Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today hit out at detractors for casually using 'undeclared emergency' to describe the present BJP government saying they should introspect where they were during the Emergency under Indira Gandhi.
In a facebook post on the anniversary of the Emergency, Jaitley asked the critics what was their publicly declared stand during those 19-months, while stating that it has become customary for the critics of any government in India to casually use an expression 'undeclared emergency'.
"Those making these exaggerated comments need to introspect their own roles during the Emergency. Most of them were either supporting the Emergency or were absent in any protest against the Emergency," he wrote.
"A dictatorial regime is often misled by its own propaganda. It becomes consumer of its own propaganda with nobody else believing it. It misled itself to believe that the people were in support of the dictatorship," he said.
And this led to Indira Gandhi committing the ultimate error of ordering an election which witnessed a rebellion against her emergency regime, he wrote.
"Today, I wonder if those who routinely use the expression 'Undeclared Emergency' introspect and ask themselves a question where was I during those nineteen months and what was my publicly declared stand at that time," he said.
The emergency, he said, was an assault on all democratic institutions. It not only established the dictatorship of an individual, it created an environment of tyranny and fear in the society. Most institutions collapsed on their own.
The Emergency was declared on the midnight of 25th – 26th June, 1975.
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