Ratan Sharda fires back at CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury over 'RSS backed Indira over Emergency' allegation. Here's what he said

Ratan Sharda, author of RSS 360° - Demystifying Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has mounted a spirited counter-attack against the Left as well as others who, in his eyes, attempt to sully the efforts of the RSS in resisting the Indira Gandhi-imposed Emergency. 

Earlier on Tuesday, in response to Union Minister Arun Jaitley's Twitter post calling out the CPI for being "an unashamed supporter" of the Emergency and the CPI(M) for not actively participating in the struggle, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury had written:

"Distorting history is their occupation. History has recorded CPI(M)  martyrs & heroic sacrifices in this struggle for the restoration of Democracy. History also records two servile letters of the RSS chief pledging support to Indira Gandhi's 20 point programme & pleading release." 

In response, speaking exclusively to Republic World, Ratan Sharda, first-of-all, cited that the CPI had welcomed the Emergency, something that is on record.

"The Communists were in cahoots and were sympathetic towards Indira Gandhi", Ratan Sharda said, adding that in the current day, "People who were actually supporting (Emergency) would try to cover up traces of it by saying these things."

He quantified the RSS' involvement in terms of the number of workers who had gone to jail at the time. He said this number stood at around 80,000 people, and that 80% of the people who had been cracked down upon using the infamous Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) belonged to the RSS.

Beyond going to jail, RSS workers were tortured in parts like Haryana and Madhya Pradesh for forming the lifeline of the underground resistance movement, Mr Sharda said contrasting their contribution with that of the Communists, who, he claimed, "had never done anything for civil liberties."

He also addressed the controversy surrounding the letters purportedly exchanged between RSS leaders and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, saying that "even Shivaji had written three letters to Aurangzeb" and clarified that towards the end of the Emergency, Indira Gandhi had tried to persuade the RSS in an effort to silence them over the elections, but the offer was rejected. 

"People were so afraid at the time that they didn't come out to contest", he said about the 1977 general elections in the aftermath of the Emergency, that, nonetheless, saw Indira Gandhi and the Congress being defeated by the Janata alliance.