Events & Issues

New Delhi, 12 July 2010

Remembering Emergency

CELEBRATION OF REBELLION

By Syed Ali Mujtaba

There are certain milestones in independent India that divide the nation into its pre and post phase. One of them definitely is the national Emergency of 1975. Sadly, the young generation is unaware of this dark phase of contemporary India. It doesn’t know the sacrifices that were made by the then young generation to retrieve democratic rights that had been taken away by an ‘autocratic’ ruler of that time. 

On the 35th anniversary of the Emergency, the future generation needs to be told the details of that landmark event and be cautioned against such experimentation being tried on the Indian masses ever again.   

The proclamation of Emergency on 26th June, 1975 was the darkest day in Indian history, when we nearly lost our hard-earned freedom.  It was the day when democracy was derailed, dissenters were detained without any trial and the media gagged and silenced.

It became an authoritarian rule of one person, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who became a law unto herself. It was a phase of dictatorial and extra Constitutional rule wherein she and her son Sanjay called the shots. Traditional and ethical values were discarded and all the arms of the State were in the service of authoritarian assertion of one personality. Clearly, there was erosion of moral values in politics and other democratic institutions.

Recall, post Independence, India’s first Prime Minister Nehru painstakingly built-up democratic institutions brick by brick. Ironically, that very system was cast aside by his own daughter Indira under self-created circumstances in 1975. She made every effort to pull the democratic institutions down and destroy them.

Morality was squeezed from politics which in-turn became an adjunct of power grabbing. Rather than serve the people, provide vibrancy to people’s sovereignty and ultimately strengthen democratic polity, power because a story of a chair (Kisa Kursee Ka). 

The immediate reason for the proclamation of the Emergency: Justice Jagmohan Sinha had declared the Prime Minister’s 1971 election invalid and barred Indira Gandhi from holding political office for six years. She refused to accept the v3erdict and instead her Government at the Centre declared Emergency on June 26th, 1975. Notwithstanding, the Shah Commission Report cautioned that as there was no law and order problem in the country, the declaration of Emergency was unwarranted.

But Indira Gandhi still went ahead and declared Emergency as she wanted to cling to power by any means. She got the President to sign the Emergency Proclamation, her Cabinet colleagues to endorse it and violated Parliamentary norms. There was all-around degeneration and the way democratic institutions behaved was the source of concern. Even the Press was no longer an instrument of empowerment.

Emergency was declared to suppress the people’s democratic aspirations. During those 19 months the Fundamental Rights were suspended and any recourse to justice was smothered under authoritarian rule. Press censorship, slum eviction, forceful sterilization and others misdeeds were executed with impunity. The repression unleashed against the common people at Delhi’s Turkman Gate and Jama Masjid are glaring examples of State brutality. Poor Muslims were targeted to adhere to family planning through forced sterilization; many among them being unmarried youth.

Interestingly, the Union Carbide Company was set-up during the Emergency to produce the poisonous Methyl Iso-cayanite (MIC) in a thickly populated area of Bhopal. This led to the industrial catastrophe wherein thousands were not only killed and maimed for life but people are still struggling to get justice.

The role of the police in combating the communal onslaught was dismal during this dark period. In fact, it was the patronage the RSS and its ilk got during the Emergency that emboldened it post Emergency. It was with Administration’s connivance and help that the RSS and cahoots unleashed communal mayhem and destroyed the pluralist traditions of the country.

In the Emergency’s aftermath, the National Police Commission set-up to serve the people in accordance with Constitutional provisions has yet to gain any importance. Had such a mechanism been put in place, perhaps the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and the 2002 anti Muslim riots in Gujarat might have been prevented.

Initially, the people could not make out what the Emergency was about. As the contours of Emergency began unravelling and the murder of democracy confirmed, people came out on the streets to protest against the undemocratic rule. Students led the mass protest. They boycotted schools and colleges and were unafraid of arrest. The teachers too actively participated in the protest. The lawyers boycotted the Bar and joined the street protest.

It was a celebration of rebellion that was seen during the 21 months of Emergency. Many national leaders today are the product of the mass protests. Finally, Indira Gandhi bowed before the people’s protest, withdrew Emergency on 21March 1977 and announced fresh Lok Sabha Elections.

Importantly, it was the resilience of democratic society and the people which helped restore democracy by voting out authoritarian rule. In the 1977 elections the voters gave a stinging rebuff to the proponents of Emergency and the country breathed a sigh of relief.

The story of how two phases of independent India got demarcated: pre-Emergency and post-Emergency. Today, a parallel can be drawn with the Emergency’s proclamation and the attenuation of our present-day democratic polity. Sadly, true democracy enshrined in our Constitution has gone into oblivion. Specially, when we see glaring repression and authoritarianism manifested by the Indian State.

In certain quarters, Emergency still exists albeit informally in different forms. The Government is indulging in anti-people activity with the full support of the State apparatus. An Emergency like situation is being created   with a policy shift under the Neo-Liberal structural change and disparity between the poor and rich has widened. Shockingly, democracy has been diluted wherein common masses are struggling to salvage their democratic polity from the stranglehold of capitalist onslaught.

Thus, it is time to retrieve our democratic polity from the imposition of anti-people and anti-democratic policies initiated by the Government. Given that these have the potential to create governance issues that haunted the people of this country during those dark days of emergency of 1975.  ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)