Our noisy, chaotic democracy

NEXT WEEK WILL be the 50th anniversary of the Emergency. For me, it is a particularly important anniversary because had I not been an impressionable junior reporter in that time 50 years ago, I may not have chosen political journalism as a career.

- TAVLEEN SINGH

It was because I saw how overnight India moved from being a noisy, chaotic democracy to a dictatorship. Noisy and chaotic are the words Zulfikar Ali Bhutto used for India's democracy during the show trial that led to his execution by a military dictator.

They are good words to describe what Delhi was like in the days before that midnight when Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency. Overnight, every major Opposition leader was thrown into jail and in Delhi, policemen could be seen under almost every other tree. And they were so determined to crush all dissent that in Connaught Place a wandering street performer was arrested because a policeman heard Indira Gandhi's name mentioned while he tried to get his monkey to obey him. Overnight, at restaurants and coffee shops where people like us met for noisy discussions, signs appeared warning people that it was forbidden to talk about politics.