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Analysis | Share This Page | ||||||
Goongi Goodiya or Indira the Great? |
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by Dr. Rajinder Puri |
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President Mr. Pranab Mukherjee in the first installment of a trilogy of his memoirs, The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years, has recounted his version of the Emergency period. He has recalled the turbulent times when Indira Gandhi after being described as a ‘goongi gudiya’ (dumb doll) by Ram Manohar Lohia in parliament rose to become the nation’s supreme leader. But after Mr. Mukherjee’s disclosures this writer wonders whether Lohia was not right and history a false narrative. According to Mr. Mukherjee Indira Gandhi was not to blame for the decision to impose the Emergency. She was misled into imposing the Emergency by Siddhartha Shankar Ray who advised her.
Indira Gandhi may not have known about the relevant Constitutional provisions relating to Emergency, but she surely knew that the Emergency had been imposed in order to overtake a court ruling to unseat her from office. About his own role Mr. Mukherjee writes:
What about the not-so-deep and obvious impact? Thousands were thrown into jail without trial to preserve a government in power. The “deep and far reaching impact” that Mr. Mukherjee and his senior colleagues failed to understand was that the Indian people would soon throw out the bunch of unprincipled sycophantic opportunists unconstitutionally clinging to power. By absolving Indira Gandhi of blame and holding Ray responsible, Mr. Mukherjee perpetuates a long standing tradition of Indian politics. Never blame a leader but only advisers who misguide. Nehru was blameless but Krishna Menon gave him wrong advice! So was Indira blameless but Ray gave her wrong advice! By implication was Indira Gandhi just a dumb doll being led by others. |
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14-Dec-2014 | |||||||
More by : Dr. Rajinder Puri | |||||||
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Comments on this Article
ncmishra 12/17/2014 10:24 AM
Narendranath 12/14/2014 22:32 PM |
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