Advani terms present situation as 'worse than emergency'

Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani has backed cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and said that the act of jailing the cartoonist for an allegedly deditious work has made him wonder. He has termed the whole situation as "worse even than the emergency" in his latest blog.

Commenting on the current cartoonist row, Advani said, "always regarded the emergency period 1975-77 as the worst in so far as suppression of civil liberties and freedom of expression were concerned".

He further wrote, "But seeing what has happened to political cartoonist and anti-corruption crusader Aseem Trivedi, I have started wondering. Is today's political set up worse even than the emergency?"

Advani said the "draconian mindset of the present rulers is born out of failure and desperation".

"...Dictatorships cannot afford laughter because people may laugh at the dictator, and that would not do. In all the years of Hitler, there never was a good comedy, not a good cartoon, not a parody, not a spoof," he said.

Aseem is expected to free walk from jail today as Bombay High Court has granted him bail on yesterday.

It is noted that Trivedi was arrested last Saturday by Mumbai police which charged him, among other things, with sedition for insulting national emblems and the constitution during the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare here December 2011.

India Against Corruption (IAC) member Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday threatened to sit on a protest outside the prison where cartoonist Aseem Trivedi has been jailed if all charges against him are not dropped.

(With inputs from IANS)