Mrs Gandhi said, “The president has declared emergency. There is nothing to panic about.” She claimed, “This was a necessary response to the deep and widespread conspiracy which has been brewing ever since I began to introduce certain progressive measures of benefit to the common man and woman of India.”

Mrs Gandhi’s explanation of the Emergency reads uncannily similar to Musharraf’s recent statements though, given his general aversion to extensive reading, it is unlikely that he had read Mrs Gandhi’s statements before making his own.

After administering what she described as ‘bitter medicine’ necessary for the good of a sick ‘child’, Mrs Gandhi decided to secure a mandate from what she expected to be a grateful Indian populace.

Elections were held in the third week of March 1977 and when results were announced on March 20, the ruling Congress party had been routed by an unusual alliance of all anti-Indira forces joined under the banner of the Janata Party. Indira Gandhi lost her own seat in parliament from Rae Bareilly.

For all her authoritarian disposition, Mrs Gandhi did not have it in her to try and rig a general election. India’s strong democratic tradition and its independent Election Commission and judiciary would have made it difficult, if not impossible, to thwart the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box.

Over the next three years,

Mrs Gandhi reorganised her party and apologised to the Indian people for the excesses under Emergency rule. The Janata Party’s internal cracks led to the collapse of its government and in the subsequent election, a chastened Mrs Gandhi and Congress returned to power.

... contd.