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 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 this resistance. 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 T.V. Rajeswar, former Intelligence Bureau [IB] chief who was the deputy chief of IB when Emergency was imposed. Interestingly, Shiv Sena, the Hindutva co-traveler of the RSS, openly supported the Emergency.
The narrative by Prabhash Joshi appeared in the article, “And Not Even a Dog Barked” published in the English weekly Tehelka on the 25th anniversary of the Emergency. According to him even during the Emergency “there was always a lurking sense of suspicion, a distance, a discreet lack of trust” about the RSS joining the anti-Emergency struggle. He went on to say 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: “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] corroborates the above account that the RSS was supportive of the emergency. In an interview with Karan Thapar, Rajeswar discloses 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.”[1]
In the same interview, Rajeswar also shared the fact that even after Emergency the “organisation (RSS) had specifically conveyed its support to the Congress in the post-emergency elections.” It will be interesting to note that according to Subramanian Swamy also says that most of the senior leaders of RSS had betrayed the struggle against the Emergency.[2]
The contemporary documents in the RSS archives prove the narratives of Prabhash Joshi and Rajeswar to be 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”.[3]
Indira Gandhi did not respond to it. So Deoras wrote another letter to her on November 10, 1975. He began his letter with congratulating her on being cleared by the Supreme Court of disqualification 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 the opposition was firmly of the opinion that this judgment had been ‘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 . . .”[4]
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 the Acharya should suggest the way of getting the ban on RSS removed.[5] Since Vinoba Bhave too did not respond to his letter, Deoras in another undated letter 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.”[6]
Despite this betrayal of the anti-Emergency struggle, 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 5,000 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.
Interestingly, in the case of anti-British freedom struggle, there is not a single RSS cadre who has claimed the freedom fighter pension.
Editor’s note: Prabhash Joshi also writes in the above mentioned article: “Who were the main actors during the Emergency? The socialists, young and old. They fought it, went to jail, faced torture. George Fernandes was a protagonist of rebellion: the dynamite case is a clear example. JP clearly said that this struggle is like revisiting the 1942 movement: when the freedom struggle’s leaders were arrested, the people of India rose in revolt; in dozen places people even established their own government. The socialists fought the Emergency, the RSS did not.”
[1] “RSS backed Indira Gandhi’s Emergency: Ex-IB chief”, September 21, 2015, https://www.indiatoday.in.
[2] Kira_Stery, “Double Game of Senior RSS Leaders during Emergency”, April 9, 2017, https://medium.com.
[3] Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras, Hindu Sangathan aur Sattavaadi Rajneeti, Jagriti Prkashan, Noida, 1997, p. 270.
[4] Ibid., pp. 272–73.
[5] Ibid., 275–77.
[6] Ibid., p. 278.
(Shamsul Islam is a retired Professor of University of Delhi.)
