That midnight knock

As the hour-long journey ended when the giant iron gate of Rohtak Jail clanked open for us, it was clear something was seriously amiss. The next group brought in had L.K. Advani, S.N. Mishra and Madhu Dandavate, a veritable treat of a company to find oneself in. Emergency had been clamped!Reports coming in for a couple of months, even through unofficial channels, were gladdening: Discipline had overnight become a hallmark all over the country, offices had full attendance at 10 am, trains had started running on time, teachers had suddenly awakened to their duties and graft had disappeared! Later, however, corruption returned and at higher rates because of the `bigger risk’. Common feeling was the fear-ordained orderliness would have to be secured even after the Emergency was lifted.

But when would that be? After a week? A month? A year? It was anybody’s guess. The grim-mest foreboding came from Biju one day when he said: "Forget all this! We are most likely to cross the gate only as little bundles of bones! Indira is that ruthless." And, "Indira was India!"

As time winged past with the courts disarmed, press gagged, Parliament muted and dissent crushed, we were on an insulated island. Our relation with the outside world was indexed by a miserly cyclostyled slip clumsily filled up and handed over to each every new quarter: "Home Secretary is satisfied that continued detention of… is necessary, therefore bla… bla…"!Life had its fun in an otherwise sullen atmosphere. The chronic bachelor and ever serious Ashok Mehta would ask Sikander Bakht to convert him to Islam if he could really get `Houris’ at least after death! Sikander of course admitted he didn’t know what type of a Mussalman he was! When a tee-nager pickpocket was sent to us as a `mushaqqati’, Dandawate, whose wit was ever ready, announced his intention of making him treasurer of the Socialist Party! He kept reminding everybody not to trouble his secretary!

Bored with a lot of forced idleness, I decided to go for a stint of nature treatment. Once as I sat all covered with mud the `daroga’ of `mushaqqatis’ happened to came to our barrack. Seeing me, he drew his own inference and asked Lal, in charge of our group, "Does he become violent also?" Lal replied: "No, he sits passively." At this the da-roga’s comment was: "See the type of people they have rounded up. What a mad government it is!"We could even try to laugh at adverse events.

When the anxiously awaited judgment of the Su-preme Court on Fundamental Rights came like a bolt on all lovers of democracy a four-to-one verdict holding no such rights were available during Emergency one of the MISA detenues, a practicising lawyer (now a district judge), exclaimed: "Yes, one of the five judges has dissented. Now we will demand that 20 per cent of the detenues be released!"

Even better logic would have gone unheard. Releases had to wait till intelligence reports gave the signal for an assured result and elections announced on January 19, 1977. Destiny has its own modus operandi.