Writing the Emergency: Early notes from the underground
When it comes to documenting the brutalities of the Emergency, a good majority of the literature falls under the genre of memoir, which captures emotion, heroics and suffering. These came much after the Emergency was lifted, and after many cubic feet of water had passed under the arches of Indian politics. But equally or more fascinating was the vigorous real-time pamphleteering that happened during the Emergency.
It is pamphlets, both anonymous and signed, that characterised the Emergency and scarred the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty permanently. They constructed an enduring perception of the time.
It may be instructive to revisit the very first underground pamphlet that was smuggled out of India via London during this time, and published in faraway United States by a diaspora group called Indians for Democracy (IFD). The pamphlet was provocative, polemical and plain angry, with colourful phrases of personal attack on Indira Gandhi.
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