Indira Gandhi's Emergency: Modi's Underground Resistance

Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched a book detailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 19 months underground during the Emergency, where he helped MISA detainees and distributed banned publications, showcasing his resistance to dictatorship.

The book, "The Emergency Diaries–Years that Forged a Leader", explores the role of the RSS, Jan Sangh, Satyagraha, and public mobilisation during the Emergency, highlighting Modi's covert resistance against the autocratic regime of Indira Gandhi. Modi, then a 25-year-old RSS pracharak, used unconventional methods to evade arrest, including disguising himself as a sadhu, Sardar, hippie, and newspaper vendor.

The book, published by BlueKraft Digital Foundation, is based on first-person anecdotes from associates and archival material, including letters and photographs, and chronicles Modi's efforts in distributing anti-Emergency literature throughout Gujarat without being detected. Modi's innovative tactics, such as placing literature in barber shops and with religious leaders, helped reach a wider audience, and his efforts were so effective that even his close acquaintances failed to recognize him in his disguises.

Amit Shah appealed to youth to read the book, saying it describes Modi's resistance to dictatorship and his eventual rise as Prime Minister, and highlighted the Emergency's excesses, including censorship, mass arrests, and suppression. He contrasted it with the current ethos of governance under Modi, which prioritizes "India First", and called for collective memory and vigilance, urging India's youth to be educated about the Emergency to prevent its repetition.

The book is expected to create new scholarship on the formative years of Modi, who later became India's most consequential Prime Minister, and is seen as a testament to the resolve of thousands of young men like Modi who helped ignite a movement that reshaped a nation's destiny.