50 years ago on 25 June 1975 the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency in India. She blamed “internal disturbance.” Opposition politicians and student activists, more than 100,000 according to reports were rounded up and jailed. Newspapers were censored.
Now it’s the subject of recent Hindi films. Like one named Emergency. Showing how Indira Gandhi got to rule India by decree.
EMERGENCY: India is Indira. ANd Indira is India
That story is well known in India. What’s less known is what happened far away in the USA
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
Anirvan Chatterjee who curates the South Asian Radical History Walking Tour in Berkeley says he got started on the project because of a photograph in the book Karma of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad.
AC1: there is a picture of these women in saris with paper bags over their heads. The caption Said they were in Berkeley. Said they were from Bancroft archives.
When I went on his Walking Tour in Berkeley they reenacted those heady days of protest that happened in front of the Indian consulate on Market Street in San Francisco .
BW1: Free India now. Free India. Down with Emergency. Free India now. Down with Emergency
The protesters had hand lettered signs and masks. An idea they got from Iranian students protesting the Shah. Chatterjee says the consulate tried to track down the protesters.
AC2: At one point of time Indian Consulate in San Francisco sent letter to UC Berkeley asking them to reveal our identities and we were here many of us on government scholarships
UC Berkeley didn’t oblige.
But far away from the Bay Area, in Chicago a Ph.D. student from India, Anand Kumar hadn’t worn paper bags when he became part of a group called Indians for Democracy. They went to different cities and university towns educating both the indian diaspora and American media about what was going on in India.
He says many in the diaspora told them to dial down criticism of the motherland.
AK4: if you want to do it, do it in a constructive, low profile manner. but don't go out in public, uh, using American media
Kumar got a call from the consulate.
AK1:. If you don't stop doing these protest meetings and activities, we'll be forced to inform the university. Your visa will be terminated and you better return to India immediately
His scholarship was terminated by the Indian government. Students rallied to his cause.
AK2: at Chicago University of Chicago Student Union created a front united front for me committee to defend Anand Kumar and asked the University of Chicago to waive my tuition fee
But it was still tough. He stopped going to the barbershop to save money.
AK3: they thought that I looked like Jesus Christ. I had long hair. Long hair, long beard. Because, you know, shaving was very costly
The Indian Ambassador went into damage control mode says Sugata Srinivasaraju author of The Conscience Network: A Chronicle of Resistance to a Dictatorship.
SS1: he says that they're washing dirty linen in public and just try to trying to discredit them.
But that backfired.
SS2: I think the Chicago Sun-Times, Tribune, Chicago Tribune wrote a lovely editorial called Washing Dirty Linen and then pooh-poohs the entire idea.
The Indian protesters found allies in their American home says Srinivasaraju
SS3: people from, uh, the Methodist Church, people from the Quakers, people from the civil rights movement.
Including Noam Chomsky, Gene McCarthy and Horace Alexander, a Quaker who was a friend of Indira Gandhi’s own grandfather, a man who had once mediated between Mahatma Gandhi and the British viceroy.
SS4: He leads the march against, uh, Indian, uh, you know, emergency from the Independence Hall. He inaugurates that from Independence Hall to New York.
THe Emergency was finally lifted in 1977. Srinivasaraju says there’s no concrete evidence about whether the activism in America swayed Mrs Gandhi but
SS5: the, the international pressure built on her and she was averse to being seen as a dictator, being Nehru's daughter.
And Anand Kumar got back his scholarship.
But one thing changed for sure.
The Indian community in America is often seen as uncles and aunties who are just interested in Diwali parties and temples and acting as cheerleaders for the government back home.
But in 1975 they did step up for democracy says Barnali Ghosh cofounder of South Asian Radical History Walking Tour
BG1: a lot of uncle and aunty bashing that happens in our community, but these people they were out of here raising their voices against injustice and they could have made the choice to sit in silence in a foreign land away from it all. APPLAUSE
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW