Emergency: The betrayal that we must never forget, never repeat

Hans India

9 hours ago

It is tempting to believe that the national Emergency is history—done and dusted. Some like AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge even scoff, saying, 'It's a forgotten issue, raked up only by the BJP to hide its failures.' But such indifference is dangerous. The very reason we must observe this black chapter is to remind those born after 1975 that India once witnessed its Constitution being subverted, its democracy throttled, federalism undermined, and its people robbed of liberty and dignity.
The Emergency was not just a moment—it was a mindset. A mindset that still lurks in the corridors of power, waiting for complacency to return. It must not be remembered merely as a historical footnote but as a blood-stained warning. A reminder that when citizens sleep, tyranny wakes. When a nation forgets to question, it forfeits its right to be free.
Andhra Pradesh recently witnessed how blind faith in a single leader without vision and vindictive political attitude can ruin a state. Between 2019 and 2024, under Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, governance turned autocratic. The man earned the moniker of a political 'psycho,' and his party, the YSRCP, having been routed, still hasn't learned any lessons. Their brand of rule eerily echoed Emergency-era overreach—draconian laws, surveillance of dissent, and misuse of institutions. That is why we must understand: the tools of tyranny are always just a signature away from misuse. If we cannot guarantee that it won't happen again, we've learned nothing. And that would be the second betrayal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the newly released Emergency Diaries, recounts his role as a young RSS pracharak resisting Indira Gandhi's dictatorship. The book compiles first-hand accounts from those who stood with him in that fight. It's not about glorifying one man—it's about preserving the memory of those who fought to keep India democratic.
While I do not wish to romanticise the rulers who imposed it, I refuse to whitewash the horrors either. Sanjay Gandhi—the de facto prime minister—led a brutal sterilisation campaign. Over 1.07 crore procedures were carried out in two years. People were denied rations, jobs, healthcare, and even housing if they had more than two or three children and resisted sterilisation. Coercion replaced compassion. Dignity was crushed.
As a student at Delhi University, I witnessed this first-hand. I barely escaped arrest for resisting it. I remember the slogan that defines our collective duty today: Remember. Resist. Reclaim.
Two moments are etched in my memory with permanent ink. The first: the night of June 25, 1975, when India lost its voice to Emergency. The second: the horrific 1984 anti-Sikh riots following Indira Gandhi's assassination. Thousands were killed, injured, and displaced. And yet, all Rajiv Gandhi could say was,'When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.' That was not just insensitivity—it was complicity cloaked in metaphor.
Today, when Congress spokespersons and self-styled intellectuals lambast the Modi government for not calling a special Parliament session after Operation Sindoor or for not 'consulting' the opposition, I ask: did you ever question the undemocratic decisions under Congress rule?
Take bank nationalisation in 1969. Was there a cabinet debate? No. The PMO summoned a Finance Ministry official and demanded a draft in three hours. An ordinance was issued unilaterally. When Emergency was imposed in 1975, even key ministers were unaware. Indira Gandhi called a meeting of select ministers including Jagjivan Ram during the early hours of June 26, told them of her decision, and then announced it on Akashvani. No agenda papers, no consultation, just dictation.
This was not governance—it was authoritarianism. What followed was a national assault. A constitutional coup. At midnight—not to awaken a nation like Nehru once dreamed, but to push it into darkness—Indira Gandhi suspended the Constitution, jailed opposition leaders, censored the press, and turned institutions into loyalist echo chambers.
Over 100,000 people were jailed under preventive detention laws like MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act). Parliament became a puppet theatre. The media, once the fourth pillar, fell to its knees. The bureaucracy obeyed whispered orders. The Constitution was turned into a pliable sheet of rubber.
Fundamental Rights were suspended. Habeas corpus—the last refuge of individual liberty—was buried. The Supreme Court, the last hope, failed in its duty during the infamous ADM Jabalpur case. Only one judge—Justice H R Khanna—had the courage to dissent. For that, he was superseded and denied the Chief Justice's post. It took the 44th Amendment later to undo the worst constitutional wreckage.
The Emergency was not imposed because of any real internal threat. It was to save Indira Gandhi's political career after the Allahabad High Court invalidated her election. The Congress sycophancy of that era echoed in slogans like 'Indira is India, and India is Indira.' What followed was not democracy—it was despotism draped in national flags.
Where were the voices of conscience then? Today's loud liberal intellectuals—editors, poets, professors—pontificate on freedoms, but where were they when journalists were jailed and newspaper printing presses were sealed? Their silence then was louder than their activism today.
The Emergency also exposed how easily our institutions could crumble. They were not destroyed from outside—but from within. The executive bent them. The judiciary surrendered. The press folded. The opposition was crushed. And yet, democracy survived—not because of institutional bravery but because of public resistance.
At the helm of that resistance stood Jayaprakash Narayan. JP was no career politician—he was the moral compass of the nation. His call for 'Total Revolution' united students, farmers, intellectuals, and politicians across ideologies. His arrest wasn't just an attack on a man—it was an attack on the soul of India. He rightly said, 'This is not a struggle for power. It is a struggle for the soul of the nation.'
And when he warned that if Emergency continued, democracy would die—he wasn't exaggerating.
We survived because we resisted. India's democracy survived because the people stood up—not because the system saved them. Those who fought deserve honour. Those who stayed silent deserve history's condemnation.
As we mark 50 years since that night, we must ask the hardest question: Could it happen again? The answer is asobering—yes. It can happen again if we become complacent. If we stop being vigilant. If we allow institutions to decay. If we forget history.
Indira Gandhi is gone. But Emergency as an idea isn't. It lives on in every authoritarian instinct, in every call for censorship and in every abuse of power. It survives in every arrogant dismissal of democratic consultation, and in every attempt to centralise power in one hand.
Emergency was not merely a past event. It was a trauma, a warning, a mirror. Let us never allow it to be repeated. Let us pass this memory to every generation. Not as a tale of despair—but as a torch of vigilance. India must remember. India must resist. India must reclaim.
(The author is former Chief Editor of The Hans India)