Tharoor Terms Emergency a Dark Chapter, Warns Against Return of Authoritarianism

New Delhi:The feud between Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and his party continues unabated. In a hard-hitting op-ed criticising the Emergency, Mr Tharoor said the "excesses" during the period showed how the erosion of freedom takes place and highlighted that the world remains unaware of a "horrifying litany of human rights abuses".

In an article on the Emergency published by Project Syndicate, Mr Tharoor said former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's authoritarian approach pushed public life into a state of fear and suppression.

"The lessons from the Emergency must be fully understood, and the period must not just be remembered merely as a dark period," Mr Tharoor wrote.

Referring to the Emergency declared by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi between June 25, 1975, and March 21, 1977, Mr Tharoor wrote, "Efforts undertaken for discipline and order often turned into acts of cruelty that could not be justified."

"Sanjay Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi, led forced sterilisation campaigns, which became a notorious example of this. In poor rural areas, violence and coercion were used to meet arbitrary targets," the Congress Thiruvananthapuram MP wrote.

“In cities like New Delhi, slums were mercilessly demolished and cleared. Thousands of people were rendered homeless. Their welfare was not taken into consideration," Mr Tharor added.

The Congress MP said democracy is not something to be taken lightly; it is a precious legacy that must be constantly nurtured and preserved. “Let it serve as a lasting reminder to people everywhere," he said.

According to Mr Tharoor, today’s India is not the India of 1975. “We are a more self-confident, more developed and in many ways a stronger democracy. Yet, the lessons of the Emergency remain relevant in troubling ways," he said.

Mr Tharoor warned that the temptation to centralise power, silence dissent, and bypass constitutional safeguards may reappear in various forms. “Often, such tendencies may be justified in the name of national interest or stability. In this sense, the Emergency stands as a strong warning. The guardians of democracy must always remain vigilant," he added.

Hitting back Congress leader Manickam Tagore on Thursday said when a party colleague starts repeating the BJP lines word for word, one begins to wonder whether "the bird is becoming a parrot".

Without naming anyone, Mr Tagore, who is a Congress MP from Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu and the party's whip in the Lok Sabha, posted on X, "When a colleague starts repeating the BJP lines word for word, you begin to wonder — is the Bird becoming a parrot? Mimicry is cute in birds, not in politics."

Backing the Thiruvananthapuram MP, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi hit out at the Opposition party over some Congress leaders' criticism of Mr Tharoor over his opinion piece denouncing the Emergency as a dark chapter in Indian democracy.

Mr Trivedi told reporters that even as it has taken a Congress leader 50 years to realise the excesses of the Emergency, the reaction from within the party shows that it continues to "shamelessly" support the extreme measure and justifies the mindset behind it.

Earlier this week, Mr Tharoor shared a survey on his Twitter handle that was conducted by a Mumbai-based firm that named him as the most preferred candidate for the post of Kerala chief minister. The state of Kerala goes to polls in April/May next year. Many in the Congress feel that the utterances of Mr Tharoor in the last couple of months have been to "pressurise the high command" into declaring him the party's CM face in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.