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Emergency: a perspective

We were not small enough those days to not know of politics or couldn’t understand emergency and its impact. We were in 9-10th during 75-77. I recall all that from days of chaos, daily strikes, police actions, police mutinies ( on political provocations) during days prior to june 1975, emergency brought considerable peace and order. 

Discipline, civility and the order,  the kinds we saw during emergency in offices, streets, factories and universities were never seen in India again and even not observed to this day. 

There were some rogue sections of power who misused authority but general public was commonly never troubled except for few cases on family planning. 

Primarily some section of politicians, some newspaper barons, some lawyers were the only classes which found themselves subject of govt toughness and some people were jailed too though most were under house arrest as political prisoners only unlike what we observe today when politicians slug out in jails along with hardened criminals on arbitrary charges. 

Buses, trains, university exams everything ran in order and in time. Economy was better because industrial out put improved.  This was also time when Panjab and Haryana started giving record food grains output and our infamous imports from US and Europe almost stopped. We became Nuclear power  that too during time of cold war when resistance was maximum. We also launched our first space satellite. There was secularism and discipline in society. One can recall there was a white paper on seeking opinion on an ordinance to drop use of surnames. Constitutional Institutions were left untouched and functioned well leading to holding of free elections in 1977 which Indira herself lost. 

Yes , these all could have been done with normal laws also avoiding emergency. However politics don’t not follow logic. 

Whatever we hear about atrocities of emergency are mostly gas and part of fake stories made up later or during months immediately after lifting of emergency to win elections. Excess were indeed there but not on public. India was much better though normal aberrations of politics creeping in can’t be denied and but these had never been so grave as to be projected as monstrous as being done by some politicians of this day to confuse public. 

Emergency period should be compared in contrast to the days two years prior to emergency when we saw dirtiest of street politics played which stalled general administration making society suffer.  Rail strike of George Farnandis brought full nation to grinding halt leading to food grain shortage and decline in industrial output. Gujarat and Bihar saw worst kind of student movements led by Jaiprakash Narayan. Even it was alleged that forces were provoked openly to disobey command. Indira’s election was disqualified on flimsy administrative lapse by high court on technical grounds on which too she was allowed to challenge in Supremely court. But opposition didn’t want to wait. That was not the  provocation of declaration of emergency but culmination of avoidable happening of those days. 

Section of lawyers, journalists and politicians who received supposed brunt of emergency have also been most vocal and have power to influence public discourse. They misuse that power to confuse public and sell fake narrative. This is what’s happening. Politicians who were not even born or were at side line during days of emergency today create fake stories and narrative. Social media has come handy for spreading lies. 

The futility of all this propaganda which brought Janata party to power was observed in aftermath of emergency. We had worst govt ever which spent all time in infighting and brought new culture of politics  in India which even continues to this day and impacts progress. 

Indira was brought back to power with majority  of 380 seat in 1980 by same people who removed her. Next elections congress took 403 seats. It was people’s mandate. People know right from wrong. One can’t challenge that.  This is premise even govt of today makes. 

It is useless to make fake stories about emergency and Indira for present day politics. Our democracy which we proudly claim as pillar of unity was strengthened by leaders like Jawahar, Indira, Narsimharao, Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh. Even Devgawda  provided quite fine govt being son of soil and secular. 

During seventies and eighties it was period of cold war and India despite being third world nation and having economic challenges made its mark globally which no one could ignore. Society was in peace. India was founded in strong grounds which makes it what it is today. 

You can’t have trillion dollar economy without becoming few billion dollar economy first that too at the times which were like digging our own road to move ahead. This is what our leaders like Indira did for India. It is the same road we now can move faster and claim extra credits. 


No muslim minister in NDA 2024

In electoral democracy, representation is not earned on talent only. The elected one is most of the time merely a representative of popular public emotions. Elections decide how public gets represented for their cause in the house but the govt formation ensures how nation is governed. True leader is not just the one who leads administrative functions of the govt but the one who can check anomalies of electoral politics to make every citizen feel politically participative. ‬It's the job of an inclusive leader to sieve societally balancing talent from diversity of classes, castes, faiths, gender, languages and regions to make every section of citizenry feel not just empowered and represented but active participant in the governance too.

Scriptures can't be followed blindly

Scriptures are also written by some hominoid or a human similar to us only but during the times our race was still primal, most likely of lesser intellect as the wisdom and the intellect have been linearly progressing since life began on planet. The newer you are the wiser you become. The ones who lived centuries back can’t be always more rational thinkers. Not everything written by someone 1200 years back be guiding us today when we are morally more evolved. Most fundamental driving force of Human progress has been adoption of community living which enabled our species become what we are today. Community and family require us to accept differing opinions and move along together. That made civilisation grow. Those who don’t learn this are failing to partner humanity and its progress.

Calling someone who differs with one’s opinion a Cobra is stagnantly primitive and reprehensibly avoidable view. Both who opined this 1200 years back or the one who accepts this in 2024 would be grossly wrong.


(this is in response to someone quoting following in our WhatsApp group:
"To partner with someone who is not in agreement (not compatible) is like living with a snake". This is taken from ancient scripture Thirukural supposedly written by philosopher Valluvar of Tamil origin.

PSUs and privatisation

There is problem that large sections of intelligentsia keep pushing for privatising public companies expecting that only scions of rich business lineage are equipped with inborn skills to bring in efficiency. That's resulting in farcical giving away of public property for ultimate liquidation. 

There is no denying that several PSUs had been unnecessarily created or have outlived reasons being in hands of govt. However there are corporations working in oil exploration, oil marketing, railways, airlines , mining, banks and shipping which act like counterbalances to private run off profiteering and need be in public hands. Most of PSU suffer not from lack of managerial skills but because of too much of political interference which has been increasing over time. That false superintendence needs complete removal. From bureaucracy to ministers and even their personal secretaries, everyone treats PSU as personal fiefdom to bully down and micro manage operations. Even scores of parliamentary committees and their members reserve rights to question day to day small decisions of PSUs. There is too much of external control which hinders fulfilling performance expectations. Corporate decision making in PSUs has been increasingly orphaned task leading to failed results. 

ONGC in 1999-2000 was declared on deathbed and was considered a lost case when Subir Raha was brought in as C&MD and given free hand to transform and rescue this key infrastructural public behemoth. Subir Raha, in next two years not just turned around ONGC into profit making efficient organisation but made it most valuable company in bourses among all public and private firms in 2004-05. The inertial momentum he pushed in lasted another decade and half. He bought gross loss making private company like Mangalore Refineries from Birlas and turned it around in one year. That was the pinnacle of his managerial competence.

Why can't govt, instead of selling these gems to private business houses on false hopes brings in reforms like complete deliverance from political interference and appointing of proven professionals to the boards with complete autonomy.