Poetry book on Emergency released
“During Emergency, democracy was at its death bed. It’s due to sheer cowardice that after the Emergency so-called intellectuals kept a mum on its atrocities. I have personally talked to many movie directors and producers, but they all say they are too scared to make a movie on Emergency,” said veteran BJP leader Shri LK Advani while releasing a poetry book on Emergency on August 3 in New Delhi. Former Union Minister Shri Arif Beg, Vice Chancellor of Makhanlal Rashtriya Patrakarita Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal, Dr BK Kuthiala and director Sahitya Akademi, Madhya Pradesh Dr Tribhuvannath Shukla were also present on the occasion.
The book, Apatkaleen Kavya: Ek Anusheelan has been written by Dr Arun Kumar Bhagat. It is a compilation of various poems written during the Emergency by some leading poets. Shri Advani said books like these are much needed to bring the truth to public knowledge. The function was organised by Indraprastha Sahitya Bharati.
Shri Beg recounted his memories of his nineteen-month imprisonment during Emergency in which leaders like Shri Kushabhau Thackeray, Shri Madhu Limaye etc. were imprisoned along with the leaders of Jamat-e-Islami. He told how this interaction helped the two ideologically different groups to come together and understand each other. He further added that the need of the hour is harmonising Indian society; then only India will become a superpower.
Dr BK Kuthiala said howsoever hard the Government of Smt Indira Gandhi tried; it wasn’t able to prevent communication among the people during Emergency. Shri Tribhuvannath Shukla took Marxist writers and historians to task for supporting the Emergency when it was implemented and afterwards hiding the true facts and portraying a biased picture before the people.
Author Dr Bhagat said the motive behind writing the book was to make the people aware of the sufferings of the Emergency and about the people who penned this pain down. The book includes poems by many known poets like Agyeya, Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena, Bhawani Prasad Mishra, Dushyant Kumar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, etc.
President of Indraprastha Sahitya Bharati Dr Devendra Arya presented various useful excerpts from the book. Some writers who suffered imprisonment during the Emergency were also honoured by Shri Advani on the occasion.
—Aniruddh Subhedar
