Curbs on freedom exist

 In remembering the Emergency, one cannot afford to forget that it can happen again in a different, subtler form.

Forty years have passed since the imposition of the Emergency. Since India’s Independence, it probably ranks among the top five political occurrences that have affected the country deeply. For at least 38 years since then, June 25 has come and gone without much ado. Yet, this year, there has been a blanket coverage of the infamous event. The media, across all streams, has gone to town blaring the subversion of democracy and describing the period as the country’s darkest, the blame for which lies squarely on the Congress party. 

Stories, ranging from first person accounts to analyses, interviews and recounts of some of the already much-told instances of the excesses during that period, have been hogging media space. Not that people have ever forgotten the period of dictatorship between June 25, 1975 and March 21, 1977. Point is: Why the sudden deluge of Emergency stories?  Usually, events are either remembered on the completion of the first year, or a decade. This is followed by reminiscences during the 25th year, 50th, 100th and so on.

But, 40 is a rather odd timeframe to remember an event so extensively. The inescapable subtext is: Hammer the architect of the Emergency – the Congress party, paint it as the country’s eternal villain and warn of the dangers it poses if it is allowed back into power.
No one need be surprised if the entire exercise, that of flooding the media with Emergency stories was a well-thought out strategy of sections close to the BJP government. As it happens, and known to those who have studied the media psyche, a couple of stories are enough to set the ball rolling.

Each media establishment looks across at the competitor and repeats exactly what the other does. Once the rat race begins, those who initiated the process can relax. The media will do the job for them. The Emergency has always been a live story, it has fascinated the media and its news-making potential has never depreciated. 

The coverage, however, largely tends to project the Emergency as a standalone event rather than as part of a continuous process of the evolution of a fledgling democracy. The Emergency exposed certain flaws in the constitutional make up (through the 42nd amendment to the Constitution) that were sought to be rectified by the subsequent Janata Party government in 1977-78 (by replacing the 42nd amendment with the 44th amendment).   

Today, it is well nigh impossible for another politician to do exactly what then prime minister Indira Gandhi did in imposing the Emergency. But that does not mean that the country is entirely safe from individuals who could harbour a dictatorial streak. As senior BJP leader L K Advani told a media interviewer, “I do not see any sign in our polity that assures me any outstanding aspect of leadership. A commitment to democracy and to all other aspects related to democracy is lacking."  

Safeguards at the present time are not enough to prevent another Emergency, he is quoted as saying. Among other flaws, there seems to be space within the construct of the Indian state that allows the Central government, in particular, to wilfully interfere in the functioning of organisations that are meant to function autonomously.

The Indian Council of Historical Research, the Indian Institutes of Management, the Indian Institutes of Technology,  the Film and Television Institute of India and the Censor Board, to name a few, have all been encroached upon by the BJP since coming to power last year. The irony is that the Narendra Modi government which aims to benefit from the Emergency story is actually working in ways that seeks to neutralise, dilute, and if possible, destroy the integrity and autonomy of these institutions, all of which have an excellent track record.

Derailed autonomy
Once autonomy is derailed, freedoms are curbed and the erosion gets entrenched, it is a Herculean task to get it reversed. Sections of the ruling elite are bound to develop a vested interest in keeping it that way. Take fake encounters, for example. This highly regressive form of cold-blooded killings indulged in by security forces, including the police, was one of the excesses that was exposed after the Emergency. But that has not stopped the practice.

On the contrary, fake encounters have become routine and acceptable, even if not sanctioned by law. This method of unlawful killings continues to thrive despite protests by citizens’ groups, civil liberties associations and the intervention of the judiciary. What is even more alarming is that fake encounters have been glorified in many Indian films across several languages. Encounter Daya Nayak (Kannada), Vanchinathan (Tamil), Golimar (Telugu) and Ab Tak Chhappan (Hindi) are some of these.

The extension to fake encounters is the periodic arrest of people on a claimed suspicion of terrorist activity only to be released after an extended detention without any charge.  The prosecuting agencies have rarely been held accountable for these detentions.

Worryingly, people seem to have internalised curbs on freedom and even accepting of it. For instance, the challenge to article 66A of the Information Technology Act came only after some were brazenly jailed for arguably innocuous reasons. The arrest of Aseem Trivedi for his cartoons lampooning Parliament, the incarceration of two girls who posted on Facebook a mildly critical view on the bandh that followed the death of Shiv Sena strongman Bal Thackeray and the arrest of a couple of students who criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media were reminiscent of the Emergency.

In remembering the Emergency, one cannot afford to forget that it can happen again in a different, subtler form. Or that it may already be happening without a grand announcement. This possibility, unfortunately, seems to have got drowned out in the media blitz.