'Undeclared Emergency': It's Arun Jaitley who needs to introspect before hitting out at detractors
Finance minister Arun Jaitley has attacked those who said the country was facing an “undeclared Emergency”. In a Facebook post on the 42nd anniversary of the Emergency, this is what Jaitley wrote: "It has become customary for the critics of any government in India to casually use an expression, 'undeclared Emergency'. Those making these exaggerated comments need to introspect their own roles during the Emergency. Most of them were either supporting the Emergency or were absent in any protest against the Emergency."
Is this really the case? Were those who said the country was facing an “undeclared Emergency” supporting Emergency or were absent in any protest against Emergency? Let me cite three such statements made by three very different people.
The first eminent person to make such a remark was LK Advani. On June 18, 2015, while speaking to The Indian Express, on the 40th anniversary of the Emergency, he said: "At the present point of time, the forces that can crush democracy, notwithstanding the constitutional and legal safeguards, are stronger." He added, "I do not say that the political leadership is not mature. But because of the shortcomings, I don't have the confidence that it (Emergency) cannot happen again."
He further said, "I do not see any sign in our polity that assures me, any outstanding aspect of leadership. A commitment to democracy and to all other aspects related to democracy is lacking."
The second leader and journalist to pass a comment on undeclared Emergency was Arun Shourie. In an interview to senior journalist Swati Chaturvedi, for The Wire, he said: "It’s a decentralised Emergency. What we are going towards is a pyramidal decentralised mafia state, where local goons will belabour anyone whom they think is doing something wrong. The central people will look the other way. The central people will provide a rationale for the goondas at the local level. Like 'gau rakshaks', like 'love jihad' – this becomes the rationale for me to beat up anybody. It’s not love for the cow, but just an instrument for domination."
Comparing it with Indira Gandhi's Emergency, he said, "The one big difference is at that time Mrs [Indira] Gandhi still used the law. Now it is not the law. These people are acting outside the law. This is true fascism because you say what is the law? I am the law."
On June 9, 2017, eminent jurist and noted constitutional expert Fali S Nariman was speaking against the CBI raids on the residences of NDTV's co-founder Prannoy Roy. He compared the present state of affairs in India with what a retired judge spoke about at the Commonwealth Law Conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Fali Nariman recounted how the retired judge said that their "written Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but looking towards his prime minister, he said, it does not guarantee freedom after speech!". So, Nariman said "freedom after speech – that is really what freedom of speech is all about. Never forget this. You are allowed to speak, speak as much as you like, but there is a fellow waiting there to nab you and out you in so you can’t speak again. That is the protection we are asking for".
Advani, Shourie and Nariman all three went after the present dispensation and either overtly or covertly compared it to the state of Emergency imposed on India more than four decades ago.
Now let's have a look at how these three fared during the Emergency. On June 26, 1975, Advani was arrested in Bangalore within hours of the promulgation of the Emergency. He was taken to Bangalore Central Jail and remained there for around 17 months.
During that period, Shourie wrote several articles against the Emergency. He made scathing attacks, in articles published in the Seminar, Mainstream, India Today and The Indian Express, on the government for disregarding democracy. Shourie even wrote statements for Jayaprakash Narayan to read out.
When Indira Gandhi declared Emergency, Nariman was working as the additional solicitor-general of India. A day after the proclamation, he resigned from his post.
Neither Advani nor Shourie or Nariman were supporting the Emergency, or were absent in protesting against the Emergency.
One spent more than a year in jail, the second one was a vocal critic of the Emergency and the third resigned from his post as an additional solicitor-general of India.
Jaitley, then a young activist of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and also a convenor of Jaya Prakash Narayan's Committee for Youth and Students' Organisations, was himself arrested in 1975, and lodged in Tihar Jail for 15 months.
But is he correct in labelling those who said the country was facing an “undeclared Emergency” as supporters of Emergency or absent in protesting against it?
Whosoever he might say that about, it certainly cannot be Advani, Shourie or Nariman.