NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday set the tone for the commemoration the 50th anniversary of Emergency, describing it as one of the darkest chapters in India’s democratic history.Attacking the then Congress government led by Indira Gandhi, he said it was as if it had placed democracy under arrest. All values enshr ined in the Constitution were set aside, fundamental rights were suspended, press freedom extinguished and several political leaders, social workers, students and ordinary citizens were jailed, he pointed out in a post on X. Later in the day, The Emergency Diaries — Years that Forged a Leader, a book that chronicles Modi’s journey during that time, when he was a RSS pracharak, was released by Union home minister Amit Shah. Shah said Modi, then 25, used to work underground at that time against Emergency, sometimes as a saint, sometimes as a Sardarji, sometimes as a hippie, sometimes as an incense stick seller or sometimes as a newspaper seller.
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