Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday, recalled the Emergency period and said that the country remembers it as a dark period during which every institution was subverted and an atmosphere of fear was created. Not only people but also ideas and artistic freedom were held hostage to power politics, he added.
“I salute the courage of all those great women and men who steadfastly resisted the Emergency, which was imposed 43 years ago. Their struggles ensured people power prevailed over authoritarianism and the stifling of civil liberties,” PM Modi tweeted.
“Let us always work to make our democratic ethos stronger. Writing, debating, deliberating, questioning are vital aspects of our democracy which we are proud of. No force can ever trample the basic tenets of our Constitution,” Modi said.
Meanwhile, recalling the period of the Emergency, Union Minister Arun Jaitley, on Monday, published the second part of his three-part series titled 'The Emergency Revisited'. He recollected the "tyranny" which people faced when it was imposed in June, 1975. He recalled how it was like when he was in jail.
“Having imposed Emergency on 26th June, 1975, Mrs. Indira Gandhi got issued a proclamation under Article 359 suspending fundamental rights. As a result of this, the right to free speech and personal liberty was gone. Only censored news was available. On June 29th, in order to deflect attention from the suspension of democracy in India, she announced a Twenty Point Programme for the revival of Indian economy. In fact, large number of these twenty points were also retrograde economic measures which had to be reversed in the post 1991 economic reforms,” Jaitley wrote in a Facebook post.
From 1975 to 1977 the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had declared a state of emergency across the country. It bestowed upon the PM the authority to rule by decree. Elections were suspended and civil liberties were curbed.
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