'Can't do anything else': When Indira Gandhi asked IK Gujral to 'hold her raincoat' at Gujarat rally

Inder Kumar Gujral was eased out of as I&B Minister for going soft on press censorship during the Emergency. (File: PTI)

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was severely disappointed with then Information and Broadcasting Minister Inder Kumar Gujral over his handling of the Jayaprakash Narayan Movement that led to the imposition of the Emergency and once handed him her raincoat at a public rally in Gujarat, saying he "could not do any other work".

The anecdote was shared by Gujral, who later went on to serve as the Prime Minister from April 21, 1997 to March 19, 1998, of the United Front government in an interview to the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) – now known as Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library (PMML) – in the early 2000s, reported The Indian Express.

Gujral was eased out as the I&B Minister and placed in the Planning Commission and replaced by a more pliant VC Shukla over his handling of the JP Movement and "going soft" on media censorship after the Emergency was imposed.

In the interview, Gujral recounted the days leading up to the Emergency and said Indira Gandhi was so disappointed with him that she handed him her raincoat at a public rally in Gujarat, saying: "Please hold it. You could not do any other work."

"Indira Gandhi was at a loss to know how to handle this rising tide… She was not adequately responding to the allegations of corruption in Gujarat. Jayaprakash Narayan emerged… later. Therefore, the more politically she felt out of breath, the more she blamed the media," Gujral said discussing the JP Movement during the said interview.

In his interview, Gujral also remembered the night of June 25, 1975, when power supply at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg was cut off so that newspapers could not come out the day the country heard about the imposition of the Emergency.

Gujral said he was unaware that the Emergency had been clamped, and came to know about it only at the Cabinet meeting held on June 26 at 6 am. He had been informed about power cuts and arrests by the Principal Information Officer at night, but did not sense the seriousness of things immediately, he said.

Gujral said in the interview that he was summoned to the Prime Minister's residence after he refused to pass any order for press censorship on June 26. He recalled a conversation he had with the then PM's son Sanjay Gandhi who told him: "Look, it won’t work like this."

Gujral said he responded to Sanjay telling him: "Till I am here in the ministry, it would be as I wish it to be… I am accountable to the Prime Minister."

Gujral said he received a phone call from then Union minister Om Mehta to send him the list of 'press censors. However, he refused to send the papers and told him that he was not imposing censorship on the press.

Gujral said that when he met Mrs Gandhi next, she did not seem happy about his handling of the censorship. When he said, “Indira ji, this is not my cup of tea,” Mrs Gandhi said: “Yes, that is what I wanted to inform you. It needs firmer handling and you are very soft.”

He readily agreed, saying: “Indira ji, thank you very much. You have been very kind to me all the time and I owe you a lot. But now I am talking to you, not as your minister, but as your friend… When I came home. I switched on the radio at about 9 o’clock or so. It was announced that V C Shukla has been appointed as Information Minister.”

"The Emergency was a bad blot on our national life, but the nation learnt a lot. Nobody now talks in terms of harsh days, nobody talks in terms of compromising institutions and nobody talks in terms of ‘committed judiciary’ because we know that we have passed through that experience," Gujral said in the interview.

Gujral quit the Congress in the 1980s and joined the Janata Dal where he went on to helm the United Front government as the PM for a year between 1997 and 1998.