Between 1975 and 1977, Indian democracy was put through the ultimate test of endurance. The Emergency was such a blow to independent India’s political and intellectual ethos that during those tumultuous months and years, no one was sure whether the edifice of democracy, as we know and see it in the country today, would weather the storm or whether a more dictatorial template for governance would come to characterise Indian polity.
Fortunately, the Emergency has remained just a blot on the political legacy of the world’s largest democracy and nothing more than that. The body blow it had dealt to the political system of the time, though unfortunate, was limited in its scope in the long run as no other political party and no other prime minister ever dared go anywhere close to that dreaded ‘E’ word. The Emergency was a humongous challenge to India’s political future and the political community and civil society rose to it, making sure that the will of the people was never sacrificed at the altar of a corrosive, boundless political ambition.
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Test of character
The Emergency presented a test of character on many fronts and for many people, cutting across party lines. Surely, it marked the biggest crisis in post-independent India’s journey as a nation.
Looking at the ongoing Shaheen Bagh protests in Delhi, one cannot but wonder whether in terms of a module for nationwide disruption and a determined pitch to stave off a perceived institutional threat to the very idea of India, Shaheen Bagh would come close to resembling the Emergency-day angst or perhaps even more. While the protests over the implementation of National Register of Citizenship started primarily in the northeast, particularly in Assam, before it spread to other parts of India, the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act in parliament saw the wave of protests grow unimaginably in size and intensity, before finally coalescing around its epicenter at Shaheen Bagh.
Statutory warnings
Now there are two statutory warnings of sorts that need to be issued at this juncture. Firstly, anyone who thinks that the Shaheen Bagh protesters are all about a paid crowd that has little or no sense of belonging to the cause, cannot possibly be any farther from the truth. Secondly, imagining that the Shaheen Bagh brand of resolve to take on the government of the time will automatically translate into an electoral windfall for any of the opposition parties will be like assuming that every flower that blooms anywhere ultimately makes its way to adorn some banquet vase somewhere!
The spontaneous protests in the immediate aftermath of the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder in the winter of 2012 were early signs of how disparate elements within society can coalesce and unite for a common cause, cutting across all socio-economic and political identities. What is happening in Shaheen Bagh now is a further consolidation of that same sentiment, though on a much bigger scale and over an issue that is far more macrocosmic in its sense of urgency and mass engagement.
The real benefactors
The real benefactors of the Emergency-era angst and anger against the Congress and its leader Indira Gandhi were the Opposition parties — namely the Janata Party that was born out of an earnest desire to throw out Indira. It presented itself as a perfect anti-venom vial to counter Indira’s vindictive crusade against political rivals. And it was socialist Jayprakash Narayan (JP) whose rise as a mass leader acted as a catalyst to help bring the Opposition parties on a common platform to defeat the Congress. JP was one social activist whose unfailing ability to feel the pulse of the masses and whose audacity to be able to look Indira in the eye endeared him immensely to the electorate as well as parties opposed to the Congress. In that sense, the Emergency was directly responsible for the emergence of a new brand of politics in India whereby, the aura of the Gandhi surname was seen playing second-fiddle to a plebian player for the first time in independent India’s history. The Congress party’s humiliating defeat in the 1977 general elections put the seal of approval on this new playbook.
Legitimate anger
In case of Shaheen Bagh, what one ought to factor-in is that unlike the Emergency, there is no immediate political interface for these protests that can turn legitimate anger into votes against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Social activist Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption in high places had an immediate political off-shoot in the form of Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party — the questionable efficacy of that off-shoot notwithstanding! Shaheen Bagh, from that perspective, is at a crucial juncture. It has already reached a tipping point of sorts whereby, hereon, it will either fizzle out due to sheer fatigue and logistical hurdles, or it will turn the game on its head like what JP had done with Emergency.
Shaheen Bagh has already succeeded in issuing a caveat to the establishment: That matters of identity touch upon such a raw nerve that merely trying to push through with these issues using legislative mandate as a counterweight can be suicidal. On that count, Shaheen Bagh has served its purpose. But whether it can go a notch higher and rediscover a ‘JP Moment’ for itself is what will ultimately determine its place in history.
Twitter: @moumiayush
