The 'Emergency Days'

IT still haunts me. I can never forget those days. And I'm sure many people, who were young enough to understand and feel the current, will ever forget those 'Emergency' days.

- Krishna Kumar Mishra

The dictionary says that, an incident to be an emergency, conforms to one or more of the following: if it poses an immediate threat to life, health, property, or the environment; has already caused loss of life, health detriments, property damage, or environmental damage; has a high probability of escalating to cause immediate danger to life, health, property, or the environment. Since the word 'emergency' has different connotations, and does not fit to actually where it was used by the English press in India, we have to take the help of an Indian language. If we take its Hindi equivalent 'Aapaatkal' (which was used by the government agencies) it has two different words - 'aapaat' means sudden trouble and 'kaal' means time. The word 'aapaat' is generally used when there is a natural disaster like earthquake, famine and flood etc. We did not see the country facing anything as such. However, though the country was nowhere in trouble, the ruler (read the Prime Minister) was certainly in trouble.

After the annual vacation, I packed my bags and moved to my hostel room on the 25th June. The very next day June 26, 1975, it was a different world. Though, I was not put behind bars and was free to move anywhere, but how can one, once the country itself was turned into a jail.

Let's see the chain of events: One year back in 1974, our hero was, contrary to the common belief, not Jayaprakash Narayan, but George Fernandes, the romantic symbol of resistance, under whose leadership Railway workers went on strike all over the country. Though it was crushed without conceding to any of their demands, it was one of the events that led to the Emergency. Our college, which never had a student union, was gearing itself to have one. It was 'George impact'. That was the name given to our shouting demands for the union election.