LK Advani Indian Express Interview on Emergency

I know this topic is sightly outdated now but let me share what I made out of reading Advani ji’s full review with Indian Express where he recollects Emergency. If you had felt negative about Advani ji by hearing news on TV, you will find my opinion interesting.

First of all, the interview was part of Indian Express’ (IE) series of articles remembering Emergency and to find out if we have learnt enough lessons to prevent it from occurring again. So it is not that Advani had called an IE journalist to express his points; it was the other way around. All through the interview, IE was asking the same question again and again – “Can emergency happen again?” If you think about it, it would have taken much naivety to say “no” to this question. I bet no other learned person interviewed in this series would say that emergency can never happen again. Such questions are also asked to make the person being interviewed say “yes” and then the beauty lies in how he justifies it after having said “yes”. It is like walking on a tight rope; once you have started there is no way to retreat.

So Advani says that there is nothing done to prevent Emergency in future and indeed it can happen again because the forces are stronger now. Here, it became controversial – what did he mean by these “forces” which he said could crush democracy even today or in future? The way I understood him, it seemed perhaps he meant to say that the coalition politics which made govts weak and provided a balance in the past are gone; in almost all states now there is a majority govt, be it in UP or Delhi or West Bengal etc… In fact the trend is that the public is giving more than absolute majorities; as it happened in the state of Delhi. This is indeed a threat to democracy. The trend indicates that people have not learnt their lessons well from the Emergency India went through.

Now, I don’t think he meant to count Modi Sarkar in these “forces”. Why? Because Modi Sarkar does not have majority in Rajya Sabha and we have seen how miserably it failed to pass the bills it considered critical for success of govt’s policies. Forget crushing democracy, Modi govt is chained and humbled by it – that is one fact we can’t deny from the last one year’s experience. Therefore, Advani won’t have meant to demean Modi govt by counting it as “dictatorial” or anything like that.

IE asked Advani specifically what he meant by saying that it can happen again. Advani says specifically only two things – compromise of “Civil Liberties” and denial of “Press Freedom”. Modi govt has done nothing which can be called to deny civil liberties and when it comes to “Press”, we all know who has an upper hand. Media today is so strong that it can spin the spin doctors to their graves. No matter what you say, media can make it appear completely opposite if it so desires. So why was Advani mentioning these two points? Because, as he rightly says, nothing has been done (no law passed for example) to prevent a govt in future from compromising these if it so desired. I find this statement an intellectual thinking and I completely agree with Advani on this.

By the end of his interview, Advani reflects on what has been done by the public in the years after emergency which can assure us that people have become wiser. He recalls only Anna Hazare’s Lokpal movement but then he takes a jibe at Aap, saying that leading a protest is one thing but recent experience has shown that if govts are made by such protesters, they are not successful. So I wondered if Delhi CM had actually read Advani’s interview till the end, when he was rushing to meet him to congratulate him and spread his ‘raaita’…

If we see it in context, Advani’s interview appears learned and intellectual. If you read it; you will see that all through he was trying to put focus on “those people” who had enforced Emergency but never apologized for it (i.e. he was targeting Congress party). But next day when the Television and electronic media read it; they took it at entirely different terms which is in a way sad but typical media-like…

If you don’t believe me; read his full interview yourself:

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/i-do-not-say-the-political-leadership-is-not-mature-but-kamiyon-ke-karan-vishwas-nahin-hota-l-k-advani/
Disclaimer: Views are personal and no, I am not Advani ji’s PR manager

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PS: Later Advani ji clarified that Emergency comment was directed at Congress party, not at any individual. But almost no TV channel gave this clarification much importance. http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/advani-clarifies-emergency-comment-says-it-was-directed-at-congress/article1-1360776.aspx