What matters far more is what the Congress leaders today, and that means Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, think about the Emergency. A straightforward admission of a mistake by the descendants of the long-dead Indira would liberate the rest of the party whose tongues are tied because speaking up against the Emergency would be tantamount to speaking up against its demi gods.

Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are apparently out of the country. As usual rumours abound of where they have gone and why they have gone. Is it for health reason? Is it for re-upping Rahul’s Vipassana dose after all that hectic recent politicking? Or is to meet Lalit Modi to make sure he does not go after them next? Whatever the real reason, it makes perfect sense for the Gandhis to be out of the country while India marks the 40th anniversary of the Emergency, the part of the family legacy they'd rather not discuss.

Rahul Gandhi has no incentive to be hanging around India and responding to Narendra Modi tweets about “one of India’s darkest periods”. And Sonia Gandhi has no incentive to do any more awkward tangos around the Emergency as she did in a 2006 interview with Shekhar Gupta on Walk the Talk being tweeted out by NDTV.

The Sonia interview shows clearly how the Emergency remains stuck in the Congress’ gullet. It can neither be disowned as the work of a few bad apples, nor can it be swallowed and digested. When an LK Advani says “I don’t have the confidence that it cannot happen again” the Congress cannot gleefully jump on it as a swipe at the Modi sarkar without reminding the populace that the original sin belongs to them.

The Congress m.o. of dealing with the unpalatable truth about the Emergency is not to acknowledge its own failing but to talk about Indira Gandhi calling elections and restoring democracy. As if that erases her own culpability and her party’s pusillanimity. That’s exactly what Sonia does when she says right off the bat that Indira Gandhi lost an election and the “very fact that she declared an election means she had a rethink on the Emergency.”

But therein lies the Congress’ problem. They can only infer, insinuate and suggest as Sonia does that India Gandhi was “ at heart not at ease” with the Emergency. And then she adds the Indira Gandhi she knew was a "democrat at heart". But who looked into Indira Gandhi's heart? And what does her heart matter because history ultimately judges leaders by their actions? Yet all her daughter-in-law can say is she thinks Indira was uneasy because “there were instances through what she said, her comments.” But cannot recall “a particular instance.” And yes, it did come up at home with Rajiv and Sanjay Gandhi but Sonia says the time is not right to disclose what she said. Perhaps in another 25 years. It’s as if Gupta is pressing her on some delicate long-buried hush-hush family scandal like Nehru’s rumoured relationship with Edwina Mountbatten.

The most Gupta can get Sonia Gandhi to acknowledge 25 years after the Emergency is this:

I think she did think it was a mistake.

Actually at this point it does not matter what Indira Gandhi thought or did not think about the Emergency. What matters far more is what the Congress leaders today, and that means Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, think about the Emergency. A straightforward admission of a mistake by the descendants of the long-dead Indira, without equivocation, would liberate the rest of the party whose tongues are tied because speaking up against the Emergency would be tantamount to speaking up against its demi gods. A 2011 volume on Congress history edited by a group led by Pranab Mukherjee did call the Emergency a "monumental mistake" but Mukherjee noted that it was the view of individual thinkers and not necessarily a "party perspective." Mukherjee has in his own memoir has called it a "misadventure" and an "avoidable event" and said Indira Gandhi and the Congress had to pay a "heavy price" for it but now he's the President and not a senior Congress leader.

Apologies are hard in politics. Consider how long the US government took to apologize for something as egregious as slavery or the internment of Japanese Americans during World WarII. Governments fear that an apology opens the door to claims for reparation and is an admission of guilt. It was only in 2009 that the US government apologised to Native Americans all instances of violence and maltreatment and neglect and even that apology was tucked away on page 45 of an unrelated military spending bill. And just in case any Native Americans did come across it while browsing the Defense Appropriations Act the apology made clear that “(n)othing in this section authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or serves as settlement of any claim against the United States.” President Obama signed the bill but never announced the apology or read it publicly in the White House. Canada, in contrast, did have a nationally broadcast apology to the country’s First Nations for “failing them so profoundly”. Writing about the US “apology”, Lisa Balk King at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government observes “a big and historic tree fell in the forest and truly didn’t make a sound.”

The Congress of course gets nervous about any mention of great trees falling. But the fact that Congress governments post-Indira Gandhi have never even done a token but clear apology will mean that 40 years after the fact the Emergency continues to be an albatross on its back. Even more damning, if tomorrow the Modi government shows signs of despotism and unilateralism, the Congress will find its moral standing to protest severely compromised by that missing mea culpa. It's hard for Sonia Gandhi to issue that mea culpa because R K Dhawan, Indira Gandhi's private secretary now claims Rajiv and Sonia "didn't have reservations about it."

But Rahul Gandhi, who was too young at that time, could speak up, own the mistake and finally try to liberate his party from its four-decade old albatross.