Cong book calls emergency Indira’s “monumental mistake”

Congress has,however,described the views expressed in this fifth volume of Congress history brought out by a group of editors,headed by senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee,as those of the individual writers and historians that cannot be taken as party views.

In the preface to the book,Mukherjee noted that Congress desired the volume to be edited and contributed by experts in order to generate an “objective and scholarly perspective for the period under review and “not necessarily have a party perspective”.

The book,which was brought out to commemorate 125 years of the party,has in its various chapters contributed by independent authors,analysed the events from 1964 to 1984 in which Indira Gandhi dominated the political scene of the country. “There is no question that emergency was a sordid chapter in independent India’s history and a 19-month nightmare for all those who lived through it…it took an excruciatingly long time to flush out of the body politic the emergency had pumped into the system,” columnist Inder Malhotra says in his article,Indira Gandhi an overview.

“Since all her confidants,especially her increasingly powerful son Sanjay had ruled out her withdrawal from office ‘even for a day’,the hammer blow of emergency and Indira’ monumental mistake had become inevitable…Sanjay and his cohorts had made elaborate preparations for Emergency in total secrecy,” Malhotra says.

The comments have been made while narrating the sequel of the events leading to the imposition of Emergency after the Allahabad High Court judgement disqualifying her election to the Lok Sabha.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari downplayed the issue saying,”The book begins with two disclaimers that the views of the authors are not representatives of the views of Congress. If at all there is some author who has come to a conclusion which cannot be purported to be the conclusion of the party,we do not subscribe to those views.”

In another chapter of the book ‘JP Movement and the Emergency’,historian Bipan Chandra says,”Sanjay Gandhi and his cronies like Bansi Lal,Minister of Defence at the time,were keen on postponing elections and prolonging the emergency by several years…In October-November 1976,an effort was made to change the basic civil libertarian structure of the Indian Constitution thorough the 42nd amendment to it.

“….The most important changes were designed to strengthen the executive at the cost of the judiciary,and thus disturb the carefully crafted system of Constitutional checks and balance between the three organs of the government.”

Chandra says Emergency centralised and concentrated unlimited state and party power in the hands of the Prime Minister to be exercised in an “authoritarian manner” through a small coterie of politicians and bureaucrats. Chandra says,”Having emasculated Congress party and having no other organisation to rely upon (Indira) Gandhi,the central and state governments depended almost entirely on bureaucracy and police both for routine administration of the 20-point programme and family planning programmes.”

The author has noted that the Emergency becoming a permanent feature seemed a possibility with the “rise to power of Sanjay Gandhi and his coterie”,their assumption of extra-constitutional authority and further “concentration,subversion and misuse of power”,together with the increasing eclipse of institutions and the accompanying excesses.

“It was bound to happen once checks on the executive’s exercise of powers diminished. The regime began to act more and more outside the constitutional,administrative framework and law. This process reached its zenith with the emergence of an extra-constitutional centre of power associated with the rise to political and administrative power of Mrs Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay Gandhi,who held no office in the government or the party,” the book notes.

Describing as the “parallel authority” which Sanjay Gandhi had assumed by 1976,Chandra says he was “courted,consulted and obeyed by cabinet ministers,Congress party leaders chief ministers.”

“…large rallies were organised for him. Sycophancy of Congress leaders sometimes crossed all boundaries of decency. Sanjay wielded this extra-constitutional power both in government and the party,through a coterie that soon came up around him….”

Sanjay Gandhi hardly had “any political or administrative experience,or academic or any other achievement”,Chandra has noted in the book,adding that despite not having any official position in the government or the party,he “interfered at will in the working of the government or administration.”

He says,”The development of the extra-constitutional power at the Centre was also manifested in the growth of the non-official institution of Prime Minister’s House,which comprised a small caucus consisting of Sanjay Gandhi,Bansi Lal and R K Dhawan aided by a small carefully chosen secretariat.”

Noting that Congress party was not equipped to deal with the Emergency and there was no worthwhile political organisation with the party for it,Chandra also says “nor did she or Sanjay Gandhi trust the average Congressman who remained a mute spectator”.

While tracing the rise of Sanjay Gandhi,the book says that the Youth Congress,of which he was the defacto in-charge,had begun to built up as a rival centre of political power vis-a-vis Congress.

“Sanjay Gandhi was right-wing,anti communist and authoritarian in his outlook…RSS’s Hindi organ,Panchjanya,also welcomed in December 1975 the emergence of Sanjay Gandhi as a youth leader,” it says.

Commenting on family planning and slum-clearance programmes put forward by him in 1976,Chandra says that this led to some of the “worst excesses of the Emergency and contributed significantly to the unpopularity of the regime.”

Chandra opines that Indira Gandhi’s total domination over the party not only eroded the power of her cabinet colleagues,chief ministers,party presidents and other senior party leaders,but also left no institutional or personal breakwaters for sharing the blame for failure in policies and administration.

“Gandhi and others were now completely cut off from public sentiment or reliable information as all lines of communication except those of intelligence agencies and sycophants got blocked,” he said.

Noting that an inherent defect of an authoritarian regime is its inability to control arbitrary behaviour of its instruments especially at the lower level,the books says that the rule of law virtually disappeared and the Emergency rule became in time a bureaucracy cum police raj.

The historian said that Gandhi’s crucial weakness as a political leader lay in the absence of any strategic design and long-term perspective around which her economic,political and administration policies were framed.

In his write-up Inder Malhotra,however,says,”Like all human beings,she (Indira Gandhi) had her share of flaws and failings. As Prime Minister for more than 15 years in two innings,she did make mistakes,some of them serious,and a few with lasting effects.”

Comparing the Emergency with identical situations in other countries,he says,”Ugly though the Emergency undoubtedly was,in all fairness India under it was never anything like Germany under Hitler,the Soviet Union under Stalin,China under Mao or Pakistan under Zia-ul- Haque.”