It's been a quarter century since the Emergency was imposed in India. Twenty-five-years later we trace the fortunes of the dramatis personae who decamped with democracy for all of two years or opposed that ultimate manifestation of kleptomania.
Indira Gandhi: Proved herself chicken after frittering away the public adulation heaped upon her after the victorious Bangladesh War of 1971. It took her just four years to feel so persecuted and threatened that that was cause enough for her clamp down on the rights of all Indian citizens. She put several political leaders who didn't agree with her in jail years before politicians started swarming to cells for reasons other than being conscientious objectors. The fickleness of the public opinion returned her to power in 1980. She stayed put without imposing another Emergency till she was assassinated in 1984.
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed: The President. A house-trained Congresswallah who couldn't say no. So what if the fundamental rights of the people were to be denied, India was Indira and Indira was India. Doting upon the PM, he signed the dotted line. Now dead.
Sanjay Gandhi: Population control was his mantra and the road to demographic nirvana was the forced sterilisation. Hey, so not too many volunteered for vasectomies but that made no vas deferens to Sanjay baba. He also married Maneka and fathered the Maruti, his lasting contribution to puppiedom. Died in an aircrash aged 33.
Maneka Gandhi: The BJP says she was just a housewife and like all good bharatiya naris just meekly submitted to the menfolk. When not taking on strays, was cosying up to Khushwant Singh. Is now the Minister of State for Social Welfare.
The Other Gandhi Bahu: Was a housewife, married to an Indian Airlines pilot named Rajiv Gandhi. They maintained a profile lower than a snake's bellybutton. Rajiv later became the PM by default, was assassinated and sycophantic Congressmen eight long years before they managed to cajole Sonia into leading the party - into oblivion, it seems.
Jagmohan: Is now the Minister for Urban Development. He brings into the job his vast experience as an administrator during the Emergency days; riding the bulldozer that razed hutments. Jagmohan's frozen turbulence has thawed into mere truculence but he retains his pedigree as the demolition man of Delhi as many DDA flat owners will vouch.
The Media: Was gagged. Official censors pored through every line of reports-to-be and pared them down so drastically that morning editions had less news than they do now. A gutsy few protested and carried columns of blank space emblazoned "Censored". Think about it, if the Emergency had happened now, the censors would have been unemployed since reams of newsprint are expended on issues of vital national import such a Lara Dutta's next door neighbour's views on his vegetable garden.
Jai Prakash Narain: Led the counterattack, successfully. Was responsible for the public outcry that forced Indira Gandhi into giving in. Saw Morarji Desai, with his peculiar dietary taste, installed as Prime Minister, was pronounced dead before he actually was. His brand of committed socialism has also died.
Atal Behari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, other BJP leaders: Spend most of their time in jail, even as others like George Fernandes was trying out acts of sabotage without having the advantage of being the country's Defence Minister. Delhi's Tihar Jail became the political hotbed. Of course, the BJP was then the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, which joined the Desai Government, ditched it, became the BJP, joined the VP Singh Government, ditched it, demolished the Babri Masjid, and finally managed to rope in enough cellmates to form a couple of coalitions, the second of which Vajpayee continues to head at the Centre.
Kamal Nath, VC Shukla, Ambika Soni, and others: Have developed selective amnesia and remember little of those days, though how they could have forgotten their glorious reign as Sanjay Gandhi's stormtroopers is a question that should be asked of them.


RECENTLY ON JAAL:

Paswan Goes DOTty
Child's Play
Toilet Paper
Drought And About
Boer Boar
The Joke's On You
The Coming Of Bill