PM Modi's first attack on first day of the Parliament!
Reminds the country, 25th June marks 50yrs since Indira Gandhi declared Emergency, calling it black day for democracy. Promises that period will never return.
"50 years of the darkest period indian politics"
The Emergency in India was a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a state of emergency declared across the country.
Officially issued by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under Article 352 of the Constitution because of prevailing "internal disturbance", the Emergency was in effect from 25 June 1975 and ended on 21 March 1977. The order bestowed upon the prime minister the authority to rule by decree, allowing elections to be cancelled and civil liberties to be suspended. For much of the Emergency, most of Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press were censored. Several other human rights violations were reported from the time, including a mass campaign for vasectomy spearheaded by her son Sanjay Gandhi. The Emergency is one of the most controversial periods of Indian history since its independence. The final decision to impose an emergency was proposed by Indira Gandhi, agreed upon by the President of India, and ratified by the Cabinet and the Parliament from July to August 1975. It was based on the rationale that there were imminent internal and external threats to the Indian state.
Steeped in the need for economic development, the Emergency allowed Gandhi to carry out mass arrests of ministers and have complete control over what the media published. It also resulted in her son carrying out forced sterilisation drives in Delhi and slum clearance programs.
“The President has proclaimed the Emergency. This is nothing to panic about. I am sure you are all aware of the deep and widespread conspiracy, which has been brewing ever since I began to introduce certain progressive measures of benefit for the common man and woman in India.”
With the announcement of these words on the All India Radio, prime minister Indira Gandhi declared the historic moment of Emergency in 1975.
The Emergency is often regarded as a dark phase in independent India's history because this period was marked by unbridled state incarceration, stifling of dissent, and government crackdown on civil liberties. There were reports of frequent human rights violations and the press being censored to a repressive extent.
The June 12, 1975 verdict of the Allahabad High Court convicting then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of electoral malpractices and debarring her from holding any elected post was one of the factors that led to the imposition of the Emergency.
Indira Gandhi had won the 1971 Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh convincingly defeating socialist leader Raj Narain, who later challenged her election alleging electoral malpractices and violation of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. It was alleged that her election agent Yashpal Kapoor was a government servant and that she used government officials for personal election related work. While convicting Indira Gandhi of electoral malpractices, Justice Sinha disqualified her from Parliament and imposed a six-year ban on her holding any elected post.
Interestingly, the very next day Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency suspending all fundamental rights, putting opposition leaders in jails, and imposing censorship on the media.
The Congress government cited threats to national security, highlighting the recently-concluded war with Pakistan as a plank for its argument. While many within the party still remained opposed to the idea of a declaration of a state of emergency, a few loyalists, including the then chief minister of West Bengal, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, advised Indira Gandhi to go ahead with the measure. The prime minister's younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, too, had grown to be a proponent of "extra-constitutional" measures, according to historians, and hence was in support of his mother's declaration of the Emergency.
The chequered legacy of the Emergency meant that the topic would forever remain hotly contested in India's hyperpartisan political climate, even half a century later. In its immediate aftermath, top newspapers condemned the 21-month period of state repression in their respective editorials, while academics highlighted the need to bring checks and balances in the Indian constitution through amendments, to prevent future scenarios such as this.
As years went by, the issue of the Emergency became a primary point of contention between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Many of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)'s senior leaders were arrested during this period, and BJP leaders have made it a point to call attention to this phase repeatedly in their addresses to the public.
