At its recent plenary session in Delhi, the Congress finally broke its silence on the Emergency. in 1985, Rajiv Gandhi had tried to come clean on the E-word but he backed out at the last moment. B N Uniyal tells the inside story.

Rajiv Gandhi wanted to be far more forthright, even contrite, on his mother's Emergency regime than Sonia Gandhi has been in the latest official history of the Indian National Congress. He told me so when I was drafting a document for him for the centenary session of the Congress in Bombay, now Mumbai, in 1985. "I want to come clean on this," he said. "It's hanging like a millstone around every Congressman's neck. The sooner we do it, the better for everyone."

But he suddenly backed out at the last moment. I don't know why but when he did, he looked uncomfortable, as if he was retreating against his will and under some compulsion. He first approved the three paragraphs in which I had dealt with the Emergency affair starting from Indira Gandhi's disqualification by the Allahabad high court on June 21, 1975 to March 21, 1977, when Emergency was lifted.

Obviously, something had happened and he changed his mind. He looked rather sheepish when he asked me to drop two of these paragraphs and tone down the third. A few days later, when I met Narasimha Rao, together with the then AICC general secretary Jitendra Prasada, even Rao appeared intrigued by Rajiv's change of mind.

I consulted Rajiv Gandhi before dealing with the Emergency period in the report. He told me about how the Emergency was a millstone for Congressmen The story goes like this. Preparations for the Congress centenary session had started early in July 1985 in Delhi and Bombay. Some time in early November, Arun Nehru, while receiving Rajiv at Palam airport on his return from a foreign trip, told him that there was a convention that at every plenary session of the Congress, the senior-most AICC general secretary presented a comprehensive report about the proceedings of the previous session.

That, he suggested, should be done at the centenary session also with the only change that since this was a landmark session, the report should be presented by the Congress president, that is Rajiv himself. AICC treasurer Sitaram Kesari, who was around, endorsed the suggestion. At this, Rajiv asked Jitendra Prasad, who was in-charge of the session, to prepare a report as was being suggested.

Prasada felt that the suggestion had been made only to trip him because it wasn't easy to find someone to draft this report within the short time available, and get it printed for circulation among the delegates. It was already November-end. On someone's suggestion to Rajiv that S Gopal of Jawaharlal Nehru University would be a suitable person to draft the report, Prasada contacted him. Gopal declined. Prasada told me that Gopal actually seemed annoyed at the very idea of being treated like a hack. Prasada next approached Prof S R Mehrotra of the Institute of Advanced Studies, who too declined.

So did several other eminences. Just then Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. the veteran freedom fighter, film producer and journalist, heard of the idea and offered Rajiv a thick typescript of a Congress history he had written a long time ago but was never published.

Rajiv Gandhi leafed through Abbas's work but was unimpressed. He told Prasada he wanted a concise, crisp report. That was when Prasada, an old friend, turned to me. He knew I had resigned from my job in the left-wing newspaper, Patriot, and thought some money would be of help to me. He had guessed right. Besides, I also liked dabbling in politics just for the heck of it.

One day Prasada took me to Rajiv for a preliminary introduction and briefing. We were in his library at 10, Janpath. Rajiv looked furtive and in some kind of haste. He outlined the idea of the document he had in mind. The meeting was brief.

While drafting the document I thought I should consult Rajiv before dealing with the controversial Emergency period. I told Prasada so. Again, a meeting was fixed. This time Rajiv was relaxed, and all attention. I was with him for nearly an hour while a large crowd waited outside. That is when he told me about how the Emergency was a millstone for Congressmen.

When I showed him my draft a few days later, Rajiv said I should show it to Narasimha Rao. Rao sat on it for quite some days. He was disgruntled with Rajiv those days. He was gruff with me too.

Rajiv found him unwilling and obstructive. He told me this in as many words in a moment of high resentment. Finally, Rao made some minor changes in my draft, but nothing significant. And he didn't touch the three paras on the Emergency. Rajiv saw his corrections, then underlined the three paras and sent the typescript back to Rao. Rao sent the draft back without any change or comment.