JOIN USAt least the “resurrected” version of the panel’s report in a new format by veteran former MP Era Sezhiyan’s “Shah Commission Report, Lost and Regained,” has an odd mystical similarity with the tussle between Lord Ganesh and his brother Murugan for the “divine mango of knowledge.”
The legend as recounted in the Purana speaks of sage Narada bringing the mango fruit and giving it to Shiva in Kailash. But a contest is set for the Lord’s two sons—Ganesh and Murugan—that whoever encircled the Universe thrice first would get the fruit.
Murugan speeds through the universe thrice on his peacock. But a more pragmatic Ganesh circumambulates Lord Shiva and Parvathy thrice, as their parents are believed to identical with the universe itself and thus wins the fruit. A parallel to this tale was drawn by the former MP during the launch of his new book on the Shah Commission Report on the Emergency by senior BJP leader L K Advani.
Sezhiyan explained why he undertook this task now of compiling and editing the Commission’s three-volume report submitted to the government way back in 1978.
Former civil servant M G Devasayaham, who took care of Jayaprakash Narayan when he was deputy commissioner in Chandigarh during the Emergency days, had been moving heaven and earth for the past several months through RTI applications to get some original documents related to the Proclamation of Emergency, for a detailed work.
But the Centre’s dilly-dallying was enough to vex Devasahayam. When Sezhiyan came to know about the former IAS officer’s plight and of another RTI activist Agarwal’s vain effort, he began to dig up his library for the Shah Commission Report.
After the Congress Government in 1980 reportedly withdrew all the copies of that report, only two copies were said to have existed—in a library each in London and Australia, respectively. As Sezhiyan’s library had all the three volumes, he felt that for the benefit of a whole new generation, this was the best moment to re-publish the same with his introduction as a constitutional expert.
The Shah Commission report has incorporated the key documents that Devasahayam had been hunting for from the National archives, like Murugan encircling the Universe thrice. But Sezhiyan, like Lord Ganesh, just went round his own library and got the “fruit” he wanted.