REMEMBERING EMERGENCY

June 26, 2025

OMG! 50 years since the emergency was declared. We learnt history in those days. Now, those days have become part of the history lessons. While I don't make little of the impact it had left on our young democracy, I observe the double standards of this being celebrated by the ruling party with a vengeance to its advantage.

Our school, St. Augustine's High School, where I was admitted solely on the decision of my mother (still unable to comprehend where she received the counsel for the same), had its campus on the railway track near North Rail Over Bridge, just behind the nursing school of Lisie Hospital. In 1975, it was shifted to a new campus behind the hostel or convent attached to Lisie Hospital. This implied that instead of getting down at the North bus stop, we would now get down at the Lisie bus stop. 

The building was new, and the ground, perhaps reclaimed from a paddy field, was full of soft mud of a pinkish hue - one could hardly play there.  As usual, the school opened in the beginning of the rainy June, and again, as usual, the atmosphere was vitiated by regular student strikes leading to a boycott of classes. In those days, and even now, generally, the student strikes led by student outfits of the leading political parties, summarily had the agenda of boycotting classes; very rarely did they imply anything else to most of the students. 

The leaders of the school that year, I recall now vaguely, were one Ashraff and one Surendran, both of whom were leading the strikes. (Later in the same year, we learnt about the death of Surendran, assumedly by suicide.) Then we heard about the declaration of 'atiyantaraavastha' (emergency). This led to a few more days of fierce strikes, which included not letting the school doors open by smearing the latches and locks of the doors with a generous dose of the mud from the football court.  I still do not understand in what manner such protests involving the destruction of public property help in registering the protest. We were thrilled with the declaration that the school was closed indefinitely (anishcita kaalathekku)

Anyway, after a few days, it all subsided and everything started functioning as usual - only that there was some hush-hush about atiyantaravastha. The marked difference was that since there to our great dismay, there wasn't a single day of strike till we completed our VII grade, almost two full academic years. Then I got transferred to another school.  However, I regretted that fun and feeling of importance of being in a rowdy school, with regular strikes - which usually began with a mob of very senior students (they were real big chettans those days) gathering together shouting slogans (rarely) or hooting and moving through classes and everyone rushing out or being pushed out of the class rooms, followed by a long bell indicating that classes ended for the day.  It never happened again. 

The marked difference in public life was that almost all retail shops and restaurants were displaying the price of the goods, which was not a regular practice till then.  I overheard people saying that there was an increase in general discipline. There was hardly any mention in the only public forum we used to attend, the church, neither a mention nor a prayer. The school sessions or the Sunday Catechism sessions were equally devoid of any such reference or discussions. 

We were being happily governed by C. Achyutha Menon and followed, briefly by K. Karunakaran, with a strange combination of Congress Party, Muslim League and Communist Party of India. The latter could govern just for a month, with allegations regarding his involvement in the disappearance of the engineering student P. Rajan s/o Sri Echara Warrier, who became well known for his fight for the cause of his son through the human rights writ petition based on 'habeas corpus' (literally 'you have the body').  My sister was a contemporary (junior) of Rajan at REC. Rajan was said to have been involved in the attack on Kayanna Police Station, for which he was arrested. One of the rumours was that Mr Karunakaran was displeased with Rajan's singing the song 'kanaka simhasanattil kayariyirikkunnavan shunakano verum shumbhano' (from the 1974 movie - arakkallan mukkalkkallan), purportedly aiming at the CM, and with his already existing alleged revolutionary links with Naxal groups, he was said to have been apprehended and tortured, leading to his disappearance and death in custody.  This was one of the most discussed cases in connection with the emergency period in the state of Keralam, leading to the resignation of CM Karunakaran.  In our black and white family album, there is still a picture of a singing group on the REC stage in which Rajan is there with my sister and a couple of other students. 

Though not very critically aware of the issues involved, I desired that Indira would lose the election, but I did not have great hopes in that direction.  I was overjoyed when it was known that Indira had been defeated.  That doesn't mean that I had any animosity towards her. In spite of this grave failure on her part, I still have great regard for Indira and feel bad for her untimely and brutal end.  Adv. Jayashankar (ABC News, June 25, 2025), analysing the emergency, says that the court ruling that led to Indira's panic decision was not really a well-balanced judgement, and had she persisted with the judicial process, she would easily have won the case and could have continued with honour. I was also happy to read Manish Tewari (TIE June 27, 2025) that Indira, in a public address at Yavatmal om January 24, 1978, showed the greatness to admit to a lapse of judgement and said that she was taking the "entire responsibility for the same" and for mistakes (and excesses) that were committed during that time. 

The only political discussion in this connection in a classroom which I can recall was about 'who will be the next president' on the eve of presidential elections - from our minimal browsing of the newspaper, I was led to say, Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy. The teacher engaging our class, Mr Mathew, whom we used to call the Hindi Pandit, told us that though it was likely, it needn't be so, as there was a similar history when Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy was all set to win, and was defeated. But that was all. He did not go into any of its intricacies. 

I was also aware of the draconian law of MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) under which, to my impression, anybody could be taken into custody, without giving reasons.  However, that did not strike me as something affecting us in those days.  I feel the schools were much poorer regarding critical thinking of issues, though that aspect notwithstanding, there were rebels and critics, created out of one's genes or from one's environment. Apparently, I do not feel I have belonged to that class and feel ashamed about that. 

It was ironic that in the UN International Year of Women, Indira showed herself to be an ultra-strong woman, who is now seen as a symbol both of power and of abuse of power.  I noted with interest that a veteran journalist who was in Tihar jail during those days, evaluating that Indira was thrown out of power not because of the threat she raised to liberty and liberal thinking; but rather because of nasbandi forced upon the North Indian population by her over-enthusiastic son Sanjay, who apparently took the nation for his fiefdom (Virendra Kapoor, TIE June 25, 2025).  

(During this time, in 1975, Sacred Heart College, Thevara, otherwise a men's world, was opened to women - I think more out of compulsion regarding admissions, discipline and results, rather than to have anything to do with International Women's Year. (Though, these days, we - including me - try to project it as a response to the IYW 1975).  Two of my elder sisters joined the college - one in the first batch of PDC opened to women, and the other, perhaps, in the first or second batch of M. Sc Zoology opened to women.)

Otherwise, for the majority of the people of Thevara and Kochi,  blissfully unaware of the severity of the emergency regime,  apparently these were days of greater government responsibility and transparency, and of comparative peace, free from the numerous strikes, bandhs, processions and slogans which are a kind of cultural heritage of Keralam built up from the days of independence. Maybe this resonates with the sentiments of aristocrats (or benevolent autocrats?) like JRD Tata, who is quoted by a mellowed Brinda Karat (TIE June 26, 2025), a revolutionary communist youth of the emergency times: 'You can't imagine what we have gone through here - strikes, boycotts, demonstrations.  Why, there were days I couldn't walk out of my office into the streets. The parliamentary system is not suited to our need.' However, her own comrades, while continuing to create such a situation in the state of Keralam even today, at their will, would come down heavily on protests against the government or social media criticism or ridicule of their leaders.  I feel amused that people like Amit Shah and Narendra Modi are celebrating the event, announcing even June 25 as the day of the murder of democracy, while conveniently forgetting the painful death (murder) of a venerable old man, Stansilaus Lourdswamy, in prison, being denied even basic rights to food and health care. Lalu Prasad (Santhosh Singh, TIE. June 26, 2025) appears right when he criticises the present government and equates the present regime as an 'undeclared emergency'.  (I presume hardly anyone would read these jottings, nor are these of any great value, but I am afraid perhaps, even this would suffice to put me under the scanner or even arrest).

I also learn with interest the stories of the giant killer George Fernandes, the revolutionary firebrand socialist and idealist, who was a strong figure in the non-Congress camp, who gradually got accustomed to the alleys of power, and was even implicated in corruption charges while being in power. Also interesting to learn about the socialist democratic pressure on Indira from the West European nations, which also might have led her to reconsider the emergency. (Neerja Choudhary, TIE. June 26, 2025).