We have just passed November 19, late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's birthday. While we recall her tempestuous political career that started in 1959 when she became the Congress president and ended in her assassination in October 1984, the period of Internal Emergency that was promulgated on June 26 1975 and ended just before the March 1977 general election grips the mind. For, this marks the gloomiest phase of her chequered political journey with the sparkling Indian victory in the 1971 Bangladesh war under her awe-inspiring command touching off the zenith of the see-saw.
How the Emergency came about is now history. Justice Jag Mohan lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court on June 12 1975 unseated Indira Gandhi from the Parliament while debarring her from holding any elective post for the next six years over a petition filed by Raj Narain who had lost the election at Rae Bareli to Indira Gandhi during 1971 general election. The judgment held her guilty of two corrupt practices during the election. First, she had used a government servant, a special duty officer in the PM's secretariat, to further her election prospects and second, she had obtained help from UP officials to build rostrums from where she had addressed her election rallies.
The judgment came as a veritable bombshell on the country's political landscape. It was decried by many who dubbed it as unseating a PM for no more than a traffic offence while others opined that she must quit in keeping with the dignity of Parliament and the judiciary. However, it gave the Opposition a handle to go all out against her, demanding she must quit. Indira Gandhi kept on wavering on what to do, whether to sacrifice power for propriety or to cling to power, ignoring propriety. At this critical juncture, her younger son Sanjay came up on the scene, coaxing his embattled mother not to resign. A string of events following one another in a maddening pace finally culminated in the declaration of Internal Emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution on the intervening night of June 25 and 26. Several prominent Opposition leaders, including Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Nanaji Desmukh, A B Vajpayee and l K Advani were put behind prison bars under the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA). Besides, the Press was gagged by strict adherence to censorship rules enforced under the Internal Emergency provisions.
Indira felt relieved after peace and order was restored and elated with 'no dog found barking' at the 'smothering' of democracy. Now, she felt it was time to settle scores with those in her party who had the spunk to challenge her leadership, overtly or covertly. Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, then UP chief minister, proved to be the first among the CMs to be put on the sacrificial altar. He had fallen from the grace of the redoubtable mother-son duo because of his suspected ambition to emerge as a national leader, throwing gauntlet to the reign of the dynasty. Indira was particularly hostile to him because they hailed from the same state, Uttar Pradesh. She had decided to axe him from the chief ministership much earlier, but the escalating political crisis dogging her delayed things. Posters that had appeared after Congress's victory in 1974 UP Assembly election with Bahuguna's pictures figuring in them had incurred her wrath.
There was another reason that was supposed to have precipitated things. Some close to her discovered that Bahuguna had engaged four tantriks to have Indira and Sanjay annihilated. Two of them were arrested under MISA at the instance of then Madhya Pradesh chief minister, P C Sethi, a die-hard acolyte of the reigning dynasty.
According to the veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, Bahuguna dubbed it as preposterous, saying that an elderly Vaid (Ayurvedic practitioner) who had treated many senior Congress leaders might have been mistaken for a tantrik (The Judgement).
Bahuguna stepped down on November 29. After putting in his papers, he sought an appointment with Indira Gandhi only to be refused. He could not have gone for a statement clarifying his stance either, given the pre- censorship.
N D Tiwari replaced Bahuguna as the UP chief minister at the instance of Sanjay Gandhi. Most of the important UP leaders were opposed to him. But Sanjay thrust Tiwari - nicknamed as New Delhi Tiwari - down their gullets because he perfectly fitted the bill of the party's number two leader. Sanjay was determined to rule UP through Tiwari, the state being the most important one having 85 lok Sabha seats (before its bifurcation and formation of Uttarakhand in 2000). Things happened as Sanjay wished. The entire Tiwari cabinet used to parade before him in utter reverence whenever the 'deified' leader arrived in lucknow and when he departed.