Lip service: On the Emergency and government’s actions
The Emergency, imposed on June 25, 1975 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and which lasted 21 months till March 21, 1977, remains a blot on the history of democratic India. The rule by decree, the suspension of civil liberties and free speech, the arbitrariness of government actions, and the indiscriminate arrests of dissenters and Opposition figures using draconian preventive detention laws, among other measures, continue to haunt Indians who experienced it in all its vicious forms. The traumatic episode is a reminder of the responsibility of democratic institutions in always safeguarding the freedoms and rights of citizens. When freshly elected and returning Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla read out a resolution, on Wednesday, “condemning the imposition of Emergency” and termed it a...