POWER PLAY: Indira Gandhi campaigning before the 1977 elections; (below) Jayaprakash Narayan

When Indira [Gandhi] lifted the Emergency — at her own counsel, or the counsel of those that told her she would win elections by a thumping majority — Chandrashekhar, who had been released [from jail] and was spearheading the Janata Party, came to see me at my office… He said, ‘You now forget all this, get ready to prepare for the elections’…

The best answer to those who claimed that the Emergency had widespread support was the results of the 1977 election. Indira lost. It taught all of us who had fought against it that silence is an important political factor. We knew that on the ground there was seething resentment, but that it was suppressed and we would not have had access to it during the elections if people had not been politicised by what they had experienced.

One of the first calls I got the next day was from [high-ranking bureaucrat] P.N. Dhar. ‘Lakshmi, you were right when you said on the first day of the Emergency that Indira had weakened herself.’ Dhar had been in touch with me during the Emergency as part of his attempts to mediate between Indira and JP [Socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan], who was in increasingly poor health…

It is another matter that the Janata formation would squander its legacy in such haste. As the results poured in, the group led by JP held a meeting at our house. The big question was whether the various leaders and factions would stay united. I had discussed with JP the idea that we assemble the groups at Raj Ghat and make them take a pledge that they will all stay united. JP approved of the pledge we had drafted. But he got a phone call from [former Congress and then Janata Party leader] Jagjivan Ram who sounded very unhappy, because word was out that Morarji Desai would be made the Prime Minister. He asked me to go meet Jagjivan Ram. It was midnight when I reached his house. As I came out of the car, his son Suresh was standing there. He said, ‘Number 2 nahin chalega. Number 1 hoga, varna koi support nahin milega’ (Unless Jagjivan Ram is made Prime Minister, he will not support the government).

Anyhow, I went inside. Babuji (as Jagjivan Ram was known) was sitting with his supporters. I showed him the pledge saying JP had sent it…

However, on the day of the swearing in, Jagjivan Ram stayed away. I rushed to [party office] Jantar Mantar. They said there was a message that JP wanted to see me. I went to JP’s place. He said, ‘Babuji has refused.’

Babuji apparently told JP, ‘Indira fell on the basis of my tyaag patra, resignation letter from the Congress. Now, there is no space for me.’ JP said, ‘He is very agitated.’ I said, ‘It is true, he gave a tyaag patra. But that was patra and no tyaag. He wanted to become the Prime Minister.’ JP phoned Jagjivan Ram and said, ‘You are a social force. Without you, this country cannot move forward.’ He agreed, and the result was there were two Deputy Prime Ministers, Jagjivan Ram and Charan Singh.

No sooner had the prime ministerial impasse been resolved than the tussle began over the post of party president. Morarji had indicated that he should be made president. JP put his foot down, and said the Prime Minister cannot be president. He built a consensus around Chandrashekhar, whose revolt against Indira had been a significant contribution to the emergence of this opposition, and who came with strong socialist credentials. But Chandrashekhar seemed to have no interest in giving the party a direction that reflected the ideology of mass struggle which had shaped its success...Alas, his priorities, along with the rest of the Janata leadership, became political expediency — dissolving the state governments, and settling scores with Indira.

Not long after the election results I got a call from Jagat Mehta, who was foreign secretary at that time. Pupul Jayakar had called him to say Indira was very frightened and nervous as there were rumours that people affected by Sanjay’s forced sterilisation programme were planning to waylay Sanjay [Gandhi], take him to Turkman Gate and perform vasectomy on him. Jagat said, ‘Lakshmi, Pupul has asked me to speak to you to do something about this.’

Devaki [Jain’s wife] and I went to see JP at the Gandhi Peace Foundation where he was staying. We told JP about Jagat’s message. JP was visibly concerned, and discussed what could be done. I suggested that since the people had put an end to the Emergency and ousted Indira, there was no need for any act of retribution. This required a dynamic intervention to usher in peace and harmony. I said to JP, ‘If you could phone Indira and invite her for a cup of tea and make the invitation public, the message would go round to let bygones be bygones.’ JP said it was a good idea but with one change. Instead he would ask Indira to invite him for a cup of tea. It would be humiliating for her to come to the Gandhi Peace Foundation. He phoned Indira in our presence, who warmly offered to come to meet JP. But gently JP brought her around to let him go and call on her. He told us all this with a sense of relief writ large on his face and with a smile. He said, ‘After all she is my niece.’ The news item was, JP had tea with Indira. That settled passions, both at the media level and amongst the general public, at least for that moment, and left the new Janata government to attend to its business and not get engaged with the politics of vendetta.

Unfortunately, this did not fully happen. There were elements — led by Charan Singh — who wanted Indira to be punished. Subsequently they passed a resolution against Indira that she was to be imprisoned by the House Committee orders. When they came out of Parliament with Indira in custody, the police tried to dodge the media by taking her out from another door. But it took a second for the press to find out that she was taken to the Kashmere Gate police station and kept for the night. The entire tide of sympathy turned towards Indira. She became the focus once again, storming back to power in 1980. Since then, every Congress government has unsuccessfully attempted to cast a cloak over the events of the Emergency, which remain till today the darkest night of Indian democracy.