Sonia Gandhi Calls Emergency a Mistake, Says Indira Gandhi Came to Regret It
In interviews ahead of her memoir 'Belonging: A Journey of Love', Sonia Gandhi said Rajiv Gandhi opposed the 1975 Emergency and urged his mother to wait for elections.
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has described the 1975 Emergency as a mistake and said she believes Indira Gandhi eventually regretted imposing it.
Her comments come ahead of the release of her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love. Speaking to the British newspaper The Guardian, as reported by PTI, she said she had always felt her mother-in-law was “a democrat at heart” and was never at ease during the Emergency, adding that she knew many people would laugh at that view.
A divided family: According to The Guardian’s account of the book, Rajiv Gandhi was against the Emergency and told his mother to wait for the next general election instead. His younger brother Sanjay Gandhi, on the other hand, is described as pushing for a harder line against the opposition, telling his mother at a family dinner that her opponents had to be stopped. Sonia writes that Rajiv tried to confront Indira over the decision but she would not listen, and that keeping Sanjay in check could have prevented much of the harm that followed.
In a separate interview with The Hindu, she said Sanjay was not solely responsible, noting that several senior Congress leaders had pressed Indira, while only a few, Rajiv among them, argued the other way. She also pointed out that Indira Gandhi later publicly expressed regret and apologised for the excesses of the period.
Background: The Emergency was declared on 25 June 1975. Civil liberties and press freedom were curtailed and opposition leaders were jailed. Indira Gandhi called fresh elections on 18 January 1977, the Congress was heavily defeated, and the Emergency formally ended on 21 March 1977.
The BJP has repeatedly described the Emergency as a dark chapter in India’s democracy, and the period remains a subject of sharp political debate.
Image: Sansad Bhavan, Delhi, BNK.jpg by Nikhilb239, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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