1975 Emergency: As the Centre led by the NDA decided to celebrate June 25, marking the anniversary of the declaration of emergency 50 years back, as ‘Samvidhan Hatya Diwas’, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP P Chidambaram reiterated the stand taken by his party that the emergency was a mistake and it was accepted by then PM Indira Gandhi.
Critique of Emergency
P Chidambaram said, “Why is the BJP not going back to the 18th or 17th century? 75 percent of the Indians living today were born after 1975. Emergency was a mistake and it was accepted by Indira Gandhi. We have amended the Constitution so that an emergency cannot be imposed so easily.”
He said that “lessons have been learned from the past” and, interestingly, questioned why fifty years on from the event, there is still a need to debate the merits and drawbacks of the emergency.
“What is the point of debating the rights and wrongs of the emergency 50 years later? The BJP must forget the past. We have learned the lessons from the past,” he said.
Mallikarjun Kharge’s Critique
It is in this context that the NDA-led federal government announced earlier this month that “Samvidhan Hatya Diwas” will be observed to mark the anniversary of the emergency. Opposition parties hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration over the move.
Mallikarjun Kharge said in a post on ‘X’ on Friday, “In the last 10 years, your government has celebrated “Constitution Murder Day” every day. You have snatched away the self-respect of every poor and deprived section of the country every moment. Reacting to the announcement from the Centre, Kunal Ghosh, the Trinamool Congress’ leader, told a press conference that the BJP is trying to divert attention from its anti-people policies.”
Indira Gandhi’s Political Resilience
“She has been criticised. Indira Gandhi lost once and she came back to power as the Prime Minister. So that chapter was just one page of history and years later, the BJP is trying to divert attention from its anti-people policy, disasters and the bad condition of the country, they are trying to play this old card,” Ghosh said.
The Emergency of 1975 was a dreadful period in Indian history, marked by intense political turmoil and the suppression of civil liberties. The then-Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, declared it with the objectives of mollifying political dissension and maintaining law and order. It Suspended fundamental rights and Monday brought stringent censorship.