Emergency Regime and the Role of RSS

This June (2025), the country did observe the 50th year of the Emergency that was imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975. A lot has been written about this period when many democratic liberties stood suspended, thousands were jailed and the media was muzzled. This period is seen very differently by some Dalit leaders who recall the radical measures taken by Indira Gandhi in the previous decade, such as nationalisation of banks and abolition of privy purses. Much has been written on that.

On this occasion, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union Cabinet passed a resolution condemning that period and praising those who sacrificed opposing this event. It was resolved to “commemorate and honor the sacrifices of countless individuals who valiantly resisted the Emergency and its attempt at subversion of the spirit of Indian Constitution, a subversion which began in 1974 with a heavy-handed attempt at crushing the Navnirman Andolan and Sampoorna Kranti Abhiyan.”

The BJP is putting heavy emphasis on its “great role” during the 21 months of that period. This matches the claims of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS that they were the “major force” opposing the Emergency. Like most of its other claims, this one is also devoid of any element of truth.

The search of some of the serious journalist’s efforts and some books have another tale to tell. Late Prabhash Joshi, one of the doyens of journalism wrote, “Balasaheb Deoras, then RSS chief, wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi pledging to help implement the notorious 20-point program of Sanjay Gandhi. This is the real character of the RSS…You can decipher a line of action, a pattern. Even during the Emergency, many among the RSS and Jana Sangh who came out of the jails gave mafinamas (apology letters). They were the first to apologize… Atal Bihari Vajpayee was [most of the time in hospital]… But the RSS did not fight the Emergency. So why is the BJP trying to appropriate that memory?” He concludes that “they are not a fighting force, and they are never keen to fight. They are basically a compromising lot. They are never genuinely against the government”.

TV Rajeswar, who served as Governor of Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim penned a book, India: The Crucial Years (Harper Collins),  corroborated the fact that, “Not only they (RSS) were supportive of this [Emergency], they wanted to establish contact apart from Mrs. Gandhi, with Sanjay Gandhi also”. 

While many socialists and communists were undergoing prison sentence, the RSS cadres were restless to get released from jails. Subramanian Swamy of the BJP, in an article in The Hindu newspaper, narrated the Emergency story. (June 13, 2000) He claimed that RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras and former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee betrayed the anti-Emergency movement by writing letters of apology to Indira Gandhi. 

“It is on the record in the Maharashtra Assembly proceedings that the then RSS chief, Balasaheb Deoras, wrote several apology letters to Indira Gandhi from inside the Yerawada jail in Pune disassociating the RSS from the JP-led movement and offering to work for the infamous 20-point program. She did not reply to any of his letters,” he wrote. (The 20-point programme and Sanjay Gandhi's five-points are cited by the Congress regime to justify the imposition of the Emergency, in its endeavour to

‘Regenerate India’)

Read Also: Emergencies of the Past and Facades of Freedom in the Present

One of my friends, Suresh Khairnar, ex-president of Rashtra Seva Dal, was also in jail during this time. He said when he saw the RSS cadres signing the mafinama (apology letter), he was furious at this act of betrayal and confronted them, adding that as per their style, they said what they were doing was as per the path taken by Tatyarao (V D Savarkar). So true of the strategies of the Hindu nationalists.

One also remembers when Vajpayee was arrested in Bateshwar near Agra while overlooking the procession participating in Jungle Satyagrah, which pulled down the Union Jack from the government building and hoisted the tricolour. Vajpayee immediately wrote a letter and disassociated from the 1942 Quit India Movement. He got his release immediately. The followers of this ideology have been well characterised by Prabhash Joshi.

While the “aggressive language” of the current dispensation is so loud, their practice is totally different. When Vajpayee led the National Democratic Alliance government in 1998, human rights activists did feel the difference. So far many of the committed workers for human rights had regarded Congress and BJP as two sides of the same coin. This period of NDA rule opened the eyes of many of us to the fact that BJP was a party with a difference. That was despite the fact that BJP on its own did not have full majority that time.

Now, Narendra Modi has been in the saddle for nearly 11 years. In 2014 and 2019, he got full majority. And with this full majority, the true colours of their credentials became apparent. While the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi was in accordance with the norms of the Constitution, what we are now witnessing is an ‘undeclared Emergency’.

In 2015, in an interview with journalist Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express, none other than BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani said, “Today it has been 40 years since the declaration of Emergency at that time. But for the last one year, an undeclared Emergency has been going on in India. (Indian Express, June 26-27, 2015.)

Today, many have been imprisoned for daring to speak the truth. Freedom of religion is going for a freefall. Justice is being overtaken by ‘bulldozer justice’. The intimidation and torture of minorities on the pretext of ‘love jihad’, cow-beef is abominable. Many eminent social activists have been put behind the bars in the Bhima Koregaon case. Activists who are Muslims, such as Umar Khalid and Gulfisha Fatima are incarcerated even though their cases have still not come up for hearing. Most of the corporate-controlled media is ever ready to amplify governments policies while suppressing dissenting voices. 

While the Union Cabinet and RSS-linked organisations are taking all the credit for “resisting” the Emergency of 1975, the present regime has been accused of imposing the same by other means. The index of democracy on the global scale is constantly on the decline. There is a need to introspect and overcome the ‘undeclared Emergency’ which India is undergoing at present.

The writer is a human rights defender and a former professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. The views are personal.