Defence- Next Round of Arms Race

jail terms even before they are brought to trial. The latter situation in fact came in for severe criticism in a recent Supreme Court judgment. The real intentions of the Central and state governments were, however, most clearly revealed by their unconcealed anxiety to acquire powers to arrest and detain people without trial. Here the Prime Minister himself gave the lead. The Preventive Detention Act had to be repealed, he said, because of the popular resentment against its misuse during the Emergency, but it would have to be brought back because "those who want to destroy democracy should not be allowed to exploit democratic safeguards to destroy democracy itself". One wonders whether Morarji Desai realised how close he was to repeating the very words used by Indira Gandhi in her broadcast of June 26, 1975 announcing the imposition of Emergency. She too had wanted to protect democracy from those who were bent upon destroying it by abusing democratic freedoms.