Emergency turned democracy into dictatorship: Jaitley

Union minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday recalled how the Indira Gandhi government had imposed a “phoney Emergency” and “turned democracy into a constitutional dictatorship” about more than 40 years back.

“It was a ‘phoney emergency’ on account of proclaimed policy that Indira Gandhi was indispensable to India and all contrarian voices had to be crushed,” Jaitley wrote in a Facebook post titled “The Emergency Revisited” - Part-I the Circumstances Leading to the Imposition of Emergency.

“The constitutional provisions were used to turn democracy into a constitutional dictatorship,” Jaitley added.

The Emergency was imposed on June 25, 1975 on account of internal disturbances leading to suspension of the fundamental rights.

“I led a protest of Delhi University students where we burnt effigy of the Emergency and I delivered a speech against what was happening,” Jaitley said.

“The police had arrived in large number. I got arrested only to be served a detention order under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act. I was taken to Delhi’s Tihar Jail... “I thus got the privilege for organising the only protest on the morning of June 26, 1975 and became the first Satyagrahi against the Emergency,” Jaitley said, adding that “little did I realize that at a young age of 22 years, I was participating in events which were going to be a part of history. For me this event changed the future course of my life...”

Terming 1971 and 1972 high points in the political career of Indira Gandhi, he said that she had challenged the senior leaders of her own party and a grand alliance of opposition party to win the 1971 general elections to become “the key centre of political power for the next five years”.

However, listing her mistakes, Jaitley said: “She botched up the nationalisation of wheat trade (subsequently reversed) to tackle the unmanageable inflation. It led to greater inflation. This led to social and trade union unrest where large number of man-days were lost.”