How the Emergency changed Indian politics

Hindustan Times

6 hours ago

No other single event in Indian post-independence history has had more dramatic political consequences in the immediate term, and led to deeper structural political shifts in the long term, than the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi exactly fifty years ago. Visitors at an exhibition organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the Emergency imposed in 1975 by then PM Indira Gandhi in New Delhi on June 25. (PTI)
The years between 1975 and 1977 altered the citizen-State relationship, created a new political culture, and triggered radically different political alignments.
The citizen-State dynamic
At a conceptual level, think of how the Indian State was seen for most part since 1950 after the Constitution was promulgated.
For citizens, the State was benign, an instrument of justice, a vehicle to protect fundamental rights, a structure for political self-expression of the collective, a democratic and pluralist platform, the culmination of the historic freedom struggle.
To be sure, this was not a neat linear story. From the First Amendment that curtailed freedom of expression to the dismissal of elected governments starting from Kerala, from the brutal crackdown on challenges to State authority in the Northeast to the utter deprivation that marked the lives of the majority of citizens, the State didn't always meet the vision of the founders.
But it was not until the Emergency that citizens saw the State's brutality and arbitrariness on scale. Suddenly, the Indian State could not be trusted to protect civil liberties; it was instead a threat to civil liberties. The political leadership could not be trusted to play by the rules of the democratic game; instead, the leadership itself could be a threat to the rules of the democratic game. The bureaucracy and judiciary and media could not be trusted to speak for the citizens against the State; these institutions could well turn against the citizens themselves. Public health was not about the well-being of families; instead, it was about recklessly ending the dreams of many to have families at all.
The Emergency ended the almost instinctive faith that many citizens had in the State as an instrument of good, by making them realise that the State's character could well turn in an instance and become an instrument of darkness. Indian democracy and the political legitimacy of the Centre took a clear hit. And while it is hard to draw any causal linkage, and this is only speculative, it is worth pondering why was it that within a few years of the Emergency that India saw the most serious set of political-internal security crises simultaneously, from Punjab to Assam to Kashmir. It is also worth pondering why over the decades, the instinctive suspicion of the State and political leadership has only increased. Something did break in the 1970s. And there was no greater rupture than the Emergency.
The political culture shift
The Emergency also shaped Indian political culture, for good and bad.
Indira Gandhi's 'high command' culture was already visible before 1975, but the Emergency marked the high point of centralized and authoritarian rule in India. It changed the incentives for those within the Congress. It was no longer enough to have been a freedom fighter or a Gandhian or even a Nehruvian. Unless one was a Indira sycophant, with complete loyalty to one person and her son, Sanjay, the driver of the Emergency, there was no future in the party. The period also showed how authoritarianism could persist without a major public backlash, especially when dissent was chained. Do note that Indira Gandhi called elections not because of external pressure but her own internal voice and assessment.
All of these patterns -- of political parties turning to family fiefdoms, of political leaders centralizing all authority, of political authoritarianism going unchecked — would only grow in subsequent decades in different forms, even if the Emergency itself was not imposed again.
And the reason no regime has dared impose an Emergency again is because this also marked the golden period of dissent.
Thousands went to prisons. New solidarities were formed. New civil liberties organizations took roots. Gutsy journalists found new ways to communicate news of the demise of democracy to readers. A quiet churn happened beneath the calm. And eventually, the 1977 elections saw the defeat of Indira, the first time that the Congress was defeated since the first election in 1951, and the first time India would get to see a non-Congress coalition formation in power.
This too showed something fundamental — and fundamentally heartening — about the resilience of Indian democracy. In a society as large, as diverse, as chaotic, citizens would not accept rule by fiat from the Centre, where order was prioritized at the cost of freedom and justice.
Alignments and leadership
But the most visible impact of the Emergency was in the nature of political alignments itself and the emergence of a new generation of leaders.
Resistance to Indira had brought socialists and the Sangh together in the run-up to the Emergency itself. This was not new in itself, for these ideologically diverse formations had formed coalition governments in 1967. Jayaprakash Narayan's towering leadership was the glue as student movements arose in Bihar and Gujarat. But the Emergency created new bonds between those who were at the forefront of the cultural battles for Hindutva and those who were at the forefront of the social justice battles on the caste and class axis. Time spent together in movements and in prisons helped. For now, they had one common adversary: Indira's Congress.
And when the elections were called, splinter formations from the Congress led by Morarji Desai, socialist formations led by Raj Narain and George Fernandes and young Turks such as Chandrashekhar, peasant formations led by Charan Singh, and most importantly perhaps, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh led by Nanaji Deshmukh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, came together to form the Janata Party to pose a unified challenge to the Congress. The last minute exit of the veteran Dalit leader, Jagjivan Ram, from the Congress infused additional energy in the anti-Indira camp. JP was too old and frail to provide effective everyday guidance but was the moral force behind the formation.
For the Jana Sangh in particular to give up its own identity was a major decision given its roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, but it also meant getting legitimacy and recognition as a part of the wider opposition and accessing State power. For socialists to accept Jana Sangh colleagues may have been equally difficult, but it also meant access to the RSS's formidable organizational machinery and base that proved to be indispensable.
The anti-Emergency struggle and the formation of the Janata revealed something that has persisted in Indian politics. When one force becomes dominant, ideologically disparate formations come together often to oppose it to introduce a balance in the polity.
The Janata's surprise win was the biggest electoral surprise in Indian history, leading to Morarji Desai's elevation as the PM. And its biggest achievement was in restoring Indian democracy and constitutionalism. This was a formidable achievement in itself, which is not recognised adequately because of the short-lived nature of the Janata experiment.
Internal factionalism and competing ambitions and egos marked the functioning of the party. This was often couched as ideological differences, with a strong push against 'dual membership' of those who had belonged to the Jana Sangh and owed their loyalty to the RSS but also were Janata leaders. Eventually, Indira Gandhi succeeded in playing on these internal rifts, propped up Charan Singh briefly as PM, before pulling the rug and returning to power in the next election.
This too has been a recurring phenomena, of coalitions formed against one party unable to sustain positive governance and political programmes and overcome internal squabbles.
But in this short period itself, from 1975 to 1977, think of the leaders who emerged. Narendra Modi cut his teeth in anti-Emergency politics. Arun Jaitley was Delhi University Student Union's star president who took on the regime. Lalu Prasad was the young rooted leader from Bihar, as were his friends turned foes, Sushil Modi and Nitish Kumar. Ram Vilas Paswan got elected to the Lok Sabha from Hajipur with a record margin, even as Sharad Yadav came to Parliament from Jabalpur. From DP Tripathi to Subramanian Swamy, leaders from the Left and Right stood up for political liberty and democracy. The fact that these leaders then went on to shape Indian politics in decisive ways and some continue to dominate it is a result of the Emergency.
Indira Gandhi, triggered by an adverse judicial verdict and prodded on by her over-ambitious and entitled son, betrayed her party and her father's legacy as she trampled on Indian democracy that fateful night on June 25, 1975. But little would she have known that her midnight proclamation would reshape India's State-citizen relationship, political culture, political alignments and political leadership in such fundamental ways that it continues to define India fifty years later. That is the political legacy of the Emergency.