For the first time, a leader from the Congress party and more particularly the scion of Indira Gandi family, Rahul Gandhi has admitted that the imposition of the Emergency in 1975 was a wrong decision. Terming the Emergency that was imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a ‘mistake', Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said what happened during that period was ‘wrong', but it was fundamentally different from the current scenario as the Congress at no point attempted to capture the country's institutional framework.
In a conversation with Kaushik Basu, a professor at the Cornell University in the US and India's former chief economic advisor, Gandhi said he is all for internal democracy in the Congress, which fought for India's independence gave the country its Constitution and stood for equality.
Asked about Indira Gandhi announcing elections at the end of the Emergency and Pranab Mukherjee telling Basu later that she did so as she thought she might lose and wanted to put that to test, the former Congress chief said there is a fundamental difference between what happened during the Emergency, which was wrong', and what is happening in the country now.
This is a big shift in the perception of Congress, the party has never admitted its wrongdoing in 1975 when even the Constitutional fundamental rights were suspended and whosoever raised his voice against the then government was put behind the bars. Even the senior and old leaders from the opposition were pushed into the jails across the country.
Congress rather defended its misdeed till the last moment. In July 2015, a senior Congress leader and a former cabinet minister openly justified the imposition of Emergency. “Why should we apologise? Why should we discuss Emergency? Certain things happened. After that, the people of India voted Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister. So, if we have to apologise, then people of India will also have to apologise….why did they elect her”, the former External Affairs Minister said, adding that there was no need of going back into history as the government of the time did what it felt was necessary.
Rahul Gandhi also claimed, “The Congress party at no point attempted to capture India's institutional framework and frankly, the Congress Party does not even have that capability. Our design does not allow us that and even if we want, we cannot do it.” This is far from the truth. The entire world knows how Indira Gandhi subjugated the entire institutional framework including the press and judiciary. No institution of national importance was spared.
He also alleged that RSS has filled up the institutions of the country with its people. Before making such an allegation, he should have gone back to the history and found how from JL Nehru to her grandmother and later too, all the institutions of national importance – may it be academic, judicial, national security, social and economic were filled by their own men with leftist mindset who systematically damaged and distorted India's history, beliefs, social fabric and ethos to the hilt.
Thus the young scion should get acquaintance with the realities of Indian socio-economic structure and history before passing judgements.
