There is little spark in Mukherjee’s prose to light it up, but when did we last hear or read a spirited defence of Indian democracy’s ‘darkest period’?
It’s not a potboiler. But then to be fair, even for a ‘political artist’ it would have been tough to measure up to the excitement generated by the ‘political potboilers’ and memoirs published last year. The year was also politically so pulsating that to end it with a sanitised recollection, written clinically, cautiously and without passion, would have been disappointing anyway.
The decade under review was dramatic but there is little spark in Mukherjee’s prose to light it up. Anecdotes and insights on momentous events are few but in discussing Congress affairs, he is meticulous to a fault, recording even inane details like “the House had to be adjourned at 2.47 pm”, or “AICC circular no. 34, 21 December, 1978”. The dramatic assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is not mentioned. Sanjay Gandhi’s misadventure in manufacturing a small car is ignored. Emergency excesses are merely hinted at.
The author recalls at length the occasion when he was summoned by Mrs Gandhi for a tongue-lashing for contesting the Lok Sabha polls of 1980 against her wishes and losing it: “It was about 9 pm and Indira Gandhi was sitting in the dining room at the end of the long dining table. She had a bad cold and was soaking her feet in a tub of warm water. Standing at the other end, I could do nothing but stand there till she calmed down. She then sent me home with a basket of fruit”. But such glimpses are sparse.
But while it is tempting to write this off as a damp squib, it is not without its redeeming features. When did we last hear or read a spirited defence of Indian democracy’s ‘darkest period’?
While conceding that the Emergency was avoidable, Mukherjee blames political unrest for it. It was also preceded by a floundering economy due to the Bangladesh war, influx of refugees, a sharp drop in agricultural production, the oil crisis of 1973 and with donor countries stalling foreign aid. The situation, Mukherjee suggests, was tailor-made for popular unrest. “It was made to appear that persons holding high offices were either corrupt or shielding those who were corrupt...bandhs and gheraos became rampant and this is when the Allahabad High Court on 12th June, 1975 declared Indira Gandhi’s election in 1971 void.”
She was granted a conditional stay by the Supreme Court and a responsible opposition, Mukherjee suggests, should have waited for the apex court’s final verdict or for the next general election. Moreover, none of the charges of corruption was ever proved even during the Janata government.
He also takes a swipe at the media, which reported his mysterious visits to Copenhagen where his wife, it was said, had camped, apparently to launder money. Mukherjee says that his wife had not visited Europe till 1978 and he himself had only temporary, official passports when he travelled abroad.
The more riveting part relates to the post-1977 period when Congress was wiped out in north India and lost power at the Centre for the first time, although it still had 154 MPs in the Lok Sabha. The book also contains as many as 13 appendices, which will interest researchers. Readers will, of course, hope that he does not pull his punches in the remaining two volumes of his memoirs.