‘Emergency started as a good thing,but things deteriorated’

“The Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi was a good thing. People were relieved to be rid of the chaos. Jayprakash Narayan was doing whatever he wanted,” he says. The ostensibly controversial statement reflects in the title of his new book,‘Why I supported the Emergency: essays and profiles’,released earlier this week. “It’s possible the title was chosen by the editors as it sounds provocative,” he adds. His views — and memory — don’t,however,remain completely Congress-centric,as they have often been interpreted. “The Emergency started as something we needed but it soon deteriorated. Leaders,including Indira Gandhi,started misusing their powers. Sanjay Gandhi was a dictator.”

His new book brings together pieces written by the writer over his long career spanning 50 years as observer and journalist. The subjects range from the Emergency,kissing and the ’84 Sikh riots to painter Amrita Shergil. He still hopes to profile Sonia Gandhi,an “enigma,who has her finger on the pulse of India”.

His father Sir Sobha Singh was a builder who made much of New Delhi,but Khushwant has less happy things associated with the city to remember. “I was in Delhi when a bureaucrat called me up and asked me to flee as a mob (targeting Sikhs) was out to kill me. Suddenly,this man from the Swedish Embassy came and took us away. I spent my weekend safe in the embassy,as a stranger in my own country.”

In a way,the ghosts of 1984 have returned this year,with the general election. On this,he says: “The Congress was so insensitive in fielding Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler,both of whom were connected to the riots.” But then,a stray incident changed things. “I was disgusted with the way a journalist flung a shoe at the Home Minister. I was hoping Kumar and Tytler would resign on their own after this. At least the Congress took away their tickets.”

There are happy memories too. “I came to Delhi in 1919,and lived with my father in a shack at Sansad Marg. We would take rides on the Imperial Delhi Railway,which was actually a small,slow train carrying sand.” Delhi is now unlivable,he says,and he has sold his car,because he just cannot negotiate the traffic.

He has always rallied against religious fundamentalists — or ‘fundoos’ as he calls them — and he is worried that they are growing. “Hindu fundamentalism is growing at a pace not seen before. I remember Varun Gandhi as the young man who came to give me his anthology of poetry. I was shocked at his hate speech. I will write against the fundoos till the day I die.”

Until then,he has his two self-planted trees,a kadam and a kusum,in his Sujan Singh Park to tend for,and reams of writing (on yellow,lined stationery paper,and not on a computer) to do.