Emergency days are integral part of my childhood memories. Our house was close to RSS HQ in Nagpur. My father and his two brothers were in jail under MISA and third brother remained underground in Assam. My eldest bro was detained in Satyagrha.
Father n one uncle were in Nagpur jail.Meeting them on weekly basis was an essential activity.But not everyone was fortunate.Many arrested frm Nagpur were shifted to Thane, Pune, Nasik.Those families couldn't afford even monthly meetings. 2nd uncle was in Cuttack jail in Odisha
Police used to visit our house frequently to check if any underground leaders are there. On rare occasions, actually someone used to be present but in disguise. Police couldn't stop us playing on grounds of RSS HQ. We used to perform daily Shakha without ध्वज and प्रार्थना.
Suddenly the news would come that some underground leader is caught by police making everyone sad n depressed.When my uncle in Orissa was arrested,he was not allowed to write letter.Our friend received a letter frm someone in Orissa with a cryptic message "Arvind is in hospital"
Receiving letters from underground and jailed leaders was a great source of keeping the morale high. My 8 yrs old cousin wrote a postcard to Shri Balasaheb Deoras, inquiring his health. And he replied.
Separately, Deoras "celebrated" his 60th birthday in Nasik jail by receiving 60000 postcards from all over India. To maintain anonymity, everyone just wrote his first name and name of town.
Watching Satyagraha was another excitement for kids like us. Police used to be informed in advance the venue (generally a busy chowk) . Crowd would be ready to watch. Suddenly from the crowd , young boys and girls would emerge precisely on the time, shout slogans and get arrested
Lot of people lost their jobs after getting arrested. Many others didn't get salaries for entire duration of jail. Society quietly supported them. Doctors gave free treatment and performed free surgeries, shopkeepers free groceries for families of those jailed karyakartas.
Though there were relatively few cases of physical torture in Maharashtra, in many other states, both men and women were subjected to torture even British Raj would be ashamed of
In spite of all this opression, Indira and Congress leadership were frustrated by resilience of RSS workers. Then Congress President Deokant Barua told Assam CM "till those 8 Maharashrian Praxharaks are underground, I don't consider RSS is banned in Assam"
Atalji was admitted to hospital for back pain. When someone went to meet him, he famously said "टूटेंगे लेकिन झुकेंगे नही"
Today's @eOrganiser has covered how Deoras refused last minute offer by Indira. After Janata Party came to power, Yashwantrao Chavan appealed, "forgive and forget". Guess the first one who supported him; Deoras. He appealed people not to be vindictive. He was true statesman.
