Decode Politics: Why is the BJP talking of Emergency again?
Former BJP president L K Advani and former Janata Dal leader Ramkrishan Hegde were imprisoned in the Bangalore Central Jail during Emergency. (Express archives)
Former BJP president L K Advani and former Janata Dal leader Ramkrishan Hegde were imprisoned in the Bangalore Central Jail during Emergency. (Express archives)
Under attack from the Opposition over alleged attempts to “change the Constitution”, the BJP has fallen back on the Emergency card.
On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the 18th Session of the Lok Sabha with a mention of the Emergency. On Tuesday, marking the start of the 50th year of its imposition by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government, the BJP held programmes across the country and its leaders issued statements targeting the Congress on the issue.
Why does BJP see Emergency as such a potent issue?
Several leaders who were at the forefront of the anti-Emergency agitation are now part of the INDIA bloc. While Lalu Prasad of the RJD is an integral part of INDIA, so is Akhilesh Yadav, whose father and Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav was jailed along with Lalu during the Emergency.
This means that the BJP sees itself as the only party that has been consistently opposed to the Congress, starting from the JP Movement of 1974-75 against Indira Gandhi, leading up to the clamping of the Emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution.
Meeting of Opposition leaders Jai Prakash Narayan, Raj Narain, Morarji Desai and L K Advani during the Emergency 1975. (Express archive)
Meeting of Opposition leaders Jai Prakash Narayan, Raj Narain, Morarji Desai and L K Advani during the Emergency 1975. (Express archive)
How does the Emergency pitch complement the BJP narrative?
The Congress has repeatedly accused the RSS of raising only Hindutva issues but never those crucial to citizens as a collective. It has also accused the Sangh Parivar of not having a role in the freedom struggle, unlike its own rich history of participation in it.
It is here that the Emergency comes as an answer as the RSS and its affiliates, be it the Jana Sangh or ABVP, are all active against it. Countless leaders and workers of these organisations went to jail, including LK Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Arun Jaitley. Nanaji Deshmukh of the Jana Sangh was among the most intrepid fighters for civil liberties during the JP Movement, and took on lathis to shield Jaya Prakash Narayan during a protest in Patna in late 1974.
Many in the BJP see its participation in the JP Movement as the most prominent moment in the history of the RSS and its affiliates in expanding its image beyond Hindutva. In fact, in 1975, JP attended the National Executive of the Jana Sangh, declaring from the stage, “If the Jana Sangh is fascist, Jayaprakash Narayan is also fascist.” This was also a big boost to the Jana Sangh in terms of mainstream legitimacy.
How has the BJP built on its anti-Emergency legacy?
In the elections held after the Emergency was lifted in 1977, the Jana Sangh’s role in the JP movement paid it rich dividends. The Janata Party – formed by the merger of the Jana Sangh, Socialists, Congress (O) of Morarji Desai and the Bharatiya Lok Dal of Chaudhary Charan Singh – came to power, and its leaders Vajpayee, Advani and Braj Lal Verma became Union ministers.
This was the first time that RSS-affiliated leaders were ministers in the Central government. The Jana Sangh had been part of unstable Samyukta Vidhayak Dal (SVD) governments in many states in 1967 on an anti-Congress plank, but occupying positions of power at the Centre was a coming of age, politically speaking, for the party.
The excesses of Emergency, highlighted by the BJP, also helped the party dent the sheen earned by the Congress due to the 1971 military victory against Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.
The BJP has continued to wield the Emergency as one of its strongest weapons against the Congress, its prime contender for power. The 19-month-long Emergency remains a blot on the Congress over the question of civil liberties and constitutional rights, and the BJP has used it repeatedly to project the Congress – and by extension the Gandhis – as authoritarian by instinct.
On Tuesday, in his Emergency day message, Modi posted on 'X': "The mindset which led to the imposition of the Emergency is very much alive among the same party which imposed it. They hide their disdain for the Constitution through their tokenism but the people of India have seen through their antics and that is why they have rejected them time and again.”
How has the Congress responded?
The Congress has come around to openly admitting that imposing the Emergency was a wrong decision. In March 2021, in a conversation with Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics, Cornell University, Rahul Gandhi said: “I think that (Emergency) was a mistake. Absolutely, that was a mistake. And my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) said as much.”
However, he had added that the Congress did not try to “capture” institutions, unlike what he claimed was being done now.
The Opposition also claims that unlike the move by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975, under Modi, there is an “undeclared Emergency”.
In a post in Hindi on X Tuesday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said: "Narendra Modi ji, the country is looking forward to the future but you keep scratching the past to hide your failures. In the last 10 years, you made 140 crore Indians realise what 'undeclared emergency' is, which caused a deep trauma to democracy and the Constitution.
Congress leader P Chidambaram posted: "Hon'ble Prime Minister said that 'Emergency reminds us to protect the Constitution'. Very true… I may add, the Constitution reminded the people to prevent another Emergency, and they voted to curtail the ambitions of the BJP. The people voted for the 18th Lok Sabha in such a manner that no human or divine ruler can change the basic structure of the Constitution.”
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