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Indian Express
10 hours ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Daily Briefing: Trump hints at ‘opening up India' with trade deal; L K Advani's prison notebook; Maa movie review
Good morning, Remember that cup of your favourite tea, served with some biscuits or wafers, and that tempting whiff of cakes getting baked in your neighbourhood, on a cloudy morning? Well, that's what the mood is like among the cricket club members in Yorkshire, England's deeply traditional county. With about 800 clubs and over 125,000 recreational players, just like at home, tea here is never taken light or lightly. The 'Cricket Yorkshire Tea of the Year' competition is back, with participants gearing up to send pictures of their mouth-watering tea spreads to the organisers. Word of mouth appreciation and some field trips during tea time shall decide the winner. The contest is expected to get spicier in the coming years with a few Indian clubs. With that, let's move on to the top 5 stories from today's edition: 🚨 Big Story Indian trade negotiators landed in the United States on Friday for in-person talks before the July 9 deadline for the reciprocal tariff pause runs out. American President Donald Trump said that the US and India 'may' sign a trade deal under which the country would 'open up.' The roadblock to a trade deal comes as the US has flagged several non-tariff barriers and high duties in India; however, it has yet to commit to several Indian demands. As the negotiations between India and the US for an interim trade deal enter their final phase, India's oil imports from the US jumped over 270 per cent year-on-year in the first four months of 2025. This jump underscores Delhi's strategy of enhancing American imports amid trade pact negotiations and diversifying its sources of crude oil in a volatile geopolitical and geo-economic environment. India is attempting to step up imports from the US across categories to address America's key concern of a widening goods trade deficit. ⚡ Only in Express The Emergency, 50 years on: Meenakshi Datta Ghosh was the youngest of the five ADMs posted in the national capital when the Emergency was imposed, only to find herself witnessing the Ramlila Maidan rally that preceded, and maybe even hastening the Indira Gandhi government's crackdown. The silence on the Delhi streets was heavy, laced with fear and dread, carving a perfect sight for Ghosh to see how the levers of power were oiled and wills were bent. 'The issue was do I comply with the law, or follow the political cum bureaucratic commands? Do I preserve process and procedure, or do I enable power?… I feel that the Emergency prepared me to overcome everything that came my way,' Ghosh recalls. From the prison diaries: Detained without trial for months in Bangalore Central jail, Lal Krishna Advani maintained a prison notebook. On December 28, 1975, when Emergency was in full swing, the then Jana Sangh leader wrote that PM Indira Gandhi wanted the Constitution to be changed after a public debate, but questioned her intentions, and countered her claim that the Opposition was in favour of an 'inflexible Constitution'. 'It is the democratic content of the Constitution which the present Establishment regards as a roadblock to its ambitions,' the Jana Sangh leader wrote. Read Advani's full entry here. 💡 Express Explained Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk launched its blockbuster weight-loss injectable semaglutide earlier this week, months after its competitor Eli Lilly's tirzepatide hit Indian markets — and nearly four years after these GLP-1 therapies took the United States by storm. These drugs are highly effective for weight loss, helping people lose 15% to 20% of their body weight. So, how do these 'miracle drugs' work? How were they discovered? And what are the other benefits of these drugs? We explain. ✍️ Express Opinion In our Opinion section today, Kanti Bajpai delves into the three major issues arising from American strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, and the possibility of a nuclear deal. He writes: 'The conditions are ripe, therefore, for a new nuclear deal. That said, the ceasefire must hold, and Iran must have an authority figure that can deliver a deal. Neither is certain. In addition, the US may have to sweeten the deal economically by lifting sanctions. This will depend on Trump overcoming domestic and Israeli opposition. In short, there is a road ahead, but it is a rocky one.' 🍿 Movie Review Wondering what to watch this weekend? We've got you covered! Kajor-starrer 'Maa' has hit your nearby screens this Friday, presenting the story of a mother who would go to any lengths to save her family. Shubhra Gupta, in her review, writes: 'Mixing mythology and technology, 'Maa' presents Kajol as a contemporary woman fighting with all her might to keep at bay the dark forces targeting her young daughter… This is a film which is clearly well-intentioned. Smashing patriarchy is a task that films need to keep taking up, and Kajol has the heft to get the job done.' That's all for today. Have a lovely weekend! Until next time, Ariba
Indian Express
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
L K Advani's prison diaries: Constitutional morality, Indira Gandhi, and Thomas Jefferson
Detained without trial for months in Bangalore Central jail, L K Advani maintained a prison notebook. On December 28, 1975, when Emergency was in full swing, the then Jana Sangh leader wrote that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted the Constitution to be changed after a public debate but questioned her intentions, and countered her claim that the Opposition was in favour of an 'inflexible Constitution'. The observations are important given that 50 years after Emergency, both the government and the Opposition continue to swear by the Constitution and accuse each other of trying to damage it. Advani wrote that in an interview given just before the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Chandigarh earlier that month, Gandhi cited Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States and its third President, who believed that the life of a Constitution should be just two decades. 'Indira Gandhi's statement is a part of an interview she gave to the souvenir published on the eve of the Congress session at Chandigarh. In the interview, she quotes Thomas Jefferson's well-known dictum about the desirability of reviewing a country's Constitution every twenty years. She has cited him against the opposition whom she described as being opposed to any change in the Constitution,' Advani wrote in A Prisoners' Scrap-Book, his writings in jail from 1975 to 1977 that later acquired the form of a book. While Gandhi had accused the Opposition of being against any change in the Constitution, Advani said the latter was in favour of desirable change but not change that would damage democracy. The argument Jefferson made is found in a letter he wrote to James Madison, his successor as US President and the person considered the 'father of the American Constitution', on September 6, 1789. '… No society can make a perpetual Constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished, in their natural course, with those who gave them being… Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it is enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.' Taking a dig at the Congress, Advani wrote, 'There has lately been a welter of statements by Congressmen that the Constitution needs to be changed early and that delay would be disastrous. Indira Gandhi threw cold water on such talk with a statement that changes in the Constitution should be preceded by a thorough-going public debate.' He added, 'As if an electric button has been pressed, the tenor of speeches regarding constitutional amendment changes. Every Congress chhut-bhaiya (small fry) now talks of the need for a public discussion on the issue.' Advani wrote in his diary that 'none of the opposition parties in the JP movement is opposed to desirable changes in the Constitution'. 'Indeed, if one were to go through the election manifestos of the various political parties for the 1971 and 1972 elections, one would find that they are more committed to constitutional reform than the ruling party. The Jana Sangh has favoured the setting up of a Commission on the Constitution to review its working. The Socialist Party has advocated a fresh constituent assembly. So, there is no substance in Indira Gandhi's charge that the opposition parties are for an inflexible Constitution,' he wrote. The Jana Sangh leader, who was later among those who founded the BJP, accused the Indira Gandhi government of trying to change the Constitution in an ill-intentioned manner. 'We, however, hold that the present Government's annoyance with the Constitution stems not from social or economic factors, as it keeps propagating, but from political considerations. It is the democratic content of the Constitution which the present Establishment regards as a roadblock to its ambitions.' Advani added, 'The Emergency empowers the Government to suspend any of the Fundamental Rights. It is significant that Article 31, namely that relating to the right to property, has not been suspended. The Articles suspended are Article 14 (right to equality), Article 19 (the seven freedoms of expression, assembly, association, movement, trade etc.) and Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty etc). These are the provisions which embody a citizen's democratic rights. The Executive can ride roughshod over these rights during an Emergency. It is doing so shamelessly these days.' The Jana Sangh leader accused the Emergency regime of trying to 'make its present authority perpetual under the Constitution'. 'The ruling party has the requisite majority also to make the necessary change in the Constitution. But the Keshavananda Bharati judgment which lays down that the basic democratic structure of the Constitution cannot be altered has become an insurmountable hurdle. That is why the Government is so bitter about this judgment.' Advani was referring to the judgment of the 13-member constitution bench of 1973 that while the Constitution gave Parliament the right to amend it under Article 368, it could not be used to destroy the Constitution. It was in this context that the Supreme Court put in place the basic structure doctrine: certain fundamental features such as democracy, secularism, the rule of law, and judicial review cannot be taken away by Parliament through constitutional amendments. Irony of quoting Jefferson Taking a dig at the irony of the PM for quoting the third US president, Advani said it was a 'pleasant surprise to hear Indira Gandhi quote Jefferson'. 'For the past few months, quoting Western Liberal thinkers has become passe, if not altogether retrograde and reactionary,' he wrote. 'However, one wonders how familiar Indira Gandhi is with the political philosophy of Jefferson. His views reek with sedition. God forbid, he wrote to a friend, that we should ever be twenty years without a revolution.' Advani added that 'one of Jefferson's biggest contributions to liberal political thought is his insistence that a citizen has the right to defy an unconstitutional statute'. 'What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance?' he added, quoting Jefferson. He quoted the former US president as saying that 'censorship of any kind would negate the very spirit of democracy by substituting tyranny over the mind for despotism over the body'. Advani added, 'Jefferson was the author of the American Declaration of Independence proclaimed in 1776. There is no doubt that if Jefferson had been living in India in the year of grace 1976, his speeches and writings would have made him one of the greatest threats to the security of the State and landed him behind the bars as a MISA detenu.'
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
When the Sangh became part of Janata Parivar – and was never again the ‘outcast'
On a rainy night in late 1974 in Patna, under flickering street lamps, a small group of university students was on the move as they scrawled with chalk on college walls: 'Indira Hatao, Janata Bachao'. Different party flags fluttered amidst the agitators, with some of them bearing the socialist and Left emblems and others marked with the saffron of the Sangh Parivar. It was here, on the fringes of the Bihar student protests – which ignited Jayaprakash Narayan (JP)'s 'Sampoorna Kranti (Total Revolution)' Movement – that the RSS first entered the anti-Emergency stir. As historian Rajni Kothari later observed in his memoirs, this student uprising 'mainstreamed the RSS and gave it political legitimacy'. This legitimacy, for most part, was earned by RSS volunteers who faced jail for mobilising people, organising protests and engineering what was then called the 'underground resistance'. The JP Movement began in March 1974, when Bihar students first rose in protest against 'corruption and misgovernance' of the then Congress-led state government. This snowballed into a revolt against 'misrule and authoritarianism' of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress dispensation at the Centre, which got moral and organisational support from JP as well as diverse Opposition outfits, including the socialists, Congress (O), CPI(M), Jana Sangh, and RSS volunteers. Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil explain in their book India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency 1975-77 that the RSS's grassroots networks 'provided JP's movement with the discipline and rural penetration it so sorely needed'. It was, perhaps, in appreciation of this organisational strength that JP, when cornered by Left-leaning critics on his alliance with the Sangh, said: 'If RSS is fascist, I am a fascist.' In their book The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism, Walter Andersen and Sridhar Damle, drawing from archival correspondence, paint the RSS not as a passive outfit but as an active force integrating into the umbrella resistance organisation Lok Sangharsh Samiti (LSS) against the Emergency: 'The grassroots structure of the LSS included many RSS workers… presenting the RSS cadre with an unprecedented opportunity to gain political experience and … establish a working relationship with political leaders.' On November 4, 1974, JP and Nanaji Deshmukh, the seasoned Jana Sangh leader and ex-RSS pracharak, led a massive rally in Patna, demanding political accountability. As police descended on the peaceful gathering with batons, JP, then aged 72, was brutally hit – his collarbone, elbows, and legs shattered by the blows. Nanaji was said to have hurled himself over JP's unconscious body, shielding him from further assaults. Public admiration for JP and Nanaji soared, and for many, it marked the point where the Indira Gandhi government lost the moral mandate to rule the country. When Indira imposed Emergency on June 25, 1975, the RSS was among the first casualties. Four days after JP's arrest, then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras was held at the Nagpur station. The RSS itself was banned on July 4. In subsequent crackdowns, many of the Sangh Parivar's prominent leaders such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Nanaji were put behind bars. Despite being outlawed, the Sangh chose resistance over retreat. Thousands of its swayamsevaks and ABVP cadres courted arrest by joining satyagrahas – protesting not just the organisation's ban, but also the government's broader strike on civil liberties and constitutional rights. As repression intensified, the resistance went underground. RSS volunteers built covert networks to print and circulate banned literature, raised funds to sustain the pushback, and established secret lines of communication between jailed leaders and overground activists. Reporting on the Emergency, The Economist wrote on January 24, 1976: 'In formal terms, the underground is an alliance of four Opposition parties …But the shock troops of the movement come largely from the Jana Sangh and its banned affiliate RSS … (of whom 80,000, including 6,000 full-time party workers, are in prison).' According to RSS publicity in-charge Sunil Ambekar, more than 25,000 Sangh workers were arrested under the MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) alone. 'Over 44,000 more were arrested during the agitation. Some swayamsevaks even died during detention. But ultimately, democracy was re-established,' he told The Indian Express. Former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya, who actively participated in the movement and was known to be close to JP, put the figure of arrested RSS workers at 1.3 lakh. RSS sources said volunteers took risks in city squares and village crossroads alike. In Meerut on August 9, 1975, satyagraha slogans erupted amid festive crowds. On August 15 that year, RSS cadres distributed pamphlets outside the Red Fort in Delhi. RSS activists circulated their underground newspapers – Motherland, Panchajanya – even though the press was tightly gagged. K R Malkani, the editor of Organiser and Motherland, was among the first few journalists arrested during the Emergency. At the same time, the Sangh also courted controversy. Observers point out that RSS chief Deoras wrote at least two letters to Mrs Gandhi from Yerwada jail, in August and November 1975, lauding her Red Fort address and pledging support for her 20-Point plan if the ban on the RSS was eased. There were also allegations that some RSS detainees wrote apology letters to the government even as a majority refused to buckle under pressure. Some critics like A G Noorani accused Sangh functionaries of 'grovelling before the Congress dispensation'. RSS sympathisers, however, claim it was a calculated strategy, aimed not at undermining democracy, but retrieving institutional legitimacy and securing the release of imprisoned volunteers. 'Sangh workers were in jail, yet they continued the struggle. Also, it would be a good thing to come out of jail and continue the agitation. Had Sangh been in a compromising mood, it would not have joined the movement itself,' Ambekar says. As regards Deoras's letters, many RSS sympathisers draw a parallel with Mahatma Gandhi's own letter to the Viceroy in his early days of defiance. 'It was an act of a guardian who was worried about his wards. Thousands of ordinary workers were rotting in jails and their families were suffering. The letters were an attempt to open dialogue,' Govindacharya told The Indian Express. He also points out that RSS critics never mention how Deoras rejected Mrs Gandhi's offer to revoke the ban on the RSS in exchange for the Jana Sangh not participating in the elections post-Emergency. Ambekar says, 'The letters of Deoras ji should be looked at comprehensively and in the right perspective… But did RSS withdraw from the movement? A decisive battle was waged and the Emergency was defeated – and a new government was formed.' However, these rows and the refusal of Jana Sangh leaders to dissociate from the RSS even as they joined the Janata Party government following the Emergency were said to have even changed JP's sympathetic approach towards the RSS. In his book The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Jaffrelot writes that JP felt 'used' and felt that the ideological divergence between his Gandhian socialism and Hindutva could not be papered over indefinitely. Ambekar, however, denies it. 'Jayaprakash ji always knew what the Jana Sangh was. These things had been discussed beforehand. If at all he was disappointed, he must have been so with the people who forced the Jana Sangh to walk out of the government,' he says. Yet, the Emergency altered the RSS's trajectory. The Sangh emerged with new-found credibility, its contributions finally recognised by broad swathes of Indian society and political class. Once ostracised in early years of the Republic for its association with Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse, the RSS now joined national discourse as a legitimate player. Barely three years after Emergency, its political wing BJP was born; the BJP under Narendra Modi is now into its third consecutive term in power.
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
The Jana Sangh face, who stood between JP and police
On November 4, 1974, Jayaprakash Narayan was leading a march of protesters, comprising students and Opposition activists, from Gandhi Maidan to the state secretariat in Patna, when police suddenly opened lathicharge. Narayan, popularly known as JP, would have been injured, but for the intervention of a senior leader of the Jana Sangh (the precursor to the BJP) and ex-RSS functionary, Nanaji Deshmukh, who came in between to take the blows on himself. In the process, Nanaji ended up fracturing his hand. He would go on to distinguish himself as one of the most intrepid faces of the JP Movement, against 'corruption and misrule' of the Indira Gandhi government. On June 22, 1975, just three days before the Emergency was imposed, Nanaji drew up an action plan for an all-India Janata Front to press for the resignation of Mrs Gandhi, given that her election to the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareli had been set aside by the Allahabad High Court. 'He (Nanaji) also whittled down JP's aversion to politics, convincing him that political power also has importance,' says former BJP general secretary K N Govindacharya. On June 25, 1975, the leaders of the newly-formed Janata Front met at JP's residence in Delhi to form a coordination body, with Nanaji named general secretary. The same evening, they held a rally at Ramlila Maidan, where JP called Indira's prime ministership unlawful, and asked the police and Army to disobey 'illegal' orders issued by her, Vinay Sitapati writes in his book Jugalbandi – The BJP Before Modi. That night, PM Indira clamped the Emergency, suspending key fundamental rights and ordering arrests of Opposition leaders and dissenters across the country. The Cabinet was informed only the next morning at 6. Nanaji, however, managed to evade arrest. 'Nanaji Deshmukh had escaped after receiving a call… A female voice had told him that he had an hour to get away: 'The police will surround your place around 1 o' clock'… Nanaji made calls to warn others while his assistant packed a couple of shirts and dhotis into a briefcase. While the rest of Delhi slept, he fled to a secret location. He would soon find himself in south Bombay, squirreled away in the home of (industrialist) Nusli Wadia,' writes Sitapati. Close to Nanaji, Nusli and his wife Maureen protected him. Nusli even helped Opposition leaders with funds to survive the Emergency. Nanaji was finally arrested in August 1975, and sent to jail. Once Mrs Gandhi declared elections in early 1977, Nanaji was fielded as the Janata Party candidate from UP's Balrampur Lok Sabha seat. He won, with the Janata Party sweeping the polls. As Morarji Desai became PM, Nanaji was offered the post of Industries Minister in the Janata Party government, but the RSS advised him to keep out, apprehensive that controversies would be stoked about the ties he had developed with industrialists such as Wadia, Mafatlal and Tatas while serving as the Jana Sangh treasurer in the early 1970s. The Sangh trusted him implicitly, which is why he was sent on his own to collect donations. 'His legend was built on relentless pursuit of lucre for the party, including running on foot after a horse-riding prince to entice him to give money,' Sitapati writes. Incidentally, born in Maharashtra in a poor family, Nanaji or 'Chandikadas Amritrao Deshmukh' as he was formally named, once sold vegetables to pay his tuition fees to study. His rise in the RSS was quick. As in-charge of Sangh affairs in UP, he established the first Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Gorakhpur in 1950. He later joined the Jana Sangh, rising to become one of its most prominent leaders. After the Janata Party government formation, Nanaji faded away from politics, and after he turned 60, decided to retire from public life. He first settled in Gonda and then shifted to Chitrakoot, where he founded Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya, 'India's first rural university'. He passed away in Chitrakoot in 2010 at the age of 93. In 2019, Nanaji was awarded the Bharat Ratna by the Narendra Modi government.
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Government to observe SP Mookerjee's death anniversary: CM Mohan Charan
BHUBANESWAR : Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Monday urged the youth to follow the life and ideals of prominent nationalist leader and founder of Jana Sangh Syama Prasad Mookerjee. Paying rich tribute to Mookerjee on his martyrdom day at a state-level function at Jaydev Bhawan here, the chief minister said he inspired millions of Indians with his vision and ideals, which continue to guide the country today. Majhi highlighted Mookerjee's unwavering commitment to India's unity and integrity, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. A fierce opponent of Article 370, he believed Kashmir was an integral part of India and didn't require any special provisions. This reflected his deep-rooted patriotism, the CM said. Majhi also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for repealing Article 370 and 35A in the first year of his second term, calling it a bold step that fulfilled Mookerjee's vision of a united India and a fitting tribute to his legacy. 'Whenever Jammu and Kashmir is mentioned, it will always be incomplete without the names of Mookerjee and the Prime Minister Modi who fulfilled the former's dreams and struggles,' he said. It was a matter of regret that the previous government never thought of observing the death anniversary of Mookerjee who sacrified his life for the unity of the country. However, the BJP government thinks it is a national duty and will continue to observe his martyrdom day at state-level. Majhi urged the youth to follow Mookerjee's life and ideals of patriotism, morality and unity which are guiding the state and the nation towards a new direction. Minister for Higher Education Suryabanshi Suraj, local MLA Babu Singh, and I&PR Principal Secretary Sanjay Singh also spoke on the occasion. The BJP also observed the death anniversary of Mookerjee at the state party office here.
