Indira’s emergency paved the way for the conversion of Haji Mastan; though the final credit goes to Jayaprakash Narayanan

By Ignatius Pereira

Remember Haji Mastan.....yes the man from the then Bombay (now Mumbai) who once undisputedly enjoyed the monopoly over gold smuggling in India. That was a time when the Persian Gulf boom was yet to materialise and yet yellow biscuits in its primary 24 carat form illegally arrived from the Gulf sector. After enjoying that monopoly for almost 20 years Mastan suddenly in the late 1970s gave up gold smuggling altogether and entered the real estate business in Bombay.

(I thought of penning some of my recollections on the emergency in my blog since on the 43^rd anniversary of the declaration of the emergency, it has generated  much debate following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at Mumbai on Tuesday).

Mastan’s decision with regard to giving up gold smuggling created a void for that activity in spite of the fact that smuggled gold had demand on par with rice or atta in India. That void was soon afterwards filled up by the now fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. That filling up later led to the notorious gang wars between Dawood and rival Kareem Lala. But when Mastan was in control there were no such gang wars. It is said that even the main plot of the 1975 Amitabh Bachchan blockbuster “Dewaar” was triggered by Mastan’s early life.

Years later in the late 1980s when I as a press reporter in Bombay doing the crime beat I once met Mastan as part of my job.  With scenes from “Dewaar” fresh in my mind on that occasion, I asked him the reason for quitting gold smuggling. He said it was the emergency declared in 1975 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that paved the way for it. During the emergency period Mastan was arrested under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act and detained in prison for more than 18 months. He was released when the Janata Party government headed by Morarji Desai came to power.

Mastan told me that during incarceration it was the Sarvodaya leader Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) who influenced him out of the gold smuggling activity. JP was also arrested and detained during the emergency and was in the same prison Mastan was lodged. JP told Mastan that smuggling was an anti-national activity and made him promise that he will not engage in it after getting released. Mastan promised JP he would not and he kept his word. Mastan passed away in the year 1994 and till then did not engage in gold smuggling. But Mastan's real estate business is also a big story. 

Whatever may be his agenda 43 year later, I fully agree with Prime Minister, Narendra Modi that the country was like a de fact jail during the emergency period. But there was also another side to the emergency.  Those were the days when I was active in the Students Federation of India and therefore programmed to hate the emergency.

But later during my days in Bombay, I used to wonder: “what would have happened to India if the emergency had not been declared- would it have been worse or better for the country”.  This had often made me think on the lines that the emergency had another side too. The emergency was declared in the backdrop of even leaders like JP giving a call to the armed forces to revolt against the government and there was a general fear or feeling that the armed forces may positively respond to that call. What if that had happened?

My point is that if it is not viewed through the political prism, the emergency also had another side that is largely overlooked. The emergency no doubt was declared with the main objective of suppressing the opposition to the ruling Congress party and Indira Gandhi. The other side was that it neutralised a possible threat to the Constitution through the fear of a possible army takeover of the country though ironically it had also kept the Constitution neutralised for almost two years. It is not the emergency but the brutal excesses committed by the ruling party under the label of power that converted the emergency into a villain.

Anyway in 1977 emergency was relaxed, Indira declared elections, she and her party was wiped out especially in the northern parts of the country. Though many had a feeling that Indira Gandhi and family would flee to some foreign country and take refuge, it did not happen. Indira was in the country itself, fought the general elections again and returned to power. The rest is history.

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