From The Tumultuous '70s, Some Questions Remain

This article was published in the Outlook magazine issue 'Emergency: The Legacy/The Lunacy' dated October 1, 2024. To read more article from the issue, click here.

For a journalist, the seventies were one of the most challenging periods. I was in my mid-twenties and a young reporter at The Economic Times, with politics as my beat. D K Rangnekar, renowned economist and a London School of Economics alumni—who had a Left of Centre and Nehruvian political line—was my editor. He was a national intellectual elite.

The beginning of the decade was quite eventful. In March 1971, Indira Gandhi won by a landslide, demolishing the Opposition. The Grand Alliance of the Opposition consisted of the right wing Swatantra Party, the Socialists, the Jan Sangh and the breakaway of the Congress—commonly known as the Syndicate. “Garibi hatao vs Indira hatao” was the political rhetoric that dominated the campaigning and the elections.

The “Indira wave” eventually swept the electorate. The widely discussed and debated “Indira phenomenon” began with this wave. She was at the peak of her popularity. I had covered that election as a reporter and, frankly, had not anticipated such a landslide victory. The entire media—there was only the press then, no TV—was hostile towards her. Erudite editors and prominent journalists like Frank Moraes and B G Verghese either condemned or ridiculed her. No self-styled political pundit-cum-columnist anticipated that she would win by such a huge margin.

Soon after the elections, the ‘Indira phenomenon’ swept the nation. However, to understand this phenomenon—not only the one that was manifested in the election but also comprehensively—it is necessary to understand the political environment in the Indian subcontinent in the seventies as well as the political perception of the elite class.

In the same year, the Pakistani Army invaded East Pakistan. The reason was the fantastic electoral victory of the Bengali Awami League’s Mujibur Rehman in East Pakistan. Under the normal democratic process, he would have become the Prime Minister of the whole of Pakistan.

The Punjabi-Pathani leadership in the West hated that possibility and decided to crush the Bengali resurgence. The crackdown led to a huge refugee crisis, as the massive exodus from East Pakistan began to enter India. Eventually, it is estimated that nearly 10 million refugees had taken shelter in India. Such a massive mass exodus of refugees—which was an after-effect of the war—was witnessed for the first time since the Second World War.

Gandhi travelled to Europe, America and other parts of the world, appealing personally to the respective heads of states, to help the country in the time of crisis. It was a human as well as an economic crisis, and war clouds had begun to hover over the Indian subcontinent. But her appeal fell on deaf ears. In the meantime, the genocide-like massacre of the Muslim Bengali population continued. Pakistan was a strategic military base of the US and the country did not want to hurt their mutual interests. The European countries followed the lead of the US.

Indira (and India) was isolated by the world community.General Yahya Khan, the head of the state as well as the armed forces in Pakistan—egged on by the US, and feeling encouraged by India’s isolation—chose to attack India. He was encouraged by the fact that the US had decided to send its super-strong Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal to intimidate Gandhi from taking military action. His excuse for attacking India was: “That woman” (Gandhi) was helping Bengali insurgents with arms and political support.

To break free from the isolation trap, Gandhi took a strategic step and signed the comprehensive Indo-Soviet treaty. This provided a protective shield to India in case the US militarily decided to join Pakistan. The war was indeed inevitable. In the first fortnight of December 1971, finally, the war erupted. It ended only with the liberation of Bangladesh and the total defeat and surrender of the Pakistan Army to Indian forces. Neither Islam nor the Pakistani military establishment—fully supported by the US—could prevent the partition of Pakistan. This was perceived, not only by Indians but also globally, as the grand victory of Gandhi.

International media termed her as the regional leader of South Asia. A year later, in 1972, she swept the Assembly elections, consolidating her base in the states as well. The phrase “Indira is India”—coined by Congress party president D K Barooah—became a popular slogan of sorts Gandhi was termed as a living legend. The Economist, London, published a cover story titled the “Empress of India”. Everyone, from comrade S A Dange of the Communist Party of India to Atal Behari Vajpayee of the Jan Sangh, lauded her strategic leadership, courage and patriotic spirit.

If she desired, it was within her power to become an “elected autocrat”, even without declaring the Emergency. But she did not. On the contrary, despite her dominating persona and fierce popularity, she allowed mass movements and marches. The media (the press), theatre and films were free from any government interference. Regional cinema, too, grew during this decade.

Literature and arts, new wave experiments, trade union movements and student unions, Dalit literature and feminist activists were all flourishing throughout the first half of the seventies. All these movements were often anti-establishment (read anti-Indira and anti-Congress). But I don’t remember writers or journalists, filmmakers or theatre artists and trade unionists or lecturers in colleges getting hounded or arrested. Eminent personalities from the press and those from creative fields—like playwright Vijay Tendulkar, director and screenwriter Mrinal Sen, Frontier editor Samar Sen, radical theatre leader Shambhu Mitra, political satirist Cho Ramaswamy and actor and director Girish Karnad—had the requisite creative freedom in their respective fields. This despite the fact that none of them supported, defended or were sympathetic to Gandhi.

In fact, despite her huge popularity and larger-than-life persona, most were her strident critics. If her DNA was dictatorial, and if she was autocratic from childhood and during adolescence, as is often portrayed, she need not have tolerated this intellectual and hostile ferment. Institutes like the National School of Drama (NSD) and the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) were “free”. The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) could organise protests, despite some taking a violent turn. Art galleries—often displaying political messaging—were flourishing. All this dominated the socio-political and cultural environment.

Even on the political front, there were no restrictions whatsoever. The regional movements of the DMK and the Shiv Sena were not curbed, the attempts by Punjabis and Sikhs to establish their identities were not shot down, the Bengali radical pride existed as well, people in Darjeeling and Jharkhand could initiate their movements. In short, there was room for everything—vibrance and violence, creativity and chaos.

However, this freedom, at least on the trade union front, began to shrink with the launch of the nationwide railway strike in May 1974, led by George Fernandes. His call was to paralyse the system—to stop the movement of food grains during the acute drought and famine conditions and the movement of coal to power stations leading to grid collapse, shut down of factories and homes plunging into darkness.

In such a situation, there would be widespread discontent among the people, and it would lead to the fall of the Gandhi government. Or so they believed. Comrade B T Randive even witnessed a full-scale class war during the railway strike which had the potential to turn into a revolution. This challenge to the Gandhi government came against the backdrop of Jayprakash Narayan’s call for a “Total Revolution”. Thus, the forces of anarchy were let loose, just two years after she had managed to emerge as a legendary leader.

There was a background to this nationwide railway strike. Just a year earlier, on September 11, 1973, a democratically elected government in Chile was toppled by its military with the help of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Salvador Allende, the President of the country, was assassinated—this has been fully established by all records now. That military coup was preceded by a nationwide strike by transporters, which led to a huge shortage of essential goods, fuelling and simulating anger against the Allende government. Many political observers and analysts seriously felt that the Chilean conspiracy was being enacted in India.

In April-May 1974, a student-cum-mass movement was launched in Gujarat against the state government, which was elected just a year earlier. Morarji Desai began his indefinite hunger strike, demanding the dissolution of the Assembly. It was a completely anti-democratic movement. But neither Jayprakash Narayan nor the judiciary intervened to contain this brazen anti-democratic act. The blackmail worked and Gandhi let the assembly dissolve.

Even as this political convulsion was taking place, the economy was sliding. The Arab-Israeli war in 1973 led OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) to double oil prices. India, then almost completely dependent on the import of crude oil, virtually collapsed. This calamity was compounded by the global drought and famine—known as the century’s worst. In this most turbulent situation, Fernandes led the railway strike and JP launched the 'Indira Hatao Andolan'. The “Lok Nayak” appealed to the RSS to join his mass movement, and the parties he led agreed to go along with the RSS-led Jan Sangh. This sanctioned the communal angle.

It was in this volatile environment that the Allahabad High Court gave its judgement that Gandhi must be unseated. Her election to the Lok Sabha in 1971 was nullified. The heavens broke loose. The campaign to demand her resignation acquired an additional edge. Most people forget that a couple of weeks before the judgement, Piloo Modi—one of the founding members of the Swatantra Party—and some socialists had openly started saying that the judgement would not be in Gandhi’s favour. How they knew this is still not clear.

The “Indira hatao” demand now became loud and strident, violent and vicious, to the point that the campaigners did not want to wait till the final verdict was delivered by the Supreme Court. They planned a gherao of the PM’s residence. “Shoot us, if you want, we will not lift the gherao” was the strategy being worked on. JP went a step ahead. He urged the police and the Army to not obey the orders of the “immoral and illegitimate” Gandhi government.

She had two options—to resign or fight back legally and politically. She planned to resign, according to renowned journalist Kuldip Nayar. But was persuaded by the party to not resign till the final verdict.

Even granting the interpretation that she declared the Emergency to protect her chair, to perpetuate her autocratic rule and launch a dynasty, a few questions remain. Are JP, Fernandes and other disgruntled political leaders not culpable for creating an anarchic atmosphere by organising mindless, violent movements that led to a situation where the Emergency had to be declared? Wasn’t the demand to dissolve the Gujarat Assembly—using violence, if necessary—completely undemocratic? How can an appeal to the Army and the police to not obey the orders of the elected government be made by senior and respected leaders like JP?

If Gandhi was dictatorial by nature, why did she call for the elections in 1977; particularly when she could have continued constitutionally for one more year? Is Gandhi to be judged only by the Emergency or by her entire tenure, which had many glorious achievements—from Bangladesh’s Liberation to space missions and Antarctica adventures and from acceding Sikkim to the Green Revolution?

(Views expressed are personal)

Kumar Ketkar is a veteran journalist

(This appeared in the print as 'To Write or Not to Write')