ArpitGarg's Weblog

Reading today about the emergency declared in Maldives by President Abdulla Yameen was sort of a déjà vu. If you think back to 1970’s, India was a similar country and Indira was a similar leader. She also declared emergency amidst a war on judiciary.

There is a sense of oneness when it comes to such autocratic leaders. They portray themselves to be strong but also as a victim. They claim that world is against them, everyone is conspiring and they alone are standing strong. It’s only they who stand between the glory and the peril of the nation.

To this date sycophants justify the emergency using highly imaginative reasons. I recall one theory. But for emergency, western intelligence agencies would have run riot and destroyed India. We would have been left as a radical land just like our neighbors. To keep the ‘imaginary’ adversaries out, Indira had to declare emergency.

Yameen is doing/will do the same. Opposition and courts are in cahoots with foreign powers who want to destroy the nation. Only he alone can save Maldives and its population. What else is new?

Maldives is a strategic partner to India and given the emergence of highly active China, India is forced not to make too much noise on the developing situation there. Ethical thing is to criticize Yameen’s actions and work with other countries to bring back normalcy in the country. Given that China will then side with Yameen, India seems helpless.

Since we have our own checkered past, who are we to preach anyways?