NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday set the tone for the commemoration the 50th anniversary of Emergency, describing it as one of the darkest chapters in India’s democratic history.
Attacking the then Congress government led by Indira Gandhi, he said it was as if it had placed democracy under arrest.
All values enshr ined in the Constitution were set aside, fundamental rights were suspended, press freedom extinguished and several political leaders, social workers, students and ordinary citizens were jailed, he pointed out in a post on X.
Later in the day, The Emergency Diaries — Years that Forged a Leader, a book that chronicles Modi’s journey during that time, when he was a RSS pracharak, was released by Union home minister Amit Shah. Shah said Modi, then 25, used to work underground at that time against Emergency, sometimes as a saint, sometimes as a Sardarji, sometimes as a hippie, sometimes as an incense stick seller or sometimes as a newspaper seller.
Shah went ballistic against the Congress on the Emergency, saying it was imposed to preserve dynastic politics. As for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, he said Emergency symbolised Indira’s dictatorial streak, adding its imposition marked a “black day in history”. “The anti-Emergency movement was a learning experience for me. It reaffirmed the vitality of preserving our democratic framework.
At the same time, I got to learn so much from people across the political spectrum,” Modi said in his post on X. In his foreword to the book, former PM H D Gowda said people like Modi built a strong network of communication and resistance.
Modi urged others who still remember the tyranny of Emergency, to share their experiences on social media so as to enhance awareness of those dark days. In his reposte, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge charged that there was an undeclared emergency in India since the last 11 years. He accused the BJP of staging a ‘drama’ of observing Samvidhan Hatya Diwas to mark the proclamation of Emergency to hide governance failure.
