"Later Downplayed As... ": Shashi Tharoor's Emergency Barb At Congress

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said that the Emergency should not be remembered merely as a dark chapter in India's history, but that its lessons must be fully understood.

In an article on the Emergency published in the Malayalam daily Deepika on Thursday, the Congress Working Committee member recalled the dark era of the Emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi between 25 June 1975 and 21 March 1977, and said that efforts undertaken for discipline and order often turned into acts of cruelty that could not be justified.

"Sanjay Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi, led forced sterilisation campaigns which became a notorious example of this. In poor rural areas, violence and coercion were used to meet arbitrary targets. In cities like New Delhi, slums were mercilessly demolished and cleared. Thousands of people were rendered homeless. Their welfare was not taken into consideration," the Thiruvananthapuram MP wrote.

He said democracy is not something to be taken lightly; it is a precious legacy that must be constantly nurtured and preserved.

"Let it serve as a lasting reminder to people everywhere," Mr Tharoor said. According to him, today's India is not the India of 1975.

"We are a more self-confident, more developed, and in many ways a stronger democracy. Yet, the lessons of the Emergency remain relevant in troubling ways," he said.

Mr Tharoor warned that the temptation to centralise power, silence dissent, and bypass constitutional safeguards may reappear in various forms.

"Often, such tendencies may be justified in the name of national interest or stability. In this sense, the Emergency stands as a strong warning. The guardians of democracy must always remain vigilant," he added. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)