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‘I was in jail with RSS leaders… People tried to hear each other out then': Jamaat leader
Fifty years after he was jailed during the Emergency, Ejaz Ahmed Aslam, 82, says he has clear memories of the 19 months he spent in prison. He met his third daughter for the first time at Madras Central Jail, where his wife brought their newborn child just 40 days after her birth.
A resident of Tamil Nadu then, Aslam headed the North Arcot district unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a socio-religious organisation he had joined when he was 15.
Maulana Muhammad Jafar, a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind's Central Advisory Council, says the organisation was 'misunderstood' by the Indira Gandhi government, 'which is why its workers were arrested'.
While eight Jamaat members were arrested in Tamil Nadu, around 3,000 of its members were imprisoned across India during the Emergency.
Sitting at the Jamaat office in Delhi, wearing a crisp white kurta-pyjama, a grey Nehru jacket and a fur cap, Aslam says, 'Once the Emergency was announced, I was put in Madras Central Jail along with other political workers and leaders of the Jamaat, CPI, CPI(M) and DMK. It was a difficult time for my wife, who was nearly eight months pregnant when I was sent to jail. She had had to take care of two young children — a four-year-old and a two-year-old — alone at home. Three months later, I saw my newborn daughter in jail. I can never forget that day.
Aslam is the editor-in-chief of Radiance Views Weekly, a 61-year-old magazine supported by the Jamaat.
Of the 19 months he spent in jail, Aslam says he was fortunate that his family was very supportive since many others didn't have that liberty and struggled. However, an incident haunts him to this day. 'As I was being taken away by the police to the local station, my eldest daughter Ayesha (then four years old) started running after me. The policeman who arrested me told me later that she was crying.'
Born in Karnataka's Hassan district in 1943, Aslam grew up in Bihar's Muzaffarpur after his father shifted there in 1954 to work at a sugar mill. In 1969, Aslam got his master's degree in English literature from L S College in Muzaffarpur. Later, he went on to become a lecturer at C Abdul Hakeem College in Tamil Nadu's Melvisharam. After teaching there for two years, Aslam, then 28, got married and shifted to Tamil Nadu's Vaniyambadi, where his father-in-law had a leather business. Aslam started working with his father-in-law and also became more active within the Jamaat, which, he says, influenced his way of life since he was a teen.
During his initial days in jail, Aslam says the political prisoners were sure that they would all be 'released soon'. However, three to four months passed without any signs of their imminent release.
'That's when the fear and anxiety in jail started going up. People started fearing that their incarceration would become permanent. Psychological issues started impacting political prisoners. There was a shift in thinking among the prisoners,' he says.
Calling Madras Central jail a 'notorious site of brutality' during the Emergency, he recalls one particular case. 'I was in prison with C Chittibabu, the former Mayor of Chennai. He had sustained injuries during a brutal lathi-charge. At the time of the attack, Chittibabu had been trying to protect a young M K Stalin from an attack inside a prison cell. He would succumb to his injuries later.'
Maulana Muhammad Jafar says the Emergency 'proved to be a blessing in disguise for the Jamaat' because its imprisoned office-bearers had the opportunity to interact with people in jails.
Jafar adds, 'These very people became leaders and a part of the government later. They came to know the Jamaat much better (during their jail term), and all their doubts and misunderstandings were cleared.'
On why the Jamaat workers were arrested during the Emergency, Aslam says, 'We did nothing illegal and our accounts were open to the government. We were working on education, Hindu-Muslim harmony and other social issues.'
Aslam says his prison barracks had several RSS workers, including Rangasamy Thevar, then Tamil Nadu chief for the outfit. 'It was a different time. People tried to understand each other's ideology and engage with one another. I remember having long discussions with Thevar,' he says.
One statement made by Thevar has stayed with him. He says, 'Thevar said, 'India is such a country that any unscrupulous person can rule India for any period of time'. I liked this quote very much, and I have used it in my writings too.'
