Here is a quiz question for all readers. Who told London’s Sunday Times, “It is wholly wrong to say that I resorted to Emergency to keep myself in office. The extra-constitutional challenge was constitutionally met.” The “emergency was declared to save the country from disruption and collapse”; it had “enabled us to put through the new economic programme” and led to “a new sense of national confidence.”

If you guessed General (retired) Pervez Musharraf, you guessed wrong. It was Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. She also told the Saturday Review of New York, “What has been done... is not an abrogation of democracy but an effort to safeguard it.”

Although she came from a democratic dynasty, Mrs Gandhi fell into the authoritarian temptation when on June 26, 1975 she imposed Emergency in India. Most observers thought she was acting to avoid the consequences of the judgement by the Allahabad High Court annulling her election to parliament from Rae Bareilly in 1971.

Mrs Gandhi, who considered herself indispensable for her country, explained the imposition of emergency as an opportunity to clean up accumulated mess and lay the foundations of a bold new order. India was not a strategic ally of the US and Britain and, therefore, international public opinion was not a consideration.

Still she had to explain her action to India and the world. Her statements from that period strongly resemble the recent pronouncements of General Musharraf and his henchmen.

... contd.