The Emergency thoughts
I got lost going through the interim report of the Shah Commission when the New Year ticked by, Indian Standard Time. Not the best way to bid 'bye, bye' to 2007, but it wasn't my conscious decision to spend this moment refreshing myself about our days during the Emergency (1975-77).
I stumbled on the Shah Commission report (1978) while rummaging my attic in search of newspaper clippings of my Deccan Herald pieces on the Mysore campus unrest in the 70s. The search was prompted by the on-going controversy over the alleged irregularities in the Mysore University. Some of these clippings were pasted on oblong books (printed for annual Mysore University convocation and distributed to the media) And many more , wrapped in newspapers, were stacked on the attic, and on shelves above the kitchen; which explains why many of my archive bundles have acquired a black tinge on the cover.
It isn't easy to lay hands on the exact clippings you look for at any given time. Left to my wife, the bundles would have found their way to raddiwala long back, depriving resident cockroaches a safe haven from human interference. To me their value is incalculable (the bundles, not the coakroaches). It was during my search at the attic, standing on a ladder, a thick book whose colour was once green, slipped from my hand and fell down to the floor. It was the first interim report of the Shah Commission.
Excited by this discovery I gave up my search for the university clippings and got engrossed in the commission report. As 2007 ticked by , my thoughts traveled back in time, to that Black Day in June , 1975, when President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed was woken up in the middle of the night to sign on some papers, that paved the way for suspending the fundamental rights, initiating state sponsored excesses, gags on the media, and for jailing the critics of Mrs Indira Gandhi.
Reading about it, again, strengthend my conviction to educate, in my limited way, our young journalists about what it means to be free. Much water has flown down the Yamuna since the dark days of the Emergency. Prolific growth of TV channels; the coalition of politics having come to stay; the absence of a leader of the stature of Mrs Gandhi, in whose name the Congress men, from the grass-roots worker to chief ministers , central ministers and even the Presidents of India swore their implicit loyalty; and unseen pressure from US against such misadventure, would all combine to ensure that India does not experience ever again the Emergency of the kind the country witnessed in the 70s .
Such were the thoughts that occurred as I re-read the Shah Commission report, utterly oblivious of the New Year revellery out on the midnight streets. A related item in GVK’s blog : The Emergency:The Indian Media’s shameful era
I stumbled on the Shah Commission report (1978) while rummaging my attic in search of newspaper clippings of my Deccan Herald pieces on the Mysore campus unrest in the 70s. The search was prompted by the on-going controversy over the alleged irregularities in the Mysore University. Some of these clippings were pasted on oblong books (printed for annual Mysore University convocation and distributed to the media) And many more , wrapped in newspapers, were stacked on the attic, and on shelves above the kitchen; which explains why many of my archive bundles have acquired a black tinge on the cover.
It isn't easy to lay hands on the exact clippings you look for at any given time. Left to my wife, the bundles would have found their way to raddiwala long back, depriving resident cockroaches a safe haven from human interference. To me their value is incalculable (the bundles, not the coakroaches). It was during my search at the attic, standing on a ladder, a thick book whose colour was once green, slipped from my hand and fell down to the floor. It was the first interim report of the Shah Commission.
Excited by this discovery I gave up my search for the university clippings and got engrossed in the commission report. As 2007 ticked by , my thoughts traveled back in time, to that Black Day in June , 1975, when President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed was woken up in the middle of the night to sign on some papers, that paved the way for suspending the fundamental rights, initiating state sponsored excesses, gags on the media, and for jailing the critics of Mrs Indira Gandhi.
Reading about it, again, strengthend my conviction to educate, in my limited way, our young journalists about what it means to be free. Much water has flown down the Yamuna since the dark days of the Emergency. Prolific growth of TV channels; the coalition of politics having come to stay; the absence of a leader of the stature of Mrs Gandhi, in whose name the Congress men, from the grass-roots worker to chief ministers , central ministers and even the Presidents of India swore their implicit loyalty; and unseen pressure from US against such misadventure, would all combine to ensure that India does not experience ever again the Emergency of the kind the country witnessed in the 70s .
Such were the thoughts that occurred as I re-read the Shah Commission report, utterly oblivious of the New Year revellery out on the midnight streets. A related item in GVK’s blog : The Emergency:The Indian Media’s shameful era
posted by Krishna Vattam at
5:31 PM
1 Comments:
Many academic friends of mine say that one should not be surprised about the shenanighans at Mysore University and indeed, in any other universities in India. The difference lies in the ways and frequencies these irregularities surface at Mysore University. While dirty linens are washed in public in Mysore university in a number of colourful ways and with increased frequencies, in other universities and IITs in India they are simply hidden from the inquisitor's gaze. The AIIMS Director's case spilled into public domain as the shenanighnas could not be contained with in the perimeters of that institution. Now the Central Government has brought out an act to legalise his removal and wash the dirty linen quietly.
I recollect that two ingredients helped Mrs Gandhi to stamp her authority thorough emergency declaration. First, her own ruthless character and second, a pliable and subservient president who was prepared to sign any paper that she produced. Looking at the
way her daughter-in-law is behaving today and the ease with which she was able to engineer the election of the current president who is much less qualified than FA Ahmed, one cannot safely say that it will not happen again despite the Internet, the digital TV channels, NRIs and IT outsouce income. After all, she has to sound out a few CMs the likes of Thiru Karuna. There are no leaders with the stature of Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai. The bickerings between non-congress political parties are as strong now as they were then. Indian youngmen and women now are mostly interested in their careers in the IT world and the wads of rupees it brings. One of my friends an young Jansangh volunteer in those shameful years of emergency was hounded by Mrs Gandhi's police and had to evade them through a variety of disguises. Just why her police was interested in this bright engineering graduate has so far remained a mystery. He would not say anything to me when he was on the run and even after Morarji Desai's government took over.
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