Struggle during Emergency shaped PM Modi’s future and his politics: Deve Gowda
Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister and Rajya Sabha Member H.D. Deve Gowda has said that the struggle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Emergency shaped his future and his politics.
Deve Gowda mentioned this in his foreword of the book ‘The Emergency Diaries: Years that Forged a Leader’, published by the BlueKraft Digital Foundation on the 50th anniversary of the Emergency in India. The book delves into the compelling role that Narendra Modi, then a young RSS Pracharak, played in the fight against the Emergency.
Home Minister Amit Shah had released the book on June 24 in an event held at the Prime Ministers’ Museum in New Delhi.
Deve Gowda said, “The history of the Republic of India in its early decades is defined by its struggles to remain a democracy. The severest challenge to our democratic existence was posed by the imposition of the Emergency.
“It is important to ensure that the youth of India are aware of this part of our contemporary history. It is important for them to be fully aware of the dark days of the Emergency, and also the manner in which our Constitution was subverted by the political executive,” he stated.
“I am happy that Blue Kraft Digital Foundation is making a laudable effort in this direction. I am happy they are chronicling the role played by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during that time,” Deve Gowda said.
“The anti-Emergency movement, of which I was a part, brought together people across age groups and thought processes with one common objective – to protect our democratic fabric. To save our democracy and to save our Constitution was the only big aim of the movement that shaped itself spontaneously and organically. If it had not been done then, we would be in a very different India today. An India where we probably could not have existed,” the former PM stated.
“During the Emergency, I was a young non-Congress politician, but people like Prime Minister Narendra Modi were even younger. While we were in prison, people like him who were into social work, built a formidable network of communication and resistance,” Deve Gowda stated.
For a young man like him to witness such a turbulent phase in our history, I am sure, was not just eye-opening and educative, but also shaped his future and his politics, he underlined.
“As a Leader of the Opposition in Karnataka, I suffered personally during the Emergency. I was arrested, but this arrest did not weaken me. It became a great opportunity to learn and come in contact with a diverse set of leaders from across India,” he stated.
At this juncture, when we are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Emergency, I am reminded of my mentors, colleagues and friends: Loknayak JP, Morarji bhai Desai, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Biju Patnaik, George Fernandes, Madhu Dandavate, Chandra Shekhar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Shyam Nandan Mishra, Ramakrishna Hegde, J.H. Patel, M. Chandrashekar, Nagappa Alva, S. Mallikarjunaiah, Rama Jois, P.G.R Sindhia, A.K. Subbaiah, Lawrence Fernandes and many others. The list is long, he said.
“The Emergency had a deep personal consequence for me. My imprisonment during that period deeply affected my parents, especially my father. He passed away in a short period, in the grip of fear that I would never come out alive. To keep the memories of the Emergency alive for our future generations is very important because it is they who are tasked with protecting our democracy and our Constitution. In this respect, I welcome the decision of the Union Government under Prime Minister Modi to mark 25th June every year as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas,” Gowda stated.
“I call upon scholars, academics, authors and journalists to make extensive efforts to chronicle the Emergency in its every detail and profile those who resisted it at small and big personal cost – after all, each one of them who fought the Emergency was a dedicated soldier of our nation and a torchbearer of our democracy,” he appealed.
