After being re-elected as Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Om Birla said – Prime Minister Narendra Modi endorsed his statement – that June 25 should be treated as a “black day” as the anniversary of the imposition of Emergency. The duo is trying to use the House to deflect the attention of the people from the monumental failures in governance and in upholding the Constitution.
Shockingly, Modi and his BJP-RSS friends are “enlightening” the next generation about a period in which they played a dubious role. I (Lalu) was the convener of the steering committee that Jayaprakash Narayan—the greatest people’s leader after Mahatma Gandhi—had constituted to carry forward the movement against the excesses of Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. I was in jail under the Maintenance of Security Act (MISA) for over 15 months. My colleagues and I did not know many of the BJP ministers speaking about the Emergency today. We hadn’t heard of Modi, J P Nadda and some of the PM’s other ministerial colleagues who today lecture us on the value of freedom.
The then Prime Minister had resorted to constitutional provisions to declare Emergency. Indira Gandhi put many of us behind bars, but she never abused us. Neither she nor her ministers called us “anti-national” or “unpatriotic”. She never enabled vandals to defile the memory of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar—the architect of our Constitution. She also did not associate with those who endorse lynch mobs to kill and maim minorities and Dalits in the name of religion and caste. Cattle traders were not persecuted and killed on suspicion of possessing beef.
The assassins of Mahatma Gandhi were not worshipped during the 1975 Emergency. Young people were free to choose partners of their choice. They were not persecuted in the name of a fictitious “love jihad”.
Modi talked about “vote jihad” in the 2024 election campaign and invoked superstitious ideas about eating “machhali (fish)-mutton”. This is in line with earlier statements. Indira ji never said that Lord Ganesha got an elephant’s trunk through plastic surgery. She made India a nuclear power. The Indian Army, during her tenure as PM, defeated Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. The current PM shows off more with achievements far less substantial.
The 18th Lok Sabha on the first day of its first session should have discussed the rot in the educational institutions, exam paper leaks, burgeoning unemployment, caste census, reservation for the marginalised classes, unprecedented inflation, threats to the Constitution, special category status for Bihar, violence in Manipur, misuse of investigating agencies against the BJP’s political opponents, subjugation of the democratic institutions, capturing the media, and lodging the journalists, writers, and activists in jail.
Instead of letting Parliament function as a forum to discuss pressing issues, the BJP is back to misusing the House to misinterpret the history of Emergency. The entire Opposition under the banner of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) has a valid mandate – which it will use – to reign in the Sangh Parivar’s authoritarian streak.
The PM is now in power with the Telugu Desam Party and Janata Dal (United) as crutches. But he is acting like nothing has changed. That is a fool’s paradise.
Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Supriya Sule, and several other young MPs elected on INDIA’s ticket are performing extremely well. People are with the INDIA bloc. The election results have shown that Modi has lost the trust of the people. The INDIA bloc MPs should keep raising their voice for people’s causes in the House.
Modi, Birla, Nadda and their likes are trying to create falsehood and project themselves as the “heroes” of the battle against Emergency. There is no doubt, of course, that the Emergency will aways be a stain on our democracy. There were, of course, valiant leaders against Emergency. These included Chandra Shekhar (former Prime Minister), George Fernandes, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Karpoori Thakur, Ramanand Tiwary, Raj Narayan and my friends in Bihar – Nitish Kumar (Bihar CM), Ram Vilas Paswan, Shivanand Tiwary, Abdul Bari Siddiqui and countless others.
In fact, JP never liked the Sangh Parivar leaders and their dual roles. He asked them to disassociate themselves from the RSS to join the Janata Party based on his philosophy of socialism, equality and justice. Sangh leaders never abided by JP. They used the movement to gain recognition in society and continued with their communal ways.
Veteran Socialist leader Shivanand Tiwary recalled how the then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras, arrested under MISA, wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi supporting her 20-point programme that her government had put in place to garner public support for the Emergency. He also pleaded with other RSS workers.
Yes, let’s all pledge to fight for freedom and to ensure that no one can shred the Constitution, misuse it to bludgeon the Opposition. 1975 can never and should never be repeated. But let’s also not forget who’s in power in 2024 and who refuses to respect the Opposition.
Prasad is president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal. Verma is his biographer, journalist and researcher in folklore
