Seer, Sikh, hippie, vendor: The many disguises of Narendra Modi during Emergency

From a seer and a Sikh to a hippie, newspaper vendor and a hawker — Narendra Modi, as a young RSS volunteer, assumed many disguises to function as an underground courier for the leaders of anti-Emergency movement steered by Jayaprakash Narayan in the mid 1970s.

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A new book titled "The Emergency Diaries: The Years that Forged a Leader' released here today by Union Home Minister Amit Shah throws light on the endeavours and missions of Modi when over one lakh activists were put in jails following the imposition of Emergency by late prime minister Indira Gandhi on June 25, 1975. They were all jailed under the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA).

Speaking about the book by BlueKraft Digital Publications, Shah said Modi as a young activist of the Sangh would visit the homes of jailed leaders, arrange care and treatment for their families and often distribute banned literature.

"Look at divine justice. The person who resisted a regime that imposed the Emergency to perpetrate dynastic rule became the prime minister and wiped out nepotism from Indian politics," said Shah, adding that it was important to recall dark periods in journeys of nations to ensure that the tendencies that spawned the darkness never take root again.

The book, he said, documents how Narendra Modi worked underground to discharge his role.

"He worked as a sadhu, a Sardarji, a hippie, an agarbatti seller and a newspaper vendor to execute the tasks from underground," said the Home Minister appealing to the youth to read the book and grasp the power of agitation.

Shah said it was the events of June 12 that triggered Indira Gandhi into imposing the Emergency.

"On June 12, two things happened. The Allahabad High Court declared Indira Gandhi election as null and void barring her from contesting for six years. In Gujarat, a Janata Party government dislodged the Congress in a warning sign to Indira Gandhi," Amit Shah reminisced, adding that the late PM crushed the spirit of Constitution and democracy by imposing the Emergency and seeking cabinet approval post facto.

"When we were finalising a name to commemorate the day of the Emergency, many thought that Samvidhan Hatya Diwas was too harsh. But we eventually went by this name because it aptly described the excesses of the Emergency," said the minister on the christening of June 25 as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas.

Shah made it a point to mention late Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and many DMK leaders who, he said, were jailed for resisting Emergency.

The DMK and SP are now part of the same opposition INDIA bloc as the Congress whose PM had imposed the Emergency.