Nail driven deeper in coffin of Indian democracy: JP's 'Prison Diary' poignant account of Emergency

"EVERY nail driven deeper into the coffin of Indian democracy is like a nail driven into my heart," wrote firebrand socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan in his diary while being interned as a political prisoner during the height of the Emergency imposed on this very day 50 years ago.

- KUNAL DUTT

Close to midnight of June 25, 1975, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed proclaimed the Emergency citing "internal disturbance".

On that fateful day, Narayan, popularly known as JP and a fierce critic of the then Indira Gandhi government, addressed a massive gathering at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi.

There, he had famously thundered 'Sinhasan Khali Karo ki Janta Aati Hai', (Vacate the throne as the public comes)' quoting an epic line from Ramdhari Singh Dinkar's poem 'Jantantra ka Janm'.

Narayan, then 72-years-old, Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani, and other opposition leaders were soon arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA).

A few days later, JP was taken to PGI-Chandigarh and lodged there for a few months starting July 1 as a political prisoner replete with police security and away from public gaze.

Narayan's 'Prison Diary', whose first edition came out during the course of the Emergency itself, opens with a poignant July 21, 1975, account written during his internment.

"My world lies in a shambles all around me. I am afraid I shall not see it put together in my lifetime," he wrote.

The introduction to the first edition of JP's 'Prison Diary' reads that it is "more than the musings of a Prometheus in chains".