'India of today is not the India of 1975': Shashi Tharoor criticises Indira Gandhi's Emergency rule

Shashi Tharoor argued that during the Emergency period, the essence of the constitutional promise of the world's largest democracy was severely tested. He accused Indira Gandhi's son Sanjay Gandhi of leading forced vasectomy campaigns.

Delhi: Amid escalating tensions with Congress, Shashi Tharoor has penned a scathing critique of the Emergency imposed in 1975 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He further hailed India as a more confident, prosperous, and, in many ways, a more robust democracy now. The column appeared in Project Syndicate, an international opinion website established in the early 1990s.

Shashi Tharoor argued that during the Emergency period, the essence of the constitutional promise of the world's largest democracy – liberty, equality, and fraternity – was severely tested. "For 21 long months, fundamental rights were suspended; the press was muzzled; and political dissent was brutally suppressed. Fifty years on, the period remains etched in Indians’ collective memory as the Emergency,” he wrote.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP said that Indira Gandhi's Emergency period enabled a horrifying litany of human-rights abuses, torture in detention and extrajudicial killings. He accused Indira Gandhi's son Sanjay Gandhi of leading forced vasectomy campaigns in poorer and rural areas, and highlighted how even the judiciary buckled under pressure.

“The India of today is not the India of 1975. We are a more confident, more prosperous, and, in many ways, a more robust democracy. Yet the lessons of the Emergency remain alarmingly relevant. The temptation to centralize power, to silence critics, and to bypass constitutional safeguards can emerge in many forms, often cloaked in the rhetoric of national interest or stability. In this sense, the Emergency should serve as a potent warning: democratic stalwarts must be eternally vigilant,” Shashi Tharoor wrote in the Project Syndicate.