Remembering the Emergency

L K Advani had famously chastised Indian media during the Emergency, saying: “You were asked only to bend, but you crawled.” It should have ideally covered some spineless politicians too. During the Emergency, thousands were put in jail and no one knew when the dark era would end.

My political activist father K R Sundar Rajan, who was also a journalist working for a national English daily in Mumbai and would write articles for the foreign press too, was picked up at night and taken to Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai. His prison mates under MISA were smugglers Haji Mastan and Sukhar Narayan Bakhia. My father said Haji Mastan was having a grand time in the jail with home food and choicest liquor. He offered this fare to my father who said thanks but as "I am a state guest, I have to refuse, though I am highly tempted."

Others in the prison of irreproachable character were Mrinal Gore and P W Khandekar, an HR Manager at an MNC. They were held in the Baroda Dynamite Case. One of the charges against my father too was participating in this case— although he didn't know the difference between dynamite and cigarette sticks.

One night when my dad was in prison, his dear friend and professional colleague Abdul Hameed, press secretary to the then President, visited us. He said that he was on an official tour and used the opportunity to give us a morale booster. I must say the government official had some guts.

My father’s media house stopped his salary but some of his colleagues passed the hat around. They would call me to meet them at a different restaurant and without much ado, I would be clandestinely handed an envelope containing the salary.

The tangible provocation to jail my father was his final signed article in the foreign press after many in assumed names. He was followed and his colleagues in Mumbai handed over his mail to the authorities. My mother was grilled Gestapo style till she broke down but would not and could not help the investigators as she was not familiar with the names of foreign editors and their publications which the questioners reeled off at her.

How does this sordid tale of the loss of freedoms end? The Emergency was lifted by Mrs Gandhi whose coterie of advisors felt it was a grand success. Trains were on time, people were not complaining. Elections were announced. This overconfidence was misplaced. The Congress was trounced. The Indian voters had proved their maturity despite all odds.