Book Review: The Emergency- A Personal History

Book: The Emergency: A Personal History

Author: Coomi Kapoor

Publisher: Viking

Pages: 389

Rs: 599

It'll be exactly 30 years on June 25 since Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency, suspending civil rights and sending opposition leaders en masse to prison. Thousands were arrested in the dark days and nights that followed as Gandhi and her son Sanjay enforced sterilisation, 'beautification' drives that left thousands of people homeless overnight, and muzzled the press. An excerpt from journalist Coomi Kapoor's forthcoming memoirs of that dark interlude in the history of independent India:

The former maharani of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi, was housed in Tihar jail in a small room with a veranda which was meant for visiting doctors. It had open sewers running along its side. The room was already occupied by Shrilata Swaminathan, a dedicated NGO worker who had incurred the wrath of the authorities because she had organised farm labourers working on the plush farmhouses bordering Delhi. Rajiv Gandhi was one of those who owned a farmhouse in Chhatarpur, then an outlying region of the capital.

As an erstwhile royal, Gayatri Devi was given some special facilities by the Tihar jail superintendent – a newspaper along with her morning tea, and a fellow prisoner, Laila Begum, to clean her room. She was also allowed to take a walk in the evening with her stepson Major Bhawani Singh (Bubbles), who had been arrested along with her. These small concessions kept her going and insulated her to some degree from the terrifying world around her. Women prisoners were released only for two hours in the morning and two in the evening. 'It was like a fish market with petty thieves and prostitutes screaming at each other,' she recalled in her memoirs. Sympathetic friends from overseas sent all sorts of presents, from books and perfumes to chocolates and Christmas pudding. The maharani spent her days reading and embroidering. She also assisted the children of the convicts in getting textbooks and slates to start some lessons, and helped set up a badminton court. Gayatri Devi soon developed an ulcer in her mouth and it took three weeks for the authorities to permit her personal dental surgeon to visit her. It was several more weeks before the prison superintendent would allow her to be operated upon at the clinic of a well-known Delhi dentist, Dr Bery.

The internment of the Rajmata of Gwalior, Vijayaraje Scindia, was longer, but she was probably less traumatised by her experience than Gayatri Devi. 'There was a glow on her face. The Rajmata of Jaipur on the other hand looked haggard and shell-shocked,' recalls Virendra Kapoor.

In Tihar jail the two maharanis greeted each other in the traditional style of the heads of two royal houses, with bowed heads and folded hands, when they first met. But Gayatri Devi could not help bursting out, 'Whatever made you come here? This is a horrible place.'

Vijayaraje's cell was at the very edge of the women's ward. It was a small, narrow room with a high, barred window. The common bathroom had no tap. A hole in the ground, covered with a plank, served as a toilet and a sweeper came twice a day to flush it with a bucket of water. There was an all-pervading stench, ever-present flies and mosquitoes and perpetual noise. The location of her cell, between the men's and women's wards meant that she got to hear the sounds from both sides. The women inmates engaged in frequent slanging matches, with their children constantly howling; from the other side of the wall came the sounds of political slogans and patriotic songs as well as demented screams and maniacal laughter.

The maharani bore these conditions stoically. She tried to make the best of the situation, drawing strength from her regular reading of the scriptures. For a month her family had no idea of her whereabouts. Vijayaraje used her time in jail to try and improve the lot of her fellow prisoners. She acted as mother confessor and confidante to many of them. A prisoner accused of murder was assigned as her personal maid and the woman looked after her with great dedication. Vijayaraje instructed her daughters to bring clothes for the children, as well as cough syrups and sweets. She also taught the prisoners to sing bhajans as a change from their usual repertory of film songs, which they referred to as cabaret numbers. When Vijayaraje finally left the prison, the female convicts lined both sides of the entrance to the inner gate and strewed her path with petals to show their gratitude.

(Reproduced with permission from the publishers)