The Emergency years: A personal reflection

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The Emergency years: A personal reflection

Saturday, 05 July 2025 | Harivansh

June 25, 1975 is unforgettable. Fifty years ago, the Emergency was declared in India ohn this very day. I was then a student at Banaras Hindu     University (BHU), pursuing my postgraduate studies in Economics after graduating. I chose the subject because of the brilliant professors in the department- teachers who could simplify complex theories and relate them to rural life and household economics. My ambition was to become a teacher like them, to study further, and live a life devoted to knowledge. In those days, teachers were our role models-symbols of integrity, intellect, and inspiration.

But destiny had other plans. The Emergency slowly but surely altered the trajectory of my life. How and why it happened is difficult to explain in  words-but it left an indelible mark on me.

It was exactly around this time that I came to Delhi for the first time. Until then, I had never stepped outside Allahabad and Banaras. I carried with me the address of a family from my village-members of the Vishwakarma carpenter community-who lived near Shahdara. After a long search from the railway station, I reached their house on the evening of June 25, 1975.

What I witnessed the next morning shocked me. A woman was carrying human waste on her head-manual scavenging was still practiced in the national capital. After all the social movements led by Gandhi, after decades of independence, how could this inhuman practice continue? The sight deeply disturbed me and raised questions about the failure of the system to ensure dignity for all citizens.

Before coming to Delhi, I had met Jagdish Babu (Jagdish Narayan Singh), JP’s close associate who lived in our village. He had given me a letter addressed to a prominent professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), who would later hold high office in the Janata Party Government.

On the morning of   June 26, I went to JNU to deliver the letter, mentioning I was from JP’s village. I was told the professor was present, but shortly after, the messenger returned and said he wasn’t available. He also warned me: “Don’t go around with JP’s secretary’s letter. Don’t mention that you’re from his village. Return immediately.”

I was stunned. A man once associated with JP now refused to even acknowledge a messenger from him. That incident opened my eyes to the deep fear and hypocrisy that had begun to spread in academia and society at large. I returned to Banaras within two days. By then, BHU had started to feel the chill of Emergency. Pamphlets were being circulated secretly. Under Bharat Singh, a student leader from Ballia, efforts to resist the regime gained momentum around  the university campus. One powerful moment remains etched in my memory.

 On August 15 1975, at the university amphitheatre, the Vice Chancellor was giving his Independence Day speech when loud slogans rangout:

“Down with Indira Gandhi!”

“We will not tolerate dictatorship!”

The voice was unmistakable-it was Mahendra Singh, Vice President of the Student Union. Disguised and lifted on the shoulders of others, he disrupted the ceremony and was arrested and beaten. His act of defiance sparked courage in many hearts. Around this time, I began to shift my focus from economics to politics and social thought. I visited Sarva Seva Sangh in Rajghat and spent time with

Gandhian thinkers like Prof. Krishnanath and Dada Dharmadhikari. Their ideas broadened my worldview.

Later, when a journalism department was launched at BHU, I enrolled. I was already drawn to newspapers and public discourse. During our journalism training tour to Delhi, Prof Krishnanath gave me letters for noted figures like Raghuvir Sahay and Anupam Mishra. At Anupam Mishra’s house, I instead met his father, Bhavani Prasad Mishra, though I didn’t know who he was at first.

Upon learning that I was from JP’s village, he warmly welcomed me, took the letter, and said, “If you face any trouble in Delhi, come back here.” His kindness to an unknown young man touched me.

Only later did I learn that he had been writing a poem every day during the Emergency — later published as ‘Trikal Sandhya.’ In contrast to these moments of warmth were the scenes of sycophancy that defined the Emergency.

I recall hearing of a rally in Lucknow where Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari reportedly picked up Sanjay Gandhi’s slipper and handed it to him. That image haunted me — a symbol of the moral decay that authoritarianism brings. Student politics too began to rot. Musclemen backed by political parties began to dominate campuses, carrying weapons, collecting "goonda tax", and spreading fear. It was the birth of a culture of lawlessness, nurtured under the shadow of Emergency.

A new culture of lawlessness and criminalisation was taking shape. After the Emergency, when Indira Gandhi was arrested, a student leader hijacked a plane in Ranchi, falsely claiming it had a bomb. Such acts of desperation and drama grew out of the suppression that Emergency had cultivated. Emergency tested the soul of our democracy-and the spirit of resistance proved stronger. Brave individuals, known and unknown, stood up and ensured that democracy did not die. To them, and to all who suffered and struggled during those dark days, my deepest salutations!

(The writer is Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha. Views are personal)

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