Harsimran kaur ON Nov 05, 2023, IN BOOK REVIEW,THE EMERGENCY: A PERSONAL HISTORY BY COOMI KAPOOR–NON FICTION
Rating: 5/5
The supremacy of Goddess Durga is non-negotiable. Her tyrant hunt to nail down the demon ‘Mahishasura’ with her trident advocates the importunate strife for empowerment albeit with an uncertainty of its acceptance. ‘Durga’ manifest as the hard-bitten ‘Goddess’ pompously abut by the ‘ladies in distress’. It is also impossible to deny her rutherfordium of anger; the panoply of arms extended to subjugate the ‘evil palaver’ concomitant with the pop-eyed pimento incanting the hubris-self.
Indira Gandhi was referred to as ‘Durga’ by Vajpayee following the success of the Indo-Pak war of 1971. She knew her opponents well and had the entire strategic maneuver in place to outstrip them. The penultimate legacy was a responsibility; it reckoned her obstreperously painting an image of ‘goongi gudiya’. High falutin to regard enemies as ill-disposed saprophytes, her political career was an arpeggio with a scherzo of the sassy & satirical with a few singing a cappella.
Emergency was one such tune; a shudder unceremoniously giving way to crenellations gradually falling short of her self-exculpating demeanor. There was pride, no doubt. Her ego manifested in the power to rule. It was an indefatigable pursuit, a carte blanche to promulgate rules in casuistry. Whatever said and done, ‘Emergency’ was a clanger. Slewed in its chimera, it fell like a rotten apple, sheathing off the scrofula of toxic scalar.
- Scrounge of imprisonments thereby sabotaged the formidable ground of democracy.
- The dysfunctional mind of Mrs. Gandhi became a putrescent fear; a phantasmagoria of losing power to the unable.
- Did she feel she was losing a war of faith among her own caucus or possibly being too leery of the political lour? Result? Mrs. Gandhi as a loose cannon resorting to the last-ditch of ‘Emergency’ to secure power.
- The awkward silence of the ‘Press’ was non-comforting. The diminution of ‘freedom of speech’ caused immense dissension and demoralized India that always stood proud under the Nehruvian idea of democracy.
In Coomi Kapoor’s ‘Emergency’, a personal trail of events gives an egregious experience of the ‘Emergent Action’. Being a journalist with the ‘Indian Express’ during the claustrophobic period, she provides a cadence of the diabolical treatment of the ‘Press’, and how Mrs. Gandhi accompanied by her sycophants diddle the entire country to retain the infectious power.
What was power to her? In the years leading to Emergency and thereafter, it always remained ‘physically lethal’ and ‘mentally agonizing’. It was anthropomorphic to her; literally freaking out, the eyes always in control of what they see, a de jure of ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’, and defy the impenetrable. ‘Emergency’ was a nuisance; a tardy and scurrilous reasoning to protect the country from the opposition’s casus belli. She incessantly saw herself as the fairy godmother to protect the citizens from rebarbative actions; to become the ‘Durga’ to punish whosoever challenged her ferocity.
Coomi Kapoor poignantly gives us a sneak purview of the Emergency debacle. It’s not just the author’s story of chasing her husband ‘Virendra Kapoor’ detained under the MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) or her brother-in-law Subramanian Swami who was on a run from the country because of his nationalistic views similar to ‘Jana Sangh’. The book is in fact the story of every citizen who suffered under the tumultuous wave of ‘Emergency’ bereft of its freedom to channelize its thoughts.
- How easy is it to forgive the political intellect of Mrs. Gandhi? Many still pester the wound. Politicians put behind bars and the deplorable berths fostering their consternations turned to be infancy. Arun Jaitley, Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, K.R. Malkani, to name a few witnessed the inflammatory situations in the prison.
- Antagonism was the reflexive butt-whack. Mrs. Gandhi was quick to ban 26 organizations including Anand Marga, RSS, Naxalites and the Jamaat-e-Islami.
- Was there an intend to create a state of precocity? Mrs. Gandhi was an insecured woman; she created her own strait-laced seethe to save her ‘power pyritic’. The twenty-point program carrying a charm of anomaly eventually made her fall on its feet.
The book through a personal prognosis captures the vivid realities and disinters the obstreperous wounds of many. Nevertheless, let’s not forget the salamander that jumped into the slugfest and acted as a prescriptive percipient to Mrs. Gandhi—the dilettante Sanjay Gandhi. He was a force to reckon with, slinging off prevaricates in promiscuity of his five point program—forced sterilization and slum clearance forming a big part.
It’s often that one becomes judgmental when personal tragedies walk along the deplorable acts like Emergency, though Coomi Kapoor has acted as a voice to the incongruity witnessed by her and the people she worked with. The opinions of Ministers like J.P and Morarji on Mrs. Gandhi are well-documented and validate the disillusionment she lived with. Another earthen pot that Gandhi wanted to break was George Fernandes; she did but gradually the fear to be isolated made her an ant stuck under the load of the matchstick. The insecurity rose again of being assassinated and a dire harm to her family. ‘Emergency’ consequences lamented her to beg for absolutions. The people of India, demoralized and crest fallen, failed her in the mid-term elections; morose now, died in spirit but what made her alive was the resolute to cling to power once again.
TAKE AWAY
Mrs. Gandhi, a princess, sitting graciously on the opulent throne wearing a bejeweled crown. Her admirers, the opposition looks at her in awe but what she sees in them is lethargy or perhaps in cavorts with perilous intentions. Her suspicion holds no bounds. For her ‘Power’ is all existential—an embrocation of sustainability. However, in the pirouette of megalomania, she loses the thread of humanity, crisping the wafers carefully so not to bite her tongue, eventually altering the taste of democracy.
Articulate and Bold….