Presenter
Shukla Vivek Kumar - Global Studies Department, Aarhus University, Aarhus, DenmarkPanel
101 – The Indian National Emergency (1975 – 1977) and its afterlife: a reflection through cultural production 50 years onAbstract
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared The National Emergency in 1975 which lasted for 21 months. The earlier emergency was in 1962 when India was at war with China. Not everyone was against it. Vinoba Bhave called it Anushahsan Parva, A festival of discipline. Poet Harivansh Rai Bachhan called it a step to “to curb anti-national and reactionary forces”. Actor-Politician Suneel Dutt was calling it the “right Step taken”
Hindi poetry was first to react against it. Nagarjuna was openly writing poems like “what happened to you Indu ji”. The first Hindi novel which talked about emergency was Rahi Masoom Raza’s Katra Bi Aarzu in 1978. The novel gives vivid details of the period including events like forced Nasbandi, male sterilization.The novel is very visual in its approach. The second remarkable novel is Nirmal Verma’s Raat Ka Reporter which came in 1989. Other works on the same theme are Yadvendra Sharma’s PrajaRam (1983), Sharvan Kumar Goswami’s JangTantram (1979)
Comparing Raat Ka Reporter from Katra Bi Aarzu we see that Raat Ka Reporter is different in the approach from Raza’s work. Raat ka Reporter focuses on capturing the sense of fear and being watched. It might be the reason that Nirmal Verma had spent many years in Europe and have witnessed the Iron curtain, while Rahi was writing for cinema.
The paper aims to understand these two main styles and how a dictatorship can be remembered, what difference it makes while using different styles of writings. The paper will also attempt to make a comparison with Hindi Cinema which is yet have not made a film on Emergency except I.S. Johar’s Nasbandi (1978). The paper will draw theoretical backgrounds from Lukács’s Theory of the Novel, Historical memory.
