Anniversaries come and go. Most often, they are about nostalgia getting an update with bug fixes to accommodate noises of the present. The commemoration of the Emergency, a few days ago, on June 25, was similarly predictable. However, there is an aspect of the Emergency story that has never been advertised, but has the potential to add new shine and perspective to history. It is about a forgotten group of Indians in the US who fought and built international opinion against the dismantling of democracy in India 45 years ago.
If one looks at this bunch of people after our loud exposure to the ‘Howdy, Modi’ diaspora, they appear to be from another universe. Their ideals, value system, intellectual bandwidth, organisational skills, progressiveness and power of personal sacrifice appear starkly different. It was not that there was no ‘Heil Indira’ diaspora or a silent-with-self-interest diaspora at the time in the US, but it is these people who stood up, spoke out, and got counted.
According to an immigration report, there were 95,000 citizens of India with a permanent-resident status in the US at the time. The numbers are far higher today, and of course, there is a newly galvanised group of people with an ‘Indian origin’ status. The political leverage of Indians back then was limited compared to what it is today, but it was not size that mattered, but commitment and moral currency.
A few weeks before the Emergency, when the dark clouds were gathering, a group of 8-10 people got together in Chicago to form an organisation called Indians for Democracy (IFD), and quickly spread the network across the US. Prominent IFD members were S R Hiremath, a top management consultant in Chicago, Anand Kumar, a PhD student in sociology, Ravi Chopra, an engineering student, Dr Faruk B Presswalla, a medical examiner, Dr Hasmukh Shah, a New York psychiatrist, Jitendra Kumar, an engineering consultant, Sharan Nandi of Alexandria, Va., S K Poddar of Michigan, Ram Gehani of Maryland, and Dr K V S Raju of Illinois among others.
S R Hiremath was appointed convenor. It took nearly a year for the group to acquire some ‘notoriety’, but by March 1976, they were making headlines in prominent newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, and were giving interviews on the PBS network. They had also started a bimonthly newsletter called the Indian Opinion, clearly inspired by Gandhi’s South Africa venture.
One of the first major events the IFD held was a march to the Indian ambassador’s residence in Washington DC, on 15 August 1975. A poster they made for the event had a circle, covered half in black. The other half said: “DON’T LET THE LIGHT GO OUT ON INDIAN DEMOCRACY.” The Washington Post report on the morning of the event said: “Members of Indians for Democracy have organised to counter what they say is ‘the suppression of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens and throttling of the Indian democracy.’ The group is seeking new members among the estimated 100,000 Indians who live in the United States.
One representative has been in at least 25 major cities in the United States and has spoken to audiences of between 50 and 100 persons in each city.” S K Poddar was quoted in the story and was described as a person who had “amassed a fortune through a magazine subscription service operated from East Lansing in Michigan”. The representative who had travelled across US cities was Anand Kumar. As they organised more events over the next few months, prominent Indians visiting the US, like Rajni Kothari, Ram Jethmalani, Subramanian Swamy and U R Ananthamurthy took part in them.
S R Hiremath did not confine himself to organising resistance in the US alone, but also travelled to nine European cities, including Geneva, and submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council. In London, he met economist E F Schumacher, whom he knew since 1973, and enlisted his support for the cause. This led to the establishment of a European network of not just Indians, but of all those who valued democracy. After his tour across the Atlantic, when he returned to the US, the very next day, that is 8 July 1976, his passport, along with that of S K Poddar, Sharan Nandi and Ram Gehani, was impounded by Indian authorities.
In an interview given to the Chicago Sun-Times, an unperturbed Hiremath had said: “It makes me happy to know that a few committed people like me can have this kind of impact on the national government in India.” The headline called him a ‘[Indira] Gandhi foe’. A leaflet that was distributed in New York to protest the punitive action, said: “IFD members have voiced their dissent according to the dictates of their consciences.” Earlier, Anand Kumar’s merit scholarship given by the Indian government had been terminated too.
The New York Times had pegged a long piece around this on 8 March 1976: “Mr. Kumar, described by Americans in Chicago as a ‘brilliant’ candidate for a doctorate in Sociology, is a former president of the student body at Jawaharlal Nehru University.”
After the Emergency was lifted, Hiremath gave up his lucrative job in the US, returned to India, and got involved in rural development and various environmental causes. In the last decade, he has been credited with campaigning, litigating and ending illegal mining in Karnataka’s Bellary. Incidentally, he now heads Citizens for Democracy, an organisation started by Jayaprakash Narayan in 1974. Anand Kumar returned to be a professor at JNU, his alma mater. His papers from the turbulent 70s may soon be available at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.
Sugata Srinivasaraju
Senior journalist and author (sugataraju@gmail.com)