Sushil recalls own experience during emergency

Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today recalled his suffering in jail during Emergency, declared 40 years ago.
"I was once handcuffed and my waist tied with a rope by policemen while being taken to a jail in Samastipur district where I was kept among criminals and insane prisoners," he said sharing his experience of Emergency declared on June 25, 1975.
"It was a nightmarish experience and a deathly silence akin to one witnessed at graveyards prevailed," Modi recalled at a function after the release of his book 'Beech Samar Mein' by Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar.
Even the media had surrendered before the might of the state power barring a national English daily, he said adding the people then did not know about anything happening in the country as newspapers did not carry any anti-government news due to censorship.

"I hope today's media will not capitulate before the state power and maintain its independence at whatever cost to serve public interest," the senior BJP leader said adding judiciary too should retain its firmness and independence for the sake of democracy.
The book is a collation of jail diary, interactive meeting with Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindarawale and Bhudan Andolan leader Acharya Vinoba Bhave, besides a series of articles on reservations, militancy in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir, besides days of Lalu-Rabri rule.

Modi took opportunity of the book release to attack RJD chief Lalu Prasad and senior JD(U) leader and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for forging an alliance with Congress, which had imposed emergency.

"Prasad and Kumar have no right to inherit the legacy of socialist leader Jai Prakash Narayan who had led a nationwide agitation against the Indira Gandhi government before and after imposition of Emergency.
Sushil Modi also charged Kumar with imposing "undeclared emergency" in the state in the run up to the assembly polls due later this year by browbeating advertisers and media not to carry BJP's publicity materials and news contents.