The Undeclared Emergency

 

The Undeclared Emergency

The Government of India notified 25th June as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas and announced a year-long programme from 25th June 2025 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Emergency.  A series of articles appeared in newspapers, denouncing the emergency. No attempt is made to even understand, leave alone dispassionately assess, the situation in the country, particularly the period between the liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971 and the proclamation of emergency on 25 June 1975.

 

A very concerted effort is made, both by the government and the so-called opinion makers in the media that is partisan, to present a popular Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as the worst dictator that India ever had.  It is a conscious attempt to obliterate all her achievements, such as the Green Revolution that made India self-sufficient in foodgrains; the nationalization of 14 private banks to make the credit system extended to the poor and the marginalised across the country; the abolition of privy purses and derecognition of the princes; the dismembering of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh by defying the Pakistan-China-America axis against India -  redrawing the world map – thereby securing India the greatest military victory in its history; the redrawing  the political map of South Asia by merging Sikkim into India on May 16,1975; and conducting the first  nuclear test on May 18 facing the western sanctions, to name a few of her remarkable accomplishments. Failing to acknowledge all this is a great disservice to the ‘Iron Lady of India’ and the nation.

 

Prior to the proclamation of Emergency, the situation in India in the 25^th year of the Republic was very grim and chaotic, posing a serious threat to democracy, and unity and integrity. On February 9, 1974, the Navnirman students’ movement in Gujarat, that saw the large-scale violent riots, looting and destruction of public property, had forced the Congress Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel to resign, on alleged corruption charges, preceded by an indefinite fast by Morarji Desai. To replicate this movement, socialists and rightwing organisations came together in Bihar and formed the Chhatra Sangharsh Samithi led by Jayaprakash Narayan.  His call for Sampoorna Kranti (total revolution) on June 5 at Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan, brought Bihar to a standstill. He demanded the resignation of the congress government in the state.

 

In May 1974, socialist leader George Fernandes had led an unprecedented indefinite strike of railway workers that paralyzed the Indian Railways – the largest public transport sector that employed more than 17 lakh people – the lifeline of the nation. The railway minister L.N. Mishra was killed in a bomb blast on January 3,1975 at Samastipur Railway Station.

 

On June 12,1975, Justice Jag Mohan Lal Sinha of Allahabad High Court declared Indira Gandh’s election to Lok Sabha in 1971 from Rai Bareli  null-and-void,  and debarred her from contesting  election for six years, on two flimsy grounds: (a) that she used the services of her OSD Yashpal Kapoor as her agent,  going by the date of notification in the Government of India Gazette and not accepting the actual date of his resignation; and (b) that she used huge rostrum and public address system by utilizing  the services of the public servants to address an election rally. Incidentally, it was the opposition BLD government of Charan Singh in Uttar Pradesh which provided the security cover because she was the serving Prime Minister, as per the protocol.  If these norms were applied today, the Modi elections could have been declared void on many occasions, as his election campaigns always involved using the entire State machinery.

 

However, Justice Sinha had granted three weeks’ time to the Prime Minister to appeal in the Supreme Court. And when her appeal was argued by eminent jurist Nani Palkhivala before the vacation court, Justice Krishna Iyer granted her stay on June 24.  And on June 25, the opposition leaders addressed a massive public rally in Ram Lila Maidan Delhi, when Jayaprakash Narayan gave an open call to the army, the police and the civil servants not to accept orders from the ‘illegal government’, and demanded her immediate resignation, and announced the country-wide agitation. The same night Indira Gandhi declared the national emergency. The emergency was proclaimed under Article 352 of the Constitution and all the executive powers were exercised within the framework of Articles 358 and 359 which provide for suspension of fundamental rights during the emergency.  

 

In hindside, one could argue that the proclamation of emergency had saved Indian democracy from being derailed by the internal and external forces inimical to India. It was she who revoked the emergency, released the people detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), the Defence and Internal Security of India Rules (DISIR) and the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA), lifted the press censorship, and ordered the elections held in March 1977, accepted her defeat and the people’s verdict against her party and restored the democracy suspended for 18 months.The political detainees were given ‘A’ grade treatment in prison. The common people were not affected by the emergency. In fact, her 20-point programme uplifted the poor and the marginalised like never before. The emergency is called a ‘golden period for Dalits and STs’.

 

The Modi government observing 25^th June as the Samvidhan Hatya Diwas is an insult to Indian people. It is a falsification of history. The misrule of the Janata Party – an unholy alliance of five desperate political outfits, Congress(O), Jan Sangh, Bhartiya Lok Dal, Socialist Party, and Congress for Democracy— had resulted in the mid-tern election to Lok Sabhain in January 1980, when the Congress won a massive victory and Indira Gandhi returned to power. She apologized for the excesses in the implementation of family planning programme and the demolition of slums. Because of these excesses, the Congress lost badly in North India. In South India, where the emergency had no negative impact, the Congress secured 92 Lok Sabha seats out of 165 in 1977 election, 21 seats more than it secured in 1971 election. Several governments have come and gone since then; yet the ghost of emergency is still haunting the BJP government.

 

To talk of the excesses of the emergency and of ‘murder of democracy’, even after 50 years, is to practice brinkmanship. It is an attempt to cover up the RSS-BJP support to the emergency and the Modi government’s failure to safeguard democracy and the constitution. The Judiciary, the parliament, the media, the public institutions- all are under siege, suffocated struggling to break free. There is an undeclared emergency for the past 11 years, during the Modi era. The questions are raised about the election commission being partisan and failing to conduct free and fair elections and tampering the electoral rolls. 

In another shocking development, the UGC, a regulating body of higher education, vide its letter dated 25^th June 2025, directed the University Vice Chancellors and College Principals to observe 25^th June as the Samvidhan Hatya Diwas’and hold seminars and debates; and screen the film produced by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and report the activity to the Ministry of Culture.

 

Prasant Bhushan in an interview to the New Indian Express on June 27,2025 said that it is to the credit of Indira Gandhi that she revoked the emergency and called for elections. “Unfortunately, if you look at High Courts and Supreme Court, put together, overall independence of the judiciary is below the level of independence during the emergency… independence of the judiciary has deteriorated.  Many judges of high courts did not succumb to the emergency pressures and delivered courageous judgments.” He says the Modi government has been preparing dossiers on the judges and their family members to intimidate the judges so that they do not deliver judgments going against the government. He believes that the scale of atrocities committed under the undeclared emergency in Modi regime was never seen during the emergency.

 

The book India’s Undeclared Emergency by Arvind Narrain, a lawyer and research scholar, makes an in-depth study to understand India under Modi. India’s most respected civil liberties organisation, People’s Union for Civil Liberties says, “undeclared emergency has been clamped all throughout the country and rights of the citizens are being snatched away under the guise of patriotism and cultural nationality, freedom of speech, writing and expression are being banned and systematic efforts are being made to harass the activists who are struggling from defending, preserving and promoting the human rights. Any voice of dissent is being repressed in the name of treason or sedition.” The Modi government keeps critics in check by using the instrumentalities of the State such as the CBI, the NIA, the Enforcement Directorate, the tax authorities and anti-terror laws like the UAPA.

 

A centralised, authoritarian government unafraid to use repressive laws and unchecked by any constitutional and institutional restrains coupled with a widely prevalent feeling of fear and insecurity are what characterise today’s undeclared emergency. The manner in which the Modi government announced demonetisation in 2016, the GST in 2017 and the nation-wide lockdown in 2020 that killed the unorganised sector of economy resulting in the loss of lakhs of jobs and the livelihood of millions of people, is an indication of the rise of authoritarianism within the framework of electoral democracy.

 

The abrogation of the Articles 370 and 35A on 5 August 2019 and taking away the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir and dividing it into two union territories were unilateral. Following the abolition of the special status of the state, more than 600 habeas corpus petitions were filed and more than 13,000 people were unlawfully detained, slapping the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) on people. No one knows the status of these cases. And despite ruling with iron hand for the past six years, violating the human rights, the peace is still elusive in the much-troubled border state with terror attacks continuing unabated.  

 

One of the significant checks on any authoritarian tendencies of a government is the media, which can, by casting a searching spotlight on governmental actions, ensure accountability.  One such moment of holding the State responsible was its reportage of alleged corruption scams under the UPA-2 government, though nothing has been proved subsequently, the anti-corruption movement of Anna Hazare succeeding in dislodging the Manmohan Singh government in 2014, catapulting Modi to power. The Modi government turned out to be more corrupt and unaccountable, besides practicing divisive communal politics and spreading hatred and violence.

 

What happened to the media now? It is muzzled and sold out. The media has exploded in the Modi era, resorting to sensationalism, disinformation and misinformation, toeing the line of the establishment. This paved the way for the State to sideline and arm-twist conventional media.  Right from the year 2014, Modi has not held a single press conference. The role of the media as an institution which makes the government accountable, in full display during the UPA years, has quietly vanished. It is the fear of losing advertisements and tax raids that hangs heavy over media houses. While there is no declaration of emergency today, the government censors the media, directly and indirectly, through both overt and covert acts, producing a conformist media.

 

The Higher Judiciary is not independent. The independence of judiciary is compromised. The closeness between the executive and the judiciary through the chief justiceship of Misra, Gogoi and Bobde during 2017-21 is best symbolised by Gogoi taking oath as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, just four months after his retirement, which Justice A.P Shah called a ‘death knell for the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary’.

 

And when he was the chief justice of India, Gogoi invented a device of accepting government replies in ‘sealed cover’. The contents of the ’sealed cover’ were not known to the other parties to the litigation, thus fundamentally impinging on the right to fair trial. He used this method in litigations on the Rafale, the electoral bonds and the NRC, as well as in many other matters, rendering justice opaque.

The unexplained death of Judge Loya, when he was overseeing a politically charged trial involving the current home minister Amit Shah and the inability of the higher judiciary to ensure that there was a transparent investigation into the death of one of their own is compelling evidence that the judiciary is not immune to the State’s cruel excesses.

 

Our concern should not be to dwell on the emergency of 1975, but rather how to liberate ourselves from the undeclared emergency imposed on the nation since 2014 and to restore constitutional democracy.