Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah released a book titled 'The Emergency Diaries - Years that Forged a Leader', a compilation of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's experiences during the anti-Emergency movement, at an event to mark 'Savidhan Hatya Diwas’ in New Delhi today.
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Railways, and Information & Broadcasting, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Shri Vinai Kumar Saxena, Chief Minister of Delhi Smt. Rekha Gupta and many other dignitaries were present on the occasion.
In his address after the book release, Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah said this book mentions Shri Narendra Modi's work as a young Sangh Pracharak during the Emergency, how he fought by remaining underground during the 19-month-long movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan and Nanaji Deshmukh.
The book details how he went to the homes of people jailed under the MISA Act and talked to their families and arranged for their treatment. The book describes Shri Modi distributed many newspapers published secretly in markets, squares, among students and women, and that he led the struggle as a 25-year old youth of Gujarat.
Shri Shah said that Modi used to work underground at that time, sometimes as a saint, sometimes as a Sardarji, sometimes as a hippie, sometimes as an incense stick seller or sometimes as a newspaper seller.
Shri Amit Shah said that it was a 25-year-old youth who opposed the dictatorial ideas of the then Prime Minister. The Emergency was imposed to re-instate dynastic politics, but Shri Modi went door-to-door, village-to-village and city-to-city to protest against it, and finally he uprooted the dynastic politics from the entire country in 2014.
He said that there are five chapters in this book on media censorship, government repression, the struggle of the Sangh and Jansangh, description of the victims of the Emergency and from dictatorship to public participation.
The Home Minister appealed to the youth of the country to read this book so that they can know that the youth who fought against the dictatorship in his early days is the same youth who is strengthening the roots of democracy in this country, and he is our Prime Minister Narendra Modi.