Baroda dynamite case is the term used for the criminal politically-motivated case launched by Indira Gandhi government in India in Indian Emergency (1975 - 77) against the opposition leader George Fernandes and others.
The CBI charged George and others on false and made-up charges of smuggling dynamite to blow up government establishments and railway tracks in protest against the state of emergency. They were also charged with waging war against the state to overawe and overthrow the government. The accused were arrested in June 1976 and imprisoned.
The Case saw the main accused Fernandes emerge as one of the inspiring symbols of resistance against an authoritarian regime of Indira Gandhi. The other prominent accused were Viren J. Shah, Madhu Limaye, M.S.Apparao, Madhu Dandavate, Snehalata Reddy and others.
The case was tried in Delhi, the CBI justifying the action on the ground that even though the site of the incident was Baroda, the case had national ramifications.
Fernandes fought the 1977 Lok Sabha election from Muzaffarpur in Bihar while in jail as an under trial in the case. He swept the polls with his supporters campaigning with his photo in prison cage and chains. Janata Party withdrew the case on coming to power in 1977 and all accused were released.
Famous quotes containing the words dynamite and/or case:
“The moralist and the revolutionary are constantly undermining one another. Marx exploded a hundred tons of dynamite beneath the moralist position, and we are still living in the echo of that tremendous crash. But already, somewhere or other, the sappers are at work and fresh dynamite is being tamped in place to blow Marx at the moon. Then Marx, or somebody like him, will come back with yet more dynamite, and so the process continues, to an end we cannot foresee.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“If you take away ideology, you are left with a case by case ethics which in practise ends up as me first, me only, and in rampant greed.”
—Richard Nelson (b. 1950)