Emergency: 50 years on, some reminiscences

Dr R Vatsyayan

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JUNE 25 marks the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Emergency. Anyone who witnessed the 21-month period from June 1975 to March 1977 remembers it as one of the darkest and most tumultuous epochs in the history of independent India. The suspension of civil liberties, curtailment of press freedom, mass arrests, cancellation of elections and the transformation of a democratically elected government into a despotic regime were among the stark features of the Emergency. Even five decades later, they remain etched in the psyche of the average Indian.

Although, then-President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the Emergency proclamation shortly before midnight on June 25, its ramifications began unfolding the very next day. I was a college student in Patiala, but I happened to be in Ludhiana for a short break at the time. That summer’s heat was matched only by the political temperature, fuelled by the historic Allahabad High Court judgment delivered on June 12. Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha held Prime Minister Indira Gandhi guilty of misconduct during her election campaign in Raebareli.

The entire country was in political turmoil. For over a year, veteran freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan had been leading his famous—though somewhat unfocused—movement for total revolution. Justice Sinha’s judgment gave fresh impetus to the movement. Emboldened, JP urged the police and other law enforcement agencies to disobey ‘unjust’ political orders. Almost all opposition parties were demanding Mrs Gandhi’s resignation on legal and moral grounds, even as her supporters poured into the PM’s residence in New Delhi by the truckload to express solidarity.

The next morning, I searched for the newspaper but couldn’t find it. I went out looking for the vendor, who was nowhere to be seen. Around 9 am, a friend informed me that Mrs Gandhi would address the nation and advised me to tune in to the radio. Speculation was rife that she might resign in light of the judgment. But what followed was quite different. Without mentioning the court ruling that had unseated her, she declared the imposition of an “Internal Emergency,” likening it to a bitter pill with medicinal value. She justified the move as necessary to safeguard the country’s integrity. A special news bulletin followed, announcing—without details—that a few individuals had been taken into ‘protective custody.’

At first, public confusion was widespread. No one knew what “Emergency” truly entailed. Faces bore visible anxiety, and the streets lacked their usual hustle and bustle. In the absence of reliable news sources, rumours ran rampant. Aside from a few political arrests, the city remained relatively peaceful.

That evening, I tuned in to the BBC’s 8 pm bulletin and learned that mass political arrests had taken place across the country. JP, Morarji Desai and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were among those detained. The following day’s newspapers made a brief mention of press censorship. In Jalandhar, some vernacular publications, led by editors who were themselves freedom fighters, chose to leave editorials blank rather than succumb to censorship. Large swathes of editorials and news columns began appearing as empty spaces. As LK Advani later remarked, “You were asked only to bend, but you crawled.”

A few days later, an ordinance suspended fundamental rights. Another soon followed, denying citizens the right to approach the courts for their restoration. Arbitrary arrests and detentions surged. Across the country, the midnight knock became a common method of picking up political dissidents. Sadly, even the judiciary and the Supreme Court were not spared interference.

In Ludhiana, a five-member jatha of the Akali Dal courted arrest daily at the Clock Tower Chowk. Eventually, the morcha was shifted to Amritsar. The late Prof Vishwanathan, a former MLA, staged a dramatic arrest at Chaura Bazar. With nearly all key opposition leaders jailed, the people of Ludhiana, like the rest of the country, were gripped by fear. I witnessed the rise of mohalla-level leaders who had khadi kurta-pajamas stitched overnight. Perhaps the most startling aspect was the emergence of Sanjay Gandhi as an extra-constitutional authority, rapidly becoming more powerful than even the Prime Minister herself.

A few weeks later, Mrs Gandhi released her vision statement—the Twenty-Point Programme. Sanjay Gandhi added five points of his own. No social gathering, let alone a political one, could be held without eulogising the “vision” of the Prime Minister and her son. What followed was a sweeping campaign of forced sterilisations and demolitions to “beautify” selected areas.

India, just 28 years into its Independence, seemed to fall silent overnight—quieted for 21 long months. The people of Ludhiana, like millions of others, endured the Emergency—ironically hailed as Anushasan Parva (an era of discipline) by a veteran Gandhian of the time. The rest is history.

(The writer is a Ludhiana-based senior Ayurveda physician and a social commentator.)