The Rediff Special / Kuldip Nayar

The sword might have been lowered, but the government wanted to make it clear it had not been sheathed

No editorials appeared in any of the national newspapers. No rallies were organised. Saturday was just another day, even for those who participated in the events of twenty years ago.

Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the day when Indira Gandhi defied conventional wisdom and did the unpredictable. After 19 long months of fear and loathing, she finally revoked the Emergency, called a general election and gave India another chance to assert itself as the world's largest democracy .

In his memorable account of the Emergency and after, The Judgement Kuldip Nayar recalls the memories of another day.

By joining hands they would ensure that the Opposition vote would not be divided; earlier, it was the division that had made the Congress win although it had always polled less than 50 per cent of the votes and, even when it swept the polls in 1971, the percentage was only 46.2.

JP blessed the merger and put the choice before the people in simple terms; it was between democracy and dictatorship, between freedom and slavery. He said that a victory for Mrs Gandhi would mean a victory for dictatorship. And this was what the Joint Front emphasised -- not economic problems.

Mrs Gandhi told the people that her decision to hold elections clearly disproved the charge that she was a dictator. It was the Opposition parties which had now formed a party of 'obscurantism forces' that were responsible for the elections being postponed in the first place -- they had created chaotic conditions to make her postpone the poll.

The Opposition parties did not join issue with her on this point. They formally launched on 23 January the Janata Party. A twenty-seven member national committee, the top decision making body, was constituted. JP had to work hard to bring about the several parties with their conflicting interests and ideologies together; individual leaders had to be persuaded to sink their personal differences in the interest of the nation.

The Opposition parties needed the men to carry the message to people. But their most active workers were still in jail. The leaders met Om Mehta and later Mrs Gandhi to press for the early release of detainees. Both promised that they would be freed, but instructions sent to the states made it clear that they were not to act in haste -- there was no general amnesty and each case must be considered separately; decisions should be referred to the Centre before they were acted upon.

The purpose was to keep as many Opposition workers in jail as long as it was possible without seeming to be indulging in unfair election practices.

The relaxation of the Emergency and press censorship was also halfhearted. The sword might have been lowered, but the government wanted to make it clear that it had not been sheathed; it should be seen and feared. And seen and feared it was, at least for a time. There was still such terror that the Jana Sangh went to the extent of saying that it might boycott the elections if the Emergency was not withdrawn, detenus released and press censorship completely lifted.

There was endless discussion at Mrs Gandhi's house on the Emergency and press censorship. Everyone was agreed that there was no question of lifting them; during the election they were certain to inhibit a big turnout, not good for the Congress, and the press from open criticism. And after the election, which the Congress was sure to win, they could be reimposed quickly. Scrapping them now would mean that the whole rigmarole of debate and voting in the two Houses of Parliament and approval by the President would have to be gone through again before they could be brought into force once more.

The relaxation of press censorship did not mean that the newspapers were free to publish anything they liked; there was always the Damocles sword of the Publication of Objectionable Matter Act hanging. V C Shukla did not dismantle the censorship apparatus; the officers concerned were told to go round the country to meet editors and warn them that they had better behave. Most papers did behave.

At the first press conference he had addressed at Morarji's house on arrival from Patna, JP felt that the Congress was bound to win, not because it was popular, but because the Opposition parties had been given so little time to reorganise their cadre, raise funds and tell the people what was at stake. No doubt, JP's dream of having a viable alternative party to the Congress in the country appeared to have come true. But he was not confident of its success at the hustings.

The Janata Party sent out feelers to the Akalis in Punjab and found them willing to join hands with it. The CPI-M said that they would not join the new party but they would have an electoral alliance because without civil liberties no economic programme was possible.

This was the line Chandra Shekhar was taking while talking to Congress partymen, once his colleagues, the Marxists and others. In a letter he said, 'The option is very limited: to join the (Congress) bandwagon and claim small personal gains and live in one's make-believe world, to remain silent observers to whatever is happening in society, or to choose to fight along with the forces which have made the basic freedoms and civic rights an article of faith.'

The DMK expressed its willingness to have an adjustment with the Congress (O) in Tamil Nadu. But all parties wanted to contest on their own election symbol, not the BLD's -- a man with a plough on his shoulders, within a wheel -- that the Janata adopted because of the Election Commission's refusal to give it a new symbol.

The Congress also looked for allies and found them in the CPI and in the ADMK in Tamil Nadu. Sanjay did not want to have anything to do with the CPI, against which he had launched a campaign in the newspapers through Samachar, directed by Yunus, only a little earlier. But Mrs Gandhi reassured him that the alliance would be only on Congress terms.

The CPI cadres would be of some help, even if no help was actually needed, for the Congress party was sure of victory. The fear instilled in the minds of the people over twenty months could not be shaken off in two or three; they would vote as they were directed to, for retribution would not be long in coming for those who turned against the party which controlled all the government apparatus.

But soon there were reports that were disquieting for the Congress. People were beginning to shed fear, they were talking against the Emergency and did not mind being singled out. The crowds's mood against the Congress was clear from the response to the Janata's campaign launched on 30 January, Mahatma Gandhi's martyrdom day. There were mammoth rallies, much beyond the expectations of even the Janata leaders, in Delhi, Patna, Jaipur, Kanpur and many other places. The authorities were equally surprised by the response.

In Delhi the rally drew more than 100,000 people while officials had expected only 10,000 or at the most 20,000 to turn up. Morarji addressed it. The rally was on the same Ramlila grounds where, on 25 June 1975, only a few hours before the leaders were arrested and the Emergency declared, JP had addressed another large crowd. That was in summer; now on a wet chilly January evening people listened to the leaders of the Janata Party in pindrop silence and later many queued up to contribute money to the Janata election fund.

Excerpted from The Judgement, by Kuldip Nayar, Vikas, 1977, Rs 8.50, with the author's permission.