SPADES AND SHOVELS
SPADES AND SHOVELS
Crisis, Conscience and the Constitution by M. V. Pylee Asia Publishing House, Delhi, 1983, 175 pp., 50.00
Sept-Oct 1983, volume 8, No 2

From July 8, 1979, the day when Raj Narain initiated defections from the Janata Party, till August 22, 1979, when President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy dissolved the Lok Sabha by Presidential order, the Indian constitu¬tional democracy was continu-ally betrayed in a variety of ways by tae very persons who had desecrated Rajghat with the promise of bringing the people of India a new constitutional dawn. Some of these people, now refurnished by the very democratic processes which they wantonly debased, are again preparing to lead the nation. Professor Pylee’s account of the great betrayal comes at the right historic moment for those whose concern for democracy and the well-being of the Indian people is more genuine than that of the present and poten¬tial masters of the Indian polity.

An authentic account of the dwarfing of Indian democracy which began traumatically with the Emergency and con¬tinued with the incredible infighting among the Janata factions has yet to be written. But for future historians of this era of constitutional poli¬tics, Pylee’s account and ana¬lysis provide indispensable material.

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