Jaitley compares Indira to Hitler; praises SAD for role during Emergency

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 25

On anniversary of the Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on June 25, 1975, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today said “intolerant citizens violating freedoms of fellow citizens are no Indians”. 

Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Arun Jaitley also used the occasion to hit out at Indira Gandhi, comparing her to German dictator Adolph Hitler. 

Naidu recounted the “acts of repression” during the “dark age” — “33 aberrations that sterilised democracy and destroyed the Constitution during the regime of Indira Gandhi”. He also rejected discrimination and violence in the name of “cow protection, lover jihad, eating habits, watching movies, etc.” 

“Dark age of 1975 Emergency should become a part of the curriculum so that the young learn to value the democratic freedoms they enjoy,” Naidu said. “I am confident that no sensible government would repeat what was done during the fateful night of June 25, 1975. That was clearly a state-sponsored ‘intolerance’ to democracy and individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said, releasing Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Gujarati versions of “Emergency: Indian Democracy’s Darkest Hour” authored by Prasar Bharti Chairman A Surya Prakash.

Meanwhile, Jaitley in his latest article titled ‘the tyranny of emergency,’ said “the common man who did not understand dictatorship understood it because of forced sterilisation during Emergency.” 

In a long account of the period when he was jailed, Jaitley said: “Hitler arrested most of the opposition Members of Parliament and, therefore, converted his minority government in Parliament into a government which had two-third majority of members present and voting. 

“Mrs Indira Gandhi arrested most opposition Members of Parliament and, therefore, procured, through their absence, a two-third majority of members present and voting and enabling the passage of several obnoxious provisions through Constitution amendments,” he added, as he also went on to write how Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay Gandhi “became a law unto himself and terrorised the society”. 

He praised the Shiromani Akali Dal for offering its cadres for Satyagraha every day throughout the Emergency.