Transcript: Indian PM Indira Gandhi’s Interview on Thames Television (1978)

What was the precise nature of that danger?

INDIRA GANDHI: I’m afraid you can’t say anything with great precision but you talked to your people of a deep and widespread conspiracy of which you were sure they were aware. What conspiracy?

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Great precision but you talked to your people of a deep and widespread conspiracy of which you were sure they were aware. What conspiracy?

INDIRA GANDHI: Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Now, the whole subcontinent has been destabilized.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: But this was internal upheaval.

INDIRA GANDHI: No, it was both. It was supported from outside.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: But you required the special powers on the basis of internal upheaval.

INDIRA GANDHI: No, the question was had it been only internal with no foreign interference one could have dealt with it in a much easier way.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: With respect, you didn’t mention.

INDIRA GANDHI: No. Why should one mention everything? No, one doesn’t mention everything at any time. Why should one? But it’s very obvious when people have followed the doings of international agencies and who was present at India at what time and what is happening today is borne out everything that we suspected earlier.

The Shah Commission Report

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Can I put to you the findings of the Shah Commission just set up to inquire whether there were any cause to take you to court and have you condemned for excessive abuses of power. In that report they quote on the basis for your requiring this emergency no evidence whatsoever. Police reports, Home Ministry reports your intelligence services had given you no evidence whatsoever.

INDIRA GANDHI: It is not true at all.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: What had they given you? What have they told you? Precisely?

INDIRA GANDHI: It’s not a question. They’re telling me I’m Prime Minister, I have the business to know and all reports do not come through police they come through heads of other states and very many other agencies but they also had given those reports. How did Justice Matthew know for instance and many other people who spoke at that time. This report is an entirely prejudiced one sided report. They’ve completely ignored whatever people had to say on the other side. Most of the people who have given evidence are government servants whose whole livelihood and future depends on what they said here.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Do you not see Justice Shah? He was after all a former Chief justice of the Supreme Court judge who.

INDIRA GANDHI: Had expressed himself very strongly against me and my policies before being appointed to this.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: What is it?

INDIRA GANDHI: He had made speeches against us, recorded speeches against you. Well not me personally but against our policies and he appeared against us when we. I mean there was a. In fact the parliament wanted to impeach him at one time, did he not?

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Is not the realities that he found against you in the courts on one occasion?

INDIRA GANDHI: I don’t think he was in the court, can I. But he opposed bank nationalization very very strongly too. And it’s after that that he spoke. He’s been speaking continuously against me and my government.

Electoral Malpractice and Timing

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Mrs. Gandhi, was it mere coincidence?

INDIRA GANDHI: And I don’t think that in any other country they would appoint or even in India there’s seldom been a case where somebody who’s known to be anti has been appointed to inquire against that person. In fact at the same time another judge was approached but because I had superseded him he refused to take up these things because he said that people would not think he was fair.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Mrs. Gandhi, was it mere coincidence that at the same time the Allahabad High Court had said that you could stay in office as Prime Minister provisionally but had found you guilty of electoral malpractice and that therefore there was a serious risk that you would not be able to remain Prime Minister? Was that just coincidence that things came at the same moment?

INDIRA GANDHI: No, it was not a coincidence.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Because the observation that I mean now.

INDIRA GANDHI: How does it help me to escape now? If I wanted to remain Prime Minister all I had to do was to listen to the party bosses. They would not have wanted me out at all. I would have been Prime Minister for life.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: But you were dismissed. I was holding office under the findings of the court.

INDIRA GANDHI: No. Yes. But on what issues? And if you look at your own newspapers they all said they were very trivial issues.

Defending the Emergency Decision

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Mrs. Gandhi, I must ask you. Did you not concoct a threat to the survival of the State in order to ensure your own survival of the harmony?

INDIRA GANDHI: I’m sure that’s a very rude question and it’s entirely baseless. There’s nothing at all to base it on.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Well, the Shah Commission, to which I must refer. Because it was a commission set up by the government. It’s a judicial inquiry. And he is an eminent judge says that. Says very clearly that the reason for. And if I can quote justice. If I may. You’ve said I’ve asked you a rude question.

INDIRA GANDHI: No, but can I just defend.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: I would just like to say one thing about what is in the report, if I may. Because what he says is that the only evidence he can find is the Allahabad judgment. And on the basis of that he says thousands were detained and a series of totally illegal and unwarranted actions followed involving untold human misery and suffering. That’s why I put the question. I don’t put it out of a desire to be rude to you. Mrs. Gandhi.

INDIRA GANDHI: Is in a parliamentary democracy. Is a judge competent to override what Parliament has done? The decision I took was ratified by the cabinet and by the Parliament. It was not only accepted, it was applauded by the entire nation. Had we held the elections in 1976. We would have won hands down. Now we did not hold the elections because the state of the economy was such. At that time the political situation was alright. But the state of the economy meant that we could see that if we continued, we. By I don’t mean us as people by the policies we were pursuing, if they continued we could give India a sound and stable economy. Had we held the elections then this would not have been possible. Therefore, we jeopardized our political future and chose giving political stability, I mean economic stability and soundness to India. Rather than saying, well, let us be sure of our election.

Opposition Leaders and Democratic Threats

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Why then was it necessary to imprison Mr. Morarji Desai who then became Prime Minister of India? Was he an economic threat to the states?

INDIRA GANDHI: No. These were the people who were destroying democracy.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Destroying democracy.

INDIRA GANDHI: Destroying democracy.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: How?

INDIRA GANDHI: Because. Well, I’m sorry that you people have such short memories. But because they felt they could not win an election they said we must take the battle to the streets. Mr. Morarji Desai is on record in an interview. Having said, we are going to surround the Prime Minister’s house. We are going to surround Parliament. We will see that no business is done. The Prime Minister cannot come out. Nobody can go in. Another member of the opposition. Now a minister said that if we cannot win by the ballot, we shall win by the bullet. Somebody else incited the police and the army.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: That was JP Narayan. Disobey illegal orders. He said, why couldn’t you have taken. Why Could I just ask you, why couldn’t you have used the law that you already had available to you to arrest these people if they were breaking the law?

INDIRA GANDHI: I’m afraid, you see, India is not a small country like the UK. It is a very big country in very complex problems. And in the whole country they had created an atmosphere of extreme indiscipline. So that somebody like Mr. Galbraith said, it seems to be a functioning anarchy. But it was not functioning. It was becoming an unfunctioning anarchy. And at that moment, if we had not stopped it, India would not have survived. Now unfortunately, the dealings of the present government are taking India along that path once again. The only difference is that because we left a very sound economy, that momentum is sustaining the government.

Civil Rights and Detention

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Why was it necessary to remove from every individual in India and in particular from the tens of thousands who were put in prison their right to go to court and put their case. Their right indeed to know why they’d been detained. Why did you remove those rights?

INDIRA GANDHI: Well, I would like to say with all respect that all this is happening today. There is no emergency in India. But 23,000 teachers who are non political have been arrested for merely non violent peaceful demonstrations. For certain demands.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: But that isn’t a justification surely for what happened under you?

INDIRA GANDHI: No. But you have to see that if some things are happening all the time it’s not necessarily that something happened in emergency. If the police have indulged in excesses, they have been doing so before, during and now since then.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: But this is a different case I’m going to do. Your Home Minister said at the time and I think rather neatly if perhaps cynically pinpointing the issue. No fundamental rights, he said, have been taken away from any individual just their right to go to court to enforce their rights. Now that was under the special powers that you took. We’re not talking about abuse by minor officials. We’re talking about state policy.

INDIRA GANDHI: That is true but it was just for a very limited period and we have in wartime a lot of political rights and civil rights are taken away from people. And this for India was as serious as a war period because it did threaten our very survival.

Press Censorship

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Why Was it necessary, Mrs. Gandhi to forbid newspapers to report the speeches of MPs?

INDIRA GANDHI: No, I think censorship was not properly managed and initially we thought it would be for a very brief period and some code of conduct would be worked out.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: That’s remarkable I think. Would you say the purpose of pre censorship this is government regulations is to guarantee certain safeties for the state. The chief censor must see everything that’s published. And speeches of members of Parliament must not be published in any manner or form. Only speeches of ministers. I mean was that necessary to defend.

Media Control and Press Freedom

INDIRA GANDHI: India from collapse for a short period? Yes, because as I said the situation was more or less going out of control and it was necessary. There is which developing country has been able to go ahead. Only India has tried this experiment of having social and economic changes through peaceful and democratic means.

Now when these means were threatened we took a temporary measure. It was I who revoked, I declared the emergency but also I who revoked.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Immediately before the elections 21 months later certainly.

INDIRA GANDHI: But then I did hold the elections. I don’t think there’s a single instance in world history of this happening.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: The Shah Commission concluded that the reasons.

INDIRA GANDHI: I haven’t ended at all because since you’re talking about the press I would like to say something about the press here. A news item came in that the judge who had given his judgment in my election case died. And it was very broadly hinted that I had had him done away with.

When the High Commissioner clarified the position that my judge is perfectly hale and hearty living where he always lives and a judge of a similar name has died of a heart. Much older man has died of a heart attack in another part of the country. Your newspapers did not have the grace even to print that contradiction.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: That seems a curious grounds on which to justify the peaked removal of the freedom of the news.

INDIRA GANDHI: No, I’m very sorry. I’m not justifying, I’m just showing.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: But you don’t like the newspapers.

INDIRA GANDHI: No, I’m not. I’m saying that the newspapers are part of a force which is there to obstruct the social and economic changes which we want to bring about.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: And you tried to turn it into a force to support what you were doing.

INDIRA GANDHI: No, we are not interested in support but we are interested in not having the obstructions.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: The evidence, Mrs. Gandhi shows that during that period for instance All India Radio during that period in one month December 76 had over 2,000 lines reporting government statements 34 lines recording opposition.

INDIRA GANDHI: I’m sure you’ll find exactly the same in All India Radio today.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: So this is just frailty in any case of the freedom of the.

INDIRA GANDHI: Whether it is or not, I don’t know but it’s no use picking out something out of context. This is what I’m trying to show.

The Shah Commission Report

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: The Shah Commission said that the reasons for the measures taken against the media in general and the press in particular was to keep and this is on the basis of the evidence put to him was to keep the public in ignorance to instill fear in them thereby suppressing dissent in every form. Individual, political, parliamentary, judicial. It was used as an instrument of news management aimed at thought control.

INDIRA GANDHI: If you want to give a lecture on the Shah Commission you needn’t have me here. You can give it anyway as other media are doing. We do not accept the Shah Commission’s report and the people of India do not accept it. They have shown that he is quite irrelevant. His remarks and his findings to the situation which prevailed earlier and the situation which prevailed during the emergency, before the emergency or after how does Mr. Shah know what is happening in the political world?

What are the forces at work which want to destroy a developing economy? Is a judge competent to decide that? Then why have democracy? Why have elections? Why have political people in power?

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: It was a commission of inquiry which a lot of democracies.

INDIRA GANDHI: No it was not. It was a purely vindictive action by the President Government. It’s very interesting that of the cases referred to the Shah Commission they did not want to inquire into any cases except those against me or those whom they considered my supporters. They did not even record the evidence of those who said anything in my favour. He just said this is irrelevant.

In the courtroom itself they had a picked crowd which jeered us anybody who wanted to. I mean we didn’t want cheering but if anybody did, that person was thrown out. I mean when you take up a thing. You should try and find out the whole background and what has actually happened.

I mean, to us it doesn’t matter what the British media says. It’s quite irrelevant to India. But it shows that you are divorced from the facts and divorced from what the people are thinking. And if you don’t, if you’re not bothered about what the people are thinking then you shouldn’t talk about democracy.

Family Planning and Sterilization

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: I certainly am bothered what the people are thinking. And of course one’s concerned to try and establish the basis on which they might or might not hold particular judgments. And that’s why I’d like to ask you about the 20 months of your special powers. There were, I won’t need to remind you, I think some 8 million people who were sterilized. More than 250.

INDIRA GANDHI: I’m sorry, this is not any. This figure has not been borne out by anybody in any commission.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: There is evidence to suppose that very large numbers of people were sterilised. Well, it’s been alleged that there was widespread compulsion, if there was compulsion at all. For the purposes of argument, what would be your reaction to compulsory sterilization?

INDIRA GANDHI: I express myself in government statements as well as privately that I am not for compulsion.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Records from the time from the Chief Secretary of the Government of Uttar Pradesh. Government attach highest importance to achievement of family planning targets. Failure to achieve monthly target will result in stoppage of salary suspension and severest penalties. Other states, all eligible cases for sterilization in my office and department have been sterilised.

Persons who have refused to get themselves sterilised have not been paid their salaries. The evidence surely Mrs. Gandhi that a combination of intimidation, coercion, economic sanction, not giving people licenses, not giving people rights to free education and health and so on were used by officials throughout India to force people in effect to have sterilization.

INDIRA GANDHI: Yes, they were.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Those are major wide scale excesses then, aren’t they?

INDIRA GANDHI: No, I don’t think so. And furthermore, now people realize that if our population goes up at the rate at which it’s going their children won’t be alive. They won’t have enough food or education or any of those rights.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Do you accept no responsibility at all?

INDIRA GANDHI: I have accepted all responsibility because I happen to be head of the government.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: But you believe there was nothing.

INDIRA GANDHI: No, you see, you cannot be categorical about these things. Certainly mistakes, when you take up any major program, mistakes will take place. But there was a very large force working against us which was determined to use anything it could against us. And I think that they played a very large part in creating these so called excesses.

Political Prisoners and Opposition

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: A lot of them seemed to be in prison. You had tens of thousands in prison with endless more forces against you trying to destroy you. Mrs. Gandhi.

INDIRA GANDHI: Most of the people in prison were smugglers, hoarders, black marketeers.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Not academic students, teachers, politicians?

INDIRA GANDHI: No, they were politicians but not many academics or students. Well, the evidence, unless they were in the Nakshalite movement or something like that you are accepting without question a particular evidence which has not yet gone to court which is sub judicial and which we do not accept.

Future Emergency Powers

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Under what conditions now would you justify imposing a similar state of emergency? Would you do that? If you were in charge in India now where you said there’s chaos and terrible problems would you do it now?

INDIRA GANDHI: No. Because today’s chaos is created by the government. It’s quite a different situation. As I said at that time. As you said that had we taken action in what you think is say is legal earlier on maybe all this would not have been necessitated. And this is why I feel that I was at fault in this that I did not take action earlier on.

But we felt that elections were not far off and we could wait till the elections. We didn’t know that these people would precipitate the situation as they did. We knew that in elections we may or may not win.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: You don’t think about another state of emergency in India?

INDIRA GANDHI: No. As I’m saying today there is a state of emergency. It is not legal, it is not constitutional, it doesn’t have parliamentary sanction. But in every other way there is a state of emergency. If Justice Mr. Shah says that the people are in fear you have only to go and walk the streets of Delhi today or Calcutta or any city.

And whereas that time only those who are in fear who were doing something antisocial but today it is the common citizen the poor man who’s in fear.

India’s Future and Criminal Charges

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: What then do you expect the future of India to be, Mrs. Gandhi?

INDIRA GANDHI: Well, the future of India is for us to decide. And we will fight it out in India. I don’t think it’s anybody else’s business.

JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: You of course are soon going back to face criminal charges on the basis of the Shah Commission’s allegations. On the basis of that evidence I’m obliged to ask you why would it not serve the interests of truth and justice for you to be found guilty?

INDIRA GANDHI: Because I’m not guilty.

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