New Delhi
Comparison is an easy art in journalism. But it also has pitfalls and a few tales of its paradoxes.
On 25th June, 1975, Indira Gandhi had suspended the fundamental rights of citizens and restricted the powers of parliament as well as the judiciary. Indira Gandhi was none other than the paternal grandmother of former Congress president and ex-MP Rahul Gandhi.
In the last nine years, the Congress leaders might not have missed a day calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a dictator.
The 21-month “national emergency” between 25 June, 1975 and 21 March, 1977 also took Opposition leaders behind bars. Politics have taken a full circle.
Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, jailed by Indira during Emergency, rubbed shoulders with Indira's grand son Rahul on June 23, 2023 --- for what they say to 'save' India from an 'autocrat Narendra Modi'.
Indira Gandhi had been compared with Hitler. Now, Modi’s regime has often been likened to the Nazi Party.This was largely driven by their perceived anti-Muslim and anti-Christian bias.
The BJP leaders are accused of supporting the calls to ban the consumption of beef and also the official 'refusal' to crack down on vigilante squads and mobs who allegedly lynch people for engaging in the cow-slaughter trade. Christians have issues with funding and anti-conversionmeasures.
In 2018, Modi's trusted colleague and now powerful Home Minister, Amit Shah had said,“On this day back in 1975, democracy was murdered by the Congress merely to meet its political agenda so it could continue in power".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known for his anti-Congress rhetoric, has in the past attacked the Emergency and evenhad called it a “black night that cannot be forgotten".
The Modi government has also been drawn into confrontation with the judges of the Supreme Court.In 2018, it erupted into a major row when senior judges raised the issues of government interferencein discharge of their duties. Kiren Rijiju, former Law Minister under Modi, used the phrase 'urban Naxals'for retired judges.
During the Emergency too,courts and judges made news.Certain judges from the Supreme Court were appointed and the court was 'packed' with the government’s preferred judges.
Late Arun Jaitley wrote:, "A dangerous thesis was propagated by Law Minister H.R. Gokhale that the judiciary must follow the social philosophy of the government and judges must be appointed on the basis of their social philosophy". In 2023; and a few years between 2014 and now, the Congress and other party leaders
say under the BJP and the Modi-Shah duo, there is an undeclared emergency and media freedom is being curtailed and the central government is also grossly misusing the anti-corruption agencies.
There are other shades and some could be 'compared' to the situations we are in today and forsome things stand staring in diametrically opposite directions.
Today's Congress leaders will not defend Emergency unlike a few from the past such as Siddharth Shankar Rayand advocate S C Khare, who represented Indira Gandhi at the Allahabad High Court of judge Jag Mohan Sinhaon June 12, 1975 when the verdict was pronounced against her. But the Congress leaders will always say thatIndira Gandhi would go down the memory lane as an unmatched leader in holding the country together.
Do leaders in present day politics irrespective of party affiliations tend to forget that Indira Gandhi was defeated in the elections following the emergency. The argument being the Indian public could not accept her authoritarian rule despite her popularity. Like Inidra Gandhi was more popular than the Congress, today, Narendra Modi is certainly much more popularthan his party. In 2019 itself within months of losing key state polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh andRajasthan; the BJP candidates returned with flying colours in parliamentary polls. In some states, Congresscould not open an account.
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| Sanjay with handpicked loyalist Kamalnath |
Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule was particularly unpopular with Muslims as the regime imposed family planning. In order to popularize a two-child-per-family trend, the administration coined the slogan 'Hum Do, Hamare Do' and imposed measures such as surgically sterilizing young husbands and wives in households that already had two or more children.
Rahul Gandhi's uncle and ironically two sitting BJP MP's close kin Sanjay Gandhi was at the forefront of this crusade.
Legend has it Indira once declined to meet a Catholic leader on learning he only represented 2,000 voters. Indira was extremely populist. In Assam, her party’s electoral policy in the 1970s was reportedly aimed at “winning over Alis (Muslims) and Coolis (tea garden workers)”.But on another plane, with regard Muslims, she was so eager to win their widespread support she pushed to promote Urdu among Muslims in Kerala and West Bengal — the two states where local Muslims prefer to use their mother tongues of Malayalam and Bengali respectively.
Many Congress leaders who basked in the glory of her party's success year after year, would never agree that she was an autocrat by temperament. They all believe that Inidra had a very inspiring and an attractive personality. Old timers also recall that many years later she told Marxist Jyoti Basuthat Emergency was necessary because the situation demanded a "shock treatment".
"It was an absurd kind of thing to say...," Basu later remarked.
One irony about power-politics is that some decisions often come back to haunt the leaders and their parties who make them. One mistake - and it's a legacy. This is the dilemma the Congress leaders face on and around June 25 every year even as throughout the year they do not hesitateto accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi of pursuing alleged autocratic and sectarian politics for the last nine years.
One senior politician recalls unhesitatingly that 1974-75 was a truly turbulent period in Indian politics."Some of you may not understand ...It was a different era. And I am nobody to justify the imposition of Emergency because I was not in Mrs Gandhi's (Indira) party then".
ends
"All the political parties spend more time in bickering over the past events of each other or are critical of present dispensations. Need is to bury the past and spend more time in discussions on how to build a strong India. Ruling party is equally indulgent in wasteful critisism and should set a trend of harmonious working environment. 🙏" - a senior Retired Army officer on social media
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