Emergency, Sanghparibar and the 'Organiser'

Asok Chattopadhyay

Indira gandhi destroyed the country's democracy by imposing the Emergency in 1975. The entire Sangh Paribar joins the campaign on June 25 every year with this statement. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Emergency. Fifty years of those noto­rious black days. All the leaders of the Sangh Paribar, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have become gibberish and have started selling their age-old and much used propaganda blitz on the streets. But they want to deny the truth repeatedly and consider it a lie. And they want to prove the lies as truth by repeatedly propagating it. This is the age-old policy of fascism. They continue to renew that policy again and again, tirelessly.

In May 1977, Samar Sen, the renowned poet and editor, Frontier, wrote an article under the caption 'The role of the intellec­tual during emergency' where he divulged the information of the meeting of almost 200 intellectuals just two weeks ahead of proclamation of emergency in June 1975. The intellectuals published an antifascist statement. They counted Indira Gandhi progressive and branded the movement launched by Jayprakash Narayan to be a fascist one. And interestingly enough, Indira Gandhi reiterated the statement issued by the intellectuals, hopefully to justify her action. And these intellectuals greeted the emergency whole-heartedly. And almost all of these intellectuals belonged to the then CPI and supporters of the Soviet Russia [1].

By imposing the Emergency, Indira Gandhi banned the RSS, Jana Sangh, Ananda Marg, Jamaat-e-Islami and the Naxalites or the CPI (ML). On the one hand, she arrested and imprisoned her political opponents on a large scale, and on the other hand, she took away the fundamental rights of the people of the country, including freedom of the press, and unleashed a flood of atrocities in the country. Later, the Shah Commission report revealed that 1,20,000 people were arrested across the country during the Emergency. Of these, 34,988 and 75,818 were arrested under the infamous MISA and DISIR Acts, respectively. Of those arrested during this time were: Vijayaraje Scindia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Raj Narain, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, George Fernandes, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Arun Jaitley etc. CPIM leaders like Jyotirmoy Basu and V S Achuthanandan were also arrested. Samar Sen noted that in West Bengal, Dipankar Chakraborty, editor of Aneek, a Bengali monthly journal, Gourkishore Ghosh, an anti-communist writer, were also arrested. Even Jyotirnmoy Dutta, editor of Kolkata could not avoid police handcuff [2].

But what was the role of the RSS leadership during this time? Today, they are not talking about it. They supported Indira Gandhi's imposition of the Emergency. They appealed to Indira Gandhi for the release of the arrested RSS workers, and even agreed to give a bond for their release. Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself was free on parole outside the jail for most of his imprisonment after consulting and negotiating with Indira Gandhi. These are things that the BJP and Sangh leaders are trying to suppress surreptitiously. And at the same time, just not unlike a thief who is caught shouts at others and escapes, confusing others, in the same way, the BJP-RSS people are trying to hide their real nature and role they played then by campaigning loudly against Indira Gandhi, Congress and the Emergency.

On July 7, Prafulla Ketkar, in the RSS mouthpiece Organiser, wrote in the beginning of the 'editorial' entitled Spirit of the Constitution: Real Enemies Versus True Saviours, continuing the old sayings: Fifty years have passed since the dark days of the Emergency. The central government (BJP) is now observing this infamous day (June 25) as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas -the day of the murderous onslaught on the Constitution. By imposing this Emergency, Indira Gandhi, as an ambitious leader, wanted to suppress the selfless leader like JP (Jayprakash Narayan) and nationalist organisation like RSS.

Nowhere in the piece did the scribe mention the active political opposition of the RSS lodged at the time. In this process, the leaders of the Sangh family want to hide their true nature by using old, monotonous and over­used phrases to conceal the truth and mislead the people of the country. To turn the issue around, the scribe then brought up the topic of communists in this editorial and wrote that Jayprakash Narayan and the RSS were continuously fighting against the Emergency and the communists had distanced themselves from the fight against this Emergency[3]. Here, by communists, the RSS people meant the CPIM [4]. Without going into the debate about whether the CPIM was in the forefront of the fight at that time, one can ask how the RSS workers, who were in jail and released on bail by the mercy of Indira Gandhi, were fighting against the Emergency outside.

In an article published on June 25, 2023 in the Janata Weekly Shivasundar wrote: 'It is true that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Jana Sangh, and their affiliate organisations have indeed played a role in the political protests that led to the declaration of a state of Emergency. But it also has to be acknowledged that once it was imposed; leaders of the RSS and the Jana Sangh made secret agreements supporting the Emergency with the very same Indira Gandhi, whom they called a dictator.

The BJP and the Sangh-paribar have been continually attempting to hide the pages of this very embarrassing history, and their opportunistic anti-people activities of the time'.

It may be recalled that on August 22, 1975, RSS chief Madhukar Dattatreya Deoras wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi, requesting her to put an end to all misunderstandings about the RSS and to assure her that the RSS was working only for the betterment of Hindus and was not at all opposed to the Indira-led government. In November 1976, thirty RSS leaders including Madhavrao Mule, Dattapanth Thengari, Moropant Pingle and others wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi stating that if she released all the arrested RSS workers, they would support the Emergency she had declared. This letter they wrote was called the 'Documents of Surrender'. Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself had also instructed the ABVP leaders to beg for an unconditional pardon from Indira Gandhi! [5]

The gist of the prop and cry staged by the RSS: They were the only ones who fought to protect the country's constitution at that time, which is completely inconsistent with historical facts. RSS leader Dattatreya Hosable said that Indira Gandhi herself exposed her hypocrisy by adding the words secularism and socialism to the constitution during the emergency! Not only that, this scribe also writes that in 1949, while presenting the final draft of the constitution, Baba Saheb Ambedkar correctly identified the communists as enemies of the constitution![6] Ambedkar said without hesitation that he did not believe in communism. He even called the Russian communists 'frauds'! However, it is not clear whether he really called the contemporary undivided communists as enemies of the constitution. But what Dr Ambedkar said is quote worthy:

The condemnation of the Constitution largely comes from two-quarters, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Why do they condemn the Constitution? Is it because it is really a bad Constitution? I venture to say 'no'. The Communist Party want a Constitution based upon the principle of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. They condemn the Constitution because it is based upon parliamentary democracy [7].

This editorial report of the Organiser has already been spread across the internet for the widest possible publicity. A report based on this editorial has also been published with great importance in an all-India English newspaper. This state­ment of the RSS has concealed their real role during the Emer­gency and disguised their real position by inventing various rainbow-coloured words.

The dichotomy between the face and the real-show of the BJP and RSS comes quite open when one is informed that Atal Bihari Vajpayee, BJP higher-up and RSS origin, described Indira Gandhi as Ma Durga after India won Pakistan war in 1971. Even, on December 22, 1971, 'the then RSS boss, M S Golwalkar, wrote a congratulatory letter to the Prime Minister reeking of fulsome praise. The biggest measure of credit for this achievement goes to you' [8].

It is very important to expose this cunning trick of the Sangh Paribar. They often hide what they really want and talk about practising some public-interest projects. Then at the right time, the bottle is broken and the bottled monster comes out.

Political science teacher Subhash Palsikar writes in his thought-provoking article entitled 'The Hindi in Hindutva: Debates over Hindutva' have often remained confined to the question of religion. But Hindutva as an ideology and politics should be understood not mere in terms of the Hindu-Muslim question. True, the practical politics of Hindutva obsessively revolves around, and is based on, deep Islamophobia, coupled with anti-minority sentiments and Hindu supremacy. But at the root of it is a more general imagination that democracy means a free play for the majority community. In the case of the language question, too, it would be a mistake to ignore this foundational belief that has shaped Hindutva [9] (Emphasis by-AC).

And the recent examples of the authoritarian practice of Hindutva state power in different parts of the country regarding language are not to be ignored at all. In the meantime, the black snakes of Hindutva fascism are slithering.

Unaware of the depth and true nature of the present-day crisis created, nourished and patronised by the fascist rulers of the BJP government at the behest of the RSS, at this moment, if people are not able to bring forward the struggle of the open road in a united manner, they will have to face a terrible experience in near future.

July 18-21, 2025

References:

1. Samar Sen: Babu Brittanta, Dey's Publishing. Calcutta, 1991 ed. p. 87.
2. Samar Sen: Babu Brittanta, Dey's Publishing. Calcutta, 1991 ed. p. 88
3. Samar Sen wrote of the role of CPIM opposing Indira Gandhi in the year 1971-1972: And what about the CPM's role in the extermination of the Naxalites in I 970-71? It is no use turning out the forgotten cupboards. But a word would not be out of place on the CPM's instant somersault when India's armed forces intervened in the Mujib episode. Anti-Indira at home, but support of the national government in times of conflict with other countries, the CPM has always more or less maintained this Second International stance. —Babu's Tale, Papyrus, Calcutta, 1991, ed. p. 83.
4. Samar Sen wrote: Before emergency, Jyoti Basu, famous leader of CPIM, in a mass-assembly held at the Kolkata Maidan shared the dias with Jayprakash Narayan and oathed that his party would support Jayprakash when the people's rights would be at bay. But during emergency and at the time of the numbers of political leaders' being arrested and when the people were devoid of any democratic right, his partymen were unfound in the streets in any protest movement. -Samar Sen: Babu Brittanta, Dey's Publishing, Calcutta, 1991 ed. p.88.
5. Sivasundar: The Emergency and the Sangh Parivar's Tacit Sup¬port to Indira Gandhi. Janata Weekly, June 29, 2025.
6. The scribe has written : Dr Ambedkar was unmistakable when he called out communists as the enemies of the Constitution while dedicating the final draft to the nation in 1949. Various outfits with allegiance to communism have. —Organizer, July 7, 2025.
7. https://velivada.com/2017/05/08/ communism-democracy-dr-ambedkar/
8. Organiser, June 16, 1973. Quoted in AG Noorani: RSS and the Emergency, Frontline, July 18, 2018.
9. The Indian Express, July 8, 2025.

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