Jailed during Emergency, Uttar Pradesh Speaker goes down memory lane

Uttar Pradesh Assembly Hriday Narayan Dixit recalls how a jailor at Unnao prison changed his tone towards him as the results of the 1977 Lok Sabha elections came in, toppling Indira Gandhi after two years of Emergency.

The jailor had caught him listening to the poll results as they came in early in the morning on a transistor radio he had “somehow managed” to bring into the jail’s barrack number 21.

The jailor used abusive language and warned that he may be shifted to the Naini Central Jail. Dixit turned down the volume.

Two hours later, when it became clear that Gandhi had been defeated, the same official was referring to Dixit in a respectful manner, even calling him ‘maananiye”.

“Abey sey hum sir ho gaye,” he told PTI, remembering how instead of the derogatory "abey", he was being called “sir”.

Dixit, 74, was the general secretary of Jana Sangh’s Unnao unit general secretary when Emergency was declared in 1975. He spent almost its entire duration in jail.

Recalling his experience on the 45 anniversary of the Emergency, the politician equated it with the suspension of personal liberties in Nazi Germany, claiming that the then prime minister Indira Gandhi took her cue from Adolf Hitler.

He appeared to refer to the Enabling Act passed in Germany in 1933, giving Hitler dictatorial powers.

"In 1933, Hitler imposed Emergency in Germany, and the torture, which he unleashed there, the same was done in India during the Emergency,” he said.

“Indira Gandhi got the motivation from Hitler,” he said.

Dixit did not agree with the opposition charge that an Emergency-like situation prevailed now in the country.

"At this point of time, there is an India-China stand-off, and Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other leaders are speaking whatever they want to speak. The media is writing whatever it wants. During the 1975 Emergency, there was a complete ban on the press. How can there be an Emergency today? This is only a political statement,” he said.

He recalled there were a little over 100 political prisoners to begin with in barrack number 21, where he was lodged. But only about 20 remained by the time the Emergency ended.

For the first five or six months, his family was not allowed to meet him as officials feared he will “exchange information” with them.

Dixit’s father met him almost after a year and was not able to recognise him. The reason: “Unlike others, my health had improved.”

He weighed about 55 kg when he went in, and within months was 70 kg, Dixit recalled, saying he added bulk because there was no daily routine to follow inside.

Also recalling the “black day”, UP's Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi said, “The entire country had turned into a jail with prominent opposition leaders being sent behind bars.”

“My father Rajendra Kishor Shahi and my uncle Ravindra Kishor Shahi were lodged in jail under MISA. I was booked under DIR,” he said, referring to the Maintenance of Internal Security Act and the Defence of India Rules.

“I was a student then and had come to Deoria. There were raids at my residence. I was suspended by the vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu University."

"An FIR was lodged against us that we had damaged telephone cables and uprooted railway tracks," the minister said.

Samajwadi Party leader and former MLA from Lucknow Central assembly constituency Ravidas Mehrotra was lodged in Lucknow Jail and later shifted to Bareilly prison during the Emergency.

“We were sent to jail as we had hatched a conspiracy to topple the government of Indira Gandhi. Torture was inflicted upon us. Initially, we could not meet anyone and the food given to us was very bad," he said.

"Almost the same situation which existed in the country at the time of the 1975 Emergency prevails now," the opposition leader claimed.

Mitthulal Kashyap, who works in a sweet shop in Lucknow's Charbagh area, has a different set of memories.

"I remember hospitals, trains and platforms used to be very tidy. Trains used to run dot on time so much so that one could set one's watch by their arrival and departure times."

On the Emergency anniversary in 2018, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh had increased the “Loktantra Senani” pension from Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 per month. This goes to people who spent time in jail during the Emergency.