Author: IANS
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 2, 2011
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/307729/Congress-trying-to-make-Sanjay-Gandhi-scapegoat-for-Emergency-misdeeds-Advani.html
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani
on Sunday charged the Congress with trying to make Sanjay Gandhi a scapegoat
for the "misdeeds" of Emergency rule, which he said was "an
unforgivable crime against democracy".
It is "a ridiculous attempt to make Sanjay
Gandhi a scapegoat for all the misdeeds the country had to suffer during the
Emergency" of 1975-77, Advani said in his latest blog.
Advani, who was among the political leaders
jailed during the Emergency, was referring to references about the late Sanjay
Gandhi in a book brought out by the Congress, "Congress and the Making
of the Indian Nation".
Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of Indira Gandhi,
was widely dubbed an "extra constitutional authority" for the powers
he wielded during the 21 months of Emergency rule when thousands of political
activists were jailed and the media muzzled.
Sanjay Gandhi died in a stunt plane crash
in 1980, by which time Indira Gandhi and the Congress had returned to power.
Advani said while the book has just two paragraphs
on what happened during the Emergency, it devotes two pages about the factors
leading to it.
This included mass protests led by Gandhian
Jayaprakash Narayan's which the book said was an "extra-constitutional
and undemocratic movement", and the Allahabad High Court verdict unseating
prime minister Indira Gandhi.
"In the last 60 years, whenever the executive
has found a judicial verdict unpalatable, its reaction has been to have the
verdict undone by mobilizing legislative support for the executive's viewpoint.
In 1975 also this was sought to be done by amending the law.
"But (Indira) Gandhi did not stop there.
Without consulting her cabinet, or even her law minister and home minister,
she made president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed invoke article 352 (of the constitution)
to put democracy under indefinite suspension," Advani wrote.
He added: "The Congress publication indicates
that the party regrets only the 'excesses' during the Emergency because Sanjay
Gandhi promoted worthwhile causes such as slum clearance, anti-dowry measures,
and literacy but in an arbitrary and authoritarian manner."
Advani said he holds that "promulgation
of the Emergency itself was an unforgivable crime against democracy".
The BJP leader said almost all prisoners arrested
under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act filed habeas corpus petitions
in high courts, and almost all the courts rejected the government's objection.
"The diary I used to maintain while I
was in prison records the names of 19 judges who were transferred to other
high courts because they had decided against the government!"
Advani compares the Emergency to Germany's
Nazi rule
Senior BJP leader L K Advani today compared
days of the Emergency in the country to the infamous Nazi rule in Germany
under Adolf Hitler during which lakhs of jews were killed.
Advani headlined his latest blog posting,
"Emergency of 1975 akin to Nazi rule".
Though he has not explained on his blog why
he chose to use the term, he quotes Justice H R Khanna, the only dissenting
Supreme Court judge, who had used it in the case where the Government of India
had appealed against a high court judgement in favour of those detained during
the Emergency under MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act).
"It has been argued that suspending the
right of a person to move any Court for the enforcement of right to life and
personal liberty is done under a constitutional provision and therefore it
cannot be said that the resulting situation would mean the absence of the
rule of law ".....In one sense, it might in that event be argued that
even if lives of hundreds of persons are taken capriciously and maliciously
without the authority of law, it is enforcement of the above enacted law.
Thus, in a purely formal sense, any system or norm based on a hierarchy of
orders, even the organized mass murders of Nazi regime can qualify as law,"
Justice H R Khanna said his judgement.
He was referring to Article 21 of the Constitution
which guarantees right not only to personal liberty but also to life.
Advani states in his blog that 1,10,806 persons
were detained during the Emergency.
"Of these 34,988 were detained under
the Maintenance of Internal Security Act whereunder no grounds were to be
given to the prisoner," he said.
Several of those who were detained had filed
Habeas Corpus petitions in high courts which were challenged by the government
in Supreme Court, he said.
