It is not possible for anybody to convert a democratic India into a "dictatorship" today, according to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who spent 19 months in prison during the 1975 Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Looking back at the dark days of Emergency, the senior BJP leader said that 40 years back the media was vulnerable, police and bureaucracy were compliant, and for the Supreme Court also the Emergency was its "darkest hour".
"Is it possible to replicate such a situation now? I have my doubts," he said.
"Today, the media and the polity are strong and so are the global institutions. The world would not accept the world's largest democracy becoming dictatorial today," Jaitley told PTI in an interview here.
Jaitley said Emergency was a phase which showed that a democracy can be converted into a dictatorship by using some provisions of the Constitution and all the major institutions like bureaucracy, police, media and judiciary can collapse.
"I think, today the global awareness is in favour of the democracy and the kind of sanctions which can be imposed on a dictatorship itself can be a deterrent.
A major controversy broke out recently after BJP patriarch L K Advani expressed concerns that "forces that can crush democracy are stronger" now and that Emergency-like situation could emerge again. The comments were seen by the Congress as being aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while Aam Aadmi Party felt it was the "first indictment" of Modi's politics.
Other opposition parties also said that Advani's comments should be taken seriously.
Without referring to Advani's comments, Jaitley said the media censorship is not possible today "because of the technology itself".
"You have news travelling through the internet and the internet can't be censored," Jaitley said.
He added that the polity was strong even during the Emergency, but "the media had by and large caved in".
Recalling his own experiences from the Emergency days when he was a student leader and was jailed for 19 months, Jaitley said he hopes that "the judiciary today is far more independent and does not cave in to any dictatorial tendencies as it caved in during emergency".
"But the fact that detentions are no longer possible without a basis, media censorship is no longer possible and hopefully judiciary would be far more independent, it would not be possible for anybody to convert a democracy into a dictatorship without these three limbs," he said.
It will be exactly 40 years tomorrow since the Emergency was declared on June 25, 1975.
