Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday (June 24, 2025) that a country cannot develop if it is made to follow a single ideology or a single leader and leaves no scope for diverse opinions and ideas. He added that the foundations of democracy are so deep in India that if any dictator tries to shake it, he will do nothing but ruin his future.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah at a function, Aapaatkal Ke 50 Saal at Teen Murti, in New Delhi, on June 24, 2025. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
Speaking at an event marking 50 years after the Emergency, Mr. Shah said that was the name of the “conspiracy” to convert a multi-party democracy into a “dictatorship by one person”, which was strongly opposed by many people at that time, even at the cost of personal loss. It was not a result of circumstances and compulsion but a product of dictatorial mentality and hunger for power, he said.
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The Constitution has strengthened democracy and India is a land of people that has respected diversity for thousands of years, the Home Minister said at the event, organised by the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Trust. It is not only courts and Parliament that are responsible for protecting the spirit of the Constitution, he said, emphasising that the responsibility lies with the people too.
