Gurugram: As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Haryana commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Emergency with a “Black Day” campaign led by 54 senior leaders, the absence of Haryana Minister Shruti Choudhry and her mother, Rajya Sabha MP Kiran Choudhry, underscore the enduring shadow of Chaudhary Bansi Lal, the latter’s father-in-law.
A towering figure in Haryana politics and three-time Chief Minister, Bansi Lal remains the face of Emergency in Haryana, synonymous with the authoritarian excesses of the Emergency (1975-1977) in the state.
The BJP’s mega outreach, spearheaded by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Union Ministers Manohar Lal Khattar and Rao Inderjit Singh, and state president Mohan Lal Badoli, aims to target the Congress by reviving memories of the Emergency’s dark days.
Saini will address a rally in Karnal, Khattar in Faridabad, and Rao in Gurugram, while former minister Ram Bilas Sharma will speak in Rewari. Yet, Kiran and Shruti Choudhry, who joined the BJP from Congress before the 2024 Assembly polls, have not been included in the list of 54 BJP leaders selected to address rallies at 27 places across 22 districts, including in Hansi, Gohana, Dabwali, Gurugram Rural and Ballabgarh.
ThePrint reached Kiran Choudhry via calls. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
When questioned about their absence from the party’s programme during a press conference Wednesday, CM initially said everyone in the party is participating, but later added that the 2 leaders might have had other engagements.
The exclusion of the two leaders underscores the party’s intent to avoid any association with Bansi Lal’s controversial legacy, particularly his role in the forced sterilisation campaign that earned him public ire.
Bansi Lal, a trusted ally of Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi, was the face of the Emergency in Haryana, recalled former IAS officer MG Devasahayam, who served as Bhiwani’s first Deputy Commissioner in 1971.
“Bansi Lal, along with Sanjay’s brigade, including V.C. Shukla, Om Mehta, and R.K. Dhawan, drove the Emergency’s excesses,” Devasahayam said to The Print. “In Haryana, he was its enforcer.”
Initially, Devasahayam shared a cordial relationship with Bansi Lal, who entrusted him with developing Bhiwani, his home district. However, their ties soured during the Emergency when Devasahayam was Chandigarh’s Deputy Commissioner. Bansi Lal demanded the closure of The Tribune’s Chandigarh office and the arrest of its editor, Madhavan Nair, for defying censorship rules.
“He threatened to send the Haryana Police if I didn’t comply,” Devasahayam recounted. By negotiating with the newspaper’s management to adhere to censorship, Devasahayam averted action, but earned Bansi Lal’s lasting displeasure.
As Defence Minister from December 1975 to March 1977, Bansi Lal wielded significant influence, overseeing the arrest of opposition leaders and the implementation of Sanjay Gandhi’s 5-point programme, particularly the contentious sterilisation drive.
In Haryana, over 2 lakh sterilisations were targeted, often executed with coercion. Media reports cite instances of unmarried youths and elderly men, some as old as 70, being forcibly sterilised.
Pawan Kumar Bansal, author of the book Haryana Ke Lalo Ke Sabrange Kisse, said to ThePrint that a popular slogan of the time captured public outrage: “Nasbandhi ke teen dalal—Indira, Sanjay, Bansi Lal” (The three brokers of sterilization—Indira, Sanjay, Bansi Lal).
He said Bansi Lal had to suffer politically for long because of his role in emergency and it was only two decades later, in 1996 assembly elections, that people of Haryana reposed their trust in him and that too after he apologised for his excesses in almost every rally he addressed.
“During the 1977 Lok Sabha election after the emergency was listed, Bansi Lal was contesting from Bhiwani and the Janata Party had fielded Chandrawati against him. Bansi Lal’s wife Vidya Devi went to a village to campaign for him. Mistaking her for Chandrawati, villagers assured her full support as they said they have to teach Bansi Lal a lesson. When Vidya Devi revealed her identity, the villagers told her very politely, that they were ready to welcome her with sweetened milk or lassi whatever she wants to have, but no votes this time,” Bansal revealed.
Sharing another anecdote, Bansal recalled that while Morarji Desai was kept at the Tauru guest house and leaders like Jaipal Reddy, Chandra Shekhar, L.K. Advani, Devi Lal, and Biju Patnaik were jailed in Rohtak, Bansi Lal would often boast about it with pride.
“‘Madam (Indira Gandhi) called me and asked me to keep the jails ready. I told her don’t worry my jails are ready for Opposition leaders’, Bansi Lal used to boast,” said Bansal.
The book also mentions how former Haryana CM Banarasi Das Gupta, while deposing before the Shah Commission set up by Janata Party government to look into excesses during emergency, said that he was just a “dummy” CM and the real power vested in Bansi Lal and his son Surender Singh.
Also read: Emergency showed extent of executive power. 50 years on, it’s still embedded in Constitution
State of the Opposition: Devi Lal and beyond
The Emergency saw widespread suppression of dissent in Haryana. Opposition stalwart Chaudhary Devi Lal, later deputy prime minister, was among the first arrested, spending 19 months in Mahendragarh jail. His sons, Om Prakash Chautala and Jagdish Chautala, too, endured seven months in Hisar jail, evading police for months by fleeing their village on camelback or hiding in jeeps.
Aditya Devi Lal, Jagdish’s son and Dabwali MLA, shared family accounts with ThePrint: “My mother, Seema, was pregnant when my grandfather and father were jailed. No women visited them in prison, per Devi Lal’s instructions.”
Ram Bilas Sharma, then a Jan Sangh leader, recounted his harrowing 19-month imprisonment to ThePrint.
Arrested after a lathi charge left him unconscious for over 3 hours, Sharma said he was tortured in Rohtak, Ambala, and Gaya jails.
“In Bihar’s Gaya jail, I, a 6-foot-3 man, was crammed into a 5-foot cell,” he said. Nearly 1,300 Loktantra Senanis (democracy fighters) from Haryana were jailed, with about 600 still alive, Sharma noted.
Retribution and rivalry
The Emergency’s end in 1977 brought political reckoning. Devi Lal, elected chief minister in Haryana’s first post-Emergency polls, harboured deep animosity towards Bansi Lal, stemming from personal and political slights.
An infamous incident, widely discussed in Haryana’s political lore, saw Bansi Lal arrested in a Haryana Youth Congress fund scam. Police paraded him handcuffed through Bhiwani’s streets on foot, an act attributed to Devi Lal’s vendetta.
Political analyst Jyoti Mishra, a researcher at the Centre for Study on Democratic Societies (CSDS), Delhi, said the BJP’s decision to exclude Kiran and Shruti Choudhry from its “Black Day” campaign reflects a calculated move to avoid giving the Congress ammunition.
“Legacy of Bansi Lal, though a formidable leader with a legacy to cash in on, remains a liability in the context of the Emergency,” she told ThePrint.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
Also read: Control, fear, and division—Congress hasn’t changed even 50 years after Emergency
