Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 26 June speech in Mumbai, like most of his speeches, was sharp and focused.
Launching a scathing attack on the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family for Emergency, Modi said the country was turned into a “jail” for “selfish personal interest of that family”.
At one level, Modi aims to use the bogey of Emergency as a diversionary tactic and counter a whisper campaign by the Opposition that has accused his government of imposing an “undeclared Emergency” in the country.
At another level, the Prime Minister hopes to create a division within the Opposition ranks as a large number of these parties (in their earlier avatars) had bitterly opposed Indira Gandhi’s draconian rule.
Not everyone was onboard
However, a closer scrutiny of Modi’s remarks is required. At the Mumbai event, he said that the Constitution was misused for “one family” while imposing the Emergency.
Journalist and author Khushwant Singh in his autobiography Truth, Love and a Little Malice (Penguin India 2002, page 287) has written that both Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi did not like Indira’s idea of imposing Emergency.
Khushwant, who was considered close to Indira, Sanjay and Maneka Gandhi throughout the 1970s, had observed, “Once I happened to be there (at Indira’s residence at 1, Safdarjung Marg, New Delhi) when Rajiv and Sonia were celebrating one of their children’s birthday. I noticed that the two brothers and their wives occupied different ends of the room and had very little to do with each other.”
Going by Khushwant’s account, it becomes clear that the two branches of Gandhi family were not “one” on some issues, including the Emergency.
In 1993, when I had travelled to Bhubaneswar as an ANI correspondent, Biju Patnaik narrated an incident about how Sonia had met his son Naveen (current chief minister of Odisha) and sympathised with him over his father’s arrest during the 21-month long Emergency.
Biju even quoted Sonia as saying, “It must be terrible for you that your father is in jail. I am sorry about it.” Both Sonia and Naveen were not active in politics when the exchange had reportedly taken place. I had mentioned this incident in my book Sonia: A Biography (Penguin 2003).
Paying the price for excesses
The mounting criticism against Indira-Sanjay resulted in the Janata Party humbling the Congress soon after the Emergency was lifted.
Even Dev Kant Barooah who, as Congress president, immortalised himself by coining the slogan ‘India is Indira, Indira is India’ had turned against Indira by then.
Barooah deposed before the Shah Commission of inquiry which was set up by the Morarji Desai government to inquire specifically into the Emergency and its excesses. The Commission found that there was no evidence of a threat to law and order in the country that had warranted the declaration of an Emergency.
History repeating itself?
There are many in the present day BJP who compete with Barooah in showering generous praise on their supreme leader. Speaking to ABP News on completion of four years of Modi government on 23 May 2018, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “Modi jee Bharat ke liye Bhagwan ka vardan ban kar aaye hain.”
In 2017, Chouhan had released a eulogistic video composition, sung by Kailash Kher, ‘Saal Teen Behtareen’, showcasing Modi regime’s achievements.
A year before, Chouhan had described Modi as the “most popular leader in the world” and said, “He (Modi) is a man of ideas and has the strong will to execute them. Wherever in the world he goes, people chant Modi! Modi! He is the God’s divine gift to India. He will make India ‘vishwa guru’ by 2022”.
The same year Venkaiah Naidu called Modi “God’s gift to India.” Naidu, who was then a cabinet minister under Modi, sang paeans to the Prime Minister while moving a political resolution at the BJP’s national executive.
Any resemblance to history is merely coincidental.
Rasheed Kidwai is an ORF fellow, author and journalist. The views expressed here are his own.