Guess who supported the Emergency? The Communists, of course

Every anniversary of Emergency in India and worn-out clichés on muzzling media, despotic Indira, state repression and the complicity of judiciary begin to do rounds. Anand quotes from an article, “The Empress Reigns Supreme”, published in August 1976 in The Guardian: “…Pro-CPI journals in India are being given some latitude by the censors because the party is in favour of even stronger measures to suppress the non-communist opposition.” Communist leader Sitaram Yechury, a savvy Twitterati who short of blaming BJP for everything but cataract in his eye, surely deserves a forward of this piece. Christopher Sweeney, a correspondent for The Guardian and The Economist, gave an account of his ordeal thus: “…I came under obvious suspicion within days of my arrival in the country…after arranging meetings by telephone, odd characters would turn up to observe who I was seeing each morning, others would be waiting in red sarees in the entrance of the Delphi hotel. At least twice my hotel room was broken into and searched… “When I complained of the continued harassment by the Government agents and asked Mr Haksar to explain why it had been necessary to organize breakings to my hotel rooms, he replied that unless I left the country as soon as possible, there ‘would be a further prospect of physical inconvenience’.” Don’t you now sympathize with Lutyens Media who dug themselves deep under the soil to avoid the searchlight of The Emergency? Sample a piece titled “Yes, there is an underground” published in The Economist: “The shock troops of the movement largely come from Jana Sangh and its ideological affiliate, the RSS, which claim a combined membership of 10 million.” So, the Communists supported the Emergency and RSS resisted it tooth and nail.