History, as presciently observed, repeats itself, first time as tragedy and then as farce. LK Advani’s observation that the dark clouds of emergency have not totally disappeared from the Indian political horizon is true because of the persistent pining of a misgoverned generation for stability and development, thus giving birth to dictators disguised as ‘saviours’ of the people, writes SOURAV BANERJEE
In the melee surrounding the observation of 40 years of the imposition of Emergency this year with every other media criticising the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi and her Congress party, one obvious fact slipped our mind in a sly — “history repeats itself; first time as tragedy and second time as farce.”
Indeed, tragic was the time when the Indian economy was already devastated by the recently-concluded Bangladesh Liberation War (1971), economic sanctions were imposed by the oil-producing (OAPEC) countries, and fuelled by growing ill-governance and corruption, ‘Total Revolution’ in the form of strikes and mass protests led by heavyweights like Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan were eroding the authority of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Amidst that political turbulence, the climax came through the historic Allahabad High Court judgment on a petition filed by Raj Narain against Indira, which found Mrs Gandhi guilty on two out of 14 counts of election malpractices that implied the removal of Indira as PM. Backed by her henchmen Siddhartha Shankar Ray and HR Gokhale, and endorsed by social reformer Vinoba Bhabe (who hailed the Emergency as ‘anushasan parva’, a time for discipline), writer Khuswant Singh, industrialist JRD Tata as well as the Parliamentary Left (CPI), Indira, by branding the socialists like George Fernandes and Narayan as a part of the CIA-funded Socialist International refused to step down. What was inevitable, was confirmed by a BBC notification of internal Emergency, which suddenly dropped like a dead crow before India at the dead of night June 25 in 1975 with a rider — “there is no need to panic”. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Though by then India had already experienced Emergencies (Pakistan war of 1965 and 1971) declared under Article 352(1) of the Constitution twice, it was yet to taste what an Emergency could really mean when it concerned the civil sphere. However, the apprehension was short-lived. A spate of constitutional amendments followed, which among others enhanced the powers of both the state and its rulers and monopolised the (s)election of the President and the Prime Minister beyond the court’s purview. The Constitution was subverted in the most audacious manner a democracy would hardly approve of. All the fundamental rights were suspended. Narayan and many other political leaders including Vijayaraje Scindia, Morarji Desai, Jivatram Kripalani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani were arrested. All other parties and organisations that posed the slightest threat to the government were banned. In addition to the general public, the judiciary and the media too bore the brunt. Censorship was imposed on newspapers, literally to the extent where porn was cleared but not politics. Press was maimed. The Indian Express Delhi edition of June 28 carried a blank first editorial while the Financial Express betook to a Rabindranth Tagore’s poem to manifest its anguish saying, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…/Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.” Power was cut off at Delhi’s Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg home to all the major newspaper offices. Newspapers were asked to bend. Those who did not submit were arrested eminent columnists like Kuldip Nayar being one of them; shoved behind bars under Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) without reason. However, there were many, who as LK Advani rued, “when asked to bend, began to crawl.” Cowed down by terrible pressure tactics and fear of indefinite confinement, some of the top incarcerated RSS and Jan Sangh leadership sincluding Vajpayee and RSS leader Balasaheb Deoras submitted letters of apology to ‘Durga’ (Indira Gandhi was fondly called by Vajpayee) and got pardoned.
Meanwhile, for perpetuating dynasty rule Mrs Gandhi catapulted her younger son, Sanjay, into politics. The fear of terrible repression and gagging of media and press further allowed Sanjay Gandhi to dictate Tughlaq-like policies. Population control in the name of family planning was one among those fascist obsessions, which called for ‘Hum Do, Hamare Do’ (we two, our two) and saw forced sterilisation of people belonging to the minority community.
On another occasion, settlements around Turkman Gate were razed in order to beautify Delhi, which though media were forced to black-out, later revealed that several hundreds died in a brutal police repression extra-constitutionally ordered by Sanjay Gandhi.
The 19-month ordeal of Emergency was an epochal event in our democracy, a dark phase in the history of independent India, which finally came to an end January 23, 1977, as Indira Gandhi called for fresh elections and the release of all political prisoners. Yet, these could not save her in the 1977 Lok Sabha election as Janata Party under the leadership of Morarji Desai came to power with a spectacular win and threw Mrs Gandhi out of office. Later, Indira was arrested on account of various cases against her.
40 years later…
Since then, post-colonial India has travelled 40 years and nothing much has changed, only rearranged, as yet again another state of Emergency is looming large. Though not officially imposed, we are again living in a precarious state of (unofficial) Emergency that Kafka would have narrated better, as with the Modi led NDA government completing a year in office the air is already filled with austerity, cuts, corruption, violence, communalism, racism, gender discrimination and shrills of strangulated freedom of expression, shrinking democratic space, miseries of the poor, and war. Post-globalisation, the onslaught is more intense than ever.
The situation is alarming. It’s because fascism and Emergency share a fire-smoke kind of relation. If there is Emergency (economic or political) there must be fascism behind. Fascism is the philosophy and Emergency is its political culmination. When instead of participating actively in decision-making, people repose their faith in an individual to change their lives and the destiny of a troubled generation, it is then the Messiah arises; always after a massive failure. The Emergency-like precariousness emerges when most undemocratic centralisation of power in one hand and the creation of personality cult both go undetected under the veil of patriotism, development and industrialisation that have always been the agenda of fascist forces throughout history.
The Modi phenomenon is no different. Riddled with corruption, maldevelopment and mis-governance of the previous UPA government (I & II), people were already gasping for an alternative and found a messiah in Modi. Modi was successful in convincing his countrymen that if he gets elected he would ensure massive industrial development and the country will be free of corruption among other qualitative changes. His slogan clicked well with the aspiration of the contemporary ailing nation, which catapulted him to PM from CM of Gujarat. Like in the case of post WWI devastated Germany people had found a messiah in a least known WWI soldier Hitler. Soon after Hitler’s takeover, the country saw the highest growth in national economy and industrial production including steel and iron, which further helped in garnering massive public support for the Fuhrer in his misadventure of conquering the world more ruthlessly than the emperor Alexander. However, in spite of a ‘flourishing economy’ and ‘development’, barring the few ruling class, the miserable condition of the common people under Hitler’s rule is more than known. Similarly, even after repeated proclamations of Modi’s pro-people governance, development and rapid economic growth, the ground reality today is worse than the pre-Emergency period four-five decades ago. Content- wise there is hardly any difference between then and now, just the form has changed. Today, it appears in a neo-liberal form, which more often fools people in the guise of development. There is enough evidence that ‘democracy’ as currently constituted is more authoritarian than democratic. The Parliamentary system that by virtue claims to represent all people caters to the greed of a few rich people by enforcing a hegemonic economic system, while the needs of the rest remain unheeded.
Messiah on Earth
Historically, the origin of the state, and subsequent division of labour, class-based society and erection of establishments supporting it, gave rise to the mystifying concept of messiah politics. The ruler is the father of the state and embodies its welfare, thus he must not be questioned by his subjects — such a paternalistic concept of sovereignty has been a part of our socio-cultural existence for over 5,000 years since the emergence of city-states in ancient Mesopotamia. The concept of a political saviour corresponding to god or messiah in charge of society springs up from the concentration of powers of defence and welfare in the hands of a single person — the tribal war chieftain in early civilisation, and later, mighty king and emperor, the czars of Russia, modern-day dictators, or elected presidents or prime ministers and so on.
However, with the dawn of industrial revolution in the mid 18th century followed by the Renaissance (the time when predominantly agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America were experimenting with commercial agriculture and long-distance trade and thus became industrial and urban), messiah politics unleashed itself further through the making of tyrant Machiavellian saviours aimed at attaining the greatest good — the stoic idea of ancient Roman philosopher and political theorist Cicero.
Instead of the grassroots movements or emancipation from below with the participation of masses, a crippled society always takes refuge in a saviour who under a “social contract” acts as a benevolent master of the masses. Emergence of a messiah is therefore just a rosy dream until you grasp it. Because problem occurs when the trust or political faith between the saviour and the followers are breached, as it gives birth to an one-man authoritarian regime that pledges to act benevolently on behalf of the masses, but in reality serves narrow vested interests. Such a phenomena of hero-worship puts Plato’s ‘philosopher king’ with all his social engineering and ideals on the dock questioning the feasibility of the concept in practice.
The emergence of capitalism and new division of labour – capitalist and worker replacing landlord and serf – accounted for further unfurling of the modernisation of messiah politics. With capital and markets imposing absolute hegemony over all aspects of peoples’ political and cultural lives, even in a democratically elected representative paradigm, Messiah politics is destined to produce narcissist rulers for whom personal interest comes way before ‘national interest’. Adolf Hitler, Iran’s supreme leader Ayotollah Khomeini, World War II era French libertarian General Charles De Gaulle, democratically elected leaders like Dwight D Eisenhower (US President, 1953-1961), John F Kennedy (US President, 1961-1963), Margaret Thatcher (British PM, 1979-1990), Ronald Reagan (US President, 1981-1989) and Barak Obama (current US President) were among those who swept to power as a result of the Platonic totalitarian messiah politics mystique. Back home, it was Indira Gandhi, and now it is Narendra Damodardass Modi. His pin-stripped suit embroidered with his full name in thousands all over says enough of a dictator’s love for the self and identity insecurity.
The dramatic irony is that all our ‘saviours’ represented hope for social justice and progress in their respective times, but miserably failed to fulfill the aspirations of the ailing generation that sought liberation through them. The extremity of authoritarian and conservative politics of exploiting labour and natural resources of the planet through imposing its economic, cultural and political hegemony on the masses has always turned out to be its own undoing. Neither monarchy nor the modern Parliamentary democracy could withstand the internal contradictions of such a polity let alone any future system based on equality and justice. It is because of the bitter Machiavellian truth — messiah politics does not necessarily yield social justice or any moral foundation, let alone a benevolent goal, but rather the whole is a quest for power, glory and riches, which discards ideals, ideology as well as the historic necessity of the masses. While messiah politics owes its followers the restoration of welfare and hope from the clutches of misery and disruptive forces, behind the subject lurks the messiah political figure, who with the help of ‘discipline’ and ‘punishment’, intends to spread the values and establishment (political, economic, cultural) on a large scale aimed at imposing hegemony. History has hitherto taught, while ‘Prince’ reigned, their human nature and supposed political behaviour under the social contract always happened to be contradictory. We have ignored earlier signals, but “How many miles must a man walk before you can call him a man.” And “the answer my friend is blowing in the wind…”
“He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.”