Author: A Surya Prakash
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 3, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/213153/Travesty-as-tribute.html
The 25th anniversary of Mrs Indira Gandhi's
assassination on October 31 spawned a great deal of nostalgia about her and
gave the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government yet another opportunity
to tom-tom her 'achievements'. The newspapers were full of advertisements
eulogising her. Several Union Ministries vied with one another to pay obeisance
to her and reiterate their loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which own and
controls that party. However, any one who has lived through the turbulent
Indira Gandhi years will vouch for the fact that the messages these advertisements
carried were a complete distortion of truth and, as always, the Congress,
via the Government, has done this at the expense of the tax-payer.
All those who value democracy must challenge
the contents of these advertisements for the following reasons: Mrs Gandhi
turned a vibrant democracy into a dictatorship and presided over a fascist
regime that jailed political opponents and independent journalists when she
imposed Emergency in 1975. Her Government was responsible for many despicable
acts, including forcible sterilisation of citizens, bull-dozing of Muslim-dominated
localities like Turkman Gate in Delhi, and incarceration of Government employees
who failed to obey her illegal orders. These are just a few of the most horrendous,
inhuman and undemocratic acts committed by her regime. All these terrible
deeds have been fully documented by the Shah Commission which probed the Emergency
excesses.
Once this infrastructure for dictatorship
had been laid, other things followed. Her government suspended Article 14
(equality before law) and Article 21 (no deprivation of life and liberty except
by procedure established by law). With the passage of these orders, citizens
of India lost their fundamental right to life and liberty. They were also
prohibited from moving courts. The Attorney-General virtually conceded the
fascist nature of that regime when he confessed in the Supreme Court that
if a citizen was shot dead by a policeman, the victim's family would have
no right to seek relief before a court.
Here is a short recapitulation of some other
things Mrs Gandhi did as Prime Minister: She bamboozled the judiciary, superseded
judges and repeatedly amended the Constitution to protect herself. The 39th
Amendment was meant solely to prohibit the Supreme Court from hearing the
election petition against her; the 41st Amendment declared that no civil or
criminal cases could be filed against her; even more reprehensible was the
42nd Amendment which abolished the need for quorum in Parliament and gave
the President the right to 'amend' the Constitution through an executive order.
With this amendment, Parliament allowed the President to tinker with the Constitution
when 'necessary'. Further, since there was no requirement for quorum in Parliament,
Ministers could push through anti-democratic laws in late night sittings of
the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in the presence of just a handful of Congress
MPs. These were ideas which were taken straight out of Hitler's book.
However, here is what the UPA says about Mrs
Gandhi: The Ministry of Women and Child Development's advertisement claims
that it is pledged to fight "violence and social exclusion". Yet,
it puts out a full-page advertisement in praise of a Prime Minister whose
police surrounded Muslim-majority villages in Haryana and bundled all males
aged eight to 80 into police vans for forcible sterilisation! As everyone
is aware, Mrs Gandhi imposed Press censorship and jailed journalists who were
critical of her Government. In several States the Chief Censor was an Inspector-General
of Police. The atrocities perpetrated by her Government on mediapersons, including
the expulsion of many foreign journalists, is well-documented in a Government
White Paper. Yet, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting pays a full-page
tribute to Mrs Gandhi and says she was committed to 'serve' India till her
last breath.
But, the prize for the most misleading advertisement
must go to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. Desperate to cling
to power at any cost, Mrs Gandhi had jailed 1,40,000 people and held them
without trial in gross violation of their fundamental rights. Yet this Ministry,
as if to mock at all those who were jailed by Mrs Gandhi, quotes her as having
said, "The struggle for freedom began when the first man was enslaved
and it will continue until the last man is free". Phew! Should we say
more?
As regards implementation of social sector
schemes during her tenure, the less said the better. Thousands of crores of
rupees were drawn from public sector banks and gifted away to undeserving
people in bogus 'loan melas' and the slogan of 'Garibi Hatao!' was the biggest
fraud perpetrated on the poor. Instead of taking imaginative measures to alleviate
poverty, Mrs Gandhi went from meeting to meeting, asking people to "banish
poverty". This bogus slogan was palmed off as a magic mantra which would
enable the poor to shake off their wretchedness if they kept repeating it
and voting for the Congress. Meanwhile, corrupt Congress workers ganged up
with equally corrupt bank employees and cooked up poverty alleviation figures.
On the economic front, experts agree that
the Indira Gandhi years were disastrous for India. Instead of opening up the
economy, Mrs Gandhi, under the influence of communists and some fake socialists,
shut the door on foreign capital, crushed Indian enterprise, further tightened
the licence-permit-quota raj and encouraged crass corruption at all levels.
Such was her dislike for entrepreneurship and wealth creation that the income
tax rate for the rich was a mind-boggling 97 per cent! Yet, the Ministries
of Commerce and Industry and Petroleum and Natural Gas issue advertisements
which praise her "courage, vision and unwavering commitment" and
claim that her leadership "inspired us to fuel the nation's sustained
economic growth".
Is there any other democracy in the world
where people permit the Government to squander their money for such gross
falsification of history and for the promotion of a single political party?
But we must be grateful for small mercies: The Ministry of Law and Justice
did not issue advertisements praising Mrs Gandhi for upholding and defending
the Constitution!
