'According to JP, Indira Gandhi was not much of a danger to democracy. He said, it was Sanjay Gandhi and his gang.'
June 25-26, 1975. At the stroke of midnight, the President of India signed a document sent by the then prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi.
It said, 'In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 352 of the Constitution, I, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, President of India, by this Proclamation declare that a grave emergency exists whereby the security of India is threatened by internal disturbances.'
That moment has been described as the darkest day in independent India's history.
This was 50 years ago.
More than half the population in India may not have any idea of what happened thereafter.
Above all, who a man named Jayaprakash Narayan was who almost single handed fought the Emergency.
M G Devasahayam, a retired IAS officer from the 1968 batch is one of the senior-most retired civil servants in the country.
Before joining the IAS, Mr Devasahayam was commissioned in the Indian Army in 1964 and participated in the 1965 War and counter-insurgency operations in Nagaland in 1967-1968.
As the collector-cum-district magistrate of Chandigarh during the Emergency, Mr Devasahayam was in charge of the then 'Enemy Number 1' of the State; prisoner Jayaprakash Narayan.
His new book, Emergency and Neo-Emergency: Who Will Defend Democracy? has just been published.
"Indira Gandhi wanted reconciliation with JP. There were several intense efforts for reconciliation blessed by Indira Gandhi, but all were sabotaged by Sanjay Gandhi's gang. If a reconciliation between JP and Indira Gandhi had happened, the Emergency would have ended then itself, in 1975," Mr Devasahayam tells Rediff's Shobha Warrier.
You said your relationship with JP started the next day. Can you tell us something about the kind of relationship you had with him?
When India became independent, I was 6 years old. At that time, JP's name was more popular in Kanyakumari than Mahatma Gandhi.
My eldest brother, who was about 15 years elder to me, was a crazy fan of JP after JP jumped the Hazaribad jail in 1942, and after he was chased by the British throughout the country. That was how he became a hero for the entire country. My brother almost worshipped JP.
So, I started hearing about JP from 1947-1948 itself.
I saw him as a great patriot and a rebel. Quite a revolutionary too.
How was it for you meeting the person whom you admired, in such difficult circumstances?
Initially I had mixed feelings. But it changed after a few days.
From talking about general topics in the initial days, our conversations became more intense in the later days.
I remember asking him about the JP Movement, why he was arrested, why Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, etc.
He replied, 'I don't know what the compulsion for the Emergency was. We didn't do anything that would warrant the Emergency. We had no intention for any kind of violence. We only did our democratic duty of seeking the resignation of Indira Gandhi after the Allahabad high court judgement declaring her election invalid.'
'How can an MP who cannot vote remain as prime minister?'
You had written that you were more like a son to him. How did you two become close?
I used to visit him every alternate day, mostly in the evenings after I finished my office work.
After the ice was broken, I started asking him about a lot of things like the freedom movement, the Hazaribad jail break, the JP movement, and he used to patiently explain everything to me.
Our conversations went on for at least an hour.
The advantage I had was, when I was inside his room, nobody would be there. It was only JP and me.
I was convinced by his arguments that democracy was in serious danger.
It was not just Indira Gandhi. According to him, Indira Gandhi was not much of a danger to democracy. He said, it was Sanjay Gandhi and his gang, and they were on the verge of throwing out even Indira Gandhi.
He saw it as a danger that was emerging, and JP did not want that to happen.
We were in agreement on that.
Actually, Indira Gandhi wanted reconciliation with JP. There were several intense efforts for reconciliation blessed by Indira Gandhi, but all were sabotaged by Sanjay Gandhi's gang.
If a reconciliation between JP and Indira Gandhi had happened, the Emergency would have ended then itself, in 1975. And elections would have taken place earlier and not in 1977.
JP was released from jail in November 1975.
An election was due in March 1976, but they postponed the election.
JP tried to bring all political parties together against the Congress party after the election was announced in 1977 including the Jan Sangh.
Did you have any discussions with him on this idea?
In all our discussions, democracy was the most critical aspect.
JP was of the view that we could not have a single party democracy. Even without the Emergency, he would have worked for an alternate political system.
He felt the Congress party was taking undue advantage of the freedom movement and Mahatma Gandhi to continue in power.
He asked, how can there be democracy when you have only one political party? What we have is autocracy.
When elections were announced on the 18th of January 1977, they had only two months' time to prepare.
He became very active though he was undergoing dialysis in those days.
All his efforts were to bring all the parties together against Indira Gandhi.
Being a leftist, he was looking at the Left parties to support him. But the Communist parties betrayed him. They were only loyal to Russia and China. They were not even loyal to India.
If the Left had not betrayed him, he would have put together a much more ideological based group.
I would say the biggest betrayal was from the Communist party.
Eventually, he had to bring in Jan Sangh to the fold as it was the only cadre-based party.
More importantly, the RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras, L K Advani and (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee went to meet him, and they took a pledge that if they came together and win the election, they would terminate the dual membership (of both the RSS and the Jan Sangh).
They promised that they would ensure that Jan Sangh members would sever ties with the RSS once the new party was formed.
JP told me that he believed them. On this solemn understanding only, he agreed to have ties with the Jan Sangh.
They also betrayed him.
They took advantage of him before the election, and then betrayed him.
JP's is a story of betrayal. He is a man betrayed.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff