PART: 1
25 June 1975 will go down in the
history of the Indian Republic as a most infamous day and a black day when the
then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who headed the Congress Party as its
dynastic head imposed an 'Internal Emergency' in India for reasons which had no
bearing to the internal security of the country.
The Emergency was declared by PM
Indira Gandhi to suppress the widespread political unrest and agitation
generated by her refusal to submit to her unseating from power in a judgment by
the Allahabad High Court on an election petition charging her with electoral
corruption in her Lok Sabha General Elections . Rather than to submit
gracefully to the verdict given in the Court judgment the Congress Prime
Minister by political subterfuge decided to continue in office.
The political agitation against
the Congress PM was not led by any run of the mill Opposition political party
leader. It was led by one of India's most venerated Gandhian and Sarvodaya
leader Shri Jaya Prakash Narayan who stood for high moral values in political
office and political life. He was a freedom fighter of Indira Gandhi's father's
generation and he could have assumed a high political appointment after
Independence. But seeing the emerging trends in the closing stages of India's
freedom movement he opted to be a crusader for morality in public life and of
India's political leaders.
The Emergency was declared
post-midnight with Congress PM Indira Gandhi virtually forcing a pliant
President Fakhruddin Ahmad to sign the Proclamation imposing the Internal
Emergency. Placed in office as a pliant President, by Indira Gandhi, he did not
even question the reasons from the Prime Minister for such a grave measure.
Overnight, hundreds of political
Opposition leaders and activists were arrested and put in jails all over India.
The Indian media was strangled and put under stringent censorship. Human rights
and freedoms were brutally suppressed by the Indira Gandhi regime. India's
Supreme Court judiciary was interfered with. Some reports indicate that as many
as eighteen Supreme Court judges were changed including a Chief Justice. There
was talk of a committed judiciary. Even from within the Congress Party, the
Young Turks MP's led by later PM Chandra Shekhar were also put behind bars for
questioning Indira Gandhi's policies earlier.
Pliant bureaucrats were
positioned in important appointments and were given sweeping powers to stifle
all opposition to the Government and they really went on a rampage. Some of
them occupy high Constitutional positions today under the present Congress
Government.
The Indian democracy stood
subverted by Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and India was to be
under a draconian siege till the 1977 General Elections. Till then the unquestioned
writ of Indira Gandhi and her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi as an unconstitutional
power centre plagued India. The Emergency imposition was to impose a 'shock and
awe' effect on the Indian polity and the Indian public for their temerity to
agitate against the existing political set-up.
In a manner of speaking the
Emergency rule in India imposed by Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
was no different from the military dictatorship regimes of Pakistan.
It was ironic that an Emergency
was imposed in India for reasons of political survival by the daughter of
India's most admired democrat and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It was more
tragic that Indira Gandhi who also joined the freedom struggle for India's
freedom struggle alongside her father should in 1977 stoop to suppress the very
same freedoms and democracy that were fought for in order to continue as Prime
Minister. The self-proclaimed high political morality of the Nehru-Gandhi
dynasty stood compromised.
It was also ironic that the vast
majority of Congress Party political leaders with the exception of the Young
Turks did not raise even a whimper of protest against their dynastic political
leader for the subversion of democracy. They supinely went along and many of
the senior Congress Party leaders stooped low even to touch the feet of the
young dynastic heir apparent.
Another 25 June came and went
past without India even pausing to recall this infamous black day thirty two
years ago. The Congress Party could not be expected to recall the political
misdeed of an earlier dynastic head. The Bharatiya Janata Party which fought
against the Emergency in its earlier avatar as the Jan Singh seems to be
politically frozen today by political inertia. This was an occasion which
should have been highlighted on a massive scale by it all over India. It was
only in the Punjab Legislative Assembly that Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal
made special mention of the excesses of the Emergency despite vehement protests
by Congress MLA's. Many would not know that the Akalis under the leadership of
Badal spearheaded a massive protest against the Emergency rule. More than
40,000 Akali workers were put in jails.
The bulk of the Indian media
controlled by industrial houses close to the ruling Congress Party, did not
highlight this infamous day. If for nothing else they could have emphasized
that India's democracy should never be allowed to be subverted by self-seeking
politicians.
Congress Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi Imposes Internal Emergency
Against such a background, the
only redeeming feature that strikes the mind is that the people of India did no
hesitate to strike back in 1977 against Congress Party Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi for her subversion of democracy and the Emergency excesses. They
unseated her from power. Though she came back to power again, not because of
any new found political popularity but because of the internal squabbles of the
Janata Party, politically the things were never the same again for her. Her
image took a dive.
In this lie many lessons for the
India of today stretching from attempts to put into Rashtrapati Bhavan once
again a pliant political non-entity as President by the Congress Party
President, to the questioning of Supreme Court judgments on unconstitutional
legislation passed by the Parliament by political leaders and contriving
dubious legislative measures to perpetuate in office those unseated as happened
in the Office of Profit controversy.
India's middle class in1977 was
small and yet they along with the rest of India unseated Indira Gandhi for her
political transgressions and subversion of democracy. Today India's burgeoning
middle class is over 300 million strong and they must politically empower
themselves not only to correct the distorted electoral arithmetic imposed by
casteist political leaders and custodians of minority vote banks, but also to
act forcefully as sentinels of Indian democracy.
Never again should the people of
India ever allow another Internal Emergency to be imposed on India by
self-seeking Indian politicians, however charismatic. It is well said that
'Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty' and every Indian citizen should be
alive to it.
24-Jun-2014
No comments:
Post a Comment