etc.
I was a student activist those days and was active on matters of public importance. I went underground for two months coordinating resistance to Emergency. I was then arrested and jailed for over seventeen months. That jail term brought me close to the veterans of opposition, writers and journalists. It gave me a clear perspective of life, the country, politics and it’s negative side and the larger purpose.
Prime Minister Shri NarendraModi was an RSS Pracharak during those days. Shri Surya Prakash writes in these books; “He (Shri Modi) led the underground movement and played a key role in helping the families of those jailed by the Government. He had the responsibility to organise secret meetings of the resistance, distribute literature and keep track of the needs of senior leaders”.
As per the information of the Government, of the 6,330 MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act)detenues from political parties and banned organisations as on February 12, 1977, 4,026 were from the RSS and the Jan Sangh. These include; ArunJaitely, Anant Kumar, Ravi Shanker Prasad, Prakash Javdekar who are now ministers in the central government.
India’s founding fathers had warned citizens of such exigencies like the Emergency if they were not alert. Dr.SarvepalliRadhakrishnan, a member of the Constituent Assembly, said and I quote, “Our opportunities are great but let me warn you that when power outstrips ability, we will fall on evil days…a free India will be judged by the way in which it will serve the interests of the common man…unless we destroy corruption in high places, root out every trace of nepotism, love of power… we will not be able to raise the standards of efficiency in administration”.
How true was his premonition! The determination of one individual to somehow retain power threw the country into darkness and the citizens, the patrons of democracy rendered helpless in the face of violation of their fundamental rights to life and liberty.
That darkest hour of democracy threw up several lessons for the country, the leadership and the citizens. But I would like to refer to one important lesson.
With dissent stifled, media muzzled and even the well meaning not able to speak up to the coterie behind the Emergency, the government of the day lost connect with reality on the ground. The IB and other agencies of the government that lost the direction made big virtues out of the so called improved discipline in government offices, trains running on time etc. The top leadership fed on falsehoods that people were happy with the Emergency even as thousands of the young and old were indiscriminately deprived of their right to become fathers and the whole of democracy was sterilized.
The then leadership believed all that false feedback about the people’s pulse and called for general elections to the LokSabha. The people spoke their mind out. The then ruling party got just two out of the 300 LokSabha seats in northern and central India. That historic verdict was a second freedom struggle won for the country. This goes to highlight the need for a free media and the need for the governments to keep their ears close to the ground.
One good thing, however, that flowed from the dark days of the Emergency was an unequivocal assertion of the people that they value their freedoms much more than the bread. We need to keep this spirit alive.
Democracy is not new to India, while it was to many countries including the developed nations. Ancient India had several functional democratic republics. This glorious tradition was trampled during the medieval period and later during the Emergency in post-Independent India.
After the resounding pro-democracy verdict of the people of our country, I am confident and so are you that no sensible government would dare to repeat what was done during the fateful night of June 25, 1975. That was clearly a state sponsored ‘intolerance’ to democracy and individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
But we need to guard against ‘intolerance’ on the part of certain misguided citizens. We have been occasionally witnessing some such words and deeds of intolerance by some citizens in the name of so called cow protection, Love Jihad, eating habits, watching films etc. Such incidents lead us to the point that individual freedoms can be in full play only when every citizen respects such freedoms of fellow citizens. Post emergency, the State apparatus would think twice before riding roughshod over the liberties and freedoms of citizens. But it is the enlightened citizens who would enable fuller manifestation of such liberties and freedoms.
It is to sensitise citizens to the adverse consequences of loosing out on such rights and freedoms, I gave a detailed list of the aberrations of emergency. We know the value of freedom, when some one encroaches on it. What I like to drive home is that it is now the responsibility of each citizen to uphold the liberties and freedom of fellow citizen so that every citizen is assured of such freedoms. Every citizen shall be the guardian of the rights of fellow citizen. Then only democracy can fully manifest itself to the benefit of all.
The core Indian values and ethos have no place for intolerance. That is why all the major religions of the world flourish in our country. Pluralism is ingrained in our outlook. Indian has taken into its lap all those who had come here for different reasons including the invaders and plunderers.
On the 43rd anniversary of Emergency, I would like the message to go out that any citizen who violates the freedoms of fellow citizen would have no right to be called an Indian. It is because he is hurting the Constitution of India and all that India stood for ages. So, as citizens of India, let us resolve to defend democracy and the fundamental rights of all the citizens.
I once again compliment Shri Surya Prakash for his lucid and factual account of various aspects of the Emergency and also for bringing out the same in different languages. I also appreciate the publishers Meghnirghosh Media for their support to this noble cause.
