‘Can you keep steam locked in a boiler?… There will be an explosion… Just because you are in power, you don’t own the country, nor can you do anything you want’

On the night of June 26, my colleagues and I were arrested. It included several tall leaders… although, given that the Prime Minister thinks she is the only important person around… But even the people this country is proud of were arrested. My only fault was that I had sought the Prime Minister’s resignation, because she had lost (her case) at the (Allahabad) High Court. What was the crime of the innocent people who did not even issue such statements, but were still arrested? We are your enemy because we differ from you. When will this end? There can be differences in our opinions with yours, but that doesn’t mean we are not patriots.

All fundamental rights have been suspended. If someone is shot by a sub-inspector and the victim survives and approaches the courts to find out why he was shot at, he can’t do that. And if he is dead, his family won’t know why he was killed. You have given the police such rights that they can do whatever they want. Your government is being run by them (the police). The bureaucracy is generally believed to be the section that is most responsible for this country’s ruin. But political leaders are more responsible for that than even the bureaucracy.

Kuldeep Nayyarji is a well-known journalist. He has written several books that won’t make Indiraji feel happy. So he is put in jail. His father-in-law is also put in the same jail. The judge who gives any verdict against (the government)… his effigy is burnt in front of Narain Dutt (Tiwari) ji’s bungalow (ex-CM of UP), and it will be said that he is linked to the CIA. Fortunately, some people with spines still exist. Judgments [of courts] from (West) Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Allahabad and Delhi give some hope.

The All India Radio and television are reduced to instruments of government propaganda. Radio has become a mouthpiece of the government. Press is censored. We believe 1942 was the biggest movement this country has seen… Now, double the number of people are arrested, but there is no feeling that there is any movement. Because the press can’t publish anything. Such censorship was not there even during British times.
There was a jailbreak in Calcutta and 67 inmates fled. That same day, there was a jailbreak in Patna as well. But none of this made it to the newspapers. Not even the jailbreak at Tihar — in which some non-political inmates escaped — was published in the newspapers. What kind of censorship is this?

Unfortunately, our Prime Minister will not speak the truth. Whatever statements she has given are full of lies. There are new guidelines, and if you violate these, there is immediate action, as there is an officer to monitor censorship, and if anything is written against (the government), power supply (to the newspaper office) is disconnected. This is what the press has been reduced to. Today, I saw the Pioneer. It has no news. The same with all other newspapers. They only carry two names — one of my Behenji (Indira Gandhi), the other of my Bhanja (Sanjay Gandhi).

In a recent interview to a foreign news agency, Behenji said censorship is enforced on the press because they are involved in propaganda against the government, that they are against the government because she is pro-poor, and that the press is owned by big business houses. But the fact is that rich people are not against you, nor are you against them. If they are asked, they will say there can be no government better than yours.

The judiciary is in a bad shape. Magistrates have no courage, the press and radio are in your hands, the news agency is under your control and we can’t hold public meetings. Whatever I am saying here won’t be published in the newspapers. Why? Think. Why are you afraid? You have arrested whoever you wanted to. Is this democracy? This is the way of dictatorship.

There was a news item published in The Times of India on November 7, which stated that “Moving the resolution (at AICC), Mr Barua said that Mrs Indira Gandhi had saved the nation from anarchy and chaos. The Indian people have shown that they were not slaves of some hooligans”. Hooligans like myself and Jayaprakash Narayan? If you call us hooligans, what if we call you badmash? Is the Opposition called hooligans in a democracy? MISA was enacted for criminals involved in smuggling, etc. Assurance was given on the floor of the Lok Sabha that MISA won’t be used against political leaders. When, at the age of 34, I entered this House for the first time as an MLA in 1937, a senior MLA, Prof Krishnchandraji, said to me that when a minister gives a statement, “it is regarded as a policy statement”. So [with regards to MISA] whatever Indiraji had said, downgrades the PM’s stature.

A PM can stay here for two years or 10 years, but we should not establish a tradition that India’s future generations stop trusting the PM. Just as G B Pant’s [first UP CM] values have impacted us, so will your values impact future generations. Society is run on the basis of trust. A country moves on the PM’s promises, it stands up to fight a war, makes treaties, faces losses and earns profits. But MISA was amended many times, and ordinances were promulgated time and again. What kind of democracy is this?

In 1956, I was the revenue minister of UP. A village in Muzaffarnagar was flooded after heavy rains. Power supply had to be cut to drain the water and save the village. But a farmer approached the High Court and got an injunction against that. A Lekhpal was transferred in Ghazipur, and he too got an injunction from the High Court. At that time, I had failed to understand why the High Court intervened time and again, and why it didn’t allow the government to function. But today, I think and realise how stupid and inexperienced I had been then. I did not think the country would face such a situation (like the Emergency). Today, I feel there is no authority left with the judiciary to intervene…

This country does not belong to anyone’s father or grandfather. It does not belong to any family. It belongs to all of us, its 60 crore people (then population of India). We worked hard for swaraj. We did not even think in our dreams that we would break the law. No one tells us which law we have broken. No one tells us what our crime is. There is dignity (of the Prime Minister’s post). No person is indispensable to a country.

Behenji [Indira Gandhi] keeps saying the question is not of one person but of the country. But if the Prime Minister does not follow the law, then why should a village pradhan or someone else do so? Your President says Indira is India and India is Indira. You should be ashamed. This doesn’t happen in any democratic country. It’s your weakness. It’s your mistake.

You have the support of not more than 25% of the people. And even if it [the support] were to be 33%, 42% or even 100%, she can’t be equated with the country. Aren’t you ashamed of saying this? She (Indira Gandhi) is spreading propaganda daily, just as they do to brainwash people. To hide one lie, they tell thousands of lies. You have charged us with violence, but tell me if we have even thrown a stone?

You think you can keep steam locked in a boiler and nothing will happen. No, it will happen, it must happen. There will be an explosion and this country will go to the dogs. In our interest and in the interest of this country, I want to warn you. Just because you have come to power, you don’t own the country, nor can you do anything you want.

If you want to remain in power at any cost, be it through dishonesty, or by spending crores of rupees, or by misusing government machinery, or by distributing blankets and saris — and when there is nothing left, by imposing Emergency — I’ll say we have the right to throw you out at any cost. If you commit illegalities, don’t respect democracy and want to remain in power forever, the Opposition has the right to use such tactics too. Indiraji often says the Opposition leaders are in cahoots with other countries. Such allegations are made by people who do not have any counter. We are now held responsible for slow industrial production as well, which is the result of your inefficiency.

In any country or government, there will be problems. That doesn’t mean the country needs Indira Gandhi forever. I want to ask whether the dignity [of the PM’s post] will rise or fall? No one’s dignity is reduced by anyone’s statements, it falls because of the bad work of individuals. In which direction are you taking this country? You want it to have one party rule, that there should be no party except the Congress? The letter (to Indira Gandhi) written by the Opposition was not even acknowledged. You should have responded to what JP (Jayaprakash Narayan) had written. This is nasha (intoxication) of power, that won’t last long. You have equated the State and the party (the Congress) with Indira ji. Such tendencies should not be encouraged. What is being done is not democracy.

You have not left the chair of the President with any respect. No Head of a nation could have agreed to the Emergency. You have belittled the dignity of the President. Why did the chief minister (N D Tiwari) go to receive Sanjay Gandhi? No one knows how he [Sanjay Gandhi] suddenly shot up as a leader, next only to the PM. How appropriate is the CM of our state constantly speaking about the arrival of a naujawan who has no official status? Why don’t you launch an Indira Samvat from June 26 (the day Emergency was imposed)?

Pandit Nehru came here (in Lucknow) in 1936. What he said here is relevant, as he was the father of our PM (Indira Gandhi). He said, “Comrades, being interested in psychology, I have watched the process of moral and intellectual decay, and more than ever before, I have realised how autocratic power corrupts, degrades and vulgarises. A government that has to rely on the Criminal Law Amendment Act and similar laws that suppress the press and literature, which bans hundreds of organisations, keeps people in jail without trial and does the things that are happening in India today, is a government that has ceased to have even a shadow of justification for its existence.”

Even in those days, it got published in newspapers, but the administration did not take any action against it. Today, no one has the guts to publish what I have spoken here (in the Assembly).

Panditji had said this in 1936. But more than ever, it is relevant today.