The People Versus Emergency: A Saga of Struggle

Book Specification

Book Description

Preamble

The sun of Indias independence had been eclipsed during the period June 26, 1975 to March 21, 1977. Indira Gandhi bound the whole country with the chains of Emergency. She put thousands of workers and leaders, big and small, behind the bars. They were all innocent. But none could raise his voice protest. The demon of dictatorship stalked the land.

After a few days of superficial calm the Lok Sangharsh Samiti sounded the bugle of Satyagraha. There was a tremendous mass agitation, which had national as well as international repercussions. Lakhs of Indians staunchly opposed dictatorship directly or indirectly. Satyagrahis filled up the jails. Underground bulletins spread the suppressed truth all over the country. Many thinkers all over the world condemned Mrs. Gandhi. As a result she lost the elections. The chains of dictatorship were shattered. The sun of freedom arose. The gates of jail opened. Banned organisations began to function regularly. The present book describes this thrilling struggle.

It was a venturesome task to write the account of this grim struggle with all its social, economic and political aspects.

Those eminent personalities who had led the struggle got so busy after March 21, 1977 that it became difficult for them to spare even a weeks time to do this sort of writing. How then could they spare a year or more? Some said they had chosen to forget whatever they did. Others said let bygones be bygones. Some quoted the Gita, saying the deed was their right, not the fruit thereof. Others replied with a disarming smile that they were the makers of history, not its writers.

It is true that we should not always hark back to history, but it is also true that a society that forgets its past has a bleak future. So this history has been written not to trumpet the past but to take guidance for the future. It is necessary to have knowledge of those circumstances, reasons and shortcomings so that some future power-hungry ruler may not dare to repeat that dark history. To acquire that knowledge is the purpose of this history. At the same time it is necessary for selfless patriots to be always present in the country and for the whole Society to be informed with the sentiment of patriotism. To explain this is another reason for writing all this.

This period is a sea of events. Instead of trying to cover all of them this book has been limited to the agitations conducted by the Lok Sangharsh Samiti, the main character in this struggle. So far as possible we have not tried to exceed this limit. We have kept a positive and constructive point of view. We have not permitted prejudices against anybody to affect us, be it Mrs. Gandhi or the smallest police official committing atrocities. We have considered personalities secondary and given priority to presenting historical facts.

About three hundred books and booklets have been written on this subject. Most of them are based on contemporary, personal experiences and are provincial, regional or partisan by nature. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh achieved what all other parties together could not do. But many of these so- called historians did not even mention the Sangh by name in their histories. Our attempt is to do justice to the Sangh.

We have naturally taken the help of all these books and booklets, but our main source has been the reports and statistics provided by those who actually participated in the struggle. So it can be said that this book has been authored by hundreds of writers. We have only edited the available material and arranged selected portions from it in a certain order. It was impossible to name all places and individuals and describe all events, so only a few representative things have been extensively dealt with and the rest left to the readers imagination. Special efforts have been made to see that there is no partiality or imbalance in the presentation. Within the limitations of number of pages, price and our own capacity the maximum possible information has been given and the maximum possible variety maintained. We are aware that there may be many deficiencies. We have tried to make a bouquet of flowers of many hues and many fragrances For in the final analysis we have had to depend upon available source material. So we would welcome some knowledgeable reader pointing out [actual errors, if any, so that they could be corrected in future editions.

A veritable mountain of source material rose before us when an appeal was made to provinces and districts to send books, bulletins, accounts and statistics. At that lime Prin. M.K. alias Bhausaheb Paranjape (retired) of Pune and his associates Look great pains to read it all and classify and categorise it. Then alone could research scholars enter this forest of details. In the actual task of writing invaluable assistance was received from shri Bapurao Warhadpande, retired principal, Nagpur, Shri M.G. Vaidya, retired editor, Tarun Bharat, Nagpur, Prof. Munindra Mohan Chaturvedi, Gwalior, Dr. Shyam Bahadur Verma, Delhi, Shri H.V. Seshadri and K.S. Nagaraja, Bangalore and H.R. Ranganath Rao, Nagpur. In spite of their preoccupations Sarvashri Seshadri, Kup. Si. Sudarshan, Dattopant Thengadi, Shrikant Joshi, Laxmanrao Bhide and Chamanlal carefully went through the initial draft, made many valuable suggestions and gave guidance in various ways. They all are so close to us that neither can we thank them nor repay their debt. So all we can do is to pray God that their love and affection be always with us. The credit of bringing us into this project goes to Shri Anantrao Gokhale. He gave us this dip in the Ganga of history. Whatever merit this holy dip brought us goes rightfully to him.

Like honey-bees we collected whatever good we got from wherever we got it, but we are especially grateful to the following works and their authors.

(1) Bhuguli (Kannad) by H.V. Seshadri, (2) The decline and fall of Indira Gandhi by D.R. Mankekar and Kamal