This book originated with a paper I was asked to contribute on Indira Gandhi’s political style for a conference on ‘Leadership in South Asia’ at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in March 1974. It was expanded and published in its present form in 1982. It traces the events in the Congress party and the country that represent a break with the style that had been a feature of the historic Congress.
Congress politics had worked within the framework of democratic institutions, encouraging open and diverse expression and debate both within the party and between the ruling party and the Opposition. Indira Gandhi’s creation of a highly centralized governing apparatus and party machine under her personal command had the effect of reversing this process. Under the authoritarian rule of the Emergency of 1975–77, it ended altogether. Why events should have taken this turn is perhaps the effect of personality on history.
The book I wrote dealt almost entirely with the developments that transformed the historic Congress party and the Indian polity, and it owes its tone to the intense anxiety I felt at what was happening in the country. It remains relevant as a reminder that democratic institutions and practices, even in a nation established in democracy, need guarding against assault and subversion. The Emergency itself was a watershed in Indian politics. The memory of the terror it established overnight in June 1975—of arrest without warrant and imprisonment without trial, of censorship, surveillance and the abolition of civil liberties, even of the right to life and liberty—has faded with the years but its shadow lingers in the public’s and Parliament’s mind. No one wants to go back there.
There will always be sections of people who believe dictatorship is the way to make things work but modern India has in fact been founded on a rejection of authoritarianism. Civil rights organizations and activism came up as a result of the Emergency and are here to stay. For the country at large, as the general election of 1977 made clear, and for the young whose political awareness took shape during the repressions of the Emergency, democracy has been reconfirmed as a non-negotiable necessity.
The Janata Party’s brief two and a half years at the helm of affairs after the momentous election of 1977 also serve as a reminder of the opportunity its quarrelling constituents laid waste when—after restoring civil liberties and undoing the amendments damaging to the Constitution—they betrayed the country’s expectation that those guilty of wrongdoing would be punished. The Janata Party was a loose combine of parties that had come together under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan to combat the authoritarian tide and had no other glue to keep it united once this goal was achieved. What remained of it as fallout was a younger generation of assorted socialists in Indian politics, while at the same time the Hindu-based Jan Sangh was catapulted into national prominence.
If I were writing this book today, I would say more about two points I did not make enough of. Internally, the country lost a decade of development under Indira Gandhi. The populism that replaced Jawaharlal Nehru’s pragmatism made for rousing political theatre but without sound practical backup it brought no reduction of poverty nor benefit to the economy. Externally, the Cold War’s destructive and divisive effect on the world of its time had its impact on India. On an international scene where the US was locked in a war on Vietnam, and had thrown its military and diplomatic might behind Pakistan in its conflict with East Bengal, India had no option but an alliance with the Soviet Union. If this was a departure from non-alignment, it had its undeniable rationale.
Writing this book had a symbolic and poignant importance for me at the time as a duty to the voices the Emergency had silenced and as an act of commitment to the values of the free society Jawaharlal Nehru had built during his seventeen years in power. Rereading it, I think that its focus leaves much unsaid about the unusual woman, my cousin, who was the focal point of those tumultuous years. For this edition I have added an epilogue, ‘Completing the Picture’, which includes some personal recollections indicative of the close bond we shared until the tryst with power took over.
Dehradun
2012