On April 25, 2003, The Hindu wrote an editorial that inter alia stated, ‘‘With each passing day, the Jayalalithaa administration in Tamil Nadu seems to be scaling new heights of intolerance. The crude use of state power against various sections including political opponents and the independent media shows a contempt for the democratic spirit that is deeply disturbing.’’ This was a statement of truth and it hurt. The ‘‘empire’’ struck back with a vehemence typical of autocratic regimes. Recent unilateral efforts by the newspaper’s editor-in-chief to ‘‘mend fences’’ with the ruling dispensation obviously did not work. The scenario was indeed intimidating. The sentence of imprisonment followed by repeated entry of the at the editorial premises of the newspaper at Chennai, nocturnal visits to the homes of senior journalists. Then the Bangalore spectacle — crudely intercepting the car carrying the families of the editor-in-chief and joint managing director and pulling out the latter on mistaken identity. Do we have a parallel for these terrible happenings? Indeed yes, a full 28 years ago, when the president proclaimed ‘‘Internal Emergency’’ on the midnight of 25-26 June 1975. Being victims of the Emergency regime, senior leaders of the BJP and the NDA keep benchmarking the ‘‘Hindu episode’’ with that experience. When told about the episode, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani is said to have expressed concern and recalled the Emergency. The reaction of Defence Minister George Fernandes was more forthright, ‘‘What is happening to The Hindu and its editors is something that had not happened even during the dark days of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency.’’ Three decades on, why does this phenomenon called the Emergency continue to loom large? Why does the ghost refuse to go away? Perhaps because it had such a far-reaching impact. It ripped apart India’s delicately-crafted democratic fabric. At its core, the Emergency was about violation of the democratic spirit and crude attempts to legitimise a new type of regime and new criteria of allocation of rights and obligations. At issue were the abrogation of restraint in the exercise of power, the striking growth of arbitrariness and arrogance with which citizens were turned into mere subjects. And the abject surrender of the legislative, executive and judicial wings to this despicable scheme. As Rajni Kothari put it, ‘‘It was a state off-limits, a government that hijacked the whole edifice of the state, a ruling party and leader who in effect treated the state as their personal estate. It was the imposition of a highly concentrated apparatus of power on a fundamentally free society and the turning over of this centralised apparatus for personal survival and aggrandisement.’’ The tragedy is such a ‘‘style of power mongering and misgovernance’’ still persists in many parts, as if it came through the baptism of the Emergency. Tamil Nadu is perhaps its worst manifestation. Deeply aggrieved and devoid of faith in the state-specific institutions of the governor and the high court, the ‘‘journalistic family’’ and political parties have rushed to the government of India and the Supreme Court. If the past is any indication, only temporary relief — it has already come in the shape of ‘‘stay of arrests’’ — can be expected. Nothing more. This is because the ‘‘Emergency type’’ excesses in Tamil Nadu are in large part due to laxity or complicity on the part of the central government and institutions such as the National Human Rights Commission. The central government did nothing worthwhile to enforce the rule of law in the wake of the midnight arrest of former chief minister M. Karunanidhi in mid-2001 and registration of cases against two Union ministers. There is also no trace of action on the petition filed before the NHRC alleging gross violation of human rights. Soon thereafter, the NDA government gifted POTA to the states. This enabled the Tamil Nadu police to lock up, among others, an MP and a magazine editor without trial for several months. Except empty noises and a feeble attempt to vest some powers in the POTA review committee, the Centre did little. Other fortuitous factors too have encouraged the Tamil Nadu government to go on the ‘‘Emergency’’ fast track. These include inordinate delays in judicial pronouncements on POTA and the appeal in the TANSI case, which has huge bearing. In the case of the dismissal of 200,000 government employees, the first reaction of the apex court was to pat the Tamil Nadu government and, later, effect a wholesale ban on strikes! When a division bench of the Madras High Court granted bail to POTA detainee Nakkeeran Gopal, the Supreme Court cancelled it by overturning an earlier judgment of the same court on the subject. As seen, events in the recent past have encouraged the Tamil Nadu government to enter the ‘‘Emergency era’’ defiantly, through the front door and in full public view. This seems to be part of a disturbing agenda being pursued by a communal-corrupt combine operating at several levels. It is futile for central ministers to cry hoarse, ‘‘This is something we cannot accept in any way. Just as the Emergency, this too will have to be fought.’’ For a start, withdraw POTA. It provides the tools of Emergency-type governance. (The author is a former IAS officer and has just released his book on the Emergency, 1975-77)
