“Indira is India” : The Syndrome Survives

I don’t know how many people still remember the slogan,”Indira is India and India is Indira”.  The then Congress president Mr. Deb Kant Barua coined this slogan during emergency. Those were the dark days when the fundamental rights of the people were suspended. Freedom of speech, independence of judiciary and  rights of press were curtailed. All the important leaders were incarcerated. In that endless tunnel of darkness there was no glimmer of hope. So people tolerated this slogan, but when time came,  they gave a fitting answer to the dictators. For a brief period the Congress was consigned to the trashbin of history.

There was a faint hope that the Congress must have learnt the lesson.  But no, it refuses to learn any lesson. In these election, while canvassing for BJP, Modi ji said that Congress is like old lady. Priyanka immediately retorted, “do I look like an old lady”? I wondered, why is she equating herself with the Congress? Modi ji was making a statement about the Congress and not about Priyanka. But suddenly I remembered the history of the party and it’s relation with the Nehru-Gandhi family. They have to equate themselves with the Congress. It’s their habit, their thought, their prerogative. They think, it’s their birth right.

Indira Gandhi and Deb Kant Barua both are dead but the “Indira is India” syndrome still survives.

Vidur

www.vidur.co.in