THE discomfiture of the Congress party over references to 1975 Emergency by anybody, is obvious. It is, of course, completely a matter of the prerogative of Speaker Mr. Om Birla -- or later President Mrs. Droupadi Murmu -- to touch upon the subject of Emergency. For Mr. Rahul Gandhi, that may be clearly a political matter which the Speaker should have avoided. For the non-partisan observers, however, the reference to Emergency has its own importance in the current context of electoral narratives in the country. Factually speaking, the reference to Emergency of 1975 got pushed into the political counter-narrative by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when the Congress and other constituents of the I.N.D.I.A. grouping started accusing Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi of tampering with the Constitution and killing democracy in the country. The reference to Emergency came into play as a part of the BJP’s counter-narrative that has now begun hitting the Congress party the hardest. Factually speaking, after the electoral dust has settled and both sides have almost equal reasons to grieve or celebrate on account of their gains and losses, the campaign narratives should have been put to rest. Unfortunately, that did not happen -- and the Opposition has kept accusing the ruling combine of having tampered with the Constitution, with democracy, and also with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). By that token, the common people can accuse the Opposition, too, of having indulged in the same sins.

 

By those standards, even the Opposition seems to have benefitted from the ‘tampered’ EVMs (that seemed to have backfired against the Modi Government, so to say). So, in politics of tit-for-tat, what is in vogue today is sin-for-sin, allegation for counter-allegation. And that has now begun hurting the Opposition in a mixed-bag manner. When the ruling combine raised the issue of massive tampering with the Constitution by way of slapping of Emergency on the country in 1975 (obviously for crassly political reasons of keeping intact somebody’s political power), the Opposition reacted in a complex manner. For, in the Opposition ranks, there are people who suffered during Emergency. Some of them -- like Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr. M. Karunanidhi -- were stripped of their governments in the States, while some others -- like Mr. M.K.Stalin, or Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, or Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, or Mr. Nitish Kumar, or Mr. Sharad Yadav -- were arrested during Emergency only because they were in the then undeclared Opposition front. The reference to Emergency is rubbing on those old wounds, and hurting the Congress party deep. Mr. Rahul Gandhi has seen the inherent risk in this development -- to his effort to keep the Opposition together. Hence his protest to Speaker Mr. Om Birla about the reference to Emergency having been “clearly political”. To Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s further discomfiture, President Mrs. Droupadi Murmu, too, made specific reference to Emergency as a black spot on Indian democracy -- as an attempt to subvert the Constitution. Obviously, the Opposition in general and the Congress party in particular is realising that it is being cornered very effectively by the BJP’s or the Modi Government’s counter-narrative.

 

When Emergency was imposed on the country forty-nine years ago, there were some who had their own reasons to support Emergency for non-political reasons -- such as greater sense of social discipline. Despite those genuine reasons, the fact also was that Emergency was a clear aggression against democracy and a subversion of the Constitution. In those tumultuous years between 1968 and 1978 -- and even later -- the Constitution was pushed to the back-burner of public interest and was toyed with impunity by many leaders. Even before 1968, such events did hit Indian politics every now and then. The current counter-narrative reference to Emergency encompasses all those subversions and sabotages. The Congress party feels a sense of deep hurt because in most of those instances of subversion, it was in power -- no matter headed by one person or one family. To this counter-narrative, the Congress party’s current leadership seems to have no answer. Hence the cantankerous protest against the reference to Emergency !