In 1975 when Indira Gandhi declared Emergency through the then President Fakharuddin Ali Ahmed, the decision was later ratified by Parliament. She was bestowed with the power of “Rule by Decree”, which is the essence of dictatorship.
Indira Gandhi with this power went on to commit many unconstitutional irregularities and excesses at her whim and fancy, such as:
• Detention of people without any charge or intimation to family members.
• Abuse and torture of detainees.
• Use, misuse and abuse of the government and private media to propagate for the government.
• Forced sterilisation.
• Enactment of large-scale illegal laws.
To some extent we have observed a similar repetition in these few years of the present government. Now we see that:
• Those of a different ideology and those who ask questions to the government have been labelled as “Deshdrohi” and detained under sedition charges.
• There is no declared censorship on the media but the whole media is dedicated to the government. The social media, IT Cell, and trolls are threatening people in the same way Sanjay Gandhi threatened his opponents.
• Beef, the staple food of many non-Hindus and also of some Hindus, has been banned.
• In the garb of cultural nationalism, private militia are threatening the minorities and backward classes.
Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, recently has been reprinted and translated in most of the Indian languages and is being sold at a very nominal price. Hitler wanted to kill all Jews and to some extent he succeeded, by killing about 17 million Jews in the Holocaust. The Nuremberg trial lasted for decades and still the accused are being punished.
In Pakistan, there is always the threat of military coup and dictatorship. Fortunately, India will never have a coup as the defence forces are well under the thumb of the politicians. The military appointments at the higher echelons are purely political and no general officer can ever try to become larger than his image.
Hence dictatorship in India is out of question. However, true democracy also is not possible because Indian custom is of hero worship. The elected politicians behave like demigods and the people worship them and allow them to behave like kings.

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Zubair Rashid