The tremor of the declaration of undemocratic Emergency Rule in Bharat was felt in the UK, which had a earth shattering impact on the Bharatiya Diaspora.
The democratic infrastructure was demolished overnight. The Constitution, the Judiciary, the Parliament, the Freedom of free Press & Speech & Expression were all suspended by the autocratic dynast dictator.
When the bell tolled on the 26th of June 1975, the darkest day of the modern Independent Bharat, that is India, befell on the largest democracy of the world. Mrs Indira Gandhi instantly imposed the draconian and dictatorial Emergency rule, suspended Bharat’s Constitution, the Judiciary, the Parliamentary Democracy, the freedom of Press and free speech, and curtailed public gatherings. Immediately she arrested thousands of her adversaries as prisoners of political conscious, among them the renowned freedom fighter Shri Jay Prakash Narayan, Shri Atalji Bihari Vajpayee, Shri L K Advaniji, Shri Balasaheb Deoras (the great nationalist inspirer), Shri Nanaji Deshmukh, Shri Datto Pant Ji Thengade, many religious leaders, and many more whom Mrs Gandhi thought were her enemies. Many well known social, cultural and spiritual organisations were proscribed and their leaders imprisoned without recourse to legal defence. In short, Indira Gandhi put a noose around the neck of free Bharat.
The Feeling of Strangulation
For some of us in the UK who had held Bharat as the mother of our spiritual inspiration, this news came as a shock beyond all nightmares. A sudden feeling of strangulation choked us, one that left us completely stunned and paralysed in thought and action. Momentarily, our thought process ceased to function.
Those of us who were in this state of paralysis shook ourselves out of the deep anaesthesia and sprung into action.
Some of us, Kamleshji Sharda, Dhirubhai Shah, Hasmukh Shah, Bharatbhai Shah, Ma M C Satyanarayanji, Jayantibhai Patel, Sukhdevji Sharma, Hariharbhai Patel, and others were attending the annual weeklong Hindu Youth Leadership Conference organised at the University of Bradford campus in June 1975, when the shocking news of the imposition of draconian and dictatorial Emergency rule reached us.
After the feeling of numbness subsided, all of us immediately realised the enormity of Mrs Gandhi’s dictatorial declaration and the impact it would have on the Bharatiya diaspora around the world and on those in Bharat who were imprisoned simply for standing on the side of truth, justice, freedom of expression, democracy, and righteous conduct (Dharma).
The above sprang into action in unison and quickly summoned an emergency meeting during the Youth Leadership Conference. A plan of action was drafted to inform the Bharatiya diaspora in the UK and elsewhere about the lies which were being propagated to justify Mrs Gandhi’s dictatorial misrule purely for dynastic sustenance and progression.
We were privileged to have the presence of Ma Shri Jagdishji Mitra Sood who came specially from Kenya and was a very prominent among all the community diaspora worldwide to guide us in the fight for Restoration of Democracy in Bharat. In the same vein we were also fortunate to have Ma Shri Laxman Rao Bhideji who made a miraculous escape from the clutches of the Indira regime. His first-hand knowledge of the torturous and dire conditions of Prisoners of Political Conscious in Indian jails helped us to prepare our own press reports for the benefit of the wider diaspora and the media. Furthermore, Ma M C Satyanarayanji became our flagstaff and a guide to remain steadfast in our campaign of awareness.
Immediately after, the group started meeting local Bharatiya communities all over the country. The main centres were Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Bolton, Ashton, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Leicester, Nottingham, Coventry, Rugby, Northampton, Wellingborough, Luton, Milton Keynes, and London (Wembley, Harrow, Finchley, Croydon, Hounslow, Woolwich). Later, the campaign of Truth & Justice spread to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, and other centres where the Bharatiya diaspora had settled.
The campaign of Restoration of Democracy in India had the following aims to achieve:
- To inform The Bharatiya Diaspora of Truth & Justice against the lies of the Indira Regime
- To Inform the International Press and Media about the Goebbel’s scale of Indira Congress and Dynastic falsehoods
- To counter Indira’s government ministers sent over by her to justify her illegal rule of the Emergency
- To collate and smuggle reports out of Bharat of the atrocities committed during the Emergency, and to reprint them, which included the worldwide support received from the diaspora to fight off the misrule, in the form of Smugglers of Truth, and resend them back through the safe underground channels back to the political prisoners in held in Bharatiya Jails to keep their morals high hopes alive.
In the first instance, our efforts were to establish an organisation to implement the above stated aims. As the struggle was going to be to counter the imposition of the unjust Emergency Rule, the first name that came to our minds was Indian Freedom Front. This name was chosen because it was the fight to free the Political Prisoners from the illegal and unjust action of Indira Gandhi and her sharply brutal emergency machinery.
But after long consultations from our advisors and guides, it was clear that this fight would not be just a long one, but one that we would need to present as an independent voice and face of Bharat from outside the country and on a permanent basis.
Hence the name Friends of India Society International (FISI) came to mind and was immediately and universally accepted by one and all. Thus began the long and legendary journey to present the true face of Bharat, with its ancient civilisation (Dharma) as the basis of Truth.
Jun – Dec 1975
The ad-hoc committee under the banner of Indian Freedom Front met several times and planned immediate steps to expose Indira’s tyrannical rule. We went to several towns and cities to address the Bharatiya diaspora, and after a few apprehensions our message of Truth & Justice was warmly accepted. Several new recruits joined us, as well as receiving support from many organisations.
Hurdles – The Indira Regime had sent out many of its henchmen and sycophants outside India to apply Goebbels philosophy of spreading falsehoods a million times in the hope that they might just become the truth. In the UK, it found unlikely bedfellows in the form of Indian Communists and left leaning individuals and organisations to do its dirty work. Indian Workers Association (IWA) organised many such rent-a-crowd meetings and marches in Southhall, Hyde Park, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and elsewhere where it had handful pockets of paid supporters. It only attracted not more than a hundred hired supporters at any given venue.
As IFF group members, we had gone to many such hired events and challenged them publicly about the lies they were spreading. Invariably, Indira Gandhi’s Ministers who were sent out to wage falsehood campaigns failed in their intentions and left red-faced back to Bharat. Even the rent-a-crowd turned against them.
One such event was organised in Hyde Park in July 1975. The IFF got wind of this march organised by the IWA under the leadership of Vishnu Dutt Sharma, Indira Gandhi’s most ardent supporter in the UK. Ten of us planned a strategy to infiltrate the crowd by posing as supporters of the Emergency. Late Sukhdevji Sharma, Kamleshji Sharda, Hasmukh Shah from Bradford Leeds, Bharatji Shah, Hariharji Patel, Narinderji Pounj, and a few others from London also joined us and mingled among the crowd. There was a Flatback truck hired by IWA supporters who came with public address system. There were approximately 200 people who had gathered, mostly elderly and some rent-a-noise makers with loudspeakers shouting slogans from the truck. Sukhdevji and Hasmukh made a move towards the truck and jumped on the back of it, without the organisers noticing that we had infiltrated the truck. Sukhdevji stood guard with his considerable army background and gave Hasmukh the cover. Without being detected, Hasmukh took the mike from the hands of other speakers and started addressing the innocent crowd in Punjabi, exposing the falsehoods of the Emergency rule and how 100,000 innocent prisoners were held in dire conditions in jails like Tihar in Delhi. The crowd applauded Hasmukh and cheered him on. For approximately five minutes the organisers did not realise that their platform truck had been hijacked along with the loudspeakers, and the truck was commandeered by the opponents of Indira Regime. Vishnu Dutt Sharma realised this and shouted at his organisers, who were non the wiser, to take back control of the truck. Quickly Sukhdevji escorted Hasmukh out of the truck and Kamleshji, and the others came to rescue and made a quick escape from the rally. Our mission was accomplished and we were successful in disrupting the false propaganda of Indira Regime. The rally disintegrated into disarray. No more such rallies were organised from then on.
We had encountered different kind of hurdles, filled with some danger to those who were meeting in various venues around the country. The Indira Regime employed unlawful tactics engaging foreign agents to dissuade and frighten its opponents to stop campaigning against its falsehoods. Foreign speaking persons were engaged to make clandestine telephone calls to the homes of those active members of IFF while they were attending meetings in towns away from their homes, threatening to harm their family members if they continued with their opposition to Indira Gandhi. These agents even burnt the car of late Jayantibhai Patel because he was in the forefront of campaigning for Restoration of Democracy in Bharat while opposing the Emergency rule. Some member had their cars marred with paints to instil fear in them. One incidence comes to mind. Kamleshji Sharda and Hasmukh Shah were attending a IFF meeting at late Shri Ramanbhai Khatri Ji’s Junction Road resident, (which was the virtual nerve centre of the campaign, and under constant surveillance by these suspicious agents), when they suspected someone following them. They decided to confront this burly East European looking person. On interrogation it was found that the man could hardly speak fluent English, and he made a quick exit from the scene.
There were many such incidences, and it was suspected that most of the homes of active IFF members were under surveillance by such unscrupulous shady foreign characters.
Furthermore, to add psychological pressure on families, the Indira Regime made 10 top active members persona non grata and barred them from entering Bharat. Through our own internal contacts in the Indian High Commission then, such a list came into our possession. Despite such threats, the campaign for Restoration of Democracy continued relentlessly.
Freedom of Press and Expression
The IFF made inroads and broke the barrier of media attention. As there was strict restriction on the freedom of Press and Freedom of Expression, the news channels outside Bharat were struggling to obtain information about the state of politics in Bharat, about the plight of political prisoners held in jails without trial, about the state of largest democracy in the world, and so and so forth.
IFF was the only choice of true source of news from inside Bharat, as it had built a reputation of grit and truth. IFF gathered information from its internal underground sources in Bharat which were tested to be reliable over the few months of surveillance and established itself as the legitimate source of news. Through hundreds of underground activists in the country, who had escaped the clutches of Indira Regime’s Gestapo style police, information was received in the UK, IFF republished these in the form of a newsletter called Satyavani and distributed to the major media houses in the west. In particular, the BBC, the Guardian, The Times, the Economist, the NYT, the Washington Post, and many more, accepted IFF news of truth and justice published in Satyavani as the true source of news. This irritated the Indira Regime even more. Satyavani gained the reputation of the title ‘Smugglers of Truth’.
In this process of secretly extracting news from the underground sources, many prominent people played an important role. The foremost among them were Shri Narendra Modi, late Shri Arun Jetly, the Delhi University student leader, Shri Rajat Sharma, also a student leader, journalist and an activist, all of whom moved from place to place, city to city, clandestinely to avoid arrest, providing support to the families of 100,000 prisoners of social and political conscious held without trial in dire jail conditions, most of whom were hand to mouth common man, linked to a national cause. In their absence their families were suffering hardships of earning for food and shelter. There were many more, in fact an army of underground workers who built a web of network hidden from the dangerous Indira Regime and remained underground providing important news to the outside world. Shri Narendrabhai Modi has gone on to become the Rt Hon Prime Minister of India, late Shri Arun Jetly became the finance minister, and Shri Rajat Sharma is today the famous journalist and presenter of Aapki Adalat on Aaj Tak, the popular TV show.
But for their sacrifice, daring and fearless activism the outside world would have remained in total darkness about the draconian behaviour of the Gandhi Regime, and the atrocities committed against the people of Bharat with Goebbel’s lies.
August 1975 – Historic Rally at the Iconic Trafalgar Square, Picadilly, London
The time had come for cranking up significantly the campaign of Restoration of Democracy to reach the common Bharatiya people in the UK and make the Media Houses more aware of the atrocities committed by the Indira Regime. IFF decided to organise a public rally in the heart of London at the iconic Trafalgar Square, Picadilly, London. It is the venue where some of the most important campaigns such as those against the apartheid regime in South Africa and later addressed by Nelson Madela himself after released from prison, free Solzhenitsyn (famous Soviet Physicist and Freedom of expression activist exiled in the harsh Eastern Siberia where he wrote the famous Gulag Archipelago), Civil Rights movement addressed by Rev Martin Luther King, and many more.
Late Shri Jayantibhai Patel, Shri Hariharji Patel, Shri Narinderji Punj, Shri Bharatbhai Shah, young organisers like Jayendrabhai Shah, Ladwa, and others urgently engaged themselves preparing for the rally, that was to prove watershed in the later days of the campaign. Permissions were granted by the London City Council, the Metropolitan Police, and other civic bodies.
Supporters from all the towns and cities of the UK were requested to attend and local leaders did a wonderful job to encourage supporters to attend. Nearly 500 turned up with banners displaying messages against the misrule of the Indira Regime. Slogans were raised and speeches were made by prominent leaders.
The Media houses attended in good numbers, and the rally news was printed in their next day’s publication. The organisers were satisfied that, at last, their efforts were gaining traction from the International Press. This erred the Indira Regime to no end. But the awareness campaign reached every Bharatiya and the Media of the UK.
This was our first major success in the fight for Restoration of Democracy in Bharat.
Jan 1976 – the year of final reckoning
Indian Freedom Front (IFF) gradually became Friends of India Society International (FISI) in January of 1976, through the wise counsel and guidance of Mananiya Shri Jagdish Mitra Sood, Mananiya Laxmanraoji Bhide, Mananiya Shri M C Satyanarayana ji, and many others. Through revolutionary activism to long term imaging of a Developed Bharat, leading the world through civilisational and ancient values, economically and politically strong.
FISI started to work for the Restoration of Democracy in India in ernest. Gathering news about the state of thousands of prisoners, it established a respectable source of Truth & Justice in Bharat. In University Peace Study departments (Bradford, Dublin, SOHAS, Oxbridge, and others) FISI became known for its campaign for Restoration of Democracy in Bharat, and its leaders were called to address the students.
A time had come when it became imperative to expose the Indira Regime for its litany of lies, and suppression of democracy in Bharat on an international platform.
With so much encouragement and positive support from the Bharatiya diaspora, organisations, the media houses, FISI decided to hold an international conference on the Restoration of Democracy. It was important to find a suitable and renowned venue. Shri Bharatbhai Shah, and Shri Jayantibhai Patel finalised the famous Alexandra Palace as the iconic venue for the historic milestone event. After consultation with senior advisors, it was decided to hold the conference on 24th & 25th April 1976.
Over 400 hundred delegates from all political, economical and social fields came from many countries. Some even smuggled themselves out of Bharat to expose the falsehoods of the Indira Regime. Over twenty international major Press and Media houses came to cover the event and through their channels expose the undemocratic nature the dark side of the Emergency Rule.
A souvenir was published, which is referred to even now to highlight the excesses of Indira Regime.
The conference was a great success and very professionally organised by dedicated team of young people, ably guided by senior experienced social leaders from all walks of life.
The news of the FISI conference jolted the Indira Regime, so much so that, it was recognised as the first small cog of the wheel that finally dismantled the Emergency Rule in Bharat.
Among many papers that were presented, one compared the Indira Regime to that of the Soviet Gorlag Archipelago, where the famous Scientist and Freedom fighter Solzhenitsyn was interned with his fellow activists. The state of the Emergency imposed draconian rule by Indira Regime was no better. Such criticism made on an International Forum stung the Indira Regime deeply and was responsible, in a small measure, to rethink about its undemocratic and brutal actions.
Finally, the Indira Regime relented and in March 1977, it was forced to remove the state of Emergency. It was forced to declare holding of elections that led to the total defeat of Indira Gandhi and her Regime. It was greeted by FISI with great relief, and it was satisfied that 100,000 prisoners were released from the traumatic experiences of the dire conditions in jails.
FISI held condolence meetings for those who lost their lives in the jails, some were tortured and others through ill health in jail conditions.
BY: Hasmukh Velji Shah
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