Rejoinder
A distortion of facts
Jagmohan

Khushwant Singh, in his write-up on the Emergency published in Saturday Extra (July 9), has observed that some civil servants, including me, showed "extra enthusiasm in carrying out the orders of the royal family". This observation, so far as it relates to me, is wrong.

Clearly, Khushwant Singh has been taken in by the art of oral concoctions in which our vested interests excel. He has ignored hard evidence and documents. He has forgotten a simple adage: men may lie; documents do not. The relevant documents have been published in my books and also form part of the court records in a criminal defamation case which I filed and won hands down.

To recapitulate concrete facts, I was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in January 1971. Being an officer primarily concerned with the planning and development of Delhi, I had nothing to do with the imposition of the Emergency. In fact, at that time, I was in Australia in connection with a cultural award given to me by the Australian Government. Nor had I been appointed to any new job during the Emergency.

Earlier, I had worked as Commissioner for Implementation of Delhi Master Plan and was given the Padma Shri for the "significant contribution to the formulation and implementation of Delhi Master Plan." Thus, my commitment to the concept of planned development of Delhi was nationally known and recognised. I had a passionate urge to make our Capital as one of the cleanest and the most well-organised and disciplined cities in the world. I was dead against encroachments, a phenomenon which was encouraged by selfish politicians to create vote-banks in their constituencies.

Much before the Emergency, while functioning as Commissioner and Vice-Chairman, DDA, I had been clearing encroachments and resettling squatters in resettlement colonies. This was in accordance with a scheme which had been approved by the Central Government and was an adjunct of the Delhi Master Plan. The highly applauded clearance projects of Nigambodh Ghat, Purana Quila, New Delhi Railway Station and Kotla Ferozeshah were executed, in accordance with the said scheme, in the pre-Emergency days. Similar projects of clearance-cum-resettlement, following exactly the same procedure as the earlier one, were carried out during the Emergency. The only new factor that emerged during the period was that the political elements and vested interests of racketeers were kept at bay. All the schemes were undertaken in public interest and numerous green areas, flyovers, roads and many other institutions and public utility buildings were developed and constructed on the vacated lands. I had done nothing wrong. Nor was I ever asked by Indira Gandhi or Sanjay Gandhi to do anything that had no precedent.

To expose the false propaganda, therefore, I prepared a comprehensive statement and submitted the same to the Shah Commission at the very first opportunity. During the course of the proceedings, I wanted to read my statement. But Justice Shah would not allow it, having found that the said statement would tear the false picture desired to be painted. As would be evident from the tapes of the proceedings, every time I said I would like to read my statement, Justice J.C. Shah would say, "We would do so later". When on the subsequent days I repeated my request, he would say: "I have given the statement to my officers. They will mark some portions. Then we would have the statement read out."

Justice J.C. Shah went on speaking like this till the proceedings ended. Noticing the highly tendentious reports in the Press and on television, I published the facts contained in the aforesaid written statements and oral submissions in my book, titled Island of Truth. This book was filed as an affidavit by me in the special court of Justice M.L. Jain and no one dared to file even a counter-affidavit. The ‘findings’ of the Shah Commission were based on concocted evidence, and also on intentional suppression of most material and significant facts. Scores of concrete examples were cited by me in the affidavit.

My only ‘fault’ during the post-Emergency period was that I happened to occupy a particular post at a particular time, and was not prepared to step out of my Island of Truth and hypocritically condemn a programme which had been formulated with the concurrence of the Union Government and Parliament and the implementation of which was totally in public interest.

Subtle hints were given to me that I should become a sort of ‘approver’ and pass on the ‘blame’ to others. I marvelled at the lack of morality and ignorance of the persons who made such suggestions. Was clearance of some of the most inhuman slums or allotment of 1,000 hectares of developed land with market value of about Rs 2,000 crore, or disbursement of about Rs 9 crore of loan at only four per cent rate of interest, or the creation of stable and development-oriented avenues of employment, preservation of historical legacy, or general upgradation of environment of the city an ‘excess’ for which one should feel ashamed?

The resettlers gratefully acknowledged what was done for them. In the elections to the Delhi Metropolitan Council and Municipal Corporation, held soon after the General Elections of March 1977, these resettlers, as would be evident from election office documents, voted overwhelmingly for Indira Gandhi’s party. Does it stand to reason that they would do so if they had been bulldozed as was made out? At that time, Indira Gandhi’s party lost in almost all the constituencies except those that covered the resettlement colonies.

The unassailable documentary evidence available in the offices of the Election Commission, Delhi Metropolitan Council and Municipal Corporation, pertaining to mid-1977, shows, in a striking manner, how superficially certain aspects of India’s contemporary history are being written; how the art of oral concoctions is being perfected; and how, in a country whose national motto is Satyameva Jayate (truth alone triumphs) maximum distortions are being resorted to.

(The writer is a former Union Minister. This write-up is based upon his recent book The Soul and Structure of Governance in India.)