50 years of Emergency: UP leaders recall torture, arrests

Lucknow, Jun 24 (PTI) Hriday Narain Dixit and Mata Prasad Pandey –“ both former Uttar Pradesh Assembly speakers –“ share little in common politically.

While Dixit is a BJP veteran, Pandey is a Samajwadi Party loyalist. Same is true for UP minister Surya Pratap Shahi and SP veteran and former minister Ravi Das Mehrotra.

But each year on June 25, these leaders, and many others, seem to be on the same page as they all slam the Congress for having imposed the 21-month long Emergency in 1975.

June 25 marks the 50 years of the imposition of Emergency.

“This is one time when all political parties speak in one voice against the Congress party for the horrifying Emergency. Back then, all the parties and their leaders had a common resolve,“ to oust the Congress and end the Emergency. So you are right in assuming that on June 25 political ideologies take a back seat as all unite in slamming the Congress,” Dixit told PTI.

“In fact, even many leaders in the SP wonder how could their party now be in an alliance with the Congress that was responsible for the Emergency days,” Dixit said referring to the alliance between the SP and the Congress.

Dixit, who was arrested during the Emergency, recalled an interesting anecdote in Unnao jail.

“I had managed to arrange a transistor and was hearing the news about results of the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, in which the Congress suffered a humiliating defeat.

“The jailor saw me playing the transistor in loud voice and used abusive language. He also warned that I would be shifted to another jail. But within two hours, as it became clear that the Congress had lost the polls, the jailor suddenly became polite,” the BJP leader said.

Dixit also said that even his father couldn’t recognise him when he visited home after a year in jail.

“I don’t know how but unlike many others, my health inside jail had improved,” he recalled with a smile.

UP’s Agriculture Minister Shahi, while recalling the Emergency days, said that the then prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency to save her chair.

“My father and uncle were lodged in the jail and MISA was imposed on them. I too was booked and cases under 22 different sections of the IPC were registered against me. In Varanasi, false cases of uprooting the railway tracks, and looting shops in front of the BHU were registered against me. I was rusticated from the university,” he told PTI.

“Emergency was indeed a ‘Black Day’ in India’s history,” he added.

Former UP Assembly speaker Pandey, currently the SP MLA from Itwa in Siddharthnagar, said he was also arrested during the Emergency period.

“I was not at home when Emergency was imposed. I came to know about police raid at my house. Later, I was arrested and lodged in Basti district jail. I escaped torture but it is true that many were subjected to cruel treatment both inside and outside the jail.

“People in my village would climb trees and remain hidden there or in dense sugarcane fields to escape themselves from forced sterilisation. It was all quite terrifying,” he recalled.

SP MLA from Lucknow Central, Ravidas Mehrotra, said, “Emergency was virtually akin to murdering democracy. The country was transformed into a prison. I was just 18 years old when I was lodged in Lucknow district jail and then transferred to Bareilly Central Jail.” “At that time, the ‘Sampoorn Kranti’ movement had taken place under Loknayak Jai Prakash jee,” the former UP minister said.

Some Congress leaders also told PTI that they weren’t happy with the imposition of Emergency.

Veteran UP Congress leader Amir Haidar said that before joining the Congress, he was with the Communist Party of India.

“I joined the Congress in 1967. I did not like the imposition of Emergency. Since I was in the Congress, I did not react to it publicly. I felt suffocated during the Emergency days,” he told PTI.

However, former UP Congress chief Nirmal Khatri tried to justify the imposition of Emergency in the country.

“I was the district president of the Youth Congress in Faizabad during the Emergency period. I thought given the circumstances then, it was an appropriate step. For during the period, trains would reach destinations on time and work efficiency improved. I think the bureaucrats were responsible for the most of the trouble during the period,” he told PTI.

“Our leader had given the slogan of plantation and sterilisation but some bureaucrats, pushed by locally influential leaders, unleashed forced sterilisation, triggering panic and anger which was quite visible in the subsequent elections,” Khatri said. PTI NAV MAN KVK KVK

This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.