ON
44TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EMERGENCY IN INDIA:
HOW
RSS BETRAYED THE ANTI-EMERGENCY STRUGGLE
National
Emergency was imposed on the country by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on
June 25-26, 1975, and it lasted for 19 months. This period is considered as
''dark times' for Indian democratic polity. Indira Gandhi claimed that due to
Jaiprakash Narayan's call to the armed forces to disobey the 'illegal' orders
of Congress rulers had created a situation of anarchy and there was danger to
the existence of Indian Republic so there was no alternative but to impose
Emergency under article 352 of the Constitution.
RSS
claims that it opposed Emergency promulgated by Indira Gandhi heroically and suffered immensely for
resisting Emergency. But there are dozens of contemporary narratives which dispute
and decry this claim of the RSS. We will be referring here to such two
narratives by a veteran thinker and journalist of India, Prabhash Joshi and TV Rajeswar,
former Intelligence Bureau [IB] chief
who was the deputy chief of IB when Emergency was imposed. They recounted
the days of Emergency (or state terrorism) when RSS surrendered to the
repressive regime of Indira Gandhi, assured her and her son, Sanjay Gandhi to
enforce faithfully the draconian 20-point programme announced by the Emergency
regime. Large number of RSS cadres came out of jails by submitting MAAFINAMAAS
(mercy petitions).
Despite
all this betrayal thousands of RSS cadres continue to get monthly pension for
persecution during Emergency. The BJP ruled states like Gujarat, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra decided to award a monthly pension of Rs
10,000 to those who were jailed during the Emergency period for more than a
month and Rs 5000 to those who were jailed for less than a month. This rule
took care of the financial interest of those RSS cadres who might have submitted
mercy letters completing only one or two months' jail term. For securing such a
fat pension there was no such condition that the beneficiary should have been
in jail for the whole period of the
Emergency.
Interestingly,
in the case of anti-British freedom struggle there has not been even a single
RSS cadre to claim the freedom fighter pension. It may be noted that nobody
remembers hundreds of Communist youth, branded as Naxals who were killed in
fake encounters during the Emergency. Interestingly, Shiv Sena , the Hindutva
co-traveler of the RSS openly supported the Emergency.
The
narrative by Prabhash Joshi appeared in the English weekly TEHELKA on the 25th
anniversary of the Emergency.[i]
According to him even during the Emergency "there was always a lurking sense of suspicion, a
distance, a discreet lack of trust" about RSS' joining the anti-Emergency
struggle. He went on to tell that "Balasaheb Deoras, then RSS chief, wrote
a letter to Indira Gandhi pledging to help implement the notorious 20-point
programme of Sanjay Gandhi. This is the real character of the RSS...You can
decipher a line of action, a pattern. Even during the Emergency, many among the
RSS and Jana Sangh who came out of the jails, gave mafinamas (apologies). They
were the first to apologise. Only their leaders remained in jail: Atal Behari
Vajpayee, LK Advani, even Arun Jaitley. But the RSS did not fight the
Emergency. So why is the BJP trying to appropriate that memory?"
Prabhash Joshi's conclusion was that "they are not a fighting force
and they are never keen to fight. They are basically a compromising lot. They
are never genuinely against the government".
TV Rajeswar,
who served as Governor of Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim after his retirement from
service, in his book, 'India: The Crucial Years” [Harper Collins]
corroborated the fact that "Not only they (RSS) were supportive of this
[Emergency], they wanted to establish contact apart from Mrs Gandhi, with
Sanjay Gandhi also".[ii] Rajeswar
in an interview with Karan Thapar disclosed that Deoras "quietly
established a link with the PM's house and expressed strong support for several
steps taken to enforce order and discipline in the country. Deoras was keen to
meet Mrs. Gandhi and Sanjay. But Mrs. Gandhi refused."[iii]
According to Rajeswar's
book, “RSS, a right-wing Hindu nationalist organisation, was banned in the wake
of the Emergency. But its chief, Balasaheb Deoras, quietly established a link
with the PM’s house and expressed strong support to several steps taken to
enforce order and discipline in the country. Sanjay Gandhi’s
concerted drive to enforce family planning, particularly among Muslims, had
earned Deoras’s approbation.”[iv]
Rajeswar also shared the
fact that even after Emergency the "organization (RSS) had specifically
conveyed its support to the Congress in the post-emergency elections."[v] It
will be interesting to note that even according to Subramanian Swamy in the
Emergency period; most of the senior leaders of RSS had betrayed the struggle
against the Emergency.[vi]
The contemporary
documents in the RSS archives prove the narratives of Prabhash Joshi and
Rajeswar truthful. The 3rd Supremo of RSS, Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras wrote
the first letter to Indira Gandhi within two months of the imposition of
Emergency. It was the time when state terror was running amok. In letter dated,
August 22, 1975 he began with the following praise of Indira:
"I heard your
address to the nation which you delivered on August 15, 1975 from Red Fort on
radio in jail [Yervada jail] with attention. your address was timely and balanced
so I decided to write to you".[vii]
Indira Gandhi did not
respond to it. So Deoras wrote another letter to Indira on November 10, 1975.
He began his letter with congratulating her on being cleared by the Supreme
Court of disqualification which was ordered by the Allahabad High Court,
"All the five Justices of the Supreme Court have declared your election
constitutional, heartiest greetings for it." It is to be noted that
opposition was firmly of the opinion that this judgment was 'managed' by the Congress.
In the course of the letter he declared that "RSS has been named in
context of Jaiprakash Narayan's movement. The government has also connected RSS
with Gujarat movement and Bihar movement without any reason...Sangh has no
relation with these movements..."[viii]
Since Indira Gandhi did
not respond to this letter also, RSS chief got hold of Vinoba Bhave who
supported the Emergency religiously and was a favourite of Indira Gandhi. In a
letter dated January 12, 1976, he begged that Acharya should suggest the way
that ban on RSS was removed.[ix] Since Acharya too did not respond to Deoras
letter, the latter in another letter without date wrote in desperation,
"According to press
reports respected PM [Indira Gandhi] is going to meet you at Pavnar Ashram on
January 24. At that time there will be discussion about the present condition
of the country. I beg you to try to remove the wrong assumptions of PM about
RSS so that ban on RSS is lifted and RSS members are released from jails. We
are looking forward for the times when RSS and its members are able to contribute
to the plans of progress which are being run in all the fields under the
leadership of PM."[x]
Riding the
juggernaut of the rulers, specially the autocratic ones has been an old
practice in RSS. It was the reason that no leader and cadre of RSS participated
in the anti-colonial freedom struggle. In fact, the RSS worships brute force
and totalitarianism. The most prominent ideologue of the RSS, 2nd boss of the organization,
Golwalkar decreed as back as 1940 that “The RSS inspired by one flag,
one leader and one ideology is lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every
corner of this great land.”[xi]
The former President of the Indian
Republic, Pranab Mukherjee was invited by the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat as the
chief guest in 2018 at the graduation ceremony of its new recruits who would be
working over-time to convert India into a Hindu state. Pranab Mukherjee was
indicted as one of the top leaders of Congress for Emergency excesses. Shamsul
Islam
June 25, 2019.
notoinjustice@gmail.com
For some of S. Islam's writings in English,
Hindi, Marathi,
Malayalam,
Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu & Gujarati see the following link:
Facebook: shams shamsul
Twitter: @shamsforjustice
[i]
http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main13.asp?filename=op070205And_Not_Even.asp
[ii]
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/rss-backed-indira-gandhis-emergency-ex-ib-chief-264127-2015-09-21
[iii] Ibid.
[iv]
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/ib-ex-chiefs-book-rss-chief-deoras-had-backed-some-emergency-moves/
[v]
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/RSS-backed-Emergency-reveals-former-IB-chief/articleshow/49052143.cms
[vi]
https://medium.com/@hindu.nationalist1/double-game-of-senior-rss-leaders-during-emergency-74abc07a4fa8
[vii] Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras,
Hindu Sangathan aur Sattavaadi Rajneeti,
Jagriti Prkashan, Noida, 1997, 270.
[viii] Ibid., 272-73
[ix] Ibid., 275-77.
[x] Ibid., 278.
[xi] MS
Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi),
Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, nd, vol. I, 11.]
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