Emergency and RSS

Ram Puniyani

The Union Cabinet passed a resolution condemning the Emergency while praising those who sacrificed opposing this event. It was resolved to “commemorate and honour the sacrifices of countless individuals who valiantly resisted the Emergency and its attempt at subversion of the spirit of the Indian Constitution, a subversion which began in 1974 with a heavy-handed attempt at crushing the Navnirman Andolan and Sampoorna Kranti Abhiyan.” The BJP is putting heavy emphasis on its great role during the 21 months of that period. This matches the claims of RSS that they were the major force opposing the emergency. Like most of its other claims, this one is also devoid of any element of truth.

The search for some of the serious journalists’ efforts and books by some have another tale to tell. Prabhash Joshi, one of the doyens of journalism, wrote, “Balasaheb Deoras, then RSS chief, wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi pledging to help implement the notorious 20-point programme of Sanjay Gandhi. This is the real character of the RSS…You can decipher a line of action, a pattern. Even during the Emergency, many among the RSS and Jana Sangh who came out of the jails gave mafinamas (apology letters). Atal Bihari Vajpayee was [most of the time in hospital]… But the RSS did not fight the Emergency. So why is the BJP trying to appropriate that memory?” He concludes that “they are not a fighting force, and they are never keen to fight. They are basically a compromising lot. They are never genuinely against the government”.

TV Rajeswar, who served as Governor of Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim, penned a book, ‘India: The Crucial Years' [Harper Collins] corroborated the fact that “Not only were they (RSS) supportive of this [Emergency], they wanted to establish contact apart from Mrs Gandhi, with Sanjay Gandhi also”.

While many socialists and communists were undergoing prison sentences, the RSS cadres were restless to get released from jail. Subramanian Swami of the BJP, in an article in The Hindu, narrated the emergency story (13 June 2000). He claimed that RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras and former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee betrayed the anti-Emergency movement by writing letters of apology to Indira Gandhi. “It is on the record in the Maharashtra Assembly proceedings that the then RSS chief, Balasaheb Deoras, wrote several apology letters to Indira Gandhi from inside the Yerawada jail in Pune, disassociating the RSS from the JP-led movement and offering to work for the infamous 20-point programme. She did not reply to any of his letters.” (The 20-point programme and Sanjay Gandhi’s five-point program are cited by the Congress regime to justify the imposition of the Emergency, in its endeavour to Regenerate India).

Dr Suresh Khairnar, ex-president of Rashtra Seva Dal, was also in jail during this time. When he saw the RSS cadres signing the mafinama, he was furious at this act of betrayal and confronted them. As per their style, they said what they are doing is as per the path that was taken by Tatyarao (V D Savarkar). So true of the strategies of the Hindu nationalists!

One also remembers that when A B Vajpayee was arrested in Bateshwar near Agra while overseeing the procession participating in Jungle satyagrah, which pulled down the Union Jack from the government building and hoisted the tricolor. Vajpayee immediately wrote a letter and disassociated himself from the 1942 Quit India Movement. He got his release immediately. The followers of this ideology have been well characterised by Prabhash Joshi above.

While the verbal aggressive language is so loud, the practice is totally different. When Vajpayee led the NDA Government in 1998, the human rights activists did feel the difference. So far many of the committed workers for human rights have regarded Congress and BJP as two sides of the same coin. This period of their rule opened the eyes of many democrats to the fact that the BJP is a party with a difference. That was despite the fact that the BJP on its own did not have the full majority at that time.

Now Modi has been in the saddle for nearly eleven years. In 2014 and 2019, he got full majority. And with this full majority, the true colors of their credentials are loudly apparent. While the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi was in accordance with the norms of the Constitution, now people are witnessing an ‘undeclared emergency’. In 2015, in an interview with Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express, none other than Lal Krishna Advani said, “Today it has been 40 years since the declaration of Emergency at that time. But for the last year, an undeclared Emergency has been going on in India. (‘Indian Express’ dated 26-27 June 2015.)

The freedom of expression has been totally muzzled. Many have been imprisoned for daring to speak the truth. Freedom of religion is going into a free fall. Justice is being overtaken by bulldozer justice. The intimidation and torture of minorities on the pretext of love jihad, and cow-beef is abominable. Many eminent social activists have been put behind bars in the Bhima Koregaon case. The Muslim activists like Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima are incarcerated even though their cases are not coming up for hearing. The corporate-controlled media is ever ready to plead for the Government’s policies and suppress the dissenting voices.

While the Union Cabinet and RSS-linked organizations are taking all the credit for resisting the emergency of 1975, the present regime is imposing the same by other means. The index of democracy on the global scale is constantly on the decline. There is a need to introspect and overcome the undeclared emergency that India is undergoing at present.

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Frontier
Vol 58, No. 6, Aug 3 - 9, 2025