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Rahul Gandhi, the former president of the Congress and a key member of the Nehru-Gandhi family that owns and controls that party, has belatedly acknowledged that the imposition of the dreaded Emergency by PM Indira Gandhi in the mid-1970s was “a mistake”. This grudging and half-hearted attempt to face the truth is unlikely to wash away the monstrous impact of the Emergency or the sins that are associated with it.
Some observations made by Rahul in a recent interaction with an American university need closer scrutiny. He claims that while the imposition of the Emergency was wrong, the Congress did not and does not have the “capability” to capture institutions. “Even if we want to do it, we can’t do it,” he says. This needs to be tested on the anvil of truth because the dreaded Emergency, imposed on the night of 25 June 1975, turned a vibrant democracy into a fascist state.