Forty Years Ago, November 3, 1977: Emergency power-cut

Front page of Indian Express on November 3, 1977

Navin Chawla, secretary to the former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Kishan Chand, told the Shah Commission that the decision to impose the Emergency was revealed to the LG early on the afternoon of June 25, 1975, much before Jayaprakash Narayan’s speech that evening calling upon the armed forces to revolt. Chand himself deposed that Indira Gandhi was present at the meeting, held at her house, when the orders were given to disconnect the electric supply to all newspapers in Delhi. Mrs Gandhi has sought to use JP’s call for revolt as the main justification for the Emergency.

Who killed Gandhi?

Some RSS workers allegedly beat up and threatened a guide of Gandhi Smriti for calling Nathuram Godse Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin and an RSS worker of Pune in his commentary to visitors to the Gandhi Bhavan. According to some workers of Gandhi Smriti, they also threatened to desecrate the place. More than 20 members of the Gandhi Smriti Employees’ Association sent a memorandum to Krishna Kant, requesting him to take steps to ensure protection to Gandhi Smriti workers against violence from RSS workers. Damodaran Nair, the guide who was allegedly beaten up and threatened, gave the sequence of events at a press briefing. Nair said when these people objected to his commentary, he told them that even the prime minister, Morarji Desai, has in his autobiography mentioned that Godse was Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin and a RSS worker. Desai was the home minister of Bombay at that time.

Shukla’s amnesia

Nikhil Chakravartty, editor of Mainstream, who testified at the Shah Commission, suggested that V.C. Shukla was “suffering from amnesia” since he claimed to be unaware that Maneka Gandhi, wife of Sanjay Gandhi, was the publisher of Surya. Chakravartty pointed out that Shukla had formally launched the magazine. He said he found it hard to believe that a central minister would undertake to launch a magazine without finding out who was the publisher and editor. Surya had come up during the proceedings of the commission in connection with having received an undue share of advertisements from the DAVP.