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Journalism of Courage
The birth anniversary of former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, on December 23, is observed as Kisan Diwas. Charan Singh was the fifth PM of India. While his tenure as PM lasted less than a month, he had a highly eventful political career, which he spent championing the rights of farmers.
When Charan Singh was the Home Minister, Indira Gandhi was arrested on his orders. Here’s how that episode played out.
In the post-Emergency election, a novel political experiment called the Janata Party had come to power, and Indira Gandhi’s popularity was at an all-time low. However, she scripted her comeback riding on an elephant, literally. On May 27, 1977, after some Dalits were burnt to death in Bihar’s Belchhi, Indira went to visit the village, on an elephant’s back as the roads were unmotorable. After this, she went to Raebareilly, Gujarat, Bombay, attracting cheering crowds everywhere. This alarmed the Janata government.
Morarji Desai was then the prime minister, and Charan Singh held the Home portfolio. Under his orders, the Central Bureau of Corruption (CBI) prepared a chargesheet accusing Indira of corruption. On October 3, 1977, the police went to her doors. The plan had been to take the former PM to a rest house in Haryana, but amid a crowd of supporters following the police car, she was taken to New Police Lines in Kingsway Camp, where she spent the night.
A report in The Washington Post from that time says, “Gandhi demanded that she be taken away from her home in handcuffs but police agents refused her request.”
A report in The Indian Express on October 4, 1977 says that Indira called her arrest a political one. “No matter what the charge or charges now made against me, this arrest is a political one… we cannot be silent spectators when we see suffering and injustice. If I cannot travel or draw attention to your multifarious problems, in mind I can and shall be with you all. So keep calm and peaceful but let no person or deed subdue your spirit and determination…” she said after her arrest.
She was booked under two cases under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act. “In the first case, she has been accused of entering into a criminal conspiracy and abusing official position along with Sethi and five others to procure jeeps for the election campaign in various parliamentary constituencies. The second case involving Mrs Gandhi relates to the contract entered into between the ONGC and the French oil company, CFP, for obtaining the consultancy services of CFP for Phase III of the Bombay High off-shore drilling operations,” The Indian Express reported then.
She got out of jail in a night
However, Gandhi did not stay in jail for long. She was produced before additional chief metropolitan magistrate, R Dayal, who ordered her immediate release, saying “there were no grounds for believing that the accusation was well-founded.”
Indira would soon be arrested again, however. In 1978, she won from Chikmagalur and entered Parliament. However, she had to face a Privilege Motion in Lok Sabha over charges that as PM in 1974, she had obstructed an inquiry into her son Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti factory. She was sent to jail again for a week and had to resign from her seat, which she won again.
These stints in jail only helped boost Indira’s popularity.
Meanwhile, all was not well within the Janata camp. Infighting led to the Morarji government losing majority. In the ensuing chaos, Indira’s faction of Congress pledged outside support to Charan Singh’s group, and he was sworn in as PM on July 28, 1979. However, he never faced Parliament. His government fell in 23 days as Indira pulled support.
Singh then said in a statement that in return for support, Indira wanted withdrawn certain cases against her and Sanjay Gandhi relating to excesses during Emergency. “The country would not have forgiven us if we had, for the sake of remaining in office, agreed to withdraw prosecutions against persons responsible for atrocities during Emergency,” the statement read.
