Sunday, September 7, 2003		Books

JP and the Emergency
R. L. Singal

In the Name of Democracy: JP Movement and the Emergency
by Bipan Chandra. Penguin Books India, New Delhi.
Pages 374. Rs 350.

THE book under review spells out the author’s own assessment of JP’s character and motivation of the movement launched by him, and the causes of the imposition of the Emergency in June 1975 by Indira Gandhi. Both steps, according to the learned author, were taken in the name of democracy. Though the actions of both countered their proclaimed purposes. Placing them on equal footing, the author opines that neither was free of blame. "Both were responsible for the situation arising on June 26 with neither of them showing a willingness to take the democratic way out. My assumption, expressed and implicit, has been that there was danger to democracy from both. Both had in their actions the potential of dictatorship or fascism." The author has repeatedly emphasised in his book the traits of fascism in JP’s movement, particularly because of the support extended to it by the RSS and its well-known ideologue Nanaji Deshmukh.

The author is also not convinced of JP’s competence to lead a mass movement for bringing about a social and political revolution in the country, a rather uncharitable assessment of the great revolutionary whose competence as a leader was recognised even by Jawaharlal Nehru who had once called him the future Prime Minister of India. Bipan Chandra firmly states that JP was not the right man to play the role he had assigned for himself. He was not up to the task as a thinker or political leader to play the role of a Gandhi or a Lenin or a Mao. He is of the opinion that what JP wanted to achieve could only be achieved by assumption of political power but he was not willing to take up that political burden and responsibility. This is how the author analyses the key shortcomings in JP’s thought and character and the inadequacies and contradictions in his leadership. On the other hand, the author argues that the Emergency was not an effort by Indira Gandhi to bolster a failing system threatened by the JP movement. It was also not part of a long-term political strategy of Indira Gandhi to evolve and enforce a repressive regime. She imposed the Emergency only to save herself from the contingency of losing power following Justice Sinha’s judgement disqualifying her as an MP. The author does not believe that her action was prompted by any fascist or totalitarian bent of mind. He emphatically says India during the Emergency was not fascist or totalitarian. The Emergency was just a derailment of democracy.

It is difficult to agree with these views of the author. The vital issue, which prompted JP to launch his campaign, was the widespread corruption in her administration and its disgusting justification (she had remarked that corruption was a global phenomenon) as also her authoritarian rule that muted all dissent even within her own party. The JP movement was not motivated by any ignoble ambitions on the part of its leaders, particularly JP. Its target was her corruption and authoritarianism as repeatedly emphasised by JP. The climax came when Indira Gandhi, rather thoughtlessly, remarked that those who received money from capitalists to meet their expenses should not have the cheek to call her government corrupt. Stung by this direct attack on his life-long clean image and integrity, JP retorted that what Indira Gandhi had said was sheer nonsense. Only a leader of the eminence of JP, widely respected for his unimpeachable fearlessness, could have rebutted her in this manner. This further fuelled the fires of revolt against her.

The vital difference between the two leaders was that while JP was not power hungry, Indira Gandhi decidedly was. The second basic difference between the two giants was that whereas JP’s entire life was a symbol of suffering, selflessness and integrity, Indira Gandhi’s was quite the reverse of these virtues. This aspect has been completely ignored by the learned author, not to talk of his highlighting it. If you do not pinpoint and highlight this contrast between the two leaders (one desperately clinging to power and the other spurning it), you cannot understand the motivating force behind the movement launched by JP as also the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. The purpose of one was to salvage democracy and of the other to retain power at any cost. If the Janata regime later failed it was not because of any ideological differences in the Cabinet or the failure of the government to tackle national problems but because of the unmerited ambitions of one man (Charan Singh) and the foul and crafty game played by Indira Gandhi who did not take her defeat sportingly and felt that she could not survive without power which she must grab by hook or by crook. The reader alone will decide who the devil was—JP or Indira Gandhi. The author is grossly unfair in placing them both on equal footing.