Congress cannot obliterate Emergency shame
It is ironical that the strongest voices against the “authoritarianism” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the “personality cult” in the Bharatiya Janata Party should be from the Congress, a party which murdered democracy and stifled fundamental rights through the invocation of an Internal Emergency 40 years ago on June 25-26, with one of its leaders even declaring that “Indira is India and India is Indira”.
Various Congress leaders had jumped on veteran BJP leader lK Advani's recent remark that institutional mechanisms were still not strong enough to prevent a repeat of the Emergency. Mr Advani had not mentioned an individual or Government in this context, and he made this abundantly clear in a television interview. Yet, the Congress sought to interpret the comment as a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It must also look deep into Mr Advani's other statement: Indira Gandhi can never be forgiven for the imposition of Emergency. Mr Advani also said that it was futile for various Congress leaders to deflect the blame from her by accusing others for the decision. Although four decades have gone by, the Emergency cannot, and should not, be forgotten. For one, there has been no closure from the Congress's end: The party has not apologised for either the terrible blot it put on the country's strong democratic credentials or the excesses that were perpetrated in the name of the larger social good during the Emergency period.
On the contrary, various leaders and key players of that time have continued to defend the act. For instance, Indira Gandhi's additional private secretary, RK Dhawan, said with a straight face in a recent television interview that his boss was unaware of the excesses that were being committed and that Emergency was imposed to restore order in the country, which had been threatened by the ‘civil disobedience' movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan, and which comprised political leaders of various hues.
There is no trace of remorse or regret for the misdeeds that happened. Indira Gandhi had not just imposed the Emergency, but she had even gone about manipulating the judiciary to make it toe her dictatorial line — superseding or promoting judges. The media was completely stifled; those who listened to Her Majesty's Voice were spared while the recalcitrant ones were hounded in many ways. Opposition leaders, and others believed to be sympathetic to them, were summarily rounded up and thrown behind bars. How can the Congress today point fingers at others for supposedly weakening democracy and the concept of collective leadershipIJ
Changes made to the Constitution soon after the Janata Party assumed power following the 1977 general election, in which the Congress and Indira Gandhi herself were comprehensively trounced, have made it virtually impossible for another horror of the kind to be inflicted on the people. But the Emergency anniversary should be an occasion for each one of us to re-dedicate ourselves to the task of further strengthening our democratic institutions. And, given that it's not just the ruling political class of 1975 but also sections of the media and the judiciary which collaborated through their silence or at times by their active participation in destroying democracy, they too must deeply introspect.