Translated from Kannada by Anisha Sheth
This June 25 marks 48 years since Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, infamously declared a state of Emergency across the country. Before the incumbent PM Narendra Modi took office in 2014, the period of Emergency under Indira Gandhi’s regime was considered the worst chapter in the history of post-Independence India. Those 20 months, however, seem to pale in comparison to India’s nine years under Modi. It is evident to the world that over the past nine years, there has been a terrifying erosion of media freedom, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and the right to dissent in the country.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government has been organising annual events every June 25, almost like a tradition, to remind the country of the dark days of the Emergency. It uses the occasion to portray itself as the only genuine democratic force that opposed Indira Gandhi’s dictatorship.
Of course, true proponents of democracy cannot forget the wrongs committed during the Emergency. They can forget neither the political and economic circumstances of the time, nor how the Constitution was abused to commit those excesses. But at the same time, it is also hard to forget that on all indices, India under the current government has either ranked lower than authoritarian countries, or is at the same level as them. The V-Dem Institute in Sweden, an organisation that studies global democracies, even declared that India has turned into an electoral autocracy.
It is true that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Jana Sangh, and their affiliate organisations have indeed played a role in the political protests that led to the declaration of a state of Emergency. But it also has to be acknowledged that once it was imposed, leaders of the RSS and the Jana Sangh made secret agreements supporting the Emergency with the very same Indira Gandhi, whom they called a dictator.
The BJP and the Sangh Parivar have been continually attempting to hide the pages of this very embarrassing history, and their opportunistic anti-people activities of the time. But historical records and the writings of their own leaders prove how the Sangh’s leaders covertly supported the Emergency. In fact, not only did they try to reach a compromise with Indira Gandhi, they also wrote surrender letters from jail, following in the footsteps of their icon VD Savarkar.
Every year on June 25, the BJP and the RSS put up posts on Facebook praising themselves for saving India during the Emergency. Alongside appear images from front pages of newspapers dated June 26, 1975, which reported that Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Morarji Desai, and other leaders had been jailed.
Intelligence reports and the Union Home Ministry records from that time indicate that thousands of leaders and workers of the socialists, Lohiaites, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the Naxals had paid a heavier price — including death — than Jana Sangh leaders. Nevertheless, did Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose name was carried on the frontpages of newspapers, ever spend any time in jail during Emergency? Barely any.
Vajpyee spent most of those 20 months in his house on parole, for which he gave an undertaking stating that he would not oppose the Emergency!
It was neither the communists nor the socialists who brought these facts — along with proof — into the public domain, but 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 Jana Sangh leaders held covert talks with Indira Gandhi.
He wrote that within a few days of being jailed, Vajpayee came to an agreement with Indira Gandhi. He gave an undertaking that if he was released on parole, he would not participate in activities against the government. Swamy wrote that Vajpayee did what the government told him to do for the duration of the time he spent outside on parole.
In the same article, Swamy also details how RSS leaders, around December 1976, made the decision to sign a document declaring full and open support to Indira Gandhi’s 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 TV Rajeswar has chronicled the RSS leaders’ decision to surrender in his book India - The Crucial Years. Ravi Visveswaraya Sharada Prasad, the son of Indira Gandhi’s then information adviser HY Sharada Prasad, also documents these developments in an article for The Print.
Even more important are the letters that RSS’ highest leader Sarsanghchalak Madhukar Deoras, also known as Balasaheb Deoras, wrote to Indira Gandhi from Yerwada jail. He had also written to Vinobha Bhave, pleading with him to persuade Indira Gandhi to consider his release. These letters help us understand the truth of the role played by the RSS and the Jana Sangh during Emergency, and their subsequent hypocrisy.
These letters are attached as appendices at the end of the book Hindu Sangathan aur Sattavadi Rajneeti, that Deoras himself wrote in Hindi. Scholar and political activist Yogendra Yadav has provided links to the book on his Twitter account.
Full text (from his book) of two letters written by RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras to Indira Gandhi during emergency.
— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) October 9, 2018
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
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 Jafrelot, a scholar who has studied and published several books on India’s socio-political trajectories at the grassroot level.
Indira Gandhi declared Emergency on June 25, 1975. During the Independence Day address delivered from Red Fort, she said, like all dictators do, that her actions were necessary for the country’s security and that those opposing it were traitors. All across the country, pro-democracy activists condemned both her speech and her authoritarianism.
However, in his first letter to Indira 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 the RSS 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 Emergency, but towards the end, he was seeking an end to the ban on the RSS and not to the Emergency.
Indira 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 Indira 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 Sarasanghchalak do?
In his second letter to Indira 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 Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian government if the ban on them was lifted.
Indira 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 Indira 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 Emergency. While Indira Gandhi was systematically trampling on people’s rights, when democracy was being killed, the RSS and the Jana Sangh were trying to secure their release from jail by giving an undertaking stating that they would covertly participate in that clampdown.
As an extension of this, the Uttar Pradesh Jana Sangh announced total support for the Indira Gandhi government on June 25, 1976 — the first anniversary of its declaration — and also pledged not to participate in any anti-government activities. As many as 34 leaders of the Jana Sangh 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 Indira Gandhi withdrew the Emergency before that, the necessity of actually signing the surrender document did not arise.
Even after the Emergency, Balasaheb Deoras thought favourably of Indira Gandhi. After she returned to power in 1980, Indira Gandhi rejected her previous “socialist-secular” policies in favour of a dangerous Hindutva politics, with the rhetoric that in Kashmir and Punjab “Hindus are in danger, and if Hindus are in danger then the country is in danger and therefore a strong leadership is necessary.” Deoras openly began to praise her for this stance.
Even as she began to implement the RSS agendas herself, the Sarasanghachalak declared that when Indira Gandhi herself is implementing the Hindu agenda so daringly, they don't need a BJP. The RSS repaid its debt to her by participating in the anti-Sikh carnage after she was assassinated.
When we remember the Emergency this year, let us not forget this historical treason and the subterfuge. Let us not forget that the ostensible differences between the Congress and the BJP are, in reality, very limited. Let us also learn a lesson from the past, and this time round, let us begin a true fight against fascism.
This article has been excerpted and translated from a Kannada article that appeared on Vartha Bharati.
Shivasundar is an activist and freelance journalist. Views expressed are the author’s own.