JP and the Emergency

Books In the Name of Democracy: JP Movement and the Emergency by Bipan Chandra

R. L. Singal The Tribune Sunday, September 7, 2003

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. 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. On the other hand 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.

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.

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.