Monday will mark the 37th anniversary of the imposition of “internal” Emergency, on June 25, 1975, with President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signing the proclamation late at night, even before it had Cabinet approval. An important vignette about those days has come out, in a booklet written by N Vaghul to honour the memory of R K Talwar, the trail-blazing chairman of State Bank of India (SBI) from 1969 until his abrupt departure in 1976, at the height of the Emergency. The vignette that deserves a wider audience relates to Talwar’s ouster....................
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We have heard about the episode but not in all its details. 'Business Standard' says that the minister was C.Subramanian and Pranab Mukerji was only a nominal minister for Revenue and Banking under under C.S.If my memory serves me right, the minister was R.Venkatraman and Pranab Mukerji was appointed as Minister of Banking with independent charge and was not a nominal minister under the Finance Minister. Pranab Mukerji was appointed with independent charge so that he could be expected to carry out the patently wrong dictates of Sanjay Gandhi. Indira Gandhi wished to maintain her image with RV and did not feel comfortable in giving him patently wrong advice.She also knew that RV would nnot do some thing unfair and unreasonable.According to my memory,it was Pranab Mukerji who had made all the moves mentioned by Vaghul. We could now guess as to why Vaghul has not mentioned the name of the Minister especially when the Minister is, in all probability, likely to become the President of India as he is considered most suitable by virtue of his experience, capability and honesty.
A. Chandramouliwaran.
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