NEW DELHI:The extent of horror during the Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi 40 years ago, on June 25, 1975, could be gauged from the fact that the then Union Health Minister and senior Congress leader Karan Singh described those days as a “time when an extra-constitutional centre of power was operating in the country, and Chief Ministers who owed special allegiance to this centre vied with one another in raising their sterilisation targets in order to gain favour”.
The extra-constitutional power centre Karan referred to comprised none other than Indira and her younger son Sanjay Gandhi.
The excerpt is from Karan’s statement recorded on July 7, 1978 by the Shah Commission. Karan admitted that the manner in which the family planning programme was brought into disrepute by callous, overzealous and unimaginative implementation in some states had serious consequences for the future welfare of the nation.
“We particularly had heard of a very bad incident. One of my officers was on a tour. He came back and told us of an incident in which people travelling in a bus -- I’m not sure whether it was in Rajasthan or Haryana -- were taken off and herded into sterilisation camps. So, in fact, we specifically mentioned this to a Haryana minister and of course at that time they simply denied that it was happening,” Karan had told the inquiry commission.
Withholding the salary of a person unless he submitted himself to sterilisation was “very draconian”, he had said.
Since states were the implementing agencies under the sterilisation programme, which was 100 per cent financed by the Centre, Karan said he could only request the Chief Ministers to prevent its abuse. “This is one of those strange occasions during which a good federal principle, in fact, worked in the opposite direction to what might be expected,” Karan told the Panel in his statement on July 7, 1978.
Although the Shah Commission had received reports about 1,642 deaths due to forced sterilisation and subsequent infection during the Emergency, it indicated that the figure could be much higher. “We (Health Ministry) did get complaints, reports from time to time that those certain mortalities had taken place,” he admitted.
Some states had raised their sterilisation targets to 400 per cent.
Karan also said the sterilisation programme was abandoned under political compulsion sometime late in 1976.
“Once the elections had been decided upon and announced, I think it was realised that this was causing a great deal of political fallout, and therefore the whole matter should be kept in abeyance until the outcome of the election,” he said.