Qurban Ali is a senior journalist and son of former freedom fighter and Socialist leader Captain Abbas Ali, who was jailed for 19 months by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency. In the backdrop of the recent controversy regarding the release of the Bollywood film Emergency, featuring Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Kangana Ranaut in the lead role, and the BJP’s push for ‘Samvidhan Hatya Diwas’ to commemorate 50 years of the Emergency, Ali spoke to Outlook's Rakhi Bose about the “dark days” and the political legacy of the Emergency. He has keenly interested followed India’s freedom struggle and is now documenting the history of the Socialist movement in the country.
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Reporter: Rakhi Bose
Camera: Suresh Pandey
Editor: Sudhanshu
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00:00No, emergency was a blot on the Indian democracy. And there cannot be any justification for
00:11that emergency. There were a lot of excesses were there, you know. Press censorship was
00:19imposed, civil liberties was curtailed, curtailed means killed. And there was no free judiciary
00:29at that time. No civil society was there. At the same time, we have seen all the people
00:35who are now having great sense for supporting anti-emergency crusade. They were all, you
00:47know, lining up against the government, in front of the government and asking mercy.
00:55From Devaras to common men. And thousands of RSS and Janasang workers were released
01:02because they gave their Maafi Namas.
01:05So sir, if you can tell us a little bit about your journey through the Indian political
01:14spectrum since you were present at the time the emergency was imposed and you were 12
01:18years old at the time, and your father was part of the political activism at the time.
01:24So if you can tell us what happened during the emergency, and if you can tell us about
01:27your father's involvement.
01:29Yes. You know, as you know, that I was born in a political family. My father, Captain
01:34Abbas Ali, he was a freedom fighter. He was in International Army led by Netaji Subhash
01:42Chand Bose. And then soon after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, he joined Socialist Party.
01:49You can say he was one of the founder member of Congress Socialist Party. And then he was
01:55there in the various streams of Socialist Party. Socialist Party later merged with KMPP
02:02and became Praja Socialist Party. Then there was a split and it became SP. Then again SP
02:09and PSP merged and became Sanyukh Socialist Party, that is SSP. And finally, the SP, which
02:16merged into Janata Party soon after the emergency was lifted in 1977. So you can say I have
02:23inherit the politics from my father, the political element in me. And my father was twice General
02:34Secretary of UP Socialist Party. And when it merged into the Janata Party, he became
02:40first president of UP Janata Party. So since I was born, and I came to some bit of sense,
02:53it was in me, you know, in my gutti that I was listening political discourse all the
03:01time, political movement. My father was very fond of going to jails. Every time, every
03:07month, there is a dharna or protest or march or something like that, Satyagraha. And I was
03:14watching it keenly. In 69, he contested unsuccessfully, the UP Assembly election, in
03:22which I as a small kid was participating. And then after the 1971 general elections,
03:37I started reading the socialist material. You know, there were a lot of magazines were
03:43there. And my father used to read at least five or six newspapers a day. So I was having
03:52that kind of exposure with the journalism also. And when this, and there was an election
04:01of UP Assembly in 1974, you can say that was the cutoff date of my political this thing,
04:10baptism. And then I started participating in the JP movement, you know, what is used
04:19to be called a Sampoong Tranti movement or Bihar movement or JP movement. And so JP first
04:26time when he came to my hometown Khurja in 1974. And when he gave the call for Delhi
04:33Chalo on 6 March 1975, I with my father participated in that political big rally in Delhi. And
04:42before that, there is a link to that, that my father was in Socialist Party and his leader
04:48Raj Narayan contested against Indira Gandhi in Rai Bhareli. So he was one of the witness
04:56in that famous case of Allahabad High Court, an election petition judgment, which was basically
05:05the reason for imposing the emergency. And on 26 June early morning, emergency was declared
05:15by Indira Gandhi. My father tried to be in, to avoid the arrest, but he was arrested.
05:29And he was put in the Poland Sheher Jail. Then he was put in the Bareilly Central Jail.
05:35And then when he filed against his arrest in Allahabad High Court, his heaviest corpus
05:40petitions, he was shifted to Naini Jail. So for those 19 long months, we suffered much
05:50because our relatives, close relatives started having some distance with us, because there
05:58was a danger that they might also go to jail. So, but on the other side, we were involved
06:07in some kind of underground resistance movement, circulating posters and banners and all that.
06:16So this was it.
06:17So you said that for the first two months, you didn't know where Captain Abbas was. And
06:22so what was it like? How was he arrested? What was that day like?
06:26You know, the instructions were given to the district magistrate that all the major political
06:34activists should be arrested of all opposition parties. Since my father was one of the prominent
06:42leader of UP Socialist Party, so he was arrested. But his arrest was not made public. And he
06:53was charged with a case that he was trying to remove a railway track. So the trains can
07:02be derailed. And for that fake charge, he was arrested under the DIR and MISA. And you
07:11know, the censorship was imposed and there was nothing in the media. There was no way
07:16to find out where he is, because he was travelling all along. So he would have been in Lucknow
07:23Jail or in Aligarh Jail or anywhere. But after two months, he sent a letter that I am in
07:31Bulandshahr Jail. Then we went there and met him there. And after that, there was much
07:42relaxation because jail authorities were also very friendly with these political prisoners.
07:48And we were allowed to take some food, especially on Eid and Baqri and on Holi, Diwali, there
07:54were some celebrations. So after that, it was... But first two, three months were very
08:02tense for us, because we were not aware what is going on, where he is, what would happen
08:09to him. Because at that time, there was a theory that a slow poison is given to these
08:17political prisoners. And some, later on, we came to know that some political prisoners
08:23were killed. There was some excess, especially in Bareilly Jail, their nails were smashed
08:31by the glass and all that. So it was quite a harrowing experience.
08:38And he was at home when he was arrested? He was arrested from the court house?
08:43No. He was somewhere in some political rally, because at that very time, the JP movement
08:49was at its peak. And on 12th of June, Justice Jagmohan Lal Sena pronounced this Allahabad
08:55High Court judgment. And from 12th to 25th June, there was hectic political activities
09:02going on. JP addressed a mammoth rally in Delhi's Ramblila ground. And soon after the
09:08emergency was imposed. So we were not aware where he is actually.
09:13And you and your family, who else would there be?
09:16Yeah, me, my mother and my two elder sisters. And I still remember, we were at our Nana's
09:24house in a remote village in Aligarh district. And when we came to know that emergency has
09:30imposed and all the leaders have been arrested, so we rushed to our own house in Bulandshahr
09:35district. And then we started searching for our father.
09:43So what was the mood like 19 months later when he was released? And the emergency also
09:48was over after that. So what was the aftermath of the emergency like for political leaders
09:53like your father?
09:54Oh, it was a jubilant atmosphere, you know, in North India, especially. And we were celebrating
10:03it that that black era has ended. When Mrs. Gandhi announced the elections, I think it
10:12was Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, where she announced in a public rally. And after that, she started
10:22releasing political leaders. So on 18th January, she announced and on 23rd January 1977, Janata
10:34Party was announced. And there was no structure and nothing. There was no flag of the party,
10:43no symbol. They contested on the symbol of Lok Dhan. And later on, after three months
10:48of forming the government, they formed the Janata Party. So the Lok Sabha election started.
10:54My father was offered a Lok Sabha ticket, which he refused, that I am not in a position
10:59to contest elections economically, because for 19 months, we were almost bankrupt. But
11:06he actively participated for the Janata Party candidates, conversing and all that. And soon
11:13after that formation of Janata government, Janata government dismissed nine state assemblies.
11:21So there were assembly elections in UP in June. At that time, my father asked for the
11:27ticket, but he was refused by the party, because so many groups, you know, were fighting for
11:35their own candidates. And there was Janata Sangha, Congress, Bharatiya Lok Dal, Jagjit
11:41Ram's Congress, and Socialist Party. But soon after that assembly elections, which
11:47was again a success, big success in UP, Bihar, and whole of North India, my father was appointed
11:53President of UP Janata Party. So we have forgotten what happened during the emergency.
12:01So over the years, do you think that political leaders who were involved at the time, especially
12:06with the socialist movement, and especially in this whole anti-emergency kind of movement
12:10that rose at the time, do you think that there has been a little bit of disillusionment
12:14in those people who supported at least the politics of that time? Do you think that there
12:19has been a disillusionment in those people in the last 25 years, since 50 years since
12:25the emergency? I mean, what were the things that the movement set out to do, what they
12:30achieved?
12:31Frankly speaking, this politics of non-communism, on which my guru Madhulme has written a book,
12:39politics of non-communism, that was suicidal for the socialist movement. Because till that
12:49strategy, what they call it, started, people in socialist movement were very committed,
12:56honest, and they were not power hungry people. They were not aiming to become MP or MLA or
13:03ministers or to get power. They were the kind of people that, look, we are the vigilant
13:13of the society in the opposition party, and we as a, what you call a watchdog of the democracy.
13:27And they have their own policies, ideologies, principles, which were compromised. Just,
13:36and it turned into an exercise to get, to grab power. That was the calamity of the socialist
13:46movement. In 67, they got power in four or five states in UP, Bihar, Bengal, Madhya Pradesh,
13:55and maybe in some two, three other states. And soon after, most of the people, that enough
14:02is enough. We are not going to starve. And now, we should be, we should grab the power
14:12and enjoy the fruits of it. So this kind of politics, if it could be restricted to only
14:22two power grabbing, I could have understand it. But they compromised the basic ideology,
14:29which was the alliance with the RSS. And that was the turning point. And RSS and BJP, in previous
14:40Aftar Bharatiya Janasam, they were untouchable to any political party. Is there any problem with it?
14:49Some noise? Politics, you know, of non-congresses paved the way to end the untouchability of RSS.
14:58And they became mainstream political party. And then, what happened in the first place,
15:09when they joined government in 67 and in 77, they were very subdued. And they never fight
15:19for their own ideology. They merged into Janata Party and ended their identity. Adopted the
15:29socialist policies of Janata Party. But when Janata Party was, you know, split on the issue
15:39of RSS, on the dual membership, then they formed the Bharatiya Janata Party again. And for next
15:49year, when BJP was president, they are saying that they are the Gandhian socialist, initially.
15:57And when Advani took over, after 84, when they were reduced only on two seats, then again,
16:06they started their propaganda and they came into their true colours. They started Ram Mandir and
16:16all the majoritarian communal politics, which is now dominating the Indian scene.
16:23And RSS was always supported. On the other hand, opposition also compromised with them.
16:35Sometime, they took support of other opposition parties. Sometime, opposition party took support
16:41of them. They formed the government in Haryana when Devilal won the election in 87. And in some
16:49other election also, they were having some kind of give and take politics.
16:57And after the split of Janata Party, you cannot say that there is any socialist party in this
17:02country, which has its own ideology, its own principles, own programme.
17:09So, if you can tell me, since you as well as your father will closely have seen the emergency era
17:14and the excesses that happened at the time, be it in terms of press freedom, be it in terms of
17:20political freedom. Now, do you think the freedoms that were won back at the time at the end of the
17:25emergency, do you think that they have, I mean, they are the same freedoms that were won back at
17:31the time? I mean, what is the legacy of the emergency, do you think? No, emergency was a
17:38blot on the Indian democracy. And there cannot be any justification for that emergency,
17:48there were a lot of excesses were there, you know, press censorship was imposed,
17:57civil liberties was curtailed, curtailed means killed. And there was no free judiciary at that
18:05time, no civil society was there. And everything was, you know, it's like a
18:20country with a true dictatorship. Mrs. Gandhi used to call herself a democrat.
18:30He, she was running parliament also at that time. But it was not a democracy anymore. I mean,
18:37if you assess this last 75 years of Indian democracy, that was the only era, the only chapter,
18:45which is, you cannot call that India was under democracy. And, but
18:52we are at the same time, we have seen all the people who are now having great
19:02sense for supporting anti-emergency crusade. They were all, you know, lining up against
19:11the government, in front of the government and asking mercy,
19:16from Devaras to common men. And thousands of RSS and Janasang workers were released,
19:24because they gave their maafi namas, their tender apologies that we will support this government.
19:33Even Devaras said this. So, they have no right to say that they were opposing emergency.
19:42And now what they themselves, they are doing it. It's worse than emergency. Because at that time,
19:49no one was killed on the name of caste, colour, creed and religion. There was no lynching there.
19:57There was no hate speech there. I mean, although the country was under threat,
20:04but there was harmony among the people. There was no major communal right at that time.
20:12And soon after the emergency, these RSS people started communal rights. The illegal and
20:19the worst hit communal rights were one of the reason of breaking of Janata Party government.
20:26It has been said in the parliament. And then they started their own ideology. They started
20:32having the parallel system of party. The youth wing of Janata Party was Yuva Janata. But RSS
20:40people started their own Janata Yuva Morcha. Subramanian Swamy was its president. And they
20:46are having their parallel offices. That's why Madhulme raised this issue of dual membership.
20:53And when there was no hearing in Janata Party high command about this issue. So,
21:01he held a press conference and said that making of the Janata Party was a historical necessity.
21:07Now the breaking of the Janata Party is a historical necessity and he broke the Janata
21:11Party. So, they cannot claim that they are the champion of civil liberties. Since when they can
21:19talk about human rights and civil liberties, when they are making hate speeches, you know, during
21:27the last parliamentary election, our prime minister was making hate speeches. I went to the police
21:35station and related to a court to lodge a FIR against him. Mrs. Gandhi was not doing this at
21:42that time. Her follies cannot be pardoned. Her son Sanjay Gandhi's excess cannot be pardoned.
21:52It should be remained there. But emergency is no comparison with present day's circumstances or
22:02atmospheres. In terms of like when the emergency happened, there was a very strong opposition,
22:09which was all of course, a lot of them were in jail. But like you said, the underground movement
22:13of resistance continued. For instance, I think at that time fighting the emergency became one of
22:21one dominant ideology what everybody came under. So, is there something today that unites leaders?
22:28Unfortunately not. Most of the political parties, including our left parties,
22:35are carried away by RSS propaganda. You know, when Article 370 was scrapped,
22:44there was no hue and cry. Article 370 was not a Hindu-Muslim question. It was a faith in our
22:53constitution, what we have promised to the people of Kashmir and which was there for so long.
23:02When there was a judgment, I do not know what kind of judgment that was about Ayodhya
23:09by the Supreme Court. Some people say it was a panchayati fesla.
23:16And everybody was so cool. Everybody accepted it. Then why there was so much of hue and cry?
23:22And I am afraid if something what happened in Ayodhya happened in Kashi or Mathura,
23:30will any political party will stand? I do not see any political party or a big group of civil society
23:41to protest against it. Now, there is a feeling in this country, whatever that majoritarian communal
23:49agenda is going on, that this is the nationalism. So, if this is the case, you cannot call this
23:56country a true secular democratic socialist country. You know, the current dispensation is
24:04having in last Lok Sabha, 300 MPs in Lok Sabha and 100 MPs in Raj Sabha. There was not a single
24:11Muslim. There was not a single Christian. There was one Sikh by default. Can you call it participatory
24:19democracy or inclusive democracy? I am afraid you cannot. So, if we are going in this way,
24:28now in every state assembly elections, we are not giving tickets to the Muslim because BJP will
24:34encash it. This is your commitment. This is not the party of Gandhi, Nehru,
24:43Maulana Azad and Sardar Patel. If you are always in fear,
24:50mongering or in this kind of situation, how you will fight with these fanatics,
24:57with the communal elements? The RSS, which is going to celebrate its 100 years next year,
25:04never participated in the freedom movement. In the ideology of freedom movement, they never
25:09accepted it. They never accepted the existence of our Indian constitution. Just for the sake
25:16of running the government, they are using it, rather usurping the constitution. But
25:24they have turned this country into a de facto Hindu nation. So, now this country has to decide
25:34which way they would go. If there is any one, you know, lessons that you would say that politicians
25:39today can learn from the emergency era and the leaders of that time, what would you say that
25:44would be? Every political party and every political activist, first of all, should commit
25:53to the inheritance of independence. What was the ideology of our national movement
26:03and what we have inherited? We have inherited Indian constitution from that ideology. So,
26:10those who are opposed to national movement, those who are opposed to that constitutional
26:15breaking policy cannot be true Indians. And this is the prerequisite to be a nationalist Indian,
26:28to believe in letter and spirit in that constitution. That constitution was framed
26:36by Dr. B R Ambedkar. He was not a congressman. He was never been in congress party. But he took
26:44all the essence of the party's manifestos, resolutions passed during the national movement.
26:54So, first of all, we have to believe in Gandhi, his politics and what he gave to India, that is
27:01Indian constitution. And our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has proved it for more than 17
27:09years. Then this country can only be governed and run by a secular democratic society, no other way.