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NEW DELHI: Veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani, who went to jail during the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975, feras that civil liberties are safe in India even today – 40 years after the event.
“If the Emergency could happen with so many of us being there (who were opposed to it), I don’t rule it out totally in the future. I don’t think the last word on this has been said. Of course, no one can do it easily, because of the experience we have had in 1975-77. But that it cannot happen again – I will not say that. It could be that fundamental liberties are curtailed again,’’ Advani says in an interview to Indian Express.
“I think there isn’t adequate awareness about, and commitment to, civil liberties, and the freedom of the press,’’ the veteran BJP leader said.
Advani says the Emergency happened despite the legal structural safeguards in the Constitution. “The law were in place even earlier — yet the Emergency happened. There aren’t enough safeguards in India in 2015.’’
About the present leaders, he says, “Today, I do not say that the political leadership is not mature. But kamiyon ke karan, vishwas nahin hota (I don’t have faith because of its weaknesses). I don’t have the confidence that it (Emergency) cannot happen again.’’
Advani says the guilt for the Emergency lies with Indira Gandhi and her government who put 1,10,000 people behind bars.
“Yet there has been no real acknowledgement or apology. I have not seen those who were responsible for the Emergency show any trace of honest realisation that it was wrong, that it should never come back,’’ says the former deputy Prime Minister who, along with Atal Behari Vajpayee, built to the BJp to become a national party.
The Emergency, the darkest chapter in the history of independent India, lasted from June 1977 to 1977, ending with the ouster of Indira Gandhi in the general elections.
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