As further culmination of 2024 Parliamentary election, new Parliament is formed recently. The newly elected members took oath with protem speaker and elected new president(sabhapati) of Lok Sabha. The newly elected president Om Birala in his lecture in Parliament mentioned the emergency imposed by Congress ruled government in 1975 as anti-constitutional step. This remembrance of our constitutional journey may part of year-long on-going celebration of 75 years of Indian republic. PM Narendra Modi also mentioned sometime this incidence as anti-constitutional act. It may be politics of remembrance of emergency rule as anti-constitutional act which may unsettle Congress which has made Constitution as political symbol and cultivated support of a section of Dalit, marginals and other backward class social communities for acquiring electoral success.
It is interesting to observe that Congress who suspended constitutional measures during Emergency days, is now taking of posture of ‘samvidhan rakshak’(protector of Constitution) political party. The Congress as defensive measure may have become irritated with this uncomfortable memory of emergency which appeared in the beginning of Parliament discussion and asserted on the discussion on NEET paper leak untimely. In fact, it was time of the discussion on the speech of the president, but Congress was pressurising speakers of both-Lok sabha and Rajya Sabha to allow discussion of NEET paper leak, even before discussion on the speech of honourable President Draupadi Murmu.
This uncomfort of the Congress developed due to evocation of memory of Emergency also reflected in the article written by Sonia Gandhi-‘Preaching Consensus- provoking Xonfrontation’ published on 29 the June in ‘The Hindu’ just few days after this incidence in which she tried to pose this act of NDA as confrontational.
In the same article, she has also given clarification on the act of Emergency by Congress that Indian public had already gave their opinion in the parliamentary election took place in 1977.
We can see it as’ politics of Memory’. As we know remembrance and memories are not always innocent act. It contains politics too. Its politics determines by timing and context of particular remembrance. The timing of this remembrance is situated in the context in which Congress projected Bhartiya Janata Party lead regime as a danger on constitution in the recently held election and cultivated its certain electoral success due to it. So, by raising the memory of emergency BJP may have tred to rupture the Congress and opposition generated narrative around the constitution. The BJP may have strategy to expose the congress party who performed in the past as a party with democratic deficiency and with track record of imposing emergency in the country, is trying to pose as a samvidhan rakshak(Constitution protector) and defender of democracy. The BJP through this kind of remembrance may have tried to expose this duality of words and action of the Congress party. As we know many political parties in the I.N.D..I.A alliance also have torturous experience of the Emergency. So, on this kind of politics of memories, they may also become unsettle and may keep silent on this BJP ‘s attack on the Congress.
The influence of the politics of the memories increased if some one tells its narrative multiple time and through multiple ways. The constantly knocking the door of the particular memory evokes multiple remembrance around it. Those multiple remembrance of a particular incidence may create an accumulative impact. Such accumulative impacts orient a section of public to mobilise in for and against a particular incidence in long run, which happened in past.
The Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi may always remain an uncomfortable memory for the Congress. But it is mentionable that generation which faced Emergency may become old and many of them may have died. The younger generation may have not memory space in their hurt and mind. So, such ‘memory- politics’ around the incidence of Emergency may help BJP to counter the narrative attack launched by Congress and I.N.D.I.A bloc. It is true that it may always make Congress uncomfortable, but it has slowly lost its mobilizational potential because in this around 50 years, new generations have come in the population demography who may and may not, feel touched, sensitised and evoked. If BJP strategically narrates this incidence constantly, repeat it again and again through various media-mainstream media to social media, may certainly enthuse new potential of mobilisation in this emergency memory. In this process the memory of emergency may take new incarnation (Naya avatar) which we call in Hindi Punarnava. It is up to BJP to decide and plan that at what extent they want to revive this memory. Only referring it time and again, is not going to help for transforming this memory of Emergency as political instrument to contest samvidhan based politics of Congress and I.N.D.I.A bloc. The BJP may need to plan a narrative eco-system which may revive and remind Indian public again and again the torture of Emergency and remind who imposed it.