CAN EMERGENCY OCCUR AGAIN?
Mr. L. K Advani’s observations that the forces that can crush democracy are stronger and emergency can happen again have stirred up considerable controversy.
Mr Advani, when questioned on this subject later in a TV programme, was not very convincing in explaining his remarks. He felt like this because there was no sense of atonement either on the part of the Congress or Gandhi family for the Emergency and no assurance that it would not happen again. It is true that the Congress has not expressed any regrets for imposition of Emergency. But even if they atone for this unjustifiable act, how does it ensure that it will not happen again?
One fact must be recognised clearly. Emergency was not merely imposed wrongly; it survived and remained in operation for about nineteen months. This was one of the darkest periods of post Independent India during which thousands of citizens were arbitrarily arrested, untold atrocities were committed by people in positions of power and citizens were deprived of their fundamental rights. It happened not merely because of the presence of an authoritarian leader at the helm of affairs, but because the entire system had been subverted. Before the Emergency was imposed, Indira Gandhi had succeeded in propagating and promoting the idea of an unswervingly loyal bureaucracy and a committed judiciary. The culture of sycophancy in the Congress had already established that “Indira is India and India is Indira.” The way media caved in, it is clear that they had lost before the battle began. Even the judiciary, including the apex court, fell in line. In such an environment, it was easy not merely to impose Emergency but also to sustain it. The President could sign the Emergency proclamation even when the Cabinet had not discussed, what to talk of approving, it.
The only official record of what happened during the Emergency was the report of the Shah Commission of Inquiry, which was destroyed on the orders of Smt. Indira Gandhi when she returned to power in 1980. The Commission studied the circumstances prevailing at the time the Emergency was imposed. Of the various special features gleaned by the Commission from official records, four need to be mentioned here. One, on the economic front, there was nothing alarming at that time. Two, the Home Ministry had received no reports from the state governments indicating any significant deterioration in the law and order situation in the period immediately preceding the proclamation of Emergency. Three, the Home Ministry had not sent any report to the Prime Minister, expressing its concern about the internal situation prevailing in the country. Four, the decision to impose Emergency was taken in a hush hush manner. While the Director, I B, the Home secretary, the Cabinet Secretary and the Secretary to the Prime Minister did not even know about it, R K Dhavan, the then Additional Private Secretary to the Prime Minister had been associated with the promulgation of Emergency from the early stage.
It is thus obvious that the circumstances prevailing at that time did not warrant the imposition of Emergency. Much worse law and order disturbances have been witnessed in the country since those dark days. What is remarkable is not the imposition of Emergency, but the ease with which it could be enforced. This ease was acquired because the system had been subverted and important institutions failed to respond. The role of institutions like the media and judiciary has received considerable attention, but the responsibility of one important institution in enforcing Emergency i.e the police has not been adequately debated.
The police was one agency that was highly misused. The police and the magistracy did all that they were asked to do without bothering about the legality of orders given by their political masters. They fabricated warrants and records to carry out illegal arrests and detentions under MISA and other laws. The Shah Commission viewed with anguish the “evidence of patent collusion between the police and the Magistracy in denying the citizens their basic freedoms by arrests and detentions on grounds which were now admitted to be non-existent or deliberately invented.” The Commission felt that “employing the police to the advantage of any political party is a sure source of subverting the rule of law” and the government must therefore take steps to insulate the police from the politics of the country. The National Police Commission’s recommendations on the subject and the Supreme Court’s famous judgement of September22, 2006 did not help in redeeming the situation.
The way the CBI was manipulated and misused during the Emergency is now a part of history, but its record since then has not been praiseworthy. It has functioned as a parrot on more than one occasion. So far as the state police performance is concerned, it again does not inspire any confidence. Even the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs in April, 2002 admitted that “today we have a police, which is politicized and politically polarized. For it has become a pawn in the hands of its masters.” It is here that the seeds of future danger lie
To prevent Emergency from occurring again, what is required is to create circumstances where it cannot be enforced with the ease with which it was done. It is in this background that the need for a reformed police force becomes obvious. The police, as Gary T Marx, a social studies scholar has said, can be a major threat to democracy just as it can be a great support to it. According to him, the “Police are a central element of a democratic society. Indeed one element in defining such a society is a police force that 1) is subject to the rule of law, rather than the wishes of a powerful leader or party, 2) can intervene in the life of citizens only under limited and carefully controlled circumstances and 3) is publicly accountable “ If these conditions are not met, the threat of Emergency will continue to loom large.
