Rahul Gandhi makes massive submission; terms Indira-imposed Emergency 'a mistake'

Expressing an atypical view, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday admitted that the 'Emergency' imposed by his grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1975 was a “mistake” and what happened over the next 21 months was “wrong”. 

The Congress MP also said that the Emergency period - during which constitutional rights and civil liberties were suspended, the media was severely restricted and many opposition leaders were imprisoned - was "fundamentally different from the current scenario."

"I think that was a mistake. Absolutely, that was a mistake. And my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) said as much. (But) the Congress at no point attempted to capture India's institutional framework... frankly, it does not even have that capability. Our (the Congress') design does not allow us (to do)," he said during a virtual conversation with renowned economist Kaushik Basu. 

Gandhi said he supports internal democracy in the Congress, which fought for India’s independence, gave the country its Constitution, and stood for equality. 

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The ruling BJP, whose leaders were among those jailed during the Emergency, has repeatedly attacked Congress, especially when facing similar accusations of curtailing the right to freedom of speech.

In June 2020, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and former BJP chief had targeted the Congress and Gandhis in series of tweets, saying "one family's greed for power" had turned the nation into a "prison" overnight. "The press, courts, free speech... all were trampled over. Atrocities were committed on the poor and downtrodden," Shah tweeted.

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Gandhi targets RSS

However, Gandhi said on Tuesday that there was a "fundamental difference" between what happened between 1975 and 1977, and what is happening today. Targeting the BJP, he alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is doing something “fundamentally different” and filling up the institutions of the country with its people. 

Backing his claim, Gandhi recalled a conversation with senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, before his government was overthrown in March last year. Nath told him that senior bureaucrats in his government would not listen to him as they belonged to RSS. 

The Congress MP added that even if the BJP would be defeated in the election, it would be impossible to get rid of their people in the institutional structure.

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