On a rainy night in late 1974 in Patna, under the Felicing Street Lamp, a small group of university students was on the move because they were scattered with chalk on the college walls: “Indira Hatao, Janata Bachao”.
Different party flags were fed among the agitators, some of them were marked with socialist and left symbols and others with saffron of the Sangh Parivar. It was here, on the banks of the students of Bihar-on the banks of the protests-Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) ignited the “Sampoorna Kranti (Total Revolution)” movement-that the RSS first entered the anti-emergency movement. As historian Rajni Kothari later saw in his memoirs, the student “placed the RSS in the mainstream and gave it political validity”.
This legitimacy was earned by the RSS volunteers for most parts, who faced jails to gather people, organized protests and engineering which were then called “underground resistance”.
The JP movement began in March 1974, when Bihar students first arose against the “corruption and misunderstanding” of the Congress -led state government. It was snatched into a rebellion against the “Misscrall and Radleism” of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress dispenser, which includes moral and organizational support from JP as well as various opposition organizations, socialists, Congress (O), CPI (M), Jana Sangh, and RSS Swayamsevaks.
Christoff Jafrelot and Pratinav Anil stated in their book India’s first dictatorship: Emergency 1975-77 that the RSS’s grassroots network provided “JP’s movement with discipline and rural entry.
This, perhaps, appreciated the organizational strength that JP, when corn was corn by left leaning critics when his alliance with the Sangh, said: “If the RSS is fascist, I am a fascist.”
In his book The Brotherhood in Kesar: The In the Theitriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Revivalism, Walter Anderson and Sridhar Dumle, drawing from archial correspondence, not as a passive dress to the RSS, but as an active force, the RSS cadre establishes an unprecedented opportunity with an unprecedented opportunity to get political experience and … with an unprecedented opportunity to get political experience and … political leaders. ,
On November 4, 1974, JP and Nanaji Deshmukh, experienced Jan Sangh leader and East-RSS practitioner, led a large-scale rally in Patna, demanding political accountability. As the police landed in a peaceful meeting with Baton, JP, then at the age of 72, was brutally killed – her collarbone, elbow, and legs were shattered with blasts. Nanaji had said that JP’s unconscious body was hurt himself, which saved him from further attacks. Public praise for JP and Nanaji increased, and for many people, it marked the point where the Indira Gandhi government lost the moral mandate to rule the country.
Then on the occasion of the birth centenary celebrations of the founder, Hedgewar at the Delhi rally, Bala Saheb Deorus (third from left) Delhi rally. BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee is under his authority. (Source: Express Archive Photo/1989)
When Indira imposed an Emergency on 25 June 1975, the RSS was among the first casualties. Four days after JP’s arrest, then RSS chief Balasaheb Deon was held at Nagpur station. The RSS was banned on 4 July. In the later cracks, several prominent leaders of the Sangh Parivar, such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani and Nanaji were placed behind bars.
Despite being illegal, the Sangh chose resistance when retreat. Its thousands of Swammavak and ABVP cadres joined the Satyagraha and arrested not only the organization’s ban, but also the government’s extensive strike on civil freedom and constitutional rights. As the repression intensified, the resistance went underground.
RSS volunteers built secret networks to print and broadcast banned literature, raise funds to maintain pushbacks, and established secret lines of communication between jail leaders and overground activists.
Reporting on the Emergency, The Economist wrote on January 24, 1976: “Formally, underground four opposition parties … but the shock soldiers of the movement come from the Jan Sangh on a large scale and its banned RSS … (of which 80,000, 6,000 are in jail, including party workers).”
According to RSS Publicity in-charge Sunil Ambekar, more than 25,000 union workers alone were arrested under MISA (maintenance of the Internal Security Act). He said, “More than 44,000 more were arrested during the agitation. Some Swamsevak died even during detention. But finally, democracy was re -established,” he told the Indian Express.
Former RSS ideology Kn Govindachari, who actively participated in the movement and was known to get close to JP, put the figures of arrested RSS workers at 1.3 lakhs.
Sources in the RSS said that volunteers took equal risk at the classes of the city and the village intersection. On August 9, 1975, in Meerut, there was a slogan of Satyagraha among the festive crowd. On August 15 that year, RSS cadres distributed pamphlets outside the Red Fort in Delhi.
RSS activists broadcast their underground newspapers – motherland, Panchajanya, even though the press was tightly strangled. The organizer and the editor of the motherland KR Malkani were among the first few journalists arrested during the Emergency.
At the same time, the Sangh also gave rise to controversies. Observers say that RSS chief Dorus wrote at least two letters to Mrs. Gandhi from Jerwada Jail in August and November 1975, appreciating the address of his Red Fort and pledged to support for his 20-Bindu scheme for reducing the ban on RSS. It was also alleged that some RSS prisoners wrote an apology letters to the government, even the majority refused the buckle under pressure.
Some critics like AG Noorani accused the Sangh officials of “Groveling before the spread of Congress”. The RSS sympathy, however, claims that it was a calculated strategy, which was aimed at reducing democracy, but to reconstruct institutional validity and secure the release of imprisoned volunteers.
“Sangh workers were in jail, yet they continued the struggle. Also, coming out of jail and continuing the movement would be a good thing. The Sangh was in a compromise mood, it would not have been involved in the movement,” Ambekar says.
As with respect to Dorus’ letters, many RSS attracts the Viceroy parallel to Mahatma Gandhi’s own letter in their early days. Govindachari told The Indian Express, “It was an act of a guardian who was concerned about his wards. Thousands of general workers were rotting in jails and their families were victims. There were an attempt to open the letter dialogue.”
He also explains that RSS critics never mentioned how Dorus rejected Mrs. Gandhi’s proposal that in exchange for Jana Sangh, the post -election emergency was not attended to cancel the ban on RSS.
“Deurus ji’s letters should be seen on a large scale and in the right perspective … but did a decisive battle be fought and the Emergency was defeated – and a new government was formed -” says Ambekar.
However, these lines and Jana Sangh leaders were refused to separate from the RSS, even they joined the Janata Party government after an emergency, even JP’s sympathetic view of the RSS was changed.
In his book The Hindu nationalist movement and Indian politics, Jaffrelot writes that JP felt “used” and felt that ideological deviation between his Gandhian socialism and Hindutva could not be done indefinitely.
However, Ambekar denied this. “Jayaprakash ji always knew what was the Jan Sangh. These things were already discussed. If he was disappointed, he must have been with those who forced the Jan Sangh to go out of the government,” he says.
Nevertheless, the emergency changed the trajectory of the RSS. The Sangh emerged with new credibility, its contribution eventually recognized by the broader health of Indian society and political class.
Once in the early years of the Republic for his cooperation with Gandhi’s killer Nathuram Gods, the RSS now joined the national discourse as a valid player. Three years after the Emergency, its political wing BJP was born; Under Narendra Modi, the BJP is now in its third consecutive term in power.
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