Jaipur, 12 August 2018 —Subramanian Swamy shared his experience during emergency, “I went underground when the emergency was declared for a brief while, I was dressed as a Sardar so police couldn’t catch me. I used to visit Gujarat quite often. The person who set the underground network to receive me was Narendra Modi, we both moved over Gujarat as Sardars. We had fear of getting caught but we had to leave.”
He escaped and reached out to BBC News and Voice of America to thank them for helping. Indian media was not able to publish anything in any form on the Emergency, so they had to reach someone out of the country to let the world know what is happening in our country.
He mentioned that Mrs.Gandhi filed 18 cases against him when he was away and his vehicles and house were impounded by the police. Once, few policemen asked his daughter, when did she last see her father and she said yesterday night, the police raided his house but couldn’t find him. The police asked his daughter the same question again, where did she see him? she replied saying, in my dream last night” and now the same daughter is journalist, Suhasini Haidar.
Emergency was declared on 26th 1976 and lifted on 24th March 1977. After it was removed, Indira Gandhi declared elections, shockingly Janta Party came in power and Subramanian Swamy got elected too. Everyone was shocked after the results. He added, “If congress had won the elections that time democracy wouldn’t exist now. Sonia, Sanjay and Tommy Gandhi would’ve never let this country be a democratic country.”
He said “It’s not an exaggerated statement to call the Press one of the pillars of democracy. No democracy can survive without press. All democracies are fragile but we need to remember that we survived.”
Text: Rucha Kanolkar | Copy edit: Vaidehi Gangan | Photo: Dhanraj Chauhan | Photo desk: Anu Sonia A|Editorial coordination: Jyoti Mamnani
The report was filed during live newsroom workshop conducted by Institute of Integrated Digital journalism and Mass Communication(IIDJM)