Forced sterilisation, violence, coercion: Shashi Tharoor recalls Sanjay Gandhi’s role in Emergency

Thiruvananthapuram: Congress working committee member and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor continues to embarrass the party, the latest being his critical remarks against the Nehru family in an article on Emergency.

Tharoor is inviting strong criticism from his party colleagues with Congress leader Manickam Tagore asking, indirectly,  whether he is repeating BJP's version.

Resentment is also brewing among Congress and its coalition partners in Kerala over back-to-back embarrassments being caused by party MP that could hit the party's prospects in the coming elections.

In an article titled 'Heeding the Lessons of India’s Emergency' recently published in 'Project Syndicate' portal and reproduced by Malayalam daily 'Deepika' on Thursday, Tharoor attacked former Prime Minster Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi over Emergency and at the same time says that the country is now more confident, prosperous and robust democracy.

"The silencing of dissent, the curtailment of fundamental rights to assemble, write, and speak freely, and the blatant contempt for constitutional norms left an indelible scar on India’s polity. Though the judiciary eventually found its spine, its initial faltering would not quickly be forgotten. And the period’s “excesses” caused deep and lasting harm to countless lives, leaving a legacy of trauma and mistrust in affected communities – which they demonstrated by overwhelmingly voting Gandhi and her party out of power in the first free elections after the Emergency was lifted, in March 1977," says the article.

Sanjay Gandhi is sharply criticized in the article. "In fact, the quest for “discipline” and “order” often translated into unspeakable cruelty, exemplified by the forced vasectomy campaigns led by Gandhi’s son, Sanjay, and concentrated in poorer and rural areas, where coercion and violence were used to meet arbitrary targets. Slum demolitions, carried out with ruthless efficiency in urban centers like New Delhi, rendered thousands homeless, with little to no concern for their welfare," it says.

In what could be interpreted as a pat on the back for the ruling BJP government, Tharoor says in the article, "The India of today is not the India of 1975. We are a more confident, more prosperous, and, in many ways, a more robust democracy."

In an oblique attack towards Tharoor, Congress leader Manickam Tagore tweeted, "When a colleague starts repeating BJP lines word for word, you begin to wonder — is the Bird becoming a parrot? Mimicry is cute in birds, not in politics".

Congress leaders in Kerala also did not suppress their resentment with Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan stating that he would convey his opinion to the party national leadership as Tharoor is a CWC member.

Congress Working Committee member Ramesh Chennithala said that he did not think that Tharoor, being a Congress leader, would make such comments against Indira Gandhi or Sanjay Gandhi.

The fresh row over Tharoor happened just a day after he shared on social media a survey report that found him as the most preferred Congress leader to be the party's chief minister candidate in the 2026 Assembly polls.