March 30, 1978, Forty Years Ago
Turmoil in CPI
When delegates to the CPI Congress meet in Bhatinda to consider the national council “draft political review report”, they will have before them a plethora of notes submitted various delegations. This draft approved by the national council admits that the party made “a great mistake by supporting the Emergency”. It, however, claims that the party was pursuing a correct political line till “August l974” when the Bihar struggle led by JP was opposed. According to separate notes, the main mistake crept in as far back as 1969 when the CPI leadership began pursing the line of Congress-Communist unity. The CPI chairman, S A Dange, thinks otherwise. He firmly says that the party was correct in lending support to the Emergency, “but our support should have been withdrawn when its anti-people forms began to assume clear shape”.
Ex-LG’s mea culpa
For the first time, the former lieutenant governor of Delhi, Kishan Chand, admitted to the Shah Commission that as the
administrator of Delhi during the Emergency, he was “constitutionally responsible” for whatever happened in the Capital during that period.
JP’s appeal to students
Jayaprakash Narayan appealed to the youths in Bihar to abandon their plans to stage demonstrations for and against job reservation. He assured them he was requesting the state and national leaders of the Janata Party “to urgently consider all aspects of this question (reservation) and find a solution that may be in the best interests of the state and also acceptable to all sections of the society”. JP sought to console the aggrieved sections further by saying: “On the basis of my innate optimism and inner conviction, I feel sure that the leaders will certainly be able to find a way out of the present impasse.”