Congress Hesitant to Defend Dark Spots in Indira Gandhi’s Legacy

Thiruvananthapuram: The constitution-wielding Congress party led by Rahul Gandhi appears not too keen to defend the dark spots in the legacy of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The low-key response from the party leadership to the comment by party stalwart and former Union minister P. Chidambaram on the 1984 Operation Blue Star suggests that the Congress party is not comfortable being reminded of the troublesome chapters of the Indira regime, such as the 1975 Emergency and the handling of Sikh militancy.

While participating in a literature festival in Himachal Pradesh recently, Chidambaram said, “There was a way to retrieve and capture all militants, but the Operation Blue Star was the wrong way, and I agree Mrs Gandhi paid with her life for the mistake…” He then added a caveat: “But the mistake was a cumulative decision of the Army, intelligence, police, and civil defence.”

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This is the first time that a senior Congress leader has commented openly and unequivocally that Operation Blue Star was a “mistake.” However, there have often been internal grumblings about the episode and the disproportionate consequences it spawned.

A few months back, three-time Congress MP Shashi Tharoor made a stinging commentary on the 1975 Emergency. He held Indira Gandhi squarely responsible for that dark phase in the history of independent India. Except for some feeble noises from the lower rungs of the organisational order, the party chose to quietly ignore the issue.

Tharoor’s remark on the Emergency came when he was not apparently on very good terms with the party bigwigs. But Chidambaram has a long reputation as a deeply loyal Congress person who has stood with the party, unshaken by the decline in its electoral fortunes.

Also, Chidambaram is no run-of-the-mill politician. He enjoys the reputation of a no-nonsense person who knows what to say, where to say it, when to say it, and how to say it.

Significantly, his comment on Operation Blue Star came close on the heels of his statement about the possibility of military action against Pakistan in retaliation for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, which was abandoned due to international pressure.

Chidambaram’s back-to-back statements on key events when the party was in power would not have gone down well with the Congress top brass. But instead of going whole hog at him, the party left it to lower-tier functionaries to take him on in television debates.

All that came from the party by way of an official response was a mild statement that “senior leaders who have received everything from the party should be more careful in making public statements that embarrass the party.”

Chidambaram, who often maintained that his statements were taken out of context or misreported by the media, did not make any further clarification on his views expressed about Operation Blue Star.

It seems the party does not want to be dragged into a debate on vexed issues of the past, especially on the 1975 Emergency, which saw the suspension of democratic rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, and a drastic crackdown on the opposition.

In hindsight, what happened during the Emergency was in complete contrast to the party’s present political narrative.

For the last few years, especially after Rahul Gandhi became the pivot, the Congress’s central campaign plank has been the ‘restoration’ of democracy and civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, which it says are facing a serious assault under the BJP regime.

Rahul Gandhi displaying a copy of the Constitution at public rallies has become a stock optic, aimed at sending a message that the party holds this little book as a sacred and unbreachable codex of the Republic of India.

The party has also refrained from launching any serious protest against the BJP government’s decision to observe June 25 every year as “Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas,” to commemorate the people who endured the pains inflicted by the Emergency.

Generations of Congress leadership and rank and file alike have drawn inspiration from the “strong woman” image of Indira Gandhi. At the height of her power, the then party president D. K. Barooah even coined the slogan “Indira is India, and India is Indira.” But for the current Congress leadership, struggling to regain its lost glory, invoking Indira Gandhi’s legacy may prove a little uncomfortable.