20 Jul 2026
The Diaspora’s Fight Against India’s Emergency
Fifty years on, the story of the Emergency proclaimed by Indira Gandhi (1975–77) has been told and retold, in popular histories, academic studies, memoirs. But one story has remained almost entirely untold: the resistance mounted from abroad by a small, largely unknown group of Indian diaspora who had no political affiliation or ties to any ideological formation. Organizing themselves as ‘Indians for Democracy’, individuals like Anand Kumar, Ravi Chopra, S.R. Hiremath, Shrikumar Poddar, along with Americans like Mavis Sigwalt, Paula Bronstein, Horace Alexander, and George Willoughby, worked to build international pressure against the Emergency from outside India.
In this episode, we are joined by Sugata Srinivasaraju, author of ‘The Conscience Network: A Chronicle of Resistance to a Dictatorship’, who brings this forgotten chapter of history to light, the story of fascinating individuals who fought for Indian democracy from thousands of miles away.
References:
Sugata Srinivasaraju: Blogspot (http://sugataraju.blogspot.com), X (https://x.com/sugataraju?lang=en), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sugataraju/)
The Conscience Network: A Chronicle of Resistance to a Dictatorship (https://amzn.in/d/0aRYPwnE) by Sugata Srinivasaraju
Other works by Sugata Srinivasaraju: Furrows in a Field: The Unexplored Life of H.D. Deve Gowda (https://amzn.in/d/045ycaXi), Strange Burdens: The Politics and Predicaments of Rahul Gandhi (https://amzn.in/d/01wCe16C), Pickles from Home: The Worlds of a Bilingual (https://amzn.in/d/0gLbYxbW), Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue: The Anxieties of a Local Culture (https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Keeping_Faith_with_the_Mother_Tongue.html?id=-r8lPwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y), Phoenix and Four Other Mime Plays (https://amzn.in/d/0iZZkOJM)
Penguin Book of Socialist Verse (https://ia902905.us.archive.org/21/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.65555/2015.65555.The-Penguin-Socialist-Verse_text.pdf) by Alan Bold (https://www.amazon.in/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&field-author=Alan+Bold&search-alias=stripbooks) (Editor)
Ki. Ram. Nagaraj (https://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%95%E0%B2%BF._%E0%B2%B0%E0%B2%82._%E0%B2%A8%E0%B2%BE%E0%B2%97%E0%B2%B0%E0%B2%BE%E0%B2%9C%E0%B3%8D), Chandrashekhar Patil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrashekhar_Patil), G. S. Shivarudrappa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._S._Shivarudrappa), Prasanna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prasanna_(theatre_director))
The Life and Times of George Fernandes (https://rishvanth.com/2024/08/06/episode-5-the-life-and-times-of-george-fernandes/) by Rahul Ramagundam (Episode 5)
Rama Bhima Soma: Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka (https://rishvanth.com/2025/04/30/episode-10-rama-bhima-soma-cultural-investigations-into-modern-karnataka-in-conversation-with-srikar-raghavan/) by Srikar Raghavan (Episode 10)
India after Gandhi (https://amzn.in/d/08Yk7eib) by Ramachandra Guha
Samuel Beckett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett) and Marcel Marceau (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Marceau)
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (https://amzn.in/d/0373XlC1) by E F Schumacher
Jayaprakash Narayan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayaprakash_Narayan), Ram Manohar Lohia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Manohar_Lohia), Narendra Deva (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narendra_Deva), George Fernandes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fernandes), Prakash Karat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prakash_Karat), Ramnath Goenka (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramnath_Goenka), Triloki Nath Kaul (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triloki_Nath_Kaul), Fazlur Rahman Khan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazlur_Rahman_Khan), Ram Jethmalani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Jethmalani), Subramanian Swamy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subramanian_Swamy), YB Chavan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yashwantrao_Chavan), Khushwant Singh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khushwant_Singh)
Luce-Celler Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luce%E2%80%93Celler_Act), signed by President Harry S. Truman in July 1946
Ashis Nandy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashis_Nandy), Indian political psychologist
Mary McGrory (https://www.iwmf.org/community/mary-mcgrory/), Homer Jack (https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/homer-a-jack/), (https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/192/Horace-Alexander)Bayard Rustin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin), Horace Alexander (https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/192/Horace-Alexander)
