50 Years Since Emergency: What Really Fuelled Indira Gandhi's Insecurity

NDTV

24-06-2025

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of June 25, the day in 1975 when, setting aside all norms, the Emergency was imposed, it may be worthwhile to recapitulate the events in the fortnight preceding that day as well as the events of the two years that preceded it.
Gujarat's Navnirman Movement (December 1973-April 1974) was spurred by high mess bills in college hostels. This inspired the Bihar movement (from March 1974), which ultimately was led by Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) on the plank of 'Total Revolution', seeking change in polity.
An all-India strike by railwaymen in April-May 1974, led by George Fernandes, the head of the National Coordination Committee of Railwaymen's Struggle (NCCRS), added to the chaos preceding June 1975.
In January 1975, Railway Minister Lalit Narain Mishra was killed in a bomb blast on the platform of the Samastipur railway station in Bihar. This case is yet to be solved - a petition filed by his grandson, Vaibhav Mishra, seeking the reopening of the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was admitted by the Delhi High Court recently.
Poverty, food shortages and unemployment fanned these tensions and shook the Indira Gandhi regime, which till 1972 had been basking in the glory of victory over Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
The roots of the political crisis that led to Emergency lay in the factional politics of Congress. In 1964, the political ambitions of Morarji Desai and Jagjivan Ram to succeed Jawaharlal Nehru were thwarted by the popularity of Lal Bahadur Shastri, whom Nehru had covertly groomed.
Shastri made Gandhi a minister as he wanted to have the tag of 'Nehru legitimacy'(initially, Gandhi had been reluctant, but faced with the prospect of Shastri opting for her aunt, Vijayalaxmi Pandit, instead, she agreed).
When Shastri passed away in Tashkent in January 1966, the choice fell upon Gandhi. Morarji lost out yet again. He challenged her again after the 1967 general election, which saw the Congress retain the Lok Sabha by a slender majority and lose power in the entire Indo-Gangetic plains to Opposition coalitions. Yet again, Gandhi prevailed.
Morarji was a pivot of the Navnirman Movement and a prominent face of the JP agitation. He replaced Gandhi as Prime Minister in March 1977. The Congress split in 1969 began with her dropping Desai from her cabinet.
The internal bickering in the Grand Old Party led to its split in 1969. A veneer of ideology was sought to be put on the split, but the intrinsic reason was a clash of personal ambitions. A section of the party wanted to throw off the Nehru yoke.
The 1969 split made Gandhi lose the majority in the Lok Sabha, though she survived, thanks to the support extended by DMK and CPI leaders.
To overcome this handicap, Gandhi called for elections one year before they were due, in 1971. Opposition united in what came to be known as the 'Grand Alliance' to challenge her. But the Congress, which had a slender majority in 1967, returned with over 350 seats in 1971.
Irrepressible socialist leader Raj Narain, who had later defeated Gandhi in 1977, lost to her at Rae Bareli in 1971. He challenged the result in a petition before the Allahabad High Court on the grounds that Gandhi had used unfair practices to win.
Raj Narain was represented by Shanti Bhushan, while Gandhi was defended by eminent jurist Nani Palkhivala. The latter had to take the witness stand in this case, which she lost on June 12, 1975. Palkhivala quit the case in protest when the Emergency was imposed as a consequence.
Judge Jagmohan Lal Sinha dismissed charges of bribery but held that Gandhi had misused official machinery as her aide, Yashpal Kapoor's resignation had not been formally accepted when he began campaigning (Kapoor had resigned before leaving Delhi, but the formality of acceptance was pending).
Justice Sinha gave the Congress 20 days to elect someone to discharge Gandhi's duties. Her resignation was demanded overtly by the opposition parties, but there were murmurs within the Congress as well.
Initially, Gandhi toyed with the idea that Sardar Swaran Singh, who had been a minister since Nehru's days in 1952, be sworn in as Prime Minister while she stepped down and got herself cleared by the Supreme Court.
Babu Jagjivan Ram, who was minister since his induction in the Interim Government of 1946, felt he should be chosen instead, though Gandhi was not confident that he would step aside when she won her case. This despite the fact that in 1969, she had relied upon Jagjivan Ram to head her faction of the Congress. The Election Commission's 1971 results record two Congress parties - the Indira faction's overwhelming 350+ results are credited to Congress (Jagjivan Ram), and 16 seats are credited to Congress (Organization).
After the Emergency was imposed, on July 5, Jagjivan Ram moved the official resolution in Parliament for its approval. And after Gandhi relaxed Emergency on January 20, 1977, to hold elections, Jagjivan Ram on February 2 walked out of the Congress to form Congress for Democracy (CFD), which became an ally of the Opposition combine that ousted the Indira regime in March 1977.
Apart from Jagjivan Ram, the then Congress President, Dev Kanta Barooah, who later was to be remembered for his 'India is Indira' slogan, raised Gandhi's suspicion by suggesting that till she is cleared by courts, she could swap places with him, making him the Prime Minister with she heading the party. This suggestion apparently had gained currency at a meeting of MPs held at 12 Safdarjung Road, the residence of Minister Chandrajit Yadav.
Indira Gandhi's Principal Secretary, Prof PN Dhar, has recorded in his memoirs that the then Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director, Atma Jayram, had submitted a report suggesting that not more than 159 of the 350 party MPs would support Gandhi if there were to be a show of strength. The rest of the MPs' loyalties were divided - with Yashwant Rao Chavan heading the list with 17 supporters, and others having even less.
In 1972, in the Shimla session of Congress, 'Young Turk' Chandrashekhar created history by getting elected to the Congress Working Committee despite Gandhi's opposition. The IB's report to Dhar stated that Young Turks had the biggest block - of 25 MPs - opposed to Gandhi's continuation.
Chandra Shekhar was arrested as Emergency was imposed. When the Janata Party was launched on May 1, 1977, he became its President. He also briefly served as Prime Minister in 1990-91 after the fall of the VP Singh government.
Thus, it was not merely JP's call to the army, police and government servants on June 25 from the Ramlila Ground - ' Aap roti ke tukdo par bikey nahin hain,aapne imaan nahin bech diya hai ' - which prompted the Emergency, as was cited by Home Ministry documents placed before Parliament on July 21, 1977, to justify the action. Internal threat to her leadership from within the Congress also played a part.