This correspondent has watched and covered the events in seventies and eighties and seen the gruesome days of Emergency, rise and fall of Sanjay Gandhi and rise of Rajiv Gandhi to get biggest-ever majority in Parliament and become the Prime Minister. I can vouch the account given of the events are objective and correct; there has been no exaggeration. There is, therefore, no need for knee-jerk reaction by a section of Congressmen, claiming to be Indira loyalists.

An essay, for instance, by political scientist Sudha Pai has left several Congress leader fettering and fuming. While the write-up squarely blame Indira Gandhi for the party’s decline in Uttar Pradesh, loyalists of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty point the finger at P V Narasimha Rao, who was the Prime Minister at the time of demolition of Babri Masjid and the subsequent drifting of Muslim votes towards Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi party and the upper castes towards the BJP.

While the Congress has officially distanced itself from the book contending that the views belong to independent academicians, many leaders feel that neither such an analysis appropriate nor it is politically correct to print such erroneous perspective.

In the preface of the book which, is fifth volume in the series — A centenary History of the Indian National Congress, leader Pranab Mukherjee notes that the Congress wanted specialists to contribute to the volume “to generate an objective and scholarly perspective for the period under review and not necessarily have the party’s perspective”, The book has been edited by Mukherjee and coordinated by commerce minister Anand Sharma. It is not the official history of the Congress between 1964 and 1984.

However, some leaders felt that the idea of asking experts to write history in a party-sponsored project was flawed. “It is not an official version of our history, why should the party publish it?”, a senior party leader asked. Why blame only Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and not highlight the damage done by others, including Narasimha Rao and V P Singh to the party?. Interestingly, the book doesn’t attack Rao, who has for long being the party’s whipping boy, much to the surprise of those who hold him responsible for the Babri Masjid demolition.

The leader explained, “the Muslims deserted the Congress because of Rao’s role alienated them while Mayawati offered them a platform. V P Singh compounded the problem by Mandalising the society and creating OBC satraps like Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad”.

The fifth volume of the series on the Congress history reportedly admits that former President Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi used Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to counter the Akali Dal’s influence. An article by veteran journalist Inder Malhotra suggests that Indira Gandhi herself might have been in the know of their anti-Akali Dal scheme.

A senior Congress leader categorically held Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao responsible for giving saffron brigade a chance to win the trust of the majority community. “Rajiv Gandhi opened the mosque’s doors and Rao was silent when it was demolished. The Sangh Parivar used the situation to woo the Hindus. Then Rajiv Gandhi supported the SP in 1990 and Rao backed the BSP in 1996. In a way these two leaders set the stage to bring the BJP into prominence and let the Congress play a peripheral role in the state’s politics”.

Indira Gandhi’s decision to impose Emergency has rightly come in for sharp criticism which was indeed a “monumental mistake”. The attack on Sanjay Gandhi’s “extra- constitutional” authority and his “coterie” has also been put in correct perspective. It well know to everybody, particularly those who had covered the Congress party those days. The book rightly accuses Indira Gandhi of “having emasculated the Congress party and takes a dig at the “sycophancy” of Congress leaders that crossed all limits of decency.

Inder Malhotra says: “There is no doubt that emergency was such a sordid chapter in independent India’s history and a 19-month-long nightmare for all those all those who lived through it…. It took an excruciatingly long time to flush out of the body politic the emergency had pumped into the system”.

“Since all her confidents, especially her increasingly powerful son, Sanjay, had ruled out her withdrawal from office even for a day, the hammer blow preparations for of emergency and Indira Gandhi’s monumental mistake had become inevitable .Sanjay and his cohorts had made elaborate preparations for Emergency in total secrecy”, says Malhotra.

In another chapter of the book ‘JP Movement and the Emergency’, historian Bipan Chandra says, “Sanjay Gandhi and his cronies like Bansi Lal, Minister of Defense at the time, were keen on postponing elections and prolonging the emergency by several years….. in October—November, 1976, an effort was made to change the basic civil libertarian structure of the Indian Constitution through the 42nd amendment to it”

“The most important changes were designed to strengthen the executive at the cost of judiciary, and this disturb the carefully crafted system of constitutional checks and balances between the three organ of the government”, he says.

Sonia Gandhi, however, rebuffed an attempt by a powerful section within the party to put Pranab Mukherjee and Anand Sharma in the dock by citing critical references to Indira Gandhi in the book. She found nothing wrong working in the book — A Centenary History of the Indian National Congress — and dismissed the controversy as unnecessary.

Some senior leaders the issue within party forum and few had complained to Sonia Gandhi, wondering how Mukherjee and Sharma cleared the disparaging remarks about Indira Gandhi. Mukherjee is chairperson and Sharma is the convener. (IPA Service)