Over the months following my NITIE training, I progressed in my professional track, growing in confidence, strengthening internal networking and genuinely feeling the thrill and satisfaction of adding value to client departments and managers.
Meanwhile, the political environment in the country was getting tenser by the day. More than a year had elapsed after the shock and awe of the unexpected imposition of the Emergency regime. The harshness of the emergency was wearing thin; isolated resistance and protests were building up.
The atmosphere of restraint and secrecy that had descended on much of the country during the past months started losing its overbearing impact. Based on feedback from the more sensible sources outside her circle of apologetic followers and relying on her gut feeling, the PM decided on 18 January 1977 to lift the Emergency after 21 months and announced National Elections.
The mood across India changed almost instantly; the opposition to the regime and all the pent-up feelings of frustration hastened the build-up of animosity against the ruling dispensation. Mrs Gandhi lost the Elections and the people at large triumphed.
What was the perception of the Emergency among the Indian Public? This million-dollar question has been debated over the years since the lifting of the emergency. Different sections of society tended to view the experience depending on their self-interest and ideological biases.
By and large, the privileged, well-heeled sections saw the Emergency largely in a positive light. Better punctuality for trains, government offices functioning more orderly and general improvement in governance created positive vibes around the new regime.
But the poorer and marginalised citizens, including the landless, slum-dwellers and encroachers of government land were intimidated by real and imaginary existential threats. The stories of ruthless evictions from shanties and pavements, especially from the national capital send an unnerving chill up the spines of the hapless millions.
The working class and the lower bureaucracy of pen-pushers found their over-unionism and laxity at performance under threat and hence had simmering discontent. An artificial calm all around only concealed the subterranean discontent and thirst for striking back at the arrogant authoritarianism fast percolating down the bureaucratic chain.
The public resentment and bizarre stories of harassment across the country as part of mass sterilisation drives and slum clearance operations created silent but strong anti-regime sentiments at the grassroots level. Overzealous officials commandeered by Sanjay Gandhi, the second son of Indira Gandhi were responsible for much of the excesses in the name of population control and urban regeneration.
The Turkman Gate area of Delhi where massive violent resistance to eviction drives played out on 31 May 1976 came to symbolise the brutality and arrogance of the ruling elite. By the time the emergency was thick into the second year, Sanjay Gandhi’s clout and control had peaked. Psychologically, Sanjay became the symbolic bad guy at whom the burgeoning ire against the Emergency was targeted.
Over the next few days after the declaration of elections, the campaigning gathered pace. I remember that there was a sudden announcement at the office that Madam Gandhi would visit and deliver a political address on the Bhilai Steel Plant grounds in a couple of days. The main gates of the high-security Steel Plant were thrown open on the appointed day, nearly three hours ahead of the scheduled meeting. Workers from the shop floor and office employees were herded into the waiting buses to be taken to the meeting ground to cheer and shout slogans hailing the Madam. That was shift time in the plant and a skeletal staff was retained to attend to minimal operational tasks.
I too joined the crowd. The top guns of our management team including the General Manager were all sitting on the bare ground, in the front row, in rapt attention. Mrs G gave a speech in the vein of a Head of State in a socialist country exhorting followers to support the regime and cautioning us all about a "foreign hand" (her favourite theme) keen to scuttle the progress and march of India to glory and progress.
After the meeting, of course, the crowd had no courtesy buses to ferry them back and most of us had to trek back under the scorching Sun to our workplaces. Politicians then, as now, considered voters and the public as expendable classes- herds of lambs ready to be sacrificed at short notice!
In the next few days, we saw a fatigued and hopeless nation, represented mostly by ordinary folks in remote villages, turning up determined to vote out the autocratic Priyadarshini, who was, just a few months back, their darling leader.
The feeble but determined voice of Jai Prakash Narain, the veteran socialist, was accepted with near spontaneity by the entire Opposition forces as the natural leader of the collective resistance against the regime. The transformation of the vast, diverse and ill-equipped Indian voters into a fierce force capable of upsetting the applecart of stuffed-up ‘democracy’ was amazing and awe-inspiring.
Finally, D-day arrived. The election results started pouring out through the slightly chastened and cosmetically dusted-up All India Radio, which till the other day was an official propaganda machine for boosting the aura of Madam Gandhi. I felt proud and happy at how ordinary people, ill-fed, scantily educated and living barely hand to mouth made a powerful autocratic ruler bite the dust.
I can't forget the eerie silence and desolation at the city centre of Bhilai Township, which was renamed Indira Place during the Emergency.
On March 24, 1977, Morarji Desai was sworn in as the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India. The new Government under Morarji Desai spent much time trying to settle scores with the ousted PM and whatever time was left was mostly devoted to squabbling, jockeying for power and grandstanding the Opposition victory as a ‘David vs Goliath’ rerun. It didn’t take much time for a feeling of déjà vu to descend upon the nation as things slid back to the all too familiar ‘chalta hai’ attitude across.
A policy misstep at the outset of the new government sent shockwaves across the business world. Not that India mattered much in global business at that time. Yet, pressurizing two global MNCs, both of US pedigree, IBM and Coca-Cola to exit or share IPR assets with India or Indian companies amounted to a strong signal that we were little bothered about global acceptability and trade linkages.
A retrograde step at that time, India took decades to come out of the fallout of the two policy blunders. How China marched ahead in tapping global business opportunities while we stagnated, stuck as we were in the dogmatic whirlpool of socialist jingoism, would remain a global legend of missed opportunities.
George Fernanes, the firebrand trade unionist who became the Industries Minister in the coalition government also toyed with the idea of nationalizing Tata Steel, the legendary iron and steel maker with an impeccable history of progressive labour relations. It goes to the credit of the trade unions and employees of the steel company that they resisted the move with all their might and unity. Fernandes and the government had to beat a hasty retreat. This episode opened my eyes to the power and influence that sustained good practices in employee relations can have for lasting peace, progress and corporate loyalty of the workforce. Among the many lessons post-emergency, this saga of workers’ resistance to government high-handedness against corporate businesses stood out as an eye-opener.
More than dogmatic posturing what endures and impacts people at large are simple qualities like honesty, integrity, empathy and ethics. Whether in politics, business, academics or life in general, slogans don't win hearts, but values and consistent messaging would.
In the years that followed, SAIL descended into mediocrity and the merry-go-round of short and tentative stints for many Chief Executives and bureaucratic backstage string-pulling did little to inspire and motivate the cadres in the company.
However, there were sporadic attempts, some of them serious and partly successful, at transforming the giant steel company into a more nimble, responsive and performance-focused organization. The limited success of these attempts is part of the corporate evolution saga in India.
Politics, economics and social dynamics all are entangled in transforming a nation, society or individuals. If the political and strategic observers thought the voting out of the all-powerful autocratic leader of the largest ‘democracy’ on earth was to be a watershed moment in history, they were proved wrong in a matter of months.
The greed and irrational ambitions of the regional satraps brought down the new dispensation like a pack of cards in a few months. After all, the real power base of most political parties was their caste or sectarian clout, though they masqueraded as socialists and nation-builders. Their squabbles, scheming and avarice brought down the first non-Congress Government in India sooner than most observers expected.
As for Morarji Desai, the PM who succeeded Mrs Gandhi, his inflexibility and the bookish ethical moral high ground that he preached proved to be his undoing. He failed to sense the machinations and stealth manoeuvres the motley collection of coalition leaders attempted behind his back. Mrs Gandhi had it rather easy to regain the public sympathy and support that she had lost through the emergency months. She had a premonition that her time for resurrection could come much sooner than she thought.
The hotchpotch coalition had socialists, conservatives, sectarian and caste-based parties and leftists. It was a political kitchen with too many cooks trying to prescribe recipes for the rejuvenation of the country. All the time, behind the backs of each other, they were sharpening their knives to go for a kill and assert their sectarian superiority at the opportune moment.
Business, commerce, economics and academics all went through a rudderless phase caught up in air pockets, storms and vulnerabilities during the post-1977 election phase.
In January 1980 fresh National Elections brought back Mrs Gandhi as the Prime Minister after the short and lacklustre term of Opposition rule lasting less than three years.
Industry and Commerce including the Public Sector waited with eagerness and uncertainty as to what the return of Madam Gandhi had in store for them.
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