DRUSHYARA ANTARALE

(Things Not Visible)

A few events of the Emergency have etched on my memory:

1.    My first day in college. I have used my experience of witnessing police excesses during emergency (1975-77) on my first day in college in my novel Kasatandira Swapna (My blog in the same name dated Dt. 27 June, 2010). It was 1^st August 1975. The police on that day in Bhadrak were forcibly cutting the long hair of the boys who had hippie and tearing up the pants of the girls who wore bell bottoms. They did not spare a lecturer who did not have even hippie, but long sideburns. They coerced him to shorten his sideburns.

2.    With my friends Biraja and Sitanath, I had gone to Draupadi Talkies, Bhadrak to watch the movie, Kalicharan for the night show. Satrughan Sinha and Reena Roy starrer, it was a super hit. Two queues snaked long; I was on a queue to book the tickets for the three. A police constable stood at the counter. A gentleman came and went straight to the counter to enquire whether first class tickets were available or not. The man was just enquiring and, if they had no ticket, he would not waste  time in standing and waiting for the tickets. Since the man was not on the queue, the constable suddenly beat that man with his lathi. Enraged, the man snatched away the lathi from the constable and gave him two three blows. Two/three persons, policemen in plain clothes were among the people gathered in front of the cinema hall,  rushed to the spot, beat the man left and right, kicked him in full public view and dragged him away. Shocked, we did not watch the movie and returned to the hostel.

3.     My friend Biraja’s father was a professor in Economics. He was, of course, a member of the RSS, the organisation the Government had banned. The police arrested his father under MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act), the most draconian law, and threw him in jail. He spent the entire period of Emergency in different prisons without trial and was released only after the Emergency was lifted.

4.   One police officer had rented our house in Sindhekela. He stopped payment of rent just after the Emergency was declared. My father was a businessman. He did not ask for the rent. He feared if he asked for, the police might put him in trouble. In fact, the police arrested some businessmen known to my father on flimsy grounds and let them free after huge payment. Some businessmen had paid in advance to avoid such arrests.

Our exams were postponed for the Parliamentary elections of 1977. The students in the West Hostel where I was a boarder glued to the transistor to know the results the whole day and night on the day of counting of votes. Both Mrs. Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi lost the election in Raibarelly and Amethi. When BBC declared the result of Mrs. Gandhi late in night there was an instant procession of students celebrating the defeat, shouting slogans against the Congress and Mrs.Gandhi and her son Sanjay.

One day, in 1998, I was travelling by Hirakhand Express from Titlagarh to Rourkela. It was an eight to nine hours’ journey by the train. In the coupe of the train I was, among other five co passengers one was a retired clerk. A talkative man, he recounted stories from his experience and enthralled us. He spoke about a bureaucrat, a senior member of the Indian Administrative Service. When this bureaucrat went on tour he wanted for his dinner fried fish and whiskey, among other things, and a woman would serve him. He enjoyed the food and the woman.

I said, “I have also heard this kind of stories; I do not believe. Whether these stories are real or concocted?”

He said, “Yes, real. Once he had visited to the Block where I was working. One LSEO was persuaded to serve her.”

“What is LSEO? How did you the people comply with?” I was surprised.

“LSEO means Lady Social Education Organiser, there was such a post in the Block. In fact, the BDO was an honest and upright officer. He had no hand; the Junior Engineer arranged everything. But those were difficult times. If higher authorities, such as an IAS officer was dissatisfied, he could easily suspend, get arrested the subordinate officer on framed up charges. One has his family and his children, to look after.” The retired clerk said.

No one objected to the injustice during emergency, not even the media. Later, L.K Advani remarked on media, “You were only asked to bend, but you crawled.” I said, “I am really surprised. How no one had guts to stand against such injustice, against a rogue?”

The retired clerk became serious, kept mum, smoked a cigarette silently and said, “I can’t explain now. I was a mere clerk. But I have seen that day senior officers like the sub collector, ADM trembling before him. But the BDO went on a long leave after the visit of this rogue and when he resumed duties, he was not the same person. He carried a guilty feeling. He was not involved in the arrangement, but it was done in his knowledge. He could have avoided, we heard him saying to someone.”

I wrote a story on this incident. Jhankar published the story in 2000 in the 25^th year of Emergency under the caption drushyara antarale. Later, I kept it the title of the book Cuttack Students’ Store published in 2006. The book, my fourth short story collection, contains twenty two stories and priced at Rs.80/.

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